Dateline: Iowa

"...and so with the obvious ground swell of support for an official Dark Chocolate Festival Queen in next year's parade, we.....just a moment folks....*cocks ear and listens*....it seems we have some breaking news to report out of Iowa.....we take you now to Bob, in Des Moines. Bob, what can you tell us?"

"Well, Jim, we have a hostage situation, here. The details are fairly sketchy, but I'll give you what I have up to this point. It seems a local husband was upgrading his wife's computer when a rather unfortunate event occurred. *turns aside* Let's see if we can get the local police chief to give us a quick briefing..... Chief Kratz....sir......could we have a few words, please?"

(Cheif Kratz) "What we have here is a very tricky situation. Seems the husband, with his wife's consent, attempted to upgrade her computer......and......and......now it won't boot Windows 2000. *GASPS from barricaded crowds* Yeah, it's really kinda sad. Apparently he promised it would only take a few minutes, and then, well, I guess things went south, plus, she was running low on chocolate and, you know how emotional females can be, {"The audience will please disregard that last statement. Calls for prejudice against the plaintiff, and, well, women in general. Go ahead, chief..."} *aHEM*..."yes, well, so the wife took over her husband's computer, logged him off Instant Messenger and claimed she would not relinquish it until her computer was fixed."

"Thanks, Chief. And, if I may ask one more question: Rumors have been circulating that the wife can no longer play her music CD's? No more Big Band, Opera, Bluegrass or Vilvaldi? *major, MAJOR gasps from crowd* "Uh.... I can neither confirm nor deny that at this time."

OK, Jim. That's the latest, here in Iowa. A neighbor who agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity expressed concern that the alleged hostage taker was quite attached to her own computer, has been recently diagnosed with "blog withdrawal syndrome" and is said to be close to tears. So, as you can see, the situation remains rather fluid. Back to you, Jim."

"Alright, Bob. Thanks for that report. We will warn our viewers that we may have to pull away from our regularly scheduled programming at any time, if the situation warrants. And now........wait just a moment, folks.....it looks like we have some new developments.....some rather stunning new developments...... Bob? Bob, what can you tell us?"

"Well Jim, things were just beginning to stabilize when out of nowhere we suddenly heard a bloodcurdling yell. It was somewhat incomprehensible, but we've had our electronics people working on it for, oh, five minutes now, and I think we may have something....yes.....here it is. I can play it over the air for our listening audience......"

"I know how to delete your "Bookmarks!" Don't think I won't try it......"

"So, you heard it with your own ears, Jim. The wife is not only holding her husband's computer hostage, but she is now threatening to delete his bookmarked web sites! There must have been some cataclysmic event that pushed her over the edge."

"Throw in the chocolate and nobody gets hurt!...."

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