I seem to have a knack for killing software. It's not deliberate on my part; it's just that I try to do some function in some way that the developer never anticipated and boom! the poor thing is confused and crashes.

The odd part of all this is that I seem to have an intuition for the weak spots. Earlier in my career, I was on the primary development team for a major software innovation in our company. I was what they called an "early adopter" whatever the heck that is.

Anyway, unknown to me, the Deloitte and Touche consultants would have a betting pool set up every time we received a new version from the programmer. How long will it take Rhubarb to crash it? Estimates would vary from 5 minutes to an hour.

I remember when I discovered that they were doing a pool, I turned around in my chair and said, "I'll do it in 30 seconds gentlemen and I hereby put $20 into the pot." I won. I booted the program, loaded the main graphic and ka-boom! down she went. (The programmers wailed, "Get that woman off my program!")

Not really fair on my part, since I had predicted that the programmers had not made the rollback buffer large enough, and I was reasonably sure if I went to that part of the program first off, it would lock up and die. Which it did.

I am a giant software killer: Die, die, die! [Star Trek fans will get it.]

They had to take me out to lunch on their ticket, my choice of eatery. And wouldn't you know I got called in on the carpet the following week for accepting a gratuity from an outside source...party pooopers.