pull the pointy shiny end out of the wall socket.
\
pointy shiny thing.

pink is the wall socket. shiny pointy end is inserted into it.

Did that a long time ago, and the darn thing still would not shut down.

Anyhow I kept dancing between a hung-up task manager, and the alt, control, delete procedure and my computer was still frozen.

Finally I tried the on/off button AGAIN for the zillionth time and it finally shut down.
I brought it back up in the safe mode and things appear to be okay. So I rebooted it and I
appear to back in business.

Thank you GiveMeFreedom I do appreciate your input and nice to meet you.

Also glad you got it working. Computers are great when they work and infuriating when they need more attention than our input.

And nice to meet you too

Background: The entire country loses the Internet plunging the nation into a depression. Meanwhile the government has attempted to find a way to fix "the Internet," a large machine resembling a giant Linksys wireless router, which has stopped functioning for an unknown reason. Several fruitless attempts are made to repair it: negotiating with it, communicating with it musically, and even shooting at it.

Until it starts to reboot.

That is what I just did and it worked. I guess I wasn't holding it down long enough in my earlier attempts.

Many thanks Manny!

When the computer is running properly, a short push will do.

Glad it worked!

That signal goes to Firmware and the operating system cannot override it. When it does anyway, as the other poster says, pull de plug. Wait a couple of minutes before plugging it back in again. Too bad people can't be rebooted as easily when they go haywire.