Scene: A conference room at Apple Headquarters
Steve Jobs is leading a discussion on product lines and their future. After making a longish speech, he leans back in his chair to let the two other men with him ask a few questions.
First man: "Hey, boss, what about this new line of iPods? Aren't they kind of a big change from what we've been selling?"
Steve Jobs: "Naah!"
Second man: "Okay, so should we leave it to marketing to come up with a new plan for distribution?"
Jobs: "No!"
BZT
05 June, 2010
12 May, 2010
A "god-poof" fantasy I just came up with.
What's a "god-poof" fantasy? It's one of those unlikely-ever-really-to-happen longform "jokes" that ends with god, or the main character, disappearing into nowhere (the ultimate unlikelihood).
This one happens to involve a one-hit-wonder musician from the 1970s.
Synthesizer performance pioneer Edgar Winter catches a time-jump and finds himself 25 years in the future. He happens upon someone he thinks is the A&R guy who was his label "contact" in the 1970s. (Actually it's his son who, instead of being a lazy, smarmy, slick and manipulative git, is instead a widely-read pop & rock critic whose speciality is the music of the 1970s.)
Winter ventures to ask this fellow, "How am I doing on the charts nowadays, Bruce?" The man, whose name is quite definitely not Bruce, takes umbrage at being referred to by this relic with his father's name, and pointedly replies, "You're nowhere, and no wonder. The one song virtually everybody knows you by, 'Frankenstein,' is far more memorable for its guitar, bass, percussion and brass riffs than any of your bits. Your synthesizer 'performance,' if you can call it that, was merely an unnecessary layer of ear-splitting ornament on what was otherwise a perfectly tolerable dance cut."
Winter, his face turning red (as if anyone would notice an albino with a reddened puss), grits his teeth and counts to three. He snarls, "Well, I suppose I'm just not appreciated here, then," and vanishes.
Take what you like and leave the rest.
BZT
This one happens to involve a one-hit-wonder musician from the 1970s.
Synthesizer performance pioneer Edgar Winter catches a time-jump and finds himself 25 years in the future. He happens upon someone he thinks is the A&R guy who was his label "contact" in the 1970s. (Actually it's his son who, instead of being a lazy, smarmy, slick and manipulative git, is instead a widely-read pop & rock critic whose speciality is the music of the 1970s.)
Winter ventures to ask this fellow, "How am I doing on the charts nowadays, Bruce?" The man, whose name is quite definitely not Bruce, takes umbrage at being referred to by this relic with his father's name, and pointedly replies, "You're nowhere, and no wonder. The one song virtually everybody knows you by, 'Frankenstein,' is far more memorable for its guitar, bass, percussion and brass riffs than any of your bits. Your synthesizer 'performance,' if you can call it that, was merely an unnecessary layer of ear-splitting ornament on what was otherwise a perfectly tolerable dance cut."
Winter, his face turning red (as if anyone would notice an albino with a reddened puss), grits his teeth and counts to three. He snarls, "Well, I suppose I'm just not appreciated here, then," and vanishes.
Take what you like and leave the rest.
BZT
11 May, 2010
Parcel post sheep (and meaningless signs).
So I order another item from Amazon.com, and have it sent to, instead of myself at my address, my mother at hers across town.
Why am I doing it this way? Because it's more likely that the parcel carrier won't have to re-deliver the item. If I had it sent directly to me, chances are better than good that there would be two, maybe even three attempts at delivery before I even saw it.
And why is this? Because the building manager of the apartment "cluster" in which I live had no foresight. He allowed one tenant, an evangelical Christian church, to take down a sign he had put up on purchasing the property, and replace it with one that gave no clear indication whatsoever of the address to "Joslin House Apartments," which is the name this cluster goes by locally. 168 Main Street is its registered Postal Service address. This sign is visible from the street-side to a distance of some 600 yards (5482/3 m); it is in the most ideal position available for a street-number sign, but it has no numbers on it except the times for Sunday bible-study and worship.
Consequently, parcel-post-delivery persons can't find Joslin House worth a damn!
I'm sure that if I ordered things from Amazon and other online and mail-order merchants more often than I do, this would not, after a given amount of time, be an issue. However, due to circumstances I'd rather not go into here and now, I don't, and the end-up is a cock-up.
What surprises me, also, is that this same building manager rents units in this complex to small businessmen, from which they operate their sole-proprietorships, partnerships and other modest enterprises. On that odd occasion when one of these presumably professional people have a supplier who changes parcel carriers, or they themselves switch to another goods supplier altogether, they must have to put up with the same hair-pulling headache as I do, at least once.
BZT
Why am I doing it this way? Because it's more likely that the parcel carrier won't have to re-deliver the item. If I had it sent directly to me, chances are better than good that there would be two, maybe even three attempts at delivery before I even saw it.
And why is this? Because the building manager of the apartment "cluster" in which I live had no foresight. He allowed one tenant, an evangelical Christian church, to take down a sign he had put up on purchasing the property, and replace it with one that gave no clear indication whatsoever of the address to "Joslin House Apartments," which is the name this cluster goes by locally. 168 Main Street is its registered Postal Service address. This sign is visible from the street-side to a distance of some 600 yards (5482/3 m); it is in the most ideal position available for a street-number sign, but it has no numbers on it except the times for Sunday bible-study and worship.
Consequently, parcel-post-delivery persons can't find Joslin House worth a damn!
I'm sure that if I ordered things from Amazon and other online and mail-order merchants more often than I do, this would not, after a given amount of time, be an issue. However, due to circumstances I'd rather not go into here and now, I don't, and the end-up is a cock-up.
What surprises me, also, is that this same building manager rents units in this complex to small businessmen, from which they operate their sole-proprietorships, partnerships and other modest enterprises. On that odd occasion when one of these presumably professional people have a supplier who changes parcel carriers, or they themselves switch to another goods supplier altogether, they must have to put up with the same hair-pulling headache as I do, at least once.
BZT
10 May, 2010
The irony of blogs and me.
It's the craziest thing -- put me in front of a blog edit window, or an empty page in MS Word or OpenOffice Writer, and I seldom have anything to write. But if I happen upon a forum, where those in charge don't mind very much how off-topic the posting goes, or an image host that allows for comments to my own or others' uploaded pics, then I'm "full of boast and blarney," to use a phrase that might be familiar to some.
I'm starting this blog here and now to try to change this peculiar trait in my (online) personality.
And where better to start it than on that one site that made a fad into a fundamental institution on this tar-pit of commercialism and raw attitude we know as the World Wide Web: Blogger.com?!
BZT
I'm starting this blog here and now to try to change this peculiar trait in my (online) personality.
And where better to start it than on that one site that made a fad into a fundamental institution on this tar-pit of commercialism and raw attitude we know as the World Wide Web: Blogger.com?!
BZT
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