dot com changes

Friday, February 4, 2000





i guess the thing that impresses me most about the InterNet is not that everybody gets to state an opinion, but that just how many of these opinions are silly, malicious, uninformed, or just dead wrong. Okay, I'm the one usually spewing malicious opinions, but it still baffles me that I can run around and do my business all week, go fishing on Saturday, sleep in on Sunday, drink way too much vino on Sunday evening at dinner, and come in on Monday and understand what's going on in the economy of any tech company more than some of these guys who are supposedly working in this industry. Over the last three weeks, the tech world was turned topsy-turvy. The sharks have been put into the tank, and most analysts are discounting it as some kind of destructive event. Go figure.

The Lard Hits The Burner At Microsoft.
The Bill is gone. Long live The Steve!
I must admit, when I found out Steve Ballmer had been given the reigns of tech super-stallion Microsoft, the cool beverage I was enjoying came squirting out of my nose like a geyser. The most entertaining aspect of the whole mess is that a lot of people see this as some type of capitulation. If you remember, I said Bill Gates was getting ready for the fight of his life. I never said he was going to be the front man for it. Gates has actually astounded even little old me by proving just how darned smart he is. He's got himself an ace in the hole and his name is Steve Ballmer.
I "grew up" on MS during the early 80's; DOS and Windows Runtime 286-386 were the precursors to Win3.x, Win95 and Win98, but we soldiered on in their presence, anyway.
In 1982, Dad & Mom got me an IBM PS2/50 'puter. Needless to say, I went through tons of "iterations" to get to where I'm at, now."
I've heard a lot of the geek community chortling about this change at the big M. Some of the best Web comments I've seen are, "He'll run Microsoft into the ground" and "He'll get an early retirement package." Awfully brave comments from a bunch of guys getting paid in stock options that'll be worth about $8 when the investment bankers are done screwing them six ways to Sunday.
Ballmer used to sell cake mixes, for God's sake. I've spent long days hawking products that were almost as tough to sell as cake mixes, and I can tell you one thing: It makes you strong. Much stronger than typing for a living.
Working for Proctor & Gamble is probably as close as you can come in the business world to riding in a Panzerkampfwagen IV during the blitzkrieg. Selling cake mixes is not a namby pamby occupation; you either sell big boatloads of Betty Crocker or you get cashiered outta there.
You think tech is brutal? Then you probably cried in that scene where they croaked Old Yeller. Business school numbs you to that kind of sensitivity. I had classes where they played the Old Yeller scene over and over again; anyone who even flinched at the sound of the gunshot was given their walking papers. I doubt Ballmer had any problem... he probably cheered.
Ballmer is a shark from one of the deepest blue water shark holes that exists. People spread horrible rumors that P&G is actually in league with the devil (no kidding), and who knows, Lucifer would probably do well in the household products industry. There are guys in this world who enjoy the challenge of being the first guy to work their way through a minefield with a long knife and handful of little red flags. There's a certain sick thrill to pushing a Gerber Mark II into the earth and hitting something metallic. I guess the old adage applies: "No matter what happens next, this is going to be the most thrilling two minutes of my life."
Ballmer is from marketing, and marketing is just full of guys like this. Steve is getting ready to play the Justice Department's game, and something tells me he can sell them whatever he's got in his little black bag. Gates didn't put Ballmer in charge out of desperation. He's been faced with the reality of his own limits; Gates knows Justice will whip him like a mule because of what he is. Old Bill is one of the smartest guys in business, but he doesn't sell. He knows better, and he finally put in the player that Microsoft is going to need for the next ten years. They used to out-innovate you, and now they're going to out-sell you.
I bet you didn't like it when he blew the whistle and told everybody and his mother that tech stocks (including Microsoft) are overvalued. Boy, I bet that's really going to get under people's skin. You can't point your finger at Steve Ballmer and put Janet Reno on the speed dialer for whooping ass on you in the sales department, can you?
Gates is going to kick back and watch this ringer sell his way back to popularity, and you're going to like it. Better stop reading about how it's hard to find chicks in Silicon Valley (like someone needs to tell you why), and get a copy of Sun Tzu's Art of War. The company you save may be your own.

United States of America Online.
Steve Case stepped up a couple of weeks ago and swallowed media giant Time Warner. The $300 billion dollar deal will produce a new firm that's probably going to make about $10 billion this year (according to the talking heads on CNBC).
This looks like a merger of equals, and I like the idea of TV, Web, and print all being ruled from a giant table in Virginia. I guess it will make it easier for me to label the stuff I want to ignore. I've never liked Time-Warner or AOL. Both smack of incompetency, socialism, fascism, marxism, liberalism and degeneracy.
The funny part of this is that Time magazine made a guy (Jeff Bezos) who runs a much-touted firm (amazon.com) that couldn't make money in the best economy since the 1950s, their Man of the Year. Pathetic piece of shit, Bezos. Steve Case runs a morally bankrupt firm that people had all but built a coffin for, and it's a profitable firm that just bought one of the biggest media and entertainment firms in existence. Go figure. Case need to get ebolla virus and die painfully, for the benefit of world-kind. Amen.
Now, it seems to me that if somebody wanted to push the number for the Justice Department, one might want to do it for this deal. The funny part is that no one is going to. Mark my words, this deal is more important than anything Microsoft will do to monopolize the information industry. Personally, I'm a capitalist. Let the market decide.
I think I'll continue to work for myself, thankyouverymuch.

Around The Garden Center.
It was rough; the fifth day in a row that we've had to have the driveways and parking lots plowed just to get in and take care of daily business. Damned Blizzard of '00. We've had to bring in some heavy machinery to just get to the 3 x 1,000gal propane tanks and plowed out, so we can get re-filled. Running out of gas or electric power, during the Winter, is my worst nightmare. I hate nightmares and try to avoid them at all cost. Plant material can be replced; Pickles can't.
With several feet of snow already on the ground and the ground frozen to almost 2ft depth, the field irrigation and front steps projects have come to a blindingly quick halt. If and when the snow melts and the ground thaws, we'll get back to those projects. If not, enough's done so we can finish in the Spring. Like we have any choice in the matter.
Just when the snow was looking ugly again, another huge Nor'easter Winter Storm ran over us Sunday (today, as I write this), I went to the Garden Center Complex at 8am, fed Pickles, checked the heaters and made sure everything down there was ready. The weather maps all showed two massive storms converging upon the east coast; they looked to be about 90% ice. I hate ice. Not only did I not want to have to go out in that mess later, tomorrow's 14 mile commute would be a horror show if the ice predictions were accurate. (realtime) 3pm: just woke up in front of the fireplace with my two cats, and it's snowing like a mini-blizzard. 6-10" forecasted. We'll be doing some more plowing this coming week. shit, I'm tired of plowing already. Although we desperately need the water that the past 3 storms will put back into the ground for Spring, I'm tired of snow. Two Winter Storms and a Blizzard in 3 weeks. Yikes!
Luckily, we didn't havethis ice problem. We have in the past, though.
I plowed most all morning Tuesday and Wednesday, and with the help of a local excavator's large front-end-loader, we got most of the heavy snow work done. I'll be detail plowing for the rest of the week as clean-up. At least we could get into the 6 large greenhouses to water the nursery stock and perennials. The 40-50mph winds (-50°:F windchill) cause the driveways and parking lots to drift shut in a few hours. Plowing is not fun in this kind of weather; I used to enjoy this years ago. Must be getting older or something.
Sure, we've got 6 more weeks on Winter, according to a sub-species of Penna groundhog, called Punxsutawney Phil. Heck, I thought they were gonna turn that critter into Brunswick Stew. (Scroll down a bit, you'll find it.)

Huh?
Bradley defended his negative attacks on Gore's record on abortion and campaign finance. He said it was "about time to tell the people what was the truth" about what he called Gore's "misrepresentations." (aka lies) Just like Clinton, who is synonmous with lying. I despise Clinton and all of those rat-bastard, liars. Bradley is too stupid to realize what slime, Clinton-Gore-Bore shit is, is he? Sure seems so. McClain's a moron. Gore's a liar. Clinton's a criminal. They're all garbage.
Several people have commented that my Journal is "angry", "edgy" and "unfeeling". Perhaps. But when things like this are done to innocent animals and children, I do get angry when no one is caught and punished. The anger feels good to release. So there.
Who cares?
And so what? It's a waste of time. I'd rather see one innocent man executed, than 10 guilty let go to commit more and worse crimes against children, women and society.
Clinton lies and obstructs justice, bigtime: nothing happens. Rocker tells the truth about the ocean of subhuman filth in NYC, and he's suspended and sent into "sensitivity training" (aka liberalism, communism shit) for the first month of the 2000 season. What horseshit! The lowlife baseball commissioner, Bud "The Pud" Selig scumbag, thought this no-brainer up. Thank God for The Player's association.
The "bad boys of the NFL" are coming to the fore, like curdled cream on milk: first, Rae Carruth of The Carolina Panthers had his pregnant girlie-friend murdered; second, Ray Lewis of The Baltimore Ravens stabbed 2 morons to death;Rae Carruth. Smart, idiots. Real smart, scumbags. 99% of the murdering, idiot idiots in the NFL are of — nay African-American descent — but obviously not Conservative in belief, are true criminals, worthy of execution. Same with the White Trash and illegal aliens.
Still, the NFL Crime Rate is better than US Average. I'd have never believed it, had I not seen the stats.
This is one reason I don't fly, anymore. This is another. This is another. This is another. This is another. This is another. Are there common links? You bet there are, Denise.
Guess what time of year it is again? Time for that Penna-based groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, to make his soporific prediction about 6 more weeks of Winter. Hell, I thought we were going to make Brunswick Stew out of that critter. (Scroll down a bit; you'll find it.)
Although the lawmakers will be in session only eight months for their 12-month salary, which has just jumped to a minimum of $141,300, it's far from certain that anyone will complain.
God, I just can't imagine what the last seconds-minutes of these peoples' lives were like. It's mind-boggling. I guess that's a reason that I don't fly anymore.
AOL is a shitty company, causing all kinds of problems to all kinds of subscribers. I'm amazed that 20million people even bother to subscribe. It's a mindbender that there's that many idiots, morons and cretins in the USA. Hey, you've got mail!
When it finally comes to an end — and it will — I pity the margined-to-the-limit people and those unable to compensate for the swing; I'm fully paid up and ready for the crash.
Although I abhor their politics and ideology, I love China's execution record: 1,800 in '98 alone. Absolutely wonderful, and they don't let convicted prisoners languish. They execute them with a single bullet to the head right away. If the US could do half that well, we'd empty out Death Row in 3-4 years, just in time to let a new batch of subhuman filth in for immediate execution.
Who gives a flying f*ck about AIDS? Not I, baby. That behavior can be "modified". Cancer is the disease to keep an eye upon.

AsiaRecipe.Com
Dust off the Wok! Everything you ever wanted to know about all aspects of Asian recipes, but were afraid to ask. The site is a veritable smorgasbord of information on the subject, covering countries (from Afghanistan to Vietnam), ingredients (divided by region and/or country), equipment, and much much more. There's also a section on all things herbal (types, folklore, remedies), and a work-in-progress for recipe submissions. Enjoy.



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