To Reiterate - I Am Always Right

Microsoft sales rise 25% to $16 billion

http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/28/technology/microsoft_earnings/index.htm?

Microsoft's first-quarter sales of $16.2 billion rose 25% from last year, thanks to strong showings from Office 2010, Windows 7 and Xbox 360.

Revenue from Microsoft Office rose more than 15% compared to last year, thanks to Microsoft Office 2010's first full quarter on the market. Sales of Xbox 360 video game consoles grew 38% and outsold every competing console in the U.S. for each of the past four months, Microsoft said.

All gloating aside, I'm even a little confused to see this article on money.cnn.com a day after it ran the article which was the subject of yesterday's blog, "Microsoft is a dying consumer brand."  Shouldn't CNN have known that Microsoft was going to release a quarterly earnings report?  Seems like you would want to wait for that to come out before running an article boldly proclaiming the company's imminent death.

So, in short, I demand an apology.  And by "apology" I mean "money."

 No - Wait a second . . .

Much better.

Or . . . 

 

What if . . .

Now we're talking.

Nate vs. CNN.MONEY

I know I promised some NaNoWriMo news, but first, did you know -

Microsoft is a dying consumer brand

http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/27/technology/microsoft_pdc/index.htm?

Fascinating article.  It's such a shame that Microsoft doesn't have some sort of "system" that could operate some sort of "magic box" that was presently the most important device in the world, if not in the HISTORY OF TIME.  Sure, we all love refrigeration and the internal combustion engine, but imagine infinite porn (actually, don't imagine that - your head might explode).

And what if this "system" was on 92% of these "magic boxes?"  Even on all the ones that consumers buy?  I mean, if they had something like that, then "Wow."

(gets a tap on the shoulder)

What?  What's that?  Huh?  Really?  They have something like that?  Are you sure?

Well then I guess you're just a bunch of fucking idiots who try to get a lot of page views with scary titles.

In all honesty, attacking Microsoft because it's getting its ass kicked in the tablet market and social network market is a lot like saying that Walmart is going down the tubes because its back-to-school fashion line is a bust, while ignoring the fact that half the US population buys every single basic necessity from it.

Moreover, for an article which purports to focus on Microsoft's failings in the consumer realm, it dismisses the XBox with this paragraph -

"With Xbox, Microsoft succeeded at innovating: It created a competitive video game brand for hardcore gamers. But even Xbox was outdueled by Nintendo with the Wii, which outsold Xbox by appealing to casual gamers."

Sure.  The Xbox hasn't sold as many units as the Wii.  Which is the greatest selling video game console of all time.  But that's a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG (you know it's long because I added a bunch of O's) way from saying that it is in any way a disappointment as a video game console.  It's easily the second most popular video game console in the world.  And it's the one that has half the population of under-40 guys shelling out $60 bucks every year for a new Halo game.  Let's see how Nintendo is doing once the novelty of the Wii has worn off and old people go back to croqueting and lawn darts [Editor's Note: Lawn darts?]  Remember, Nintendo has had some serious downturns during its long history, including that entire stretch of time between the Super Nintendo and the Wii.

Wait, why did I post a picture of a guy smoking out of a bong fashioned from an N64 controller?

Finally, while lamenting Microsoft's future, the article asks, "So is this Microsoft's Waterloo? Will it become the next IBM?"

Will it become the next IBM?

Are you talking about the International Bank of Miami (actually a real thing) or are you talking about International Business Machines, that little company whose revenue exceeds Microsoft and Apple's combined?  That IBM?  Will they become that IBM?

God, let's all hope not.

Reading Between the (Cocaine) Lines

Honestly, I sort of like Two and a Half Men.  So sue me.

[Editor's Note: Please don't sue him.]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/celebrity.news.gossip/10/26/charlie.sheen.hospitalized/index.html

"What we are able to determine is that Charlie had an adverse allergic reaction [Drank too much] to some medication [Booze] and was taken to the hospital [Probably a bunch of coke too], where he is expected to be released tomorrow [He's fucking nuts]," Rosenfield said.

And also a quick follow up to the blog a few blogs ago wherein I explained to today's Internet children how the Clinton administration was this idyllic dream that ended with us waking up in a cold sweat to the nightmare that is now

From this article:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/10/22/armchair_warriors?page=0,4

In 1999 or 2000, after the failed attempt to kill Osama bin Laden with some 80 cruise missiles launched into the al Qaeda camp in Khost, Afghanistan, a frustrated President Bill Clinton thought that somehow the United States could "scare the shit out of al Qaeda if suddenly a bunch of black ninjas rappelled out of helicopters into the middle of their camp," according to the 9/11 Commission.

Yes Yes Yes a thousand times YES!

Next up:  Nanowrimo Redux? or: Why the Hell Didn't I Get Me Some of That Vampire Money?

Whatever Happened to John Candy? Oh, He's Dead? I See . . .

Just kidding!  Seriously, we're not going to talk about John Candy.  I can't even recall watching any of his movies, except vaguely Uncle Buck for some reason.  Also, I suffered some moderate heart palpitations when I realized that he's been dead since 1994.

What we are going to talk about is whether in my previous web log I managed to rip a hole in the fabric of spacetime with my use of the sentence "Clinton will be being fellated by angels in heaven" or whether I just suck at the English language.

For those of you, the most of you, who think that I give no thought to this stuff, let me assure you that I spent a good five minutes staring at that sentence before hitting the "Publish Post" button.  From what I can tell from the internet, the source of almost all knowledge in the world, the sentence is of the future continuous passive variety.  I think.  I don't quite know what all those things mean.

You see, I know enough about the English language to look at this and wince -

But that's about it.

(Hey, Twitter - why don't you just make people select a gender and then display "This person has protected her tweets" or "This person has protected his tweets" or, hell, if somebody can't make up HIS OR HER (see how I used words correctly there, Twitter?- and that's actually an example where some people would argue that "their" is acceptable because of the indeterminate "somebody" - your use of "This person" would be very, very determinate) mind - "This person has protected its tweets."  Or how about just "This person's tweets are protected?")

Anyway,

"Clinton will be being fellated by angels in heaven"

Something about the "be" and "being" being right next to each other is grating, though not ungrammatical from what I can glean from the internet.  The obvious fix is to switch it to the active voice, which is the voice the future continuous tense is usually.  This gives us:  "Angels will be fellating Clinton in heaven."  Great.  Awesome.  But taken together with the first part of the sentence, it doesn't seem to work -

In thirty years you will still be somebody who nobody has ever heard of and angels will be fellating Clinton in heaven.

I feel like the emphasis of the second part of the sentence should be "Clinton" since the emphasis in the first part is "you."

So this would work -

In thirty years you will still be somebody who nobody has ever heard of and Clinton will be fellating angels in heaven.

But we can't have Clinton fellating angels for chrissake.  That's just absurd.  Sure, that might be some sort of heaven for the angels, but certainly not for Clinton [Editor's Note: What?].  So we're stuck.

Or are we?

Yes, we are.

Rand Paul knocks Bill Clinton over Lewinsky scandal . . . in 1998?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39631896

No?  Recently?  Yesterday?  Well, that's . . . odd.

Look, Rand, I don't know who you are.  And let's be honest, I'm not one of those guys who's really big on learning stuff - like who you are - or "facts" and "getting facts right."  However, I will jump over to your wikipedia page and grab one of your quotes and translate it into something I can understand:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rand_Paul#BP_oil_spill_comments

What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, 'I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP.' I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. I've heard nothing from BP about not paying for the spill. And I think it's part of this sort of blame-game society in the sense that it's always got to be someone's fault instead of the fact that sometimes accidents happen.

Translation:

President Obama:  BP can go fuck itself.

Rand:  Hey, Hey, Hey:  Hold on!  Sure, BP could go fuck itself, but - follow me here - what if - what if - we allowed BP to kill our sons and have its way with our daughters and then maybe, just maybe, we can see if BP would be willing to serve as some sort of master, or, perhaps, lord, to us.

Rand - can I call you Rand? - there have been six presidents in my lifetime.  I don't remember Carter at all.  I remember very little about Reagan and most of what I remember of those years involves NASA murdering astronauts while forcing school children to watch it live, which is really fucked up if you think about it, and various episodes of Perfect Strangers.  Oh, Balki you crazy sonofabitch.  The first Bush presidency was whatever and brief.  And that brings us to Clinton. Glorious, glorious Clinton.

Oh, wait, sorry - I meant:

And

Do you remember when Clinton was president, Rand?  Do you?  Of course you do.  For you children out there in Internetland who may have been five or six during Clinton's waning years, let me tell you about the Clinton presidency.  Everything was perfect.  In fact, everything was so perfect that Clinton got blown by an intern in the Oval Office, lied about it to everybody, and - and this is going to blow your mind, kiddies - nobody even cared.  Honestly, everybody sort of shrugged his or her shoulders and said, "Whatever," put the latest Puff Daddy cd into the cd changer, then unplugged the phone line and plugged in the internet and waited three or four minutes for a GeoCities site about Xena: Warrior Princess to load.

I'm not even making any of that up.  GeoCities, Puff Daddy, Xena, phone line - those were all once words.

So Rand, to summarize:  In thirty years you will still be somebody who nobody has ever heard of and Bill Clinton will be being fellated by angels in heaven.  So Booyah!

Yes, that was something people used to say back then.

Booyah!

Murphy Brown: What the Fuck Ever Happened to That Show? Also, Warning: Swearing.

Yes, women once had hair like that and it even happened in my lifetime.  Think about that for a minute.  I'll wait.

Okay?  Good.  So, Murphy Brown.  It was a television show.  There was this painter who for some odd reason was apparently painting Murphy's house for about a decade.  Murphy had a baby at some point and I think the painter also took care of the baby, because, you know, when you have a baby you let your marginally-employed house painter take care of it for you.   The news director was like seventeen years old.  The perky blond was a ditz.  Murphy was a recovering drunk.  The lead anchor guy cared a lot about his hair.  Murphy had a different secretary each week.  And so on.

I don't throw these hazily and half remembered details at you without purpose.  I throw them at you because the children, who compose the majority of my audience that is not currently incarcerated (Hey!  Keep your heads up, guys!) will never know what a Murphy Brown is because the show is not available on DVD.  Now, Nate, you say, who cares if some television show from back in the time when television shows were standard-definition blurs playing on clunky square boxes is available on DVD?  I care, that's who!

Actually,  I don't care.  I preferred Married With Children and Night Court.  But I do care that the children of today, you poor, misguided, funny-looking children, will never understand that Murphy Brown was one of the most popular shows EVER IN THE HISTORY OF TIME!  And you can't get it on DVD!  It was one of the most popular sitcoms on TV for ten fucking years!  Ten!  Fucking!  Years!  There was a whole national debate about Murphy having a child out of wedlock!  The Vice President of the United States of America addressed it!  The Vice President!  Of the United States!  Of America!  Sure it was Dan Quayle but he was still the Vice President!  Ever heard a politician use the phrase "family values?"  That phrase entered the political lexicon BECAUSE OF THIS SHOW!  And there was also this huge deal about breast cancer awareness when Murphy Brown battled breast cancer herself during the show's final season!  Did you know that breast cancer WASN'T EVEN A THING until Murphy Brown?  IT DIDN'T EXIST!  [Editor's Note: The fuck?]  DID YOU KNOW THAT!?!  DID YOU!?!

[Editor's Note: Okay, I'm taking away your exclamation mark and capitalization privileges.]

And now, for lack of a DVD box set,  all those moments will be lost in time; like tears in the rain.  Time to die.

[Editor's Note: Yeah, that's actually the ending to Blade Runner, champ.  You got drunk and fell asleep while watching it last night.  Remember?]

This Is Why I Never Go to the Doctor

Years and years ago I wrote that I'd only go to the doctor if I had a vital organ punctured by something.  Or if I was losing most of my blood.  And even given one of those two things, it's still a coin-flip as to whether or not I'm dragging myself to the doctor.  You see, nobody has ever had this conversation with a doctor:


Doctor: Well, let's see how you're doing here, Mr. Baty.

Nate: Good news, I hope?

Doctor: Wow . . . just, wow. Did you quit smoking?

Nate: Yes . . .

Doctor: I think you should start up again. Maybe drink more, too. Maybe start drinking in the mornings.

Nate: What?

Doctor: Your health, it's just too awesome.

Nate: Too awesome?

Doctor: Too awesome.

Nate: How . . . how is that possible, doctor?

Doctor: I don't know, Nate. I just don't know.



No.  You never have that conversation.  You have a conversation like the one I had the pleasure of having with a nurse last week while I waiting to see a doctor about a reaction I had to a bee sting.  A bee sting that, umm, punctured a major organ.


Nurse: Your blood pressure is extremely high.

Nate: LOL! No, no it isn't.

Nurse: Did you just say "LOL?"

Nate: . . .

Nurse: . . .

Nate: . . .

Nurse: Whatever. So, your blood pressure . . .

Nate: Is fine, I know.

Nurse: No, Mr. Baty. Quite the opposite in fact . . .

Nate: If it's high then that's probably a good thing.

Nurse: . . .

Nate . . .

Nurse: . . .

Nate: Like my heart's really powerful. Like a cannon.

Nurse: What?

Nate: (makes cannon noise)

Nurse: No, no, I don't think you understand how serious . . .

Nate: Seriously, though, sweetie, that's cute and all but is there maybe a, you know,  "man" I could talk to?


I kid! I kid! The nurse was actually a guy. But you know I have a fondness for good old fashioned sexist jokes. Everything else is pretty much true though.