The big problem with getting up here is you can't get down the way you came.
Mood:
accident prone
Now Playing: 'Contact Tort' Base jumping lawyers test the limits of their endurance in high altitude conclusion jumping. (travel, sport)
Topic: Microsoft and VCSY
click
...did you bring your BASE rig? I got mine. I guess you'll have to do it the way the hotcha wangy prove their bravery. They wrap this... that's right, it's a giant poison ivy vine... they wrap this around their feet and jump backwards off the ledge hugging the bungees. If they went off head first, they say is too dangerous to the tribes overall IQ. Some reported cases the poor chap would bounce back up to the summit minus a brain. Just popped right out from the g force. Well they were totally useless to the tribe so they hauled up food for them... there's a small village over on the other summit... where they keep the place clean and they become the ceremonial priesthood. That way the village below keeps a high IQ average and their contacts with the gods are an a different level altogether when they come up here to consult with their wisdom and then jump off the ledge.
Me? No thanks. I prefer science to mooka jambo. I would rather do a zero-p canopy with kevlar strings and nine cells over seven for my tender foots and all than rely on the rituals of my ancestors, thanks.
What makes them do it? Well, the poison ivy is sacred to them. 'mooka maka nunka nook' or 'he who anger clawed meat god'. We know it as the common 'notched nuglet's syndrom (nns)' also known in more severe cases as 'Scrot's Terror' or 'litiginitius pullimus inflamus maxidermus' also known as 'miner's dangle'.
The relatives would put a big tub of calamine lotion at the bottom of this tall cliff and the young and old hotcha wangy warriors would step backwards off of the ancient jumping ledge called wanga pangy.
Plus the promise of pro-active and soon relief from the results of the vine bathed in calamine made jumping a more tantalizing idea than standing here at the summit of plenta pangy rock during the hottest part of the day. Makes me itch just thinking about it.
A perfectly executed jump would have the participant entering the vat to submergience as the vine would then jerk the jumper back up into the air whereby the air would blow dry the calamine and the jumper was ready for a second dip and so on until the calamine provides a thick covering to prevent injury by scratching. An infection in the jungle can be deadly, my friend. Mind the cuts. And say 'excuse me' when they happen.
But some of them forget the last rule and that's hang on until the bounding stops. Many fling their arms out wide as if to bathe in the calamine relief and they end up smacking their heads on the bottom of the pot. Post that, they can't figure out how to climb to the top of plenta pangy to join their wanga pangy priesthood, so they end up working in the bars as clerks.
Those poor bastids what miss the vat and have too much vine? Ouch. Aside from the obvious lack of relief from the calamine they usually have so much loose skin to scratch they often disappear after three or four days...
click
Darlene... go ask momma why don't daddy have loose skin from falling out of that pine tree. Get yer finger out of there dammit...
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Well now. spittooee This here specimen below is a tell if ever a tell was told. Looks like the great big grizzly of the northwest is turned into a moose with dotted lines all over. You don't get to see many of these especially one so big when the mating ritual doesn't go his way.
Submitted by Jason Lee Miller on Mon, 04/23/2007 - 10:35.The irony of Microsoft crying antitrust in the Google/Double Click is starting to make more sense: it may be sour grapes, and a regulatory approach may free up the company for themselves – if thwarted love can be reconciled through more proper marriages.
That's a somewhat cynical sum-up, certainly oversimplified, and maybe even a little unfair (there, I've said it so you don't have to) – sometimes it's just business. But the whole thing becomes really interesting when you learn Microsoft offered more for DoubleClick than Google did, and still got turned down.
DoubleClick put its eggs in Google's basket, instead of Microsoft's, for less money – as if business relationships have evolved into star-crossed, money-can't-buy-love affairs. But we all know that's bull, right?
John Battelle, who broke that news, rightly questions the reasons behind it:
The more I think about it, the more the fact that DBCLK went to Google strikes me as a seminal moment in the history of this industry. Microsoft could not win it, despite the cash it was willing to spend. Why?!
According to that lengthy blog post, Battelle will have to think on it a bit and make some more contacts to make sense of the for-love-or-money outcome (like in most things, why-is isn't nearly as important as what-is – but that's a whole other discussion).
Former Microsoftie Robert Scoble has some suggestions about why a company would turn down a larger offer, including company reputation, employee benefits, better long-term options, more influence, location (at which point we get into a host of arbitrary justifications). But the most interesting one was Robert's first suggestion:
Better cultural fit. I’ve seen that some employees are real jerks during negotiations and can sour a suitor on that person’s company.
At the end of March, back when this deal was a just a gleam in Microsoft's eye, when there rumors were circling via the PR machine about Microsoft's affection for DoubleClick (and DoubleClick's high brideprice), Google didn't even appear to be in the courtship picture.
Briefly-put, DoubleClick wanted $2 billion, and Microsoft seemed to do a spit-take at the suggestion. Don Dodge, Director of Business Development for Microsoft's Emerging Business Team, blogged rather convincingly about billion-dollar gambles, and devalued the DoubleClick to about $600 million – a fifth of the final price.
And then, two weeks later, we learn Microsoft offered more than Google, and lost? Something happened. Microsoft had a change of heart or executives were blowing smoke during negotiations to keep the price down. Or maybe Google was a dark horse competitor, swooping in to take the maiden. And now Microsoft's double-pissed off.
Last week, David Utter noted the odd timing to Microsoft's and AT&T's antitrust complaints, arising just 48 hours after the news broke. Google's acquisition of DoubleClick is a market-cornering move – a market Microsoft and AT&T would rather have cornered for themselves.
The quick antitrust filing could mean that as soon as Microsoft realized they'd lost that market, they began preparing for the fight to get it back.
Posted by Portuno Diamo
at 2:43 PM EDT
Updated: Monday, 23 April 2007 2:52 PM EDT
caffeinated
on fire
a-ok
chatty
special
lazy
don't ask
party time!
Won't Happen
(Score:2)