Posted 10:07 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Why couldn't MORT ZUCK have put His KOLLEDGE SCAM out of business along with USELESS NEWS?

Though it doesn’t specifically survey for it, U.S. News also offers a kind of left-handed index of student satisfaction. Colleges report how many of their graduates contribute in a typical year. As we read “Best Colleges,” we were struck by how many grads don’t send their alma mater even a symbolic check. At Harvard, 63 percent give nothing at all. At Vanderbilt, 74 percent demur, as do 87 percent at UCLA. The non- donors are probably pleased to have degrees, but could quite a few have less than fond memories of their campus years?

Or perhaps they feel that they already “gave” when they paid sky-high tuition bills?

IDIOT MORT ZUCK HARVARD LL.M '62!

(Revised with added CV! on 8/29/2011)

Posted 6:56 PM by Gene

I've said before America has heroes, if only she knew it. But the heroes merely do their everyday jobs and are not in the market for heroism. Their heroism is so everyday, so matter-of-fact we can't see it, but it's in our nation's sinews. The brave souls who risk death mining coal are an example. They will definitely not take credit for heroism, but without them our industry would be a shadow of the even the shadow that it is, and they are part of our might.

Posted 6:25 PM by Gene

On this dreary, rainy day when THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END!!!! (or not) I stumbled onto the sometimes gladdening, sometimes infuriating Oldies.com site, and came across Vol. 19 of the infamous anthologies with the famous name NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUUUUUUUUUUUUSIC!!!!! (The title's so preposterous the three stoo -- owners have taken to just calling it NOW!!!!!) Out of idle curiosity and bored into torpor by the rain I found the official Web site -- and before I could mute the volume the first thing out of the tinny ALTEC speakers on my fine Eh-SUS laptop was WOMAN WITH THE BOOBS, who DOES use Autotune. Then I happened on the Terms, and decided right there all three entities should be fumigated.

And I felt a sense of happiness, knowing venting my spleen on ROCK mu-SICK cri-TICS was thoroughly justified. I haven't seen their likes on GRATE.COM lately. I hope I never have to again. The firing of Jack Shafer makes that unlikely.



And now, for a tinge of nostalgia and excellence to settle the stomach here again is someone other than WOMAN WITH THE BOOBS, singing something not concocted by Dr. Frankenstein and Igor.

Posted 9:27 PM by Gene

Meanwhile, motorists intent on filling their tanks before Hurricane Irene arrives have been flocking to gas stations across the state.

"The only time I've seen it like this is (before) blizzards," said Katie Vent, office manager at the B & G Gulf in Holmdel.

Where are you folks going -- MONTANA?

And Jersey's caught between the NOO YAWK and PHILLY profit centers -- the electronic equivalent of a rock and a hard place.

Posted 9:22 PM by Gene

President Barack Obama said the impact of the storm, which is unusually large, could be "extremely dangerous and costly" for a nation that still remembers destructive Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

"All indications point to this being a historic hurricane," Obama said.

No, NO -- we will AVOID an embarrassing comment AT ALL COSTS.

Posted 8:41 PM by Gene

And the big story tonight on ACTION NEWS is...

THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!

JIM GARDNER is 63 (he looks 83 in HD -- must DO something about your PROFIT CENTER, UB IGER!) and he makes $100 million a year scaring people. In this age when news hacks should be trusted at best on a very greasy sliding scale, and the richer they are the less they should be trusted, too many people still believe this panicmaster. EVIDENCE: At the Dark Shadows and a couple of CVS's today everyone was buying BOTTLED WATER. I work for our city's Water Department. The likelihood of our water supply totally collapsing is infinitessimal. But Jim or some other ESPNCORP parasite must have mentioned in repeatedly on the three-hour news block (soon to become four since The Lord Goddess Oprah left), and now every Tom, Dick and Harriet's buying bottled water. Not to mention food for two weeks. The mirth-provoking irony is that the weather's supposed to be SUNNY AND NICE on Monday. But what good is sunny and nice weather if our community's totally destroyed????? Well, I'm not a meteorologist (NEITHER IS JIM, despite his connections to a now forgotten St. Jim -- and neither was HE), but I'm looking over the weather maps, and while this will be a bad storm we may avoid the end of the world. The problem, of course, is NOO YAWK, which has dozens of $100 MILLION EARNING JIM GARDNERS who must be hiding in their bunkers. We will excuse HONORARY MAYOR MIKE for excessive caution but for all His supposed media savvy he's at the panicmasters' beck and call too. We don't wish to put bets on it but we suspect after the EARTHQUAKE!!!!! this may not be the cataclysm of the millenium. We certainly hope not. But when Jim Gardners rule the world all bets must be off.

P. S. While MOVE HQ burned Jim played celebrity news. We will NEVER forgive him.

P. P. S. We do worry about the electricity, but we have more faith in Exelon than in ESPNCORP -- but if there MUST be blackouts let one strike at CITY LINE AND MONUMENT.

TV will be wall to wall...



for two days.

Posted 2:19 PM by Gene

You know the saturation coverage is approaching the INSANITY DANGER ZONE when the Crainacs ask:

Which Retailers Will Hurricane Irene Help, and Which Will It Hurt?

Posted 2:13 PM by Gene

And further on the subject of gurgling, snuffling and moaning, a pop cul-TYURE wri-TER expresses his -- or is it her -- disappointment:

Correct me if I'm wrong, those who were there, but here's what I recorded as the sum total of her between-song banter:

After "Up n' Down," a "bonus track" off her "Femme Fatale" album: "What's up, Charlotte?" (Crowd goes wild.)

After "Big Fat Bass," also off "Femme Fatale": "What's up, Charlotte?" (Woo-hoo, fans yell in unison.)

After her 2001 hit "I'm a Slave 4 U": "Are you guys ready for some more?" (More screaming.)

After 2008's "Womanizer": "Thank you so much, Charlotte!" (You're welcome.)

And after her current smash hit, "Till the World Ends": "Good night, everyone!"

TRANSLATION: The public is plainly so way ahead of the hacks the hacks can write as they please.

P. S. MNI at $1.55. It was $5.55 on January 18. It was $74.80 on March 18, 2005.

Posted 2:03 PM by Gene

Those who think the answer for our governmental sclerosis is flip-flop divided government should look to Japan, which has been in a divided-government funk for a long time, exasperating a greater funk.

Posted 1:38 PM by Gene

A trivia question: What happened on August 2, 1923? Well Warren Gamaliel Harding died. The state press banded together in mindless mourning because it then was reliably Republican. Had USAOKAY!!!!! existed then it would have run a hed like this:

HARDING: STATESMAN OF GREATNESS

The mourning vanished a year later.

We thought of this because today the front page of The Nation's "News"paper inflicted itself upon us in two ways: First it said God created a POP-CULTURE REVOLUTION!!!!! Someone remind GanNETt, what's good for God is NOT good for GanNETt. We suppose God started this revolution because He invented the iPod, the GanNETtoids forgetting He invented a better version of the Walkman. In any case that led us to second -- a big hed saying, "ARE COLLEGE FOOTBALL RIVALRIES GETTING OUT OF HAND??????????" If so it's because college sports are another BIGMEDIA division, and a BIG profit center. Nevin couldn't have virtually run Miami if the skool hadn't decided winning at all costs would be good for its ratings. That distorts everyone's reason; thus fans become borderline psychopaths and poison trees. That people of multiple football loyalties can come together to save those trees is no thanks to BIGMEDIA and its profit center.

Speaking of Harding, here's Menck in a previously unpublished diatribe:

Certainly no man ever passed into the Eternal Vacuum to the tune of more astonishing rhetoric. The Associated Press dispatches, printed...during the ghastly progress of the funeral train, were not merely eloquent; they were downright maudlin. They gurgled; they snuffled; the moaned. Whoever wrote them is a supreme master of bilge.

True in 1923; true today.

Posted 12:27 PM by Gene

HENRY HONEST!!!!! has slowly come out of his profound mourning for God by issuing a typical piece of blatherskite about how many babes a certain athuhlete has dated. It's easy to get jealous but then again think -- what do an athuhlete and a model talk about? Perhaps one reason this guy's dated so many babes is that they usually CAN'T.

Posted 10:31 PM by Gene

I have no reason to pat myself on the back, but I recall in March typing this:

We now suppose most of the deaths from this calamity occurred along the coast; if as now appears evident Japan's interior escaped with just collapsed false ceilings that's a tribute to modern engineering. [Spelling error corrected]

So it was highly gratifying to read this:

The ensuing partial meltdown of the Fukushima reactor prompted international hysteria about nuclear power, but few seemed to realize that a far deadlier threat had been averted. As seismologist Roger Bilham has aptly put it, houses in seismically active zones are the world’s unrecognized weapons of mass destruction—and Japan’s WMDs didn’t go off. Its buildings—at least those that weren’t swept away by the accompanying tsunami, a force of nature against which we are still largely helpless—remained standing, and the people inside survived.

That so few buildings collapsed in the earthquake was a human triumph of the first order.

Let us forget the fake panic of the other day and realize the human race has unending work to do to keep itself safe from natural disasters -- but even in the midst of an epochal catastrophe this was progress.

Posted 6:49 PM by Gene

We say ever since physicians could legally practice the most noble medical procedure of all -- ABORTION -- the Hippocratic oath has not obtained. Physicians who CAN freely practice abortions might not show much of scruples when they CAN cheat the Federal Government. Nor, we will add, when they CAN persuade untold thousands of "patients" to pop pain pills.

These clowns should get the harshest penalties possible -- and so should others who create vast addictions to prescription drugs.

Posted 6:46 PM by Gene

MORE CRUSADING JERNALISM FROM ED MURROW:

Jon Stewart To Interview Nirvana's Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, Producer Butch Vig on SiriusXM

Posted 3:27 PM by Gene

Let me guess (as I intend not to read it): THE LORD GOD STEVE IS A CON-SER-VA-TIVE!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 10:04 AM by Gene

Buffett Invests $5 Billion in Bank of America

Is this another of those no-America-we-won't-have-a-depression investments?

Posted 9:24 AM by Gene

Matty Moron -- MOROUN is finally fixing up His Michigan Central terminal, meaning 1. He expects GUVMENT to reward Him, or 2. He still isn't serious. Let's hope it's some 3.

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

No! CONCAST PICTURES has DROPPED OUIJA!

But we still have BATTLESHIP!!!!!

Isn't it great to be in the MOVEES, BRIAN ROBBER?

“With the exception of 'Bridesmaids,' it's been rough and it seems like a lot of the movies they're making are huge bets and they're all over-$200 million bets. And that's a terrifying place to be," a producer who has worked with Universal in the past told TheWrap.

Wait until people start seeing their monthly BILLS, bwahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!

Posted 8:38 PM by Gene

Even PEOPLE WARNER'S FLAGSHIP reported it!

Posted 8:37 PM by Gene

Quake concern: Why didn't cellphones work?

Maybe because everybody was dialing 911 when nothing was happening?

Posted 8:30 PM by Gene

A bad day for those of us who can't stand the press: Prof. Shafer's been laid off. Plus Romy's sort-of retiring. Where will we get out daily media fix?

Posted 8:19 PM by Gene

He has been called by many who worked with him a micro-manager, a tyrant, and a control freak.

One of the former team members who helped develop the Macintosh even once said “he would make an excellent king of France.” [First two grafs]

And this from someone who's "sad" too!

When will the hacks stop mistaking arrogance for leadership?

Posted 7:52 PM by Gene

KFC Australia will today announce it is removing toys from its children's meals in all 600 stores across the country.

It comes three years after the chicken giant committed to stop advertising or actively promoting its kids menu.

Oh oh, THIS is Ronnie McStarbucks's future, even if the future's a minor unit of Yum! Brands.

(Via the Crainiacs)

Posted 7:37 PM by Gene

A question from January 20:

Will Apple without Steve Jobs suffer like Microsoft without Bill Gates?

One might argue it suffered long before that particular God left. No, so long as the Church of Cupertino has Its cult, and the news hacks who worship It by using Its products exclusively keep churning out tracts in Its honor, It won't; but remember all those other churches that have seen better days -- and that weren't publicly traded.

Posted 7:29 PM by Gene

Should you dump Apple?

Oh ye of little faith!

Posted 7:19 PM by Gene

I don't want to be crass but given how HENRY HONEST!!!!! collapsed in a heap I can see it now: Candlelight vigils at His stores, a huge picture of God on the front of the Wall Street Journals with a HUGE black border, and possibly the TWXSTERS' NEWS RAG and THE ECONOWIZ too -- and happily, there will be much talk of LEGENDARY...happily because JACK WELCH was VERY legendary. No, I'd wager if the full truth ever emerges about Stevedom it will not be pretty. How could it be when FOXCONN makes your products?

That a DISBARRED TRADER leads the mourning does not speak well of the MOURNED.

Posted 6:52 PM by Gene

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GOD RESIGNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

We Need QE3 Like We Need A (Jackson) Hole In The Head

Any more holes in Uncle Ben's head and he won't have a head.

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

Obviously the hacks want to extend the EARTHQUAKE!!!!!'s shelf life by harping on the Washington Monument and the National Cathedral. Look, they're both old buildings; the Monument was started in 1848, so part of it's at least that old; it wasn't finished until 117 years ago. As for the Cathedral, it was started in 1907, and we doubt that very many news hacks have ever visited it. AND NO ONE WAS KILLED OR INJURED IN OR AROUND EITHER EDIFICE. Deadly cataclysms have gotten far less coverage than this exasperating EARTHQUAKE!!!!!!!!!! because it happened near THE UNIVERSE'S MOST IMPORTANT CITY. SHUT UP, hacks!

But this much is certain: Journalists are going to be doing an unusual amount of coverage of ecclesiastical architecture in the months ahead. It is time for reporters to learn the difference between a “pinnacle” and a “finial,” for example. Also, a cracked flying buttress is nothing to shake a stick at.

Hey, they don't know the difference between the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, they BEING the trinity.

Posted 1:08 PM by Gene

Sarkozy Raises Taxes on Top Earners to Meet Deficit Target as Forecast Cut

NOT A CON-SER-VA-TIVE!!!!!

Posted 10:24 AM by Gene

One of America's two big exporting companies that isn't in SHOW-BIZ has a problem:

Boeing Co., set to get government approval of its new 787 Dreamliner this week and deliver the first jet next month, expects to spend most of 2012 unwinding the record inventory built during three years of delays to the world’s first composite-plastic airliner.

Boeing amassed $16.2 billion worth of inventory related to the 787 through June 30, with so many almost-finished jets the company ran out of room to park them. There are 35 scattered outside the Everett, Washington, plant, in leased space across an adjacent airfield and in a facility in Texas. Many lack seats and lavatories and have black plastic over the windows and concrete blocks hanging from the wings to keep them from tipping over before engines are installed....

The mothballed jets represent almost $6 a share in inventory growth since 2009. Counting four planes in the factory and six test jets, Boeing has more 787s on hand than Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic Airways has planes in service.

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

How many people will PEOPLE WARNER have to fire to celebrate You-Know-Who's $1.5 million day?

Posted 6:36 PM by Gene

People somewhat panicked here in Philthydelphia, but then I don't work in a high-rise. Don't get us wrong; we're for evacuations. We're just not for panic.

In Washington the buildings are height-restricted.

Posted 6:23 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



A replacement for peanuts and bubblewrap!

Posted 6:18 PM by Gene

And yes, they PUNDITED the QUAKE!

Now their excuse is 9-11 and all that. That's their way of saying the world desperately needs them, something disproved completely by the last three years.

Posted 6:14 PM by Gene

We'll say this for David Letterman: He's shown more guts than those superhypersuccessful animation 'n' musical masters will ever show --- if they have guts to show at all.

Posted 6:09 PM by Gene

And how do we know the BELTWAY types and other such self-important creatures panicked? They bricked up the wireless networks!

Now people would say, how can you blather such a thing? Aren't people entitled to panic at a moment like that? To which I say, there were no casualties and little property damage in THE UNIVERSE'S MOST IMPORTANT TOWN, and that was surely evident almost right away. What if this had been a real disaster? We don't dare to think.

Posted 6:04 PM by Gene

Perhaps the accuser couldn't be trusted; neither, we avow, could DSK. If he goes back to being a high mucky-muck in France that will say the French haven't changed, whatever their newfound courage in Libya.

And this sums it up in a nutshell:

One Berlusconi is enough.

Posted 6:01 PM by Gene

The way our ruling class ran SCREEEEEEEEEAMING out of their Washington buildings upon the earthquake says they have not reserved their cowardice just for the halls of power.

Posted 11:22 AM by Gene

For S&P's boss to step down in favor of a Citigroup exec is our definition of irony.

Posted 9:28 AM by Gene

Needham & Company analyst Laura Martin today downgraded her recommendation on New Corp from “buy” to “hold.”

THIS IS WORSE THAN "ZEIGFIELD"!

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

DC COMICS PICTURES' publishing stub is having a problem: people aren't buying its comics anymore. Long before JEFF BEW-KES knew what a DC COMICS was its masters had already killed off Superman four times and changed Wonder Woman's corset thrice. The buyers were wise. The resident geeks even thought in 1985 of renumbering their comics editions starting with 1 but that was long before MR. BEW-KES knew what a PEOPLE WARNER was and could safely be judged a stupid idea. But now with ROWLINGCORP gone and Green Lantern turning red the stub is under great synergistic pressure to deliver. So it's come up with a new stupid idea: Comic books on iPads. I want to see the geeks collecting them. Can the brave artists of Burbank electronically revive their sainted treasures before the EVIL BEW-KES unleashes a bloodbath the likes of which the comics industry's never seen?!?!? That sounds more exciting than its rags. Hey JEFF! Start a new series -- and call it THE INVISIBLE BEW-KES AND HIS DWARFS.

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

"Anonymous donors" (chuckle chuckle) paid to vamoose our beloved skool sooperintendant out of here, which poses the question whether the incompetents atop government can be treated like CEOs and paid lush rewards for their malfeasance. And Arlene has done quite well for herself, thank you.

Posted 9:46 PM by Gene

It might be wise to wait a few days before declaring the paranoid maniac defeated.

Posted 7:19 PM by Gene

Speaking of Elvis, we are sorry to hear Jerry Leiber (on the left), half of Leiber and Stoller, has died. His songs might not have been such earth-shattering hits if The King hadn't sung them, but that was enough. They also wrote "Is That All There Is?", which occasioned Johnny Mercer to opine that they'd finally written an adult song. Well, for our tastes, bubblegum will do sometimes. And their bubblegum was very good.

P. S. I think that's the Thalberg Administration Building in the back. How apt.

Posted 7:11 PM by Gene

Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, and others at the investment bank have hired a white-collar criminal defense lawyer whose past clients include an Enron accounting officer and former WorldCom CEO, Bernard Ebber. [Bono SIC!]

Sounds GUILTY to me!

Posted 6:16 PM by Gene

Sorry Chris, but we don't think even bed-and-breakfasts can create construction jobs...



...IN THE GHEEEEE-TTOOOOO....

Posted 6:06 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



So -- this is how Brazil intends to go broke on THE GAMES, huh?

Posted 6:03 PM by Gene

But even if none of these shows pans out, the most promising is due next year, on cable: HBO’s Girls, created by the baby-genius 25-year-old Lena Dunham, whose indie film Tiny Furniture broke at Sundance. I’ve seen the pilot (which, like Bridesmaids, was co-produced by Judd Apatow), and it made me teary with excitement. Knock wood, it has the potential to be the Great Lady Hope of HBO.

*This article has been corrected to show that Up All Night airs on NBC, not ABC.

[Genius emphasis added]



For that asterisk alone A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO EMILY!

Posted 3:31 PM by Gene

Speaking of Republicans:

Breaking: Paul Ryan Won’t Run

So which can't-put-a-sentence-together-with-more-than-four-words candidate will it be?

Posted 3:29 PM by Gene

PILLHEAD!!!!! The FCC has finally eliminated the FAIRNESS DOCTRINE!!!!!

Now you can BLOVIATE all you want!

Posted 3:12 PM by Gene

Bernanke May Have to Go for 'Shock and Awe': Strategist

Hasn't Uncle Ben awed the rich enough?

We apologize. An error has occurred. Please try again.

When do you apologize, Uncle Ben?

Posted 10:16 AM by Gene

But five months after “Rambo” - as some of the French press branded him back then - announced French jets had launched the first raid on the Libyan leader, even some Socialists like Jacques Lang are now coming out today to Sarko credit where credit is due.

“Today, everyone can be thankful that France grew in stature by committing itself with determination and success to win the battle for Libya’s freedom. We should give credit to those who inspired international action at the United Nations.”

And GUESS WHO shrunk.

Posted 9:51 AM by Gene

“Warren Buffett hasn’t just seen the car of the future, he’s sitting in the driver’s seat!!!!!!!!!!” [TWXSTER-we'll-sell-anything overemphasis added]

TapocketapocketapocketapocketapocketapocketapocketapocketaBSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHH!!!!!

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

Let me guess: Rick becomes THE favorite with con-SER-va-tives because he really DOES believe in Shakespeare!

If he knows who he is.

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

We would provisionally congratulate Libya's people but we will hold our applause until a new government takes place for in too many despotisms revolution merely brings a new despotism.

Posted 9:08 PM by Gene

Even if the future of movees is more exportable CRAP, China most likely can't export its, for too many reasons: the race factor, the culture factor, the language factor, the political factor, and most certainly because Arthur Freed is no more alive in China than here.

I don't care what the SUPERNIKKI!!!!!s cheer, this is one trade war I'd rather we DIDN'T win.

Posted 8:54 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily or AHTSJournal?

When Beijing hosted the Olympic Games three years ago, the biggest star was arguably not swimmer Michael Phelps or sprinter Usain Bolt, but the National Stadium built for the games: more commonly known as the Bird's Nest. The stadium became an instant international icon, and one that has yet to be surpassed or even neared in terms of compelling, unique architecture.

Last week on the ESPN-affiliated website Grantland, writer Peter Richmond viewed stadiums like the Bird's Nest in comparison to the recent stadiums built in New York and elsewehere in the United States, all of which engender a giant yawn. The billion-dollar replacement for legendary Yankee Stadium? A boring clone. The new Citi Field, home to the Mets? It's stuck in even more of a historicist time-warp, meant to evoke Brooklyn's old Ebbetts [SIC!] Field practically brick for brick.

Why is there no Bird's Nest in the United States, and why hasn't there been a great stadium or arena built here in seemingly decades?

Well maybe because we don't have half our national budget to waste on the GAMES, hmmmm?

And how many huge events have played the Nest lately, hmmmm?

It's a toss up, but this was linked in AHTSJournal.

Posted 8:22 PM by Gene

If it's Sunday it must be Big Double-A-Scribble Time:

1. Brian has forgotten the one thing that destroyed the Pan Am brand. Mentioning Pan Am so prominently must bring back that awful saga. Even without it the first thing sure to greet this show is wails from cri-TICS who'll accuse it of copying one of the greatest achievements in cultural history, meaning this show probably won't last long enough to turn nostalgia into a business, especially if it earns that other show's ratings, which might not work on network television.

2. We guess Walmart's recent sag owes less to people finding lower prices on the Web -- it's that, surely, too -- and more to the company finding fewer exurbs. Even without intolerant Democrats we wonder if Sam's idea fits in the big city anyway. Or to put it bluntly, an elephant can only eat so much. The company is too big to turn into the GM of shopping but look what happened to GM -- and Walmart doesn't have any unions.

3. By now everyone knows of the TouchPad fire sale. Here's another instance where advertising may have hurt. Yes HP may have had an inferior product but it did not help to have a man sneeringly and justly referred to as Mr. Katy Perry do the pitch, which along with the consequent sales must have been disastrous enough to make up HP's mind for it. What an irony that device has sold so well today, but like such glories as the MiniDisc it may soon be a technological wonder without a purpose.

And how nice: the better the fire sale sells, the more likely we're stuck with STEVEDOM.

4. Are we ready to MAKE MONEY!!!!!?