Classic Dishes...



High Praise Indeed

Dig this: This is a portion of a post directed to me by a fellow member of the game-show geek message board that I participate on who shall remain nameless, following a mocking comment I made in another thread about how this fellow is absolutely hellgone and convinced that I am “Evil Personified”:

“Good for you, by the way. The first step is admitting that you are evil personified. Every single negative quality on this board rolled up into one mind-bogglingly popular package. I would give anything to make sure I don’t end up like you.”

Didja see that? “One mind-bogglingly popular package”! That’s the kind of thing they say about really really good TV shows, not people. I can’t remember the last time I was paid a compliment like that.

I don’t know how to thank him.

September Finally Ended

I guess Steve Case feels that his untrained kittens have filled the great sandbox that is USENet with enough shit that it’s time to move along. America Online announced yesterday that they would discontinue support of USENet newsgroups for their customers.

I love the quotes from the spokesdrone: “We are seeing that traffic on newsgroups is pretty minimal at this point.” Gee, could that be because your idiot members turned it into such a festering pile of crap that nobody can stand to deal with the signal to noise ratio?

Proof once again that AOL is the scumsucking parasite of the Internet. I am proud to offer them what I hope will become a regular feature here at Chez Fred, the inaugural Oreck Vacuums “You Just Suck” award.

Programming Note

In a truly class move, Jay Leno is scrapping tonight’s guest lineup (which included Paris Hilton, actor Ian McShane, and musical guest Ani DiFranco) for a special show featuring Ed McMahon, Bob Newhart, Don Rickles, Drew Carey, and k.d. lang.

Set the recorders, folks. I have a feeling this one’s gonna be a keeper.

(Okay, I’d have rathered someone other than k.d. lang. Not a favorite of mine. But she owes much of her career to her success on Tonight, so I’ll let it slide.)

No More To Come

So I woke up this morning to learn that Johnny Carson died, at the age of 79.

I love making people laugh. But I’m a technology geek, which means I like knowing how things work, and often that nerdity extends to everyday life, so I’ve always been fascinated with HOW to make people laugh….I know I have a gift, but what is it exactly that I have?

Nobody, but NOBODY, knew more about HOW to be funny than Johnny Carson. That’s what I admired about him…not just that he was innately funny himself (and god, was he), but that he understood what was happening that MADE “funny”, for lack of a better term.

Timing, perhaps? Carson was the Babe Ruth of comedic timing. And he knew it. At his home in Malibu, he has a throw pillow upon which is embroidered the phrase “It’s All In The Timing”. There were times on his show when Johnny was funnier just saying nothing that whatever could have POSSIBLY come out of his mouth.

The characters: Art Fern, and the Tea Time Movie. Floyd R. Turbo, American. And of course, the Visitor from the Far East, Carnac the Magnificent. Yeah, Steve Allen started the gimmick with the Question Man, but like with so much else, Carson made it something great. May a yak in heat become your sister’s French tutor.

When Johnny left television, he took something with him. But at least we knew that he did it with some time left to enjoy his twilight days engaging in what is often the best of all possible pastimes: nothing. And now that he’s teed off of this mortal coil, he’s taken it with him again. But now it’s gone, and we’re all worse off for it.

It’s a shame my ride to work doesn’t pass by the Slauson cutoff. (I’ve actually seen it when I was in LA once. Wish I’d taken a picture.) I would consider it an honor to get out of my car, cut off my Slauson, and get back in my car, all for the man more people have gotten laid to than anyone else on television. :)

I envy St. Peter. You have to think he grabbed the mic when he saw Carson on line at the Gates and said “I’ve been waiting to announce THIS one for a LONG time!”

I only hope he gave him all the time he wanted for the monologue. I imagine Johnny had quite a lot to say.

Sometimes They Just Write Themselves

I GET LETTERS: When someone sends you email, it’s yours. You can do what you want with it at that point, including posting it for the world to see. So we’re going to look at the disclaimer at the bottom of this one first, that we might all enjoy a hearty laugh:

> Confidentiality Notice: This email message, including any attachments,

> is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain

> confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the

> intended recipient(s), you are hereby notified that any dissemination,

> unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution of this email and

> any materials contained in any attachments is prohibited. If you

> receive this message in error, or are not the intended recipient(s),

> please immediately notify the sender by email and destroy all copies

> of the original message, including

> attachments.

Yeah-friggin’-right. :) And you’ll soon see why they would like their email recipients to follow this policy, because they are about to display themselves as total and complete boobs.

A little background, which you may or may not already have: That link on the navigation bar to the left there that says “My Resume” does in fact link to, well, my resume, under the whimsical title “Look What I Can Do”. Now, to get this straight: I am not actively looking for a new job, I like the one I have, but at the same time if the right gig came along, I’d be willing to listen, as any sane person should. However, there were some early indications that this was NOT the Right Gig:

> To: “Look What I Can Do!”

> Hi Look,

Right off the bat, I knew this one was gonna be something special. One line down:

> This is xxxxx from Thinking Minds Inc.

Thinking Minds. Apparently not.

> We are an ERP consulting firm

> specializing in project staff augmentation for large enterprise

> projects.

Ah, this is starting to make sense. If you haven’t filled out your Buzzword Bingo card yet, this one translates loosely to “We are headhunters with no technological skills whatsoever, who throw any and all candidates at the positions we need to fill to see what might stick.”

It then went on to list the gig, and the requirements therein:

> Position title: – “Clarify Configurator / Developer”

> Requirements:-

> * Resource should have 3+ years of experience in Oracle.

> * 2-3 years of experience in the following (Mandatory):

> *J2EE

> *Unix

> *BEA Weblogic

> *Clarify Configuration

There’s the missing piece. Yes, I’ve used Clarify when I was at Microsoft. No, I don’t know the first damn thing about how it works on the back end, nor have I ever represented such. Clearly this jackbag simply searched the web for resumes including the word Clarify, and spammed every single hit he got, without regard to whether the candidate was actually in any way qualified for the position, or, for that matter, without concern for what an utter ninny such an action makes him look like.

And finally, the kicker:



> Location: Oklahoma City, OK. Duration: 1 Months

Yes! By God! Let me drop everything for a one-month gig in freaking OKLAHOMA CITY!

This is the kind of gig that, if I had more free time on my hands, I would respond to, just to talk to this recruiter guy and see how much I could totally screw with his head. I have a special level of Hell reserved for temp recruiters anyhow, but it’s clear this guy needs a ticket on the Express Train…

What’s In A Name

I hate it when a sports team names itself for a state instead of a city. The Golden State Warriors, the Colorado Avalanche, and the Utah Jazz, among others, are guilty of this. In the case of the Warriors, it’s for marketing: they don’t ACTUALLY play in San Francisco, but they want San Franciscans to support them. Hell, the stinkin’ New York football teams don’t even play in freakin’ New York!

Golden State, though. That one always chapped me. California is a big place with many major metropolitan areas. How DARE these guys claim to represent the entire state! ESPECIALLY with the Lakers down south winning championship rings?

The Avs play in Denver. Nothing wrong with Devner. It works for the Nuggets and the Broncos. Are the Avs and Rockies embarrassed to be in Denver? On the other hand, the New Jersey thing, I totally understand. :)

The California Angels always bugged me, too. California has FIVE baseball teams. Who are THEY to suggest they are the state’s official team? One of the few good things Disney did, when they bought the team and realized that most people knew where Anaheim was and associated it with a rather large amusement park holding of the same parent company, renamed the team to the Anaheim Angels. Amaheim. Great. That’s where you play, that’s the name of the stadium, you should be named for the city. Perfect.

Well, apparently that’s not good enough for new owner Arte Moreno, who bought the team the year after they won their first World Series, in 2003. He feels the need to glom on to Southern California again, and has renamed the team to The Los Angeles Angels Of Anaheim. Gawd. What a pain in the ass. Bad enough when the Ducks did it, but that was Disney capitalizing on a movie. This makes no sense at all.

Arte’s not fooling anyone, and that’s a hell of a nice way to say thanks to a city that renovated their multiuse stadium into a beautiful baseball park just for the team that stayed.

I’m waiting to see what happens when The Loe Angeles Angels of Anaheim roll into D.C. to square off against The Washington Nationals, Formerly The Montreal Expos, at This Used To Be Halliburton Stadium Until The FTC Buried Their Dumb Asses, So Now We’re Named For A Nice Quiet Product Like Sprite Field.

Go-ing, Go-ing, Gone

TivoToGo has been activated.

Excuse me while I soil myself.

from the missing-the-boat dept.

Slashdot just now figures out that Comcast ruined TechTV.

Way to bring the hard-hitting news, folks. You only missed this one by SIX FREAKIN’ MONTHS.

(Happy New Year, by the way.)