Irrelevance Glorified

First of all, I’m no business man. I’ve got no MBA degree, I’m just a humble engineer. I don’t know how to, say, take risky mortgages and package them all together into an amorphous mass that, while easier to disguise and thus sell, ends up severing the relationship between homeowner and bank. And I probably wouldn’t think of slicing parts of my company out into thousands of pieces, giving those pieces assets, getting banks to give those “special purpose entities” low interest loans based on those assets, and then getting the S.P.E.’s to lend that money to my main corporation to raise money without appearing to be in debt. I’m just not that smart.
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As you may have heard, Radiohead recently put out their latest album, but with an interesting twist — you decided how much you would pay for it. Seriously. 0$ was a valid option. Interesting business model. But the key thing is, Radiohead is huge enough that they don’t need a label, so this was all done without an evil record company (seriously, they eat babies) behind them. They aren’t quite New Media, though, as they were also releasing a physical CD sometime later. But in October, they were taking orders for a special Discbox. Because I am a big dork, of course I ordered one, and it arrived a few weeks ago. Here are some pics. If they appear a little blurry, you’re probably just drunk, or have glaucoma. Continue Reading »

Well, thanks to the strike, I really don’t have much new Daily Show to post. So I’ll just be forced to make stuff up. It has been determined that if I was a superhero, my superpower would be a heightened ability to search for things on the Internet. It’s just how I’ve been blessed. So today….I will talk about the Internet. Have you heard of it?

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While home a few weeks ago, I found myself going through some of my old things. My Mom is always threatening to throw out some of the stuff that I have kept in my room for the past 10-13 years while I’ve been away, so I wanted to make sure that I set aside anything I wanted. I came across something that I made in 1985, so just about 1st grade, in Mrs. Burkhardt’s class. It’s graphic proof that I was a pretty lame child. Van Gogh, I was not. Also, apparently I was pretty unambitious. Alternately, it could show that even back then I was pretty good at providing acceptably sanitized descriptions of my desires.

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In September, Jesse and I took a trip out to Portland to visit Bruce and Tina. A lot of hiking and pictures ensued. Thanks to Bruce’s sharing nature, I have the pics and have posted them up on Flickr. Click on the flashy badges blow to go to the sets, or hit the “continue reading” button to get more info after the jump.

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The date : some time in the near past.
The scene : a smoky, dimly-lit room. No windows; presumably far underground. A large square table stands in the center of the room. Seated around the table are a number of humanoid shapes — they are bulky, stocky, and unmemorable. Each one an old, white-haired male. Their facial features are vaguely lit from below by low lamps on the table.

Shadowy Figure 1: Well, I’ll call this meeting to order. Does anyone remember what we ended with last week?
Shadowy Figure 2: I believe the last thing decided on before we adjourned was gas prices for the next 10 weeks.
Shadowy Figure 1: Ah yes, gas prices. Before we leave today, we’ll have to decide who will win the upcoming primaries. We can hold off on deciding the election for a few months. Does anyone have any business they would like to introduce?
Shadowy Figure 3: There is something I need to bring to everyone’s attention — www.ranjeetrao.com is updating again.
[agitated murmuring all around]
Shadowy Figure 4: Him again! I thought he was too lazy to write anything!
Shadowy Figure 5: What will we do? He must be stopped! If he continues to post blog updates, he could lead a revolution that will destroy everything that we have worked so hard to accomplish! His influence must not be underestimated!
Shadowy Figure 6: Shall I call for the ninjas? They can “take care” of our problem.
Shadowy Figure 1: No! If he is silenced, then he will just serve as a martyr for his followers. He must be made to silence…himself!
Shadowy Figure 7: There must be a way to occupy him….look at his latest entries…they are all concerning Illinois Football.
Shadowy Figure 1: Yes! That is the answer…we must concentrate his attention on Illinois football, so that he can spend less time unraveling our web of lies! First up, let’s have them upset Ohio State.
Shadowy Figure 4: Consider it done. I know…people.
Shadowy Figure 1: Yes, yes, what else can we do?
Shadowy Figure 3: Can we get them to a BCS bowl?
Shadowy Figure 2: Better! How about the Rose Bowl!
Shadowy Figure 7: That’s crazy! They can’t win the Big Ten…for them to get to the Rose Bowl after upsetting Ohio State, we’ll have to get Ohio State back to the top 2 in the BCS and Illinois in the top 14 of the BCS rankings, and then keep the Rose Bowl from picking anyone else!
Shadowy Figure 1: Gentlemen, we have a lot of work to do. We cannot waste time laughing maniacally; we must suspend our micromanaging of the world and concentrate on the task at hand. All agreed?
[murmured assent]
Then meeting adjourned!
[Exit all characters, shuffling out of the single exit. Last one out turns off the light]