Being an Uber Geek is not an easy thing for the husband. He is the IT guy for plenty of people: my parents, his parents, our friends and a number of small to mid-sized corporations. One of his jobs as Uber Geek is to hook these people up with software, as such he is a Microsquash Partner, because he gets good deals. He also gets loads of marketing tchotchkes from Microsquash. Some of this stuff is cool---a free USB memory key, beta versions of Office, etc.---but most of it is pure, unadulterated crap. T-shirts. Oxford shirts. Little foam rubber cars that have Windows XP Pro plastered all over them. Pens. Paper. You name one cheapola marketing tchotchke that you have on your desk currently from some company you have to deal with, and Microsquash has sent us a version of it.
These packs of tchotchkes just show up at the house. Today, for some unknown reason, DHL dropped a box from Microsquash off at the back of the house. The Cake Eater neighbor pulled his Passat into the garage tonight and just narrowly missed the box. He brought it up as I was fixing dinner and I handed it off to the husband, wondering what they'd sent him this time---particularly because the box was intended to cause a frisson.
I mean, it's not every day you get a package that declares, "Partners in Paradise: Maui may only be a deployment away." I thought, hey, here's our chance to go to Hawaii on Microsquash's dime. They're finally going to play free and loose with the payola! Excellent!
So, the husband opens it up...
And it's more crapola, of course. No free software. No free USB memory cards. Instead, it's leis. They sent him leis.
Ron freakin' Popeil should have been standing there, announcing to the world, "But, wait! There's more!" Because there was, indeed, more.
My devoted Cake Eater Readers, I have the pleasure of showing you just how Bill Gates chooses to spend that $40 some odd billion he has lying around on the people who recommend software for him.
Bill sent the husband a...
What the hell?
So now I have a freakin' pineapple in the fridge. Thanks, Bill!
Fortunately for me, Feisty Christina has some ideas for what I can do with it.
Posted by Kathy at March 18, 2005 08:20 AMIf you've seen the movie "Little Nicky", you'd know about the "other" use for a pineapple. (Don't rent it just to find out, it's pure dreck)
Posted by: Russ from Winterset at March 18, 2005 09:00 AMHahahahaa!
That's too funny!
Well worth the price of admission on that one!
; )
Posted by: Christina at March 18, 2005 12:34 PMSo, how much of this "hoo-ie" (that's what we call this kinda stuff where I'm from) ends up being useful and how much ends up being landfill?
At least the pineapple may have some use eh?
Posted by: The Wizard at March 18, 2005 02:34 PMBah-hahahahaha! I've heard of folks being "lei'd" by Micro$haft but never in that exact terminology, iffn' you catch my drift.
Posted by: Margi at March 20, 2005 09:20 PM