The Crapolla According to Fek'Lar

You Know You're a Real Geek When...

You demand the title Boffin on your business card.

You've stumbled onto another issue of The Crapolla, a journal written for software professionals. No not the managers; I mean the people who do the work.

This Crapolla is sponsored by...

In This Issue...

Reprogramming your loser television network.

Take A Letter

Abhishek in Cube 8421 writes...

Good Morning, Fek'Lar,

Can you tell me how can I tell if my company is a loser?

Warmest Regards,

Abhishek
Cubical 8421

Hello Abhishek,

One way to know your company is a loser is if they ever ask you to sell the company's product to your friends and family, and you're not in the Sales department. Anytime the company asks employees to buy the product means the company is desperate. In all cases, the employee purchases cannot sustain the company, and it will probbaly fail.

Take my advise and pull your ripcord now! Then send me a letter with the company's stock ticker symbol so I can short it.

A New Method to Program a Television Network

Remember The Gong Show? Of course you don't, you weren't born yet. This was a Chuck Barris program where really horrible acts went on stage and tried to survive a set period of time without a judge getting up and banging a gong to toss it off the stage. This was the precursor to American Idol, just without the audience voting. During the writers' strike, Trouble and I came up with a new way to program the television schedule. And I think The Gong Show was the secret.

The current way to program a television network is to accept proposals in the late part of the year, and then order up pilot episodes of the promising candidates right after the holidays. When the pilots comes in, you screen them and later throw darts at 3 X 5 index cards to decide which you'll green light as series. The trouble is, a little more than half of the shows you green-lit fail. The average tenure of a network programmer is 2 years. You spend the first half of your tenure blaming your predecessor for the dissasters you inherited, and the second half you drink a lot as everyone figures out you have no idea what you are doing. The average age of a network programmer is 26. The success rate of these decisions is about 50 percent. A Diet Coke swigging monkey has as much chance picking hit shows as the over-paid bottled water drinking chimps who are doing it now.

Let's take another look at this process. Where is the audience? No where. Some snot-nosed 26 year old is making a decision based on what, his years of experience? The truth is this brat doesn't know what will happen, and the most important people, the audience, are not involved. Our proposal changes all of this.

Just like before, in December the network accepts series proposals. They do nothing until January when they order up pilots. Now here's the good part. Right after March Madness, all of the pilots are aired in a marrathon session. The audience via text messaging (from which the network will receive some revenue) votes their approval and disapproval. If the dissaproval rises too high, the show doesn't finish. It's Gonged and leaves the stage. The next show is immediately started even if it's not 30 or 60 past the hour. The shows with the best approval ratings are picked up as series.

The best thing about this bit of democracy is it would be a profitable event the audience would look forward to every year. People who normally wouldn't tune in would stay home to watch this high-speed train wreck, and they would gladly pay 99 cents to Gong Charlie Sheen. Most importantly, we have a much better chance of getting a new crop of shows the audience actually wants to watch next fall.

This Issue's Headline submission to the National Daily World Enquiring Globe.

Box Office Shocker!!

Indy is Darth's Father!

Let's play, "Who said this?"

Heard in the halls of various software companies.

"Are you nuts? Don't let Woz hold your money. He can't hold his money!"

"I'm not sure if they're closing shop yet, but there's a buzzard circling over the building."

"I would sell my soul for free food!"

"I'm sorry, but magic just isn't implemented in this version. Maybe next time."

"I went to Vegas, saw obscene T-Shirts, and thought of you!"

Excuse Me

My chimp wants to make a stock trade.

Fek'Lar
They pay me to think. These are my thoughts. Do you think they are getting their money's worth?

Remember: The Crapolla contains my personal opinions. That's right they're mine, so get your own! And you kids get off my lawn!

Although written with the software professional in mind, my mind tends to wander all over the place, and I sometimes write about politics, mass stoopidity, dumb things I saw, and whatever else comes to mind.

From time to time, I use salty language, thus The Crapolla is not intended for children, or certain people in the Bush Administration.

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EOJ

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