I ordered 123,456,789 i-openers from Netpliance on 2/30/1900. I didn't want
to get charged for the service, so I paid using wampum. Though they took my
wampum, they told me that unless I promised them my first born child, they
would sign me up for a lifetime of service and a barium enema in the next
2.54 picoseconds.
I, of course, told them that they could have my brother's cousin's uncle's
sister's nephew's former roommates dog. The customer service rep agreed,
but then began speaking in tongues in what sounded like some sort of
devil-worship ceremony.
I hung up, but my phone began to melt. I didn't think anything of it at the
time, but...
My package arrived 6.02 x 10^23 days later. FedEx re-routed it through
Alaska, but it got delayed in Oz, and inspected by Lollipop Guild customs.
By the time it got to me, I had to run out to the office, so I'll tell you
about it in 20 minutes..
I opened the box, and other than being frozen in liquid carbonite, it was
totally unmodified. That, and the entire case was sealed in melted epoxy
with a big sticker that said "Do Not Open Until Christmas". Fortunately, I
had my Acme de-epoxifier and my Ronco fishing pole/nose picker/sticker
remover. I was able to open the case in a simple procedure requiring only a
Philips head screwdriver and two beers.
At that point, I decided to modify the system. After desoldering all the
parts from the motherboard and filing all distinguishing marks from them, I
was able to reassemble the motherboard in the dark, blindfolded, with my
hands tied behind my back and a live gerbil in my pants. Of course, I had
squeezed out another .0234 MHz from the chip and increased my
SLYANDTHEFAMILYstone mark to 1973. My thumbs were bleeding, but I got the
parts back in the case, and started it up.
Soon, I had installed a modified, patched, recompiled, disassembled, and
obfuscated Linux .0.56-pre7 kernel with the FooBarBaz modules and the
cuisinart option. This meant that I had to program the system in Mandarin
Chinese, but I soon was able to use the command line interface to start my
pre-alpha Berlin windowing system and connect using SSSSHHHH to the
Alphastation running NetBSD in a VMWare window on Windows NT 3.51 on my
desktop, which was why I bought the system to begin with. Now I can eat ice
cream, pick my toe nails, watch the ice capades, and check my e-mail from my
solarium.
I was pretty excited at this point, but the true adventure was just about to
begin. 5 Netpliance agents, 3 FBI agents, 2 Secret Service Agents, and the
Pope carrying a partridge in a pear tree bust down the door. At first, I
though that they were looking for Kevin Mitnick, but I called John Markoff,
and he told me that they were actually looking for me. I was told that John
Vranesevich had flipped over on me, now that he was a black/white/top hat
hacker.
It seems that by looking at my machine with the top off, I had offended the
spirits of the Ark. They told me that I was lucky to have avoided having my
face melted off, and that only by squeezing my eyes shut after dropping the
hammer on my toe had I avoided total obliteration. I could see now why they
called it the i-opener.
They tried to seize my machine, but I chained myself to the back of their
cars before they could drive off. They drove off anyway, dragging me down
the street. My faithful border collie, Linus, called 911, Ralph Nader, and
the ACLU. Ralph and his crime-fighting super buddies swooped down in their
ship, the ICANNsucksmyballs.com.sucks, and cut me free. Meanwhile, the ACLU
teamed up with Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson to land on top of the
Netpliance van where they were holding my i-opener. After liberating the
computer, they put a cap in the back of each Netpliance agent's head. As
they car swerved wildly, it struck and killed Linus.
I am now suing them for $123 kajillion dollars. Of course, they deserve it,
because anyone who knows how to run a company should have anticipated all of
this. Also, this is mere chump change, because selling 123,456,789
computers @ 99$ computer, with costs of $50-5000 bucks per computer equates
to a profit of $2 gazillion per machine. Plus, they had an IPO, and they
are now valued higher than Iceland, so they can afford it.
--Can we end the stupid discussions about this shit and get back to doing
something useful. Just my $.02
Thomas Reagan
