Sally Struthers Asks You to Save the Dot-Coms

warland writes "Right now, all over the world, dot-coms are suffering. All that is needed is someone who will look into the eyes of a needy dot-com and say, "Yes, I will help." Someone like you."

Comments

apologies to John Cleese

[GOD_ALMIGHTY]

Customer: I wish to register a complaint about this stock, what I purchased not half hour ago from this very brokerage.

Broker: Oh yes, the Dot-Com, what's aah, what's wrong with it?

Customer: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. It's dead, that's what's wrong with it.

Broker: No, no, 'e's ah... he's strategizing.

Customer : Look, matey, I know a dead Dot-Com when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.

Broker : No no, h-he's not dead, he's, he's strategizin'!

Customer : Strategizin'?

Broker : Y-yeah, Strategizin.'
Remarkable stock, the Dot-Com, isn't it, eh? Beautiful website!

Customer : The website don't enter into it. It's stone dead!

Broker : Nononono, no, no! 'E's
strategizin!

Customer : All right then,
if he's strategizing, I'll wake him
up!

(shouting at the cage)

'Ello, Dotty! Mister Dot-Comie! I've got a lovely fresh IPO for you if you wake up, Mr. Dot-Com...

Broker : There, he moved!

Customer : No, he didn't, that was you sending out a press release!

Broker : I never!!

Customer : Yes, you did!

Broker : I never, never....

Customer : 'ELLO DOTTAAAAAAAY! DOTT-EE! DOT-COM! WAKE UP!

TESTIIIING! TESTIIIING! THIS IS YOUR ANNUAL REPORT!

DOT-EEEEEEE!

Now that's what I call a dead parrot.

Broker: No, no.... No, he's reorganizing.

Customer : REORGANIZING?

Broker : Yeah! You stunned him, just as he was wakin' up! Dot-Coms stun easily, major.

Customer : Look my lad, I've had just about enough of this. That Dot-Com is
definitely deceased, and when I bought it not half an hour ago, you assured me that
its total lack of movement was due to it being tired and shagged out after a long
martket expansion.

Broker : Well, he's... he's, ah... probably developin' a patent portfolio.

Customer : DEVELOPIN' a PATENT PORTFOLIO? What kind of talk is that? Look, why did he fall
flat on his back the moment I got 'im home?

Broker : The Dot-Com prefers kippin' new marketin strategies! Remarkable stock, isn't it, guv, eh? Lovely website!

Customer : (coldly) Look, I took the liberty of examining that stock when I got
it home, and I discovered the only reason that it had been sitting on the market in
the first place was that it had been NAILED there.

Broker : Well, of course it was nailed there! If I hadn't nailed that stock down, it
would have nuzzled up to those markets, bent 'em apart with its little B2B sales force, and VOOM!

Customer : "VOOM?"

Customer : Look matey, this stock wouldn't "voom" if you put four thousand venture capitalists through it! It's bleedin' demised!

Broker : It's not! I-It's patenting!

Customer : It's not patenetin,' it's passed on! This company is no more! It has ceased
to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late stock! It's a stiff!
Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed him up with venture capital he would be
pushing up the daisies! Its business processes are of interest only to historians!
It's hopped the twig! It's shuffled off this mortal coil! It's run down the curtain
and joined the choir invisible! This.... is an F*CKED-COMPANY!

Broker : Well, I'd better replace it, then.

A poem.

[BilldaCat]

First they came for the Boos,
but I did not speak out,
because I did not shop there.

Then they came for the free-www-providers,
but I did not speak out,
because I had a cable modem.

Then they came for the petstores,
but I did not speak out,
because I did not own a pet.

Then they came for the movie sites,
but I did not speak out,
because I was busy boycotting Hollywood.

Then they came for VA Linux and Slashdot,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

The sad thing is

[BluedemonX]

there were a lot of *us* working 80 hour weeks and to unreasonable deadlines with relatively poorer salaries in the vain expectation that the stock options would eventually pay off. After all, we all knew, or knew someone who knew, someone who cashed in big on stock options and retired with millions in his or her early 20s.

While we yuk and guffaw at the suits watching their paper castles crash to the floor, remember that for each of these there was a back room where techs worked underpaid 12 hour days to support these 8 hour day clowns who were most certainly NOT underpaid.

I never benefited from the dot com boom. Am I bitter? Slightly. Do I celebrate the demise? Not really. Yeah, it's hubris, but a lot of people got crushed. Especially investors who bought high on margin.