The Thistles and the Twist

Lo, the chicken-f***ing does not end in Kingdom Erris. One fine morning, on the Day of Tyr, Squire Bugiganga got to the castle bright and early, before anyone else got there, so that he may depart early. He awakened his Windows XP Pro unicorn, and the first thing that appeared was a scroll from ShaqsDad the Destroyer, address to all the squires, requesting some one to execute a task:

“I need someone to travel to a Rook of Greece and find the magic number that will enable us to make more rooks across the land. I need this by morning, so get this done as soon as possible.”

Despite his disdain for the Destroyer, your noble narrator decided to take the charge. He journeyed yonder to the Rook of Greece. I got lost along the way, but made it there safely. There was nary a house nor hut, nor stable for many miles. There apparently was nary a snow plow either. There was a wall of metal thistles surrounding the rook. There was a gate, but the gate was locked. This was not a good idea. You ever-dedicated adventurer looked at the e-mail again, and read it fully:

“I need someone to travel to a Rook of Greece and find the magic number that will enable us to make more rooks across the land. I need this by morning, so get this done as soon as possible…[further down the e-mail]

(Oh, you might have to vault a wall of metal thistles to find the magic number :)).”

Squire Bugiganga was not content with the entire e-mail. He was already at the Rook of Greece, though, and just wanted to get it done. He figured out a way to climb the wall. As he climbed, he thought what everyone would in his situation: “If someone drives past here, my black a** is going to jail…I hate you ShaqsDad.”

At the top of the wall, he saw the land inside, and saw nothing but ice and snow. He thought, “I’m going to jump down and slip and not be found for a week. I should have just stayed in the Castle…man, I really hate you, ShaqsDad…”

Miraculously, your nimble narrator landed fine, got the elusive magic number, and got back to Kingdom Erris safely…then, on his way to the castle gate while walking from his chariot, he twisted his ankle in the lot of chariots, spraining it for a fortnight.

The moral of this story is…there is none. I f***ing hate you, ShaqsDad.

Mounting the Manpack

Your ever-eager narrator has been working under the roof of this kingdom for nearly two years now. Many moons have passed, and much inanity has been witnessed. The crown gem of the inanity is not the antics of less-than-honest nobles or being told that the kingdom has been granted great amounts of gold, and to celebrate, they’d use the gold that could have been used to give its subject raises on mountains of doughnuts and oceans of coffee. The crown jewel of the Kingdom’s office idiocy the chosen nomenclature of the products we sell.

We’re dropping the faux-medieval mixed with Clockwork Orange speak for a moment so that you can appreciate the full effect of this. I still may refer to myself in third person, but that is only because I’m an arrogant bastard. One product we make is radios. They are good quality radios by which many customers swear. They work under pressure, after getting wet, after numerous impact shocks, et al. A radio of such good quality should have a name that commands respect; something that commands respect, that illustrates how rugged yet compact it is. The company decided to go with the term “Manpack”…ok, a homoerotic allusion would not be the way I would go, what with all the military and police customers we have, but maybe they won’t notice. What about the smaller radios, the ones that people can carry with them? Oh, we’ll just call it a “hand-held” radio. That’s fine. But what if I am in a vehicle? I should be able to lock my hand-held into a docking station to charge it and amplify its power. When I’m ready to go, I can just pull it out and be on my way…until we have an official presentation to a customer regarding the docking station and hand-held radio, where we call the function of taking the hand-held out of the docking station “Jerk-and-Run technology”. So I’m really going to jerk and run with my handheld, which is next to my manpack.

Back to the Manpack, the latest one had a naming issue (besides the “Manpack” thing); a competing company is in the process of trademarking the term, HCDR, which is another nickname for one of our manpacks (oh yes, there are more than one). Our marketing team has come up with a new name: MBNR, or as someone skillfully pointed out, the “M-Boner”…The M-Boner! Why don’t we go full hog? Let’s make an antenna called the Muilti-Environment Amplified Transmission Pole, or “MEAT Pole” for short? We can shove the MEAT Pole right into one of the rear inputs of the Manpack, thereby making it a super M-Boner? It will be three times as powerful as the jerk-and-run hand-held.

I am quite certain that one of two things is happening: either the marketing director is getting naming suggestions from his/her 13-year old son, or we have hired “What-She-Said Industries” to do all the naming for us. Regardless, it is getting more and more apparent that the Emperor is not wearing clothes…KFTC.