[humorix] What Did Santa Claus Bring You?

[James Baughn <jbaughn@ldd.net>]

What Did Santa Claus Bring You?
December 28, 1999

Right now is that bizarre intra-holiday week between
Christmas and New Year's Day when nobody wants to do
anything but eat, sleep, and play with their gifts.  We
here at Humorix were desperate for some comedy filler
material to round out the year, but at the same time we
didn't to do anything that would require extensive mental
effort.  So, we decided to interview several people and ask
them what they received from Santa Claus (or their local
equivalent).

LINUS TORVALDS: Santa didn't bring me anything, but Tim
O'Reilly just gave me a large sum of money to publish my
new book, "Linus Torvalds' Official Guide To Receiving
Fame, Fortune, and Hot Babes By Producing Your Own
Unix-Like Operating System In Only 10 Years". Of course,
once Transmeta has its IPO next year, I'll be so wealthy
that I won't need to care about Christmas presents ever
again.

BILL GATES: Will you people quit bothering me?  I'm Bill
Gates of Winchester, Tennessee!  Next Christmas I'm going
to get a restraining order against Humorix reporters.  I
should get a legal name change to, maybe something like Mr.
Humorix Sucks.

LINUX HACKER: I kept hinting to my friends and family that
I wanted to build my own Beowulf Cluster.  My grandmother
got mixed up and gave me a copy of "Beowulf's Chocolate
Cluster Cookbook". I like chocolate, but I would've
preferred silicon.

JON SPLATZ: No, Santa Fraud didn't bring me anything.  You
know, Santa Claus and the whole Christmas holiday represent
exactly what's wrong with this country.  It's yet another
manifestion of the evil that lawyers and marketers have
spread throughout American culture.

Think about it... We have millions of parents lying to their
children about Santa Claus.  They use the Santa myth to get
their children to behave, effectively bribing them with the
gifts. Such behavior scars children at an early age,
preparing them for a career in the legal field.  It's a
simple fact: the children of immoral parents will
subconsciously yearn to become immoral lawyers when they
grow up.  We are raising a generation of liars, lawyers,
and marketers all because of some stupid myth designed to
sell more overpriced made-in-China-with-slave-labor toys.

And don't get me started about the commercialization of the
holidays! This is supposed to be the "Season of giving". 
Giving to whom? Large multinational corporations, of
course.  Christmas, as practiced today, is all about
sharing your money with greedy Capitalistic fatcat
materialists in exchange for crappy merchandise nobody
really wants.  It's a wonderful life... but only if you're
a CEO.

Oh, and one other thing... [rest of Splatz diatribe snipped
for brevity]

ANONYMOUS COWARD: all i wanted for xmas was a T1 line so i
can post "FIRST POST ABOUT NAKED AND PETRIFIED GRITS
MEEPT!!!" comments on /. at ten times the rate i do now...
it didnt happen.

LINUX CONVERT: I kept hinting for a SGI box, but instead my
wife got me an old Packard Bell.  Unfortunately, she bought
it at CompUSSR, which doesn't take returns, so I'm stuck
with it. I haven't been able to get Linux to boot on it, so
this machine will probably become a $750 paperweight.

SLASHDOT RESIDENT LANGUAGE PEDANT: I just bought a clue
stick so I can hit Rob Malda over the head every time he
makes a dumb spelling or grammatical error on Slashdot. 
You'd think somebody as wealthy and popular as Taco Boy
would be able to use "its" and "it's" properly.  Oh, and
I'm going to knock senseless everybody that claims New
Year's Day is the start of "the new millenium".  One,
millennium is spelled with two N's, and second, the
millennium begins in 2001.  This wouldn't be a problem if
everybody counted from zero like computer scientists do.

LINUX ZEALOT: My parents bought me a nice dual-Celeron box,
which was exactly what I wanted, but they also agreed to
sign up with MSN for three years in exchange for a $400
credit.  It's like selling your soul to Satan in exchange
for a new penny.  Now I'm stuck using Windows anytime I
want to access the Internet... er, Microsoft Internet.

JESSE BERST: I got a coupon redeemable for the full copy of
Windows 2000 when it comes out in February.  Win2K is the
most innovative, enterprise-ready, stable,
feature-enriched, easy-to-use operating system on the
market.  I don't see how Linux can survive against
Microsoft's far superior offering.  I ask you: could you
get fired for NOT choosing Windows 2000?  You bet.

LINUX FREAK: Pigs are ice skating in hell right now... I
just got a beta version of Windows 2000, and IT'S NOT THAT
BAD!  I know, I know, wash my mouth out with lye soap for I
have just spoken the unspeakable.  Yes, I still prefer
Linux, and yes, only dot com millionaires will be able to
pay for all of the Windows licenses necessary to run any
kind of non-trivial network.  But still, Win2K is pretty
impressive, considering it's coming from Redmond.

LINUX LONGHAIR: My friends sent me a two-year subscription
to several Ziff-Davis publications, much to my dislike.  I
don't want to read Jesse Berst's rants against Linux, or
John Dvorak's spiels about how great Windows 2000 is. 
Still, I suppose this isn't so bad.  Ziff-Davis glossy
paper makes an excellent lining for fireplaces.

JOE SCHMOE: I suppose Santa Claus has something against me,
because I got a lump of coal for Christmas.  I'm not
complaining, though, because 500 tons of low-sulphur
Wyoming coal is quite valuable. Plus, if Y2K brings about
TEOTWAWKI, then I'll have plenty of fuel to start my own
power plant and begin the first tentative steps toward
global domination.

WEBMASTER OF LINUXSUPERMEGAPORTAL.COM: One of my in-laws
gifted me a CD-ROM containing the full text of every
"...For Dummies" book ever published.  It's a shame IDG
never published "Hiring A Hitman To Knock Off Your
Inlaws... For Dummies", because that's something I'm
itching to do.  At any rate, I'm using the CD as a beer
coaster.

-
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