Ponytail of the Week: John Belushi

The ponytail of the week goes out posthumously to John Belushi, star of the Samurai skits on Saturday Night Live.

I remember watching these samurai skits as a kid and thinking that this is the way of leadership-- you brandish your sword, mumble a lot, and everybody knows exactly what you mean.

For my Halloween staff meeting this year I dressed like Belushi and did the whole Samurai bit while my directs did their status reports. I even cut a pumpkin in half while Anil Gadre was doing his marketing update. Poor bastard nearly shit a brick, but we all had a good laugh.

Off the charts

Well, I did it again--Sun just reported another profitable quarter. All the numbers are up, up, up and now it's time to shake things up.

We're splitting our stock 4:1. In this way I will effectively raise our stock price to around $25 per share, something no mortal thought possible just a short time ago.

I'm telling you, we're on a roll here, people! I was so excited today that I dropped my prototype google phone in the urinal.

I looked at the thing for a second, and decided to just leave it there. If it shows up on eBay, whatever you do, don't buy the friggin thing.

Breaking bread

Steve Ballmer came over for dinner the other night. He read about my razor clams and offered to bring over some mighty fine Viña Mein wine made in southern Galicia. There was only one condition; he didn't want to talk business.

He showed up in his Humvee alone, unarmed, and in dull blue shirt. He shook my hand with his clammy paw and grinned like the Chesire Cat. Pretty much what you'd expect.

Ah, but the clams! The acid of the wine worked as a perfect counterpoint to their briny flavor. Ballmer asked if I had a hamburger bun to put them on. I did, and I'm only sorry that I didn't catch the subsequent feeding on tape.

"You know, Jonathan," he said with his mouth full. "You've got class. That's why I wanted to come over here and let bygones be bygones."

I told him that I was glad to have him. After all, our companies work together on a whole slew of technologies.

"So how much for the kernel?" he asked.

"The what?"

"The kernel. The Solaris kernel. We want to bag the whole NT hairball and move the install base over in the next five years."

"Dude, are you feeling allright?" I asked. His face was breaking out in purple hives.

"No, seriously," he said, biting off another chunk of his clamburger. "We want it. We want to license it. We gave everyone on the board Vista machines as a gift last month and now that they've tried it, they want me out of there. I have to pull a rabbit out of my friggin hat!"

His apparent shellfish allergy then proceeded to choke off his windpipe. The paramedics showed up just as he was starting to blow bubbles.

As for the deal, I can't say what happens next. He scrawled something on my hardward floor as he was laying there and whatever figure it is doesn't have enough zeros.

Cooking up a storm

I made the most amazing razor clams the other night. The neighbors just couldn't stop raving about them. The secret is the breading, but I'm not going to give that up here.

I find cooking to be an excellent proving ground for corporate management. And there's nothing like throwing in unexpected ingredients.

That's why I've decided that the time has come to get Sun into consumer products, products that will set new standards for technical leadership and eco-friendliness.

Yes, that's right; Sun is coming to your kitchen.

We learned a lot from our Niagara processors that consume less energy than anything else out there. That was a good message, but these products will do that one better.

In fact, our new products will not only save electricity, they will actually generate electricity!

I can't say any more right now. Our attorneys are all worried that those frigtards at Net App will sue us for getting into the appliance business.