(Don't) Hear the music

Long drive today, the traffic made terrible by the spring rains and the end of spring break. Stopped into Starbucks to get caffeine, and surprised myself by buying a Joni Mitchell CD; her so young and winsome on the cover. How did I forget how much I liked her lyrics? It made me think of my commuter marriage:

Oh you are in my blood like holy wine
And you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you
I could drink a case of you darling
Still I'd be on my feet
I'd still be on my feet

And it made me think of the life I've just given away for an interesting job:

I was a free man in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive
There was nobody calling me up for favors
And no one's future to decide
You know I'd go back there tomorrow
But for the work I've taken on
Stoking the star maker machinery
Behind the popular song

On second thought, I probably should have listened to George Thorogood & The Destroyers — better to be bad to the bone than maudlin.

VC-funded Startups (a song written by me)

OK, I haven't posted in a while. OK, for a month. But I've been busy. Came out of retirement to a job (and maybe to a PhD program). More on those topics later, maybe.

On the job I've been meeting with all sorts of entrepreneurial types; people who have started companies, people who want to start companies, people who want to know people who want to start companies. [They're the luckiest people in the world.] When I'm with the old hands we reminisce about the startups, good and bad, that we've been in. Talking about the bad ones makes for way better war stories.

All this talk about bad companies reminded me that I've had a song working it's way out of my subconscious for many years now. To be sung to the tune of Tom Lehrer's National Brotherhood Week:

Oh, developers hate the testers
And the testers hate developers
To hate all your coworkers
Is a standard management tool

But in a VC-funded startup
VC-funded startup
PhDs and MBAs
Don't cross each other up
It's fun to use the guys
Who do stuff you despise
As long as you are sure you got more stock

Oh, the ops guys hate the apps guys
And the apps guys hate the ops guys
The new CEO hates the wise guy
Who happens to be the founder

But in a VC-funded startup
VC-funded startup
Everyone can get along if
We don't f**k it up
Who cares which products won't
As long investors don't
Howjya think the tall blond made his mint

Oh, the customers hate the sales force
And the sales force hates the customers
And the management hates the chairman
And everybody hates marketing

But in a VC-funded startup
VC-funded startup
Get big or go home, that the way
No prize for runner-up
Why should you get along,
With people who are wrong?
Who cares your stupid job is getting old --
You only have to wait until we're sold!

They have a word for it

Recondite readers will find it useful to know that Department of Homeland Security renders to German as Ministeriums für Heimatsicherheit.

Sounds so much better.

Let's play, "What's the real problem?"

In the spirit of Harper's Index, here are some numbers for you.

1. Projected federal debt over next ten years: $5.8 trillion.
2. Social security program surplus, same period: $2.6 trillion.
3. Anwar estimated reserves: 10.4B barrels.
4. Anwar reserves into US consumption at current rates: 17 months.
5. Annual US healthcare spending: $1.6 trillion.
6. Total costs of malpractice cases: $24 billion (or, 0.024 trillion, if you prefer).

It's not that the administration is on the wrong side of every issue, it's that they pick the wrong issues in order to obscure our country's real priorities. Don't let them get away with it!

One death a tragedy, millions a statistic

I swore I wasn't going to watch the SOTU. Really, I turned on the TV by accident, preparing to cue-up a DVD (Yimou Zhang's Hero, if you must know). I had tuned-in during one of those applause lines for someone being singled-out in the gallery. I saw a close-up on what were probably the parents of some dead soldier, and then cut to our fearless leader...beginning to tear-up.

Gee, as a balance to this cheap sentimentality, maybe the broadcast could have had a crawl at the bottom of the screen pointing out that given the 1440 US troop deaths in Iraq as of today, there are thousands more parents just like these two — only they won't fit in the gallery.