It was Hewlett-Packard's flack on the line. He was kind of churlish, testy – out of sorts.
It was something about a micro-miniaturized 32-bit ump-de-ump, diddy-wack nanosecond disk drive in gold lamé – you know, ceramics in the dialect of high glaze.
Finally, I broke it down simple, since no one had ever really seen one of these PC gadgets – at least, not any time that week, or that year, for that matter.
Never, in fact. “Okay, then, what you are talking about is going to be – like – a television screen hooked to a kind of electric typewriter, all of that jazz linked to a satellite uplink antenna by telephone lines, electronic switching system – fiberoptics – and a kind of Xerox machine if you want to print a copy?
He was in high dudgeon, to the say the least. Definitely had a pocket protector in his coat of arms, this dude.
We finally agreed. It would all fit on a desktop. He still wasn't satisfied.
“Sounds like a new glass tit, to me,” I said. I chuckled. Really, I chuckled.
“Glass tit?” Oh, I read that in the L.A. “Free Press.” Some screenwriter named Harlan Ellison.
So, they pink-slipped me. That's what you call the golden rule. He who has the gold – makes the rules.
Written. Unwritten. Whatever.
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