Blue Notebook Quotes: Volume IX

November 10, 1998


Radios are not affected when a drunk runs into a telephone pole.
-CSG Wireless advertising factoid

 To succeed in the modern world is to invite the relentless and bloodthirsty attention of the press, whose members gain far more fame by covering catastrophe than by covering success. (Hence the longevity of Whitewater, which will be remembered as the longest and most futile search for Pulitzer Prizes in all of history.)
-Fred Moody, Seattle Weekly

Bits is bits, stupid - the more the better - just move them from here to there and be quick about it.
-Bill Frezza, Network Computing

I think we should not forget that the concerns that India has are very real. This may not be the best way to respond to it, but they live in a very rough neighborhood.
-Fareed Zakharia, Foreign Affairs, on Indian nuclear testing

You can give my dictionary to your users, to your customers, to your boss. You can even give it to your kids to let them understand what you do. They'll then understand why you, too, have no life.
-Harry Newton, Introduction to Newton's Telecom Dictionary

 [He's] finally better after projectile vomiting so hard that it came back up and stuck his eyelids together. It was really cool, unfortunately it just induced more vomiting. Stay away from the beef at 'South of the Border'.
-Roy Stephan

I have come to realize that my previous company was noticeably devoid of a company boat.
-George Weilacher

 Our job is to help them suck less.
-Tom Walton

BORK BORK BORK FREE THE INTERNET BORK BORK BORK
-MCI Route Arbiter Database Entry at MAE-East

It seems clear that it will be very hard to increase browser marketshare on the merits of IE4 alone. It will be more important to leverage the OS asset to make people use IE instead of Navigator.
-Christian Wildfeuer, Microsoft Windows Product Manager (from DOJ evidence)

 Human evolution is directly related to the consumption of meat. When we started eating flesh, we started getting clever.
-Ted Nugent

America Online is the first true power in the Internet era. Because it realized that it is much better to have lots of unhappy customers than a few happy ones.
-Jesse Berst

It's ironic that India has weapons capable of destroying the world but they can't secure a little web server which is connected to their networks.
-Keystroke, a member of Milw0rm, the group that hacked an Indian nuclear research facility shortly after that country's nuclear tests

 Why not just carve up the government into private non-profit organizations and be done with it all? We are creating the most significant jurisdiction since the Louisiana purchase, and we are building it outside the review of the Constitution.
-Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig, on new domain name plans

 Everyone is scared except the criminals. The way to change that is to give the criminals something to be afraid of. That thing is a well-armed public.
-Sen. Trent Lott (R - Miss)

 I am a transcendental pan-galactic engineering weenie, thank you very much.
-Tom Walton

 Odd age we live in. I call my mother now to tell her to check her email.
-Darby Kimball

 We're flattered Cisco is using our technology, but we expect them to pay for it.
-Lucent Technologies, 1998

 Wit is educated insolence.
- Aristotle

 You've got 1911 shopping days to get your wireless handheld, or be held in scorn by the world's digital elite. You've been warned.
-Jesse Berst, June 23, 1998

 User demand always outweighs technical elegance.
-Tim Wilson

 I love to see guys who chew and never smile. And when they take off their hat and they're bald - and they don't care. I love the game.
-Mario Cuomo on Baseball

 I don't conceive it as my job as the Mayor to lose valuable New York institutions.
-Rudy Guiliani on the Yankees threatened move to New Jersey

 But i have coffee. The day might get better.
-Darby Kimball

 So it was a silent art auction full of hundreds of really young, really wealthy, really trendy people with way too much money to spend on crappy art.
-Elaine Cipriano

 It feels good, like a security blanket. It's power. It's something you've never felt before - because it can kill someone.
-Sgt. Gerard Martinez on the M-16

 To be happy on the Fourth
Buy a fifth
On the third.
-Linda Mount

 I still want to be charged with Offending the Dead.
-Ivan Kotcher

 Anything worth fighting for is worth fighting dirty for.
-(Unknown)

 I’ve always said, give me 15 runs and airtight defense, and I’ll take my chances.
-Bret Saberhagen, Boston Red Sox

 It’s weird, but it’s baseball. Baseball is an amazing game. You’ve never seen everything.
-Mike Benjamin, Boston Red Sox

 Except for the fact that two of my girls have decided to be lesbians, my ADD child is foaming at the mouth by 1:00 every afternoon, and my boys want to dance with me during every break, things are going well.
-Emily Domalski

 I also think I need a good pair of sneakers and a police scanner so I can chase those ambulances.
-Jim Steinkrauss, reacting to his grades after 1 year of Law School

 They had to give me directions from the bullpen how to get back out there. They just said go to the bump. It took me a second, but I found it.
-Mike Stanton (P-Yankees), on his first outing since his 5 game suspension

 We need to come up with a new technique, called "Quantum Tunneling Market Analysis."
-Tom Walton

 This is solid. -Evan Macbeth
No it's not. It's horseshit...in a vat so deep we're stirring it with an oar.
-Tom Walton (on market revenue/size modeling)

 Unwind. Live a little. Have a beer and beat-off. Unless it's a religious thing. Then just have the beer.
-George Weilecher

 Overall a pretty crudy day for the Internet, but no reports on CNN which I saw. I guess that means it was a successful day.
-Sean Donelan, NANOG

 Water, electrons, and IP packets all want to follow the path of least resistance.
-ibid

 You can no more create a computer program to block out one community's view of 'indecency' or 'obscenity' than you can devise a filtering program to block out misguided proposals by members of Congress. Both may be desirable, but neither are possible.
-Barry Steinhardt, EFF

 I think there are only three things America will be known for 2,000 years from now when they study this civilization: the Constitution, jazz music, and baseball.
-Gerald Early, writer, baseball documentary, 1994

 I vote for beer.
-Phillip Jimeno, Maryland state senator, on his recommendation for the official state drink, 1997.

 There is a bunch to do, I just have to do it.. ah well..
-Ben DeVore

 I'm bigger, greyer, and older, but just as funny and full of shit as ever.
-Jim Steinkrauss

 Oh, what a country. I’m having a good time.
-Sammy Sosa, 1998

 Economic theory means nothing to an armed kid strung out on drugs.
-David Beroff

 My job basically sucks, but it beats working for a living and pays more than bar-tending at Maartens.
-Bill Pemberton

 So perhaps the factor constraining the Internet's growth is "good taste."
-Paul Vixie

 "Where were you when Mark McGwire hit #62?"
"I was at band practice, piss off!"
-Tina Harris

 You can have a million dollars in the bank, but what is that going to do for you?
-Tim Forneris, after giving Mark McGwire his 62nd home run ball back.

 Languages are different, but technologies are common!
-Takashi Arano, NTT

 Fuckit. Postit.
-Sean Mike, giving advice on how to participate in mailing list discussions.

 Your credibility is shot.
-Anonymous Senator to Bill Clinton, 9/10/98

 The freedom of speech in debate in the House of Representatives should never be denied or abridged. But freedom of speech in debate does not mean license to indulge in personal abuses or ridicule.
-Speaker Newt Gingrich

 I'm ranting right now, please hold.
-SeanMike Whipkey

 The best use of the Internet for political purposes is to educate the public about the process, the issues, the candidates, availability of services, legislative activities. Us little people out here in the boonies might begin to feel involved again, not just manipulated.
-Susan Soderberg, Hawaiian Court Reporter

 I know that President Clinton is not above the law. Neither is he beneath the law, so due process must be honored.
-Rev. Jesse Jackson

 However, some nagging problems remain for the president. Foremost among them is that the "I have sinned" strategy is generally regarded by legal scholars as falling somewhat short of an absolute defense for perjury, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and abuse of power.
-Jay Severin, MSNBC

 Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.
[I have a catapult. Give me all the money or I will fling an enormous rock at your head.]
-Kirk Andrews

 Driving through Canada is kind of boring, but you do what you have to.
-Scott Macbeth

 Kegs are key.
-Michael Fuchs

 I'm perfectly happy to spend my old age sitting in a drunken stupor in the stands. It'd be nice to hear some jokes once again though.
-Noel Munson

 If this is what we see from a major backbone, what should we expect from Joe's ISP and Steak House in Mudfest Wyoming?
-Marc Slemko, NANOG

 I've read more Roman graffiti than anybody I know, and *they* never stooped to this level.
-David Boyes on the Starr Report

 Are we becoming adults?
-Jim Steinkrauss (9/98)

 Life has been interesting to me.. good friends, fun times, bad times, etc.. overall.. two thumbs up.. I think that it will do good in the box office.. Let's see what the sequel brings..
-Ben DeVore

 Sometimes we all need a break, life is ups and downs, you know. Step over one and trip over the next.
-Scott Macbeth

 We're about ready to go to war, and I love war.
-George Steinbrenner at the end of the Yankees' '98 regular season

 The thing about Bleacher Creatures is, we're very resourceful. There isn't a ticket shortage or a pesticide that can contain us, or keep us from breeding.
-Filip Bondy, New York Daily News

 Fortunately for me, I have no integrity.
-Roseanne Barr

 Sex is good. Drugs make me tired. And Rock and Roll I can take or leave.
- Tom Walton

 Get ready for a raw display of democracy.
-Jay Severin, on Impeachment Proceedings in the House

 After a reading of the Starr report I am impressed by the salacious and voyeuristic nature of your work.
-Larry Flynt in a letter to Ken Starr

The courage of friendships are in the attempts.
-Mike Carter (quoting somebody)

 Only people sensitive enough to find the evil lurking in a Disney animated film can appreciate Jesus' love of the mobile home.
-From "Great Mobile Homes of Mississippi"

 The results of the U.S. Government's continued 135 years of punishing White Southerners has resulted in their being forced to live in mobile homes.
-Email reacting to "Great Mobile Homes of Mississippi"

 We went on like this, walking that thin line between bad taste and very bad taste, as we do on a nightly basis.
-Filip Bondy

 Go hoos for low threat, high per diem wars!
-Jeff Sgarlata

 Vague references to a bus trip, drinking, and puking do *not* make for a unique context in which I can figure out what you're talking about. It's like saying, "You remember that day you were breathing?" or "Remember that time you banged that chick?". It just doesn't distinguish itself from the hundreds of such occasions.
-George Weilacher

 News for nerds. Stuff that matters.
-Slashdot.org slogan

 Downtown Richmond is all about well-dressed southern aristocracy and slow, graceful decay.
-Chris "Wahoo" Wiegand

 At bottom, the Open Source movement is an expression of the Western academic tradition, innovation and discovery through the free exchange of ideas.
-Tim O'Reilly

 Well, first of all I'd like to say fuck off.
-Reel Big Fish, "You Don't Know"

 The lasting tribute to Jon Postel is that the shit worked.
-Paul Vixie

 But I think I'll just have to suck it up and go on sheer bravado. As usual.
-Luciana Lopez

 November 10, 1998


Return to Quotes.