Make Mine MAPPER #30 -------------------- by Rob Haeuser Talk The Talk, Walk The Walk, Sing A Song, Bang A Gong ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Oh no, not another stupid title again," you thought. Admit it, you did. But, hey, as least it rhymes. Besides, it kinda sums up the last few months. Ya see, my friends, as I sit here thumping the side of my head, testing to see whether it's ripe or not, I realize: "My God! I'm unemployed!" Yep, after 18 years with the state of Texas, it finally dawned on me that the tropical island I've been eyeing sells for about 500 years worth of my salary. That's not even figuring in the marble mansion, much less the helicopter you'd need just to get there... Oh well, give it up. Besides, one good hurricane, and WHAM! There you go, out to sea. Jetsam, soon to be flotsam, flailing, floundering, waffling, and wailing. But I quit anyway. Maybe it was the other job offer, who knows? That and the twilight zone feeling of having lots and lots of years in, but no where near enough. You ever feel too old to be so young, and too young to be so old? So, with a whopping week to kill between jobs, and too many ways to kill it, I've decided to ignore (most) all things responsible, and daydream about a world without MAPPER. Whoa!!! Nightmare alert! Ok, all of you that thought "Yeah! Yeah! No more MAPPER!" will kindly leave the room. Your true feelings have been exposed. Ok, now, to the rest of you, what's this I hear about disguising MAPPER applications, just so upper management won't have a problem with it. I say: "What's the problem?" You know what they'll inevitably say? "Well, it's MAPPER... mumble, mumble..." with maybe a little "machine hog" thrown in along with the ultimate kiss-of-death, "end-users". No, not that!! Yaaaagh!! Not another end-user TOY. Oops. I'm sorry. Toy, did you say? Ah, there's the real problem. All false machine-eating complaints aside, isn't it that we tend to think of "end-user" products as little things for little people to do their little jobs? Certainly unsuited for big work by big brains on the big iron, arrh, arrh, snort, grunt. Well, we know better. The question is, why doesn't everybody else? Obviously, Unisys needs to step in here, maybe even hire me to head up the first world-wide major MAPPER advertising campaign. I'd be a bargain at a mere million a year. I can see it now... The crowds are screaming, stirred up to a passionate frenzy by the site of yet another magnificent play. Yes, that's right, fans. It's Monday night Football! But wait! A technical timeout. Hey, how about a commercial? Before you can leap out of your chair for some more munchies, the television begins to pulsate, suddenly coming alive with a torrent of special effects, visually pinning your brain to the back of your head. A high-speed camera tours the entire planet, zooming in on site after site with the now-famous rainbow MAPPER logo displayed in every office. The camera heads right through a MAPPER logo to the inside of the PC, jumps onto the gateway connection, and flies out onto the network, ending up at some other point on the planet, displayed as another MAPPER logo. Then the view zooms upward so fast you get vertigo, and we see a MAPPER logo materialize over the entire globe. Fade to black... Just don't forget you read it here first, so that when Unisys finally figures out the advertising game, I'll have plenty of witnesses for my royalties claim. Yeah, get rich, that's the ticket. Maybe I should officially start my "Make Rob Richer Than Ross" electronic pan-handling campaign right here. It's either that or consider wearing my "Will do MAPPER Run Design for food" sign on the nearest street corner. Nah. I like the electronic pan-handling idea better. It's simple. Just GIVE ME ten dollars. That's all. Ten measly dollars. One lousy little ten-dollar bill. A GIFT. To ME. Admit it, it's a pittance. You spend more than that every year on the excess toothpaste you put on your brush, which inevitably gets spit out, poisoning the local water supply. So, either ruin the planet, or send me the ten bucks. Out of shear gratitude for your GIFT, I will send you a sequentially numbered, hand-signed, three-by-five thank you card, with the amount of your contribution and the current fund balance indicated. And, of course, for every ten dollar GIFT, you get another thank you card! What a deal! Think of it. Some famous signatures sell for ten grand or more. What an investment! And, of course, the sooner you mail me your ten dollars, the lower your sequence number, which could add to the value of your clever investment. And get this. According to the IRS, because it's a gift, I won't have to pay taxes on it! Isn't that great? For each million I get I'll build a marble obelisk, engraved with the names of the contributors of that million, to be placed in a location of great prominence, such as a heavily frequented bus station, etc. Imagine. Your name in marble, possibly forever. Now, if somebody will just send in that first ten... It'll only take about 400 million contributions, so you better get moving by mailing your donation(s) to: Rob Haeuser "Make Rob Richer Than Ross" Fund 3212 Great Valley Drive Cedar Park, Tx. 78613 By the way, if you have any suggestions for topics, comments, questions, or job offers, the above address is good for that, too. And for all you techno-phobes, next month I promise to say something meaningful about code, so stay tuned. For a change I'd like to end on a serious note. After 18 years, you meet quite a few people. To all of my friends at TDHS, I'll miss you! Don't forget to give credit to MAPPER whenever you can. Management needs to hear it often. Until we meet again, Gort Klaatu Barrada Nikto, which in space-talk means: "Hey, Robot! Shut the damn visor!". ----------------------------------------------------------------- Rob Haeuser has over 18 years of Data Processing experience. He was the MAPPER Coordinator and lead Run Designer for the Texas Department of Human Services for the last ten years, and is now an independent contractor working in the Austin area. Covering MAPPER topics ranging from technical to tacky, his never-ending quest is for truth, justice, and the MAPPER way.