[...] Sony, and offered him equity in GPS tritels that would be so clovered by the millennium that even the receptionists would be able to platinize their lawnmowers. [...]

We took their least expensive barbedwire enclosure and stuffed it with our production serverack, the Ultra and Pentium IIs, a cruft of external driveage. Basically it was a maximum security humane society in heat. Locks were not provided. Next on one side was the cage for eBay, next on the other the cage for Hotmail, all of us were still just unprofitable toddlers in hefty mental diapers, but only we were not growing to scale.

Carbon founding CEO was John Bates, JBates, most famous for having basically invented silicon, which comprises as like a quarter of the earth and so he basically invented the earth. There was a massive hunk of that element in the middle of his desk and clear crucibles lined along the mantel in which crystals were being grown out of hubris, unwaferable ingots and boules. He was as like a semiconductor himself and though a digital oracle to the media not many know of his analog activities administering the shipping enterprises that allowed the political and business elites of Greece to float approx 80 times the GDP of their country through Cypriot accounts. He wore gray slacks and a white dress shirt with a gray number 14 ironed on the back, the atomic number of his tetravalent metalloid.

Apparently, he was also the volunteer tech for the Sacramento County Historical Society, and had even designed his own GeoCities page—“The contents of this page do not reflect, refract, diffract, or diffuse the opinions of the Sacramento County Historical Society”—which documented his genealogy with particular emphasis on the life and career of one Ioannis Baetylus, who came to America in the early to mid 18somethings, came west in the mid to late 18somethings, and pioneered cyanide leaching at the gold rush around Coloma and the silver boom of the Comstock Lode, which left him rich, then paralytic, then dead.

And it was the corresponding ad that sealed the deal for us, as like tetrating “Baetylus” solicited a banner for a deal on Mediterranean cruises from the newly launched triparian.com, just contracted with by The Friends of the Trapezzi Sisters, which in turn derived thirdparty sidebars for Kodak.

JBates signed the check that day.

We realized then that our decision was becoming more complicated. All the toolbars we were interviewing were more obnoxious than anyone tech. They were not smart, just articulate, mouth vectored, conventionally staffable. Wharton quants accredited by Brooks Brothers, displaying their lobbying aptitude to such a degree that we had to remind them we were not Congress. [...]

Also we were hacked. Malevolent techs were cur. We went chasing down their viruses, their worming. Crackbabies, the first people who had ever seemed immature to us, broke into our systems and we caught them. We set traps and caught them and spanked them hired. Tetrateer #36 Mark Garnisht seemed fetal, zygotic, immaterial.

Adverks got journalism revved. Reporters accused us of faveranking links to advertisers. No. They accused us of faveranking sites linked to advertisers. No. They covered our every diddly lawsuit, neglected every judgment but their own. They demanded our schematics, without knowing which or for what, they only knew schematics. Environmental impact assessments of the Tetplex. All our IRS 1120s. They demanded full transparency for everyone but their readers who, just by using us, became their competition too. Journalists took our hardware to store the news, our software to lay it out for publication, then they used our email to spit on the rest, and lost their pages, jobs, and pensions. They went cheaper than we ever did, cheaper than free. We just strained, they catered. We will never feature any celebrity pregnancy exposés, for those who do not want them. We will never publicize a guide to the worst foreign vacation spots, for those who do not need one. Libel, defamation, and slander are merely available through us, not originated by us. Protecting copyright must be the responsibility of the host domain and not the engine. We were honored to consult on the redesign of the US Patent and Trademark Office Database, for gratis.

Truth is, media were worse than we are. Publisher money determines editorial determines content. You have told us this yourself. Certain expectations obtain. In newspapers and magazines especially, conformity is institutionally imposed. Contentproviders are censored until they selfcensor, for which achievement they are elevated to management. There are two warzones just north of us, involving approx 68 million civilians, and approx 140000 US troops. American broadcast and cable news organizations cover all this with a total of six fulltime correspondents. Blood is rarely shown. Footage of mourning parents is preferred to that of their amputated children.

November the policy changed. The new deal was no meetings. Kor had sent the email, which Cullqui fwd:d approvingly, and Quicull fwd:d disapprovingly, but we had also received the missive directly from Kor. We responded to such redundancies with an email reminding them of their founder status, which, if it had no other perk, at least signed a blank check re: scheduling. Cullqui replied all complaining about our tone, cc:ing Kor, bcc:ing Moe. Quicull replied all complaining back, cc:ing Moe, bcc:ing the Soviets.

We neglected to mention that we had taken to regarding them not as like friends anymore but a conformant unit, which we called Cullqui if they sided with Kor, and Quicull if they sided with us. We called them that mentally, then increasingly aloud.

The meeting would be a Culloquium, a Quiocullum, calendared for Founders Only, and for everyone else not a founder to worry about [...]

[...] I tried to contact the New York Times, CNN, Time. But my calls were not returned to the only payphone left in Alameda County. [...]

[...] In America, even the smallest portions were too big for him, except with “frozey yozey.” His favorite places were always selfserve and charged flatrates for small and large cupsizes, regardless of the amount of yogurt and toppings. Moe would stagger in vast crockery to fill, and the staff was unequipped to charge in excess of the maximum. It was not as like anything was returnable, melting probiotics crammed back into dispenser, the carob chunks replaced. It was because of this that all the places switched to retailing by weight. [...]