Take a tip from the old CBO. Never, ever, say you're "always on the job," then spend the whole next day reconfiguring your entire working environment until you're near blind and you've got 68 random parameters coming out your ears. I finally moved to the Mac about nine months ago, and while it wasn't a walk in the park to relearn all my old tricks in brand new software, I have to say -- well, I don't have to, but I will -- that's it's mostly been a lot of fun.

I hope you won't mind too much that I'm gonna talk geek in this post. I usually keep it under pretty good wraps. But beneath my mild mannered exterior lives a seething, fire-breathing technofreak of no mean skillz. Imagine me beating my breast here like Johnny Weissmuller (for the youngsters among you: that was the guy who played Tarzan in the old Saturday afternoon matinees -- which you also don't remember).

However, I lie. The sad truth of it is that I'm only just good enough at this stuff to be dangerous. Mostly to myself. I suppose it's a tribute to Mac OS X that I'm still up and running after the way I hacked this poor little 12" powerbook today. Why, I beat it like a red-headed stepchild!

So two things caught my wavering attention this morning. Or whenever it was I woke up today. Yes, now I remember. It was morning. God, I hope that never happens again. And those two things were? Oh yes...

1. I saw that Scoble had something about Gates alluding to a commitment to propose to deliver sometime in the future a new beta version of Internet Explorer. Whoa, huh? Now, I like Robert, and I know he's got a tough job over there at Microsoft, walking that fine line between truth and dare. But dude! That was so lame. No, no, I don't mean you. I mean that other guy saying like (and I paraphrase), we've heard The People speak, and they shall have of us that wonder they have yea verily demanded and Bill himself has spoken on this saying oh ye of little faith, just wait another couple-three quarters and it shall come to pass. Words to that general ipecacian effect.
2. And the other thing I saw was this...

...because that tail and those ears are connected to a fox that is right now as we speak, so to speak, eating Microsoft's lunch. It is, in point of fact, a wily Firefox. And it has powerful friends all around the world, who are doing a kind of marketing number I once could only dream (and occasionally write) about.

I mean, if you catch my drift...

And I have to say, I felt genuinely embarrassed when I looked at all that unbridled enthusiasm. I felt as if I'd been out of it way too long. Sitting on the sidelines licking my various wounds. So that's why I tore into my system and changed just about everything about how I'm working on this stuff. Not that I was using IE much anyway. I guess I'm just prone to being swayed, being moved, being rocked to my sox by this fox out of box. By this kind of rockin-the-top-off JOY. And that's what it is, make no mistake. Dangerous stuff when allowed to run wild and free like that. A dangerous business.

I guess it's just that I like a good firefight every once in a while. It clears the air. Like everybody in town getting wasted for carnival. I just went over to the IEBlog, which I'd never even heard of before today, and was rolling on the floor laughing at all the Firefox molotovs being tossed into that um conversation. And I know what some of you are thinking, though I'm thinking you've gotta be a small minority of those reading my anarchist ravings with any, shall we say, regularity. You -- the few, the proud -- are thinking this sort of behavior isn't very polite. And of course you're right.

Yeah, but it sure is fun!

I knew the net was going to do this someday. I could feel it in my creaky old bones ten years ago, maybe 20. One day, I thought, some giant company is going to make some major announcement -- or what it would like the world to believe is a major announcement -- but the carefully crafted if utterly empty rhetoric will be drowned out by the block party going on next door.

after all the cock and bull, could it really be?

take back the web. damn straight.

The Tampa Tribune, January 3, 2005: "The Firefox browser, downloaded an impressive 10 million times in its first month, is creating a buzz on the Web as people weary of the security shortcomings of Microsoft Internet Explorer give the open-source alternative a try."

The Christian Science Monitor, February 3, 2005: "A clever fox is sneaking into Microsoft's henhouse, and some observers are warning that though it won't steal any valuable software itself, it could leave the door open to more ravenous invaders if the software giant isn't careful... In just over two months, [Firefox] has grabbed about 5 percent of the market, while IE has dropped from more than 95 percent to just over 90 percent."

Business Week, February 7, 2005: The article is titled, "Move Over, Internet Explorer," and it ends with this. "One last to-do item before you start surfing with Firefox: Take a minute on the Mozilla.org site to make an online donation to the foundation, whose mission is to preserve choice and innovation on the Internet. The browser is free, but Mozilla has expenses. If you're using the product, why not help support it?"

Good question. In fact, it's an excellent question. Sounds to me like The End of Business Week As Usual. <g>