Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
The Almighty Buck

Dot-com Liquidator 96

Posted by michael from the nerf-guns-go-in,-but-they-don't-come-out dept.
Stephen VanDyke writes: "The Lexington Herald-Leader has an interesting article on the day of a "repo man". Marty Pichinson doesn't repossess cars or homes, he goes after companies that flopped." Second in a series.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Dot-com Liquidator More

Dot-com Liquidator

Comments Filter:

  • Re:Been there, read that (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Kentucky must be slow on the draw

    Are you from Kentucky by any chance?
  • It's almost certainly a file translation issue. What's missing aren't commas, they're dashes. Rather like the ? we sometimes see for apostrophes, except they disappeared completely.
  • Yep. Right here [google.com].


    --

  • Well, actually pulling you over might not be allowed (I think there might've been constitutional questions about it), so what these states do is have roadblocks specifically to check if people are wearing seatbelts. Which is basically the same thing. In some states this program is called "Click It or Ticket."


    Cheers,

  • How about doing crossword puzzles? That's how I pass the time while I'm driving.

    About the article, it's nuts to blame the economy for guys like this knocking on people's doors. It's more about people getting realistic and seeing that quarter-after-quarter some of these goofy web ideas were losing tons of money. It's about one too many toothpaste.com-like sites getting millions of dollars in VC money before people started to finally get a clue.


    Cheers,

  • What about the repo men who repossess cars?

    My life has been skewed by TV
  • Well, there is a cleaner in Pulp Fiction - Mr Wolf - he comes in to deal with The Bonnie Situation after Marvin gets his face blown off.
  • Anyone know of a website where us cash-poor entrepreneur/students can pick up one of these computers?

    moderators: please mod this question up so we have a better chance at getting answers
  • The thing is that seatbelts reduce fatalities by 40% (even without airbags) in a crash. It's too huge a number to ignore.
  • The dot-com fire sale 'pennies on the dollar' is a falacy. Most of the equipment for auction is old and prices are higher than you would pay for ebay. I tried to add some equipment to our office, guess what there is even a shortage of good used furniture!
  • Given the lifestyles of so many dotcommers, I wouldn't be too suprised if some of them have the bodies of 4 aliens hidden in their car trunk [geocities.com]...
  • IANAL, but I'm betting that this depends on the privacy agreements the failed company made. If the company was good about privacy (many are not), they would probably be able to sell the list only once, and with restrictions on the buying company with regards to how they use it.

  • just really hilarious. i'm just saying.
  • Judging by the lack of certain bits of punctuation, the Lexington Herald-Leader needs to use The Demoronizer [fourmilab.ch]. Badly. Not everyone uses Microsoft.
  • Like the characters in the 1984 movie Repo Man, Pichinson is always intense. When he drives, he cradles his cell phone with his neck

    From the script:

    Miller: See? The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.

    For the full script, see http://users.erols.com/bobcan/repo/script.html . One of the better Alan Cox films, by the way. Oops, I mean Alex Cox.

    --Seen

  • Not unless he raises a mess of money on a fantasy shot at the public equity market, like his "customers." His role helps keep business out of chapter, everybody out of court, and to maximize the return to the creditors. It's an honest business, if not a "specialty" I'd choose. The evil part is in the waste and foolishness he's seen, not his contribution to it!
  • Sherwood has used www.dovebid.com, an auction house; I also heard that the deals aren't that sweet, but it probably varies by the type of equipment. Aeron's have gone for 50 cents on the dollar at some auctions; you might be able to get something less famous for a better price.
  • yeah I noticed that.
    how retarded.
  • oh come on, this type of speech is rampant in journalism and [american] liguistics today. Ever hear things like, "The Macedonian Government said Milosevic could be extradited ...", "The United States extends its deepest condolences to the families of the soldiers killed in action", etc, ad infinitum. Lots of journalists put words into non-existant (in that they only exist as an idea in someone's conception of reality) entities' mouths, this is only the same concept abstracted to a degree you haven't seen before.

    ---
  • Would -you- drive around without a belt if the law weren't there? I wouldn't.

    I would. Why? I want to live. Fuck "the law", for me it's self preservation.

    ---

  • I still remember when people started pushing for mandatory seat belt laws, dismissing as paranoid nuts anyone who suggested that cops would be pulling drivers over at random to make sure they're wearing seat belts. Well, now that cops are doing exactly that, where are these people now?

    Remember the recent riots in Cincinatti? The ones that got started when police shot a black man who was running from them? Does anyone know why they shot him?




    It boils down to this: he didn't want to wear his seat belt.

    Read the rest of it here [mises.org]: "... Of course, it wasn't quite that simple. He had received several seat-belt violations and hadn't paid any of his tickets. He had refused to respond to court orders. So, when they pulled him over on that fateful day, all the police knew about him was that there was a warrant for his arrest. They didn't know at the time that it was for seat-belt violations.

    As for the man, we don't know what he was thinking, exactly, but he clearly didn't want to be arrested by the police. He took off in his car and led the police on a high-speed chase, which ended in his own death when the police thought he reached for a gun and shot him. He died over the seat-belt law."

    also check out http://www.politicshurt.com [politicshurt.com]

    ---
  • Stop reading superhero comics and naive libertarian propaganda and get a dose of reality, kid.

    We very much *do* have the right to stop him before somebody not only gets their car 'distroyed', but their kid run over.

  • I had read the message wrong, my bad.
    Too many dot-com flop stories :D
  • I don't get paid to write stories for a publication in a mid-major market. When I do, I'll consider checking my grammar.
  • I'm a Lexington resident and that's a typical article for the Herald-Leader, unfortunately its one of the better papers in the state, other than a few of the Local papers. What's sad is that the college paper that feeds the Herald-Leader,The UK Kernel [kykernel.com], is worse.
  • Wow...

    That was pretty funny how you changed the subject of the original post. (One that frankly made sense) In fact you are a comedic genius.

    Or in all actuality.. AN IDIOT!
  • I am applying for one of those jobs tomorrow morning.
  • for cheap-asses like me who want Sun Ultra's for pennies on the dollar.

    I expect the amount of components like this from dead dotcoms will accumulate en masse on ebay within the next coming months. Woohoo!

  • I hate to see stupidity

    Well, as long as you keep your mirrors facing the ground, you should be all right...

    Am I the only one here who can't stand all these pretentious fucking slashbots, without an iota of buisness knowledge in them, try and go around and spout shit like they're Alan fuckin' Greenspan? Wake up, asshole, you couldn't tell the difference between a successful buisness plan and one bound for failure if the Gods themselves painted you a fucking sign.


    --
  • Dell Computers... Pentium 4 windows machines. AMD linux boxes must go for at least 40 cents on the dollar.
  • From the movie: "That's why there ain't a repo man I know who don't take speed" (Or something to that dramatic and grammatically frightful effect)
  • Is there a web page that tracks the web of companies and their officers/board members so you can see what the people on the board of a given company have left in their wake ?

  • It all works together. In Pulp Fiction, Harvey Keitel plays Winston (?) Wolf, who does manage to clean up the situation (read: car with dead body & splattered brain matter) Jules & Vincent get into. I forget which came first, PoNR or PF. Keitel's characters served the same function, but I liked Mr. Wolf much better.
  • Hello eBay. :-)

    A lot of repossessed stuff ends up on eBay, because it's usually the fastest way to dispose of equipment from failed dot-coms.
  • What I don't understand is that we already have laws that cover cell phones. Anyone ever heard of Reckless Driving or Reckless Endangerment? These are what you are supposed to be cited with if you get into a wreck, be it because of a cell phone, a Big Mac, a CD Player, or your girlfriend giving you head. Why do we need more pointless laws, when we already have laws on the books that cover these violations.

    btw...you are 8x more likely to get into a wreck adjusting your CD player than talking on a cellphone. How long before we aren't "allowed" to listen to music while we drive?

    Jaysyn
  • The prices on ebay are high compaired to what you can get direct if you live near a former dot com area and know where to go(dot com places that just went or about to go under). I got a Sun E420R system for only $300 fully loaded, which if you aren't aware is insanely low. Of course you have to race the used system resellers to the dot com fire sales but if you want some good stuff really cheap its worth keeping an eye out for notices (hint: look for signs on the doors of the dying dot com down the street, won't usually be listed in the papers).
  • In Michigan, the law recently changed. The police can now pull you over and ticket you if you aren't wearing a seatbelt. Before, they could only ticket you for not wearing a seatbelt if they noticed it after pulling you over for something else.
  • Is there a site where this stuff is usually sold? Or is it just if you live in the surrounding area?

  • No, but that sounds like a great idea for a new Web-based company!

    I'm gonna stay up all night writing a business plan!

  • As for your statistics: beware the semi-attached figure. Accident rates involving cellphones are going to be under-reported because nobody is going to admit to a policeman after an accident that they were breaking the law by using their cellphone at the time.

    Well, unless you are in Brooklyn, OH (near Cleveland) or New York state, it isn't illegal. A few other places are thinking about outlawing it, but haven't yet.

    Furthermore, It's not illegal even there to use your cell. It's illegal to hold it up to your ear while driving. Hands-free stuff is OK. Makes phone sex easier.

  • The grammar in this article is atrocious. I wonder if he's reposessed all of the Herald-Leader's commas and parentheses.
  • Upon investigation of the original article printed in the Lexington Herald Leader on sunday, one will find dashes in their correct places. This is clearly a document translation issue as the article printed in the actual paper is punctuated correctly.
  • meta repo man is always intense!
  • I don't know abou the US, but in the UK there's a company called Morgan Computers [morgancomputers.co.uk] that deals with bankrupt/liquidated/end-of-line stock. Do a seerch on Google for bankrupt stock. I got 123,000 hits.

  • IANAF (I am not a farmer), but I was a rancher for a few years before I got my start in computers. Ranching and farming is some of the hardest work on earth, starting at 4AM, and ending at sundown. The average rancher makes half of what the average dotcommer made, and works twice as hard. I don't pity myself for having to bail myself out of problems I created, I pity people who break their backs, only to have their living taken from them.


  • Believe it or not, many people can get by on catnaps. Two 2 hr naps interspersed between that 22 hr day could do it...
  • It's more about people getting realistic and seeing that quarter-after-quarter some of these goofy web ideas were losing tons of money.

    That is not entirely true. Even the solid operators are having trouble getting funds these days. Also, many of the good operations relied on the bad ones as customers, and they are drying up like spilled bong water (the moisture goes away, but the stench hangs around if you don't get the mop out and clean it up). On the other hand, I do agree with your basic premise, and clearly the reason "the good ideas" are having problems is due to all the failures that sucked the wells dry before them.

    I guess my major point is the economy IS bad, even the good operations are having trouble as a result.

  • After his last meeting, Pichinson drives to the baseball stadium. He's chairman of a networking group that is watching the Giants from private box seats...
    I wonder if he'll be in charge of liquidating the assets of the Montreal Expos (or the Tampa Bay Devil Rays ... or the Florida Marlins ... or the Minnesota Twins ... or the *gasp* Anaheim Angels [go.com]) if (when?) those clubs fold after this year? How schweet would that be? Maybe we all could chip in a few bucks and buy a stadium?!? SLASHDOT FIELD ... I like the sound of that .... Can you say "world's largest LAN party"?

  • Re:Repo men are impressive (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    > One day, the machine was repossesed. It happened between 11am (when someone last used it), and 1pm (when someone tried to use it, and found it was gone). During that time, none of the people in any of the offices I mentioned above went to lunch.

    You mean, stolen. If a repo man can do it without being seen, so can a thief. It must suck to have bad security. Normally repo men do not work in hiding, but officially ask whoever runs the place to be handed over the machine.

  • Re:The Cleaner? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Harvey Keitel played The Wolf in Pulp Fiction. He was the guy in the tuxedo that went over to Jimmie's house to direct Vincent and Jules on how to clean up the bloody mess in the car and where to dispose of the remains. But then again, you probably knew that.

  • I imagine you could find their background with a search of, eg SEC filings and the like.

    This isn't necessarily scummy. It's possible that directors are opting to wind companies down while there's still a chance of paying back creditors, staff redundancy, and maybe getting investors some pennies on the dollar, which is the most ethical decision the board of a failing company can take.

  • I can't really compare the hardships of farmers seeing their family business grow steadily downhill to the things happening with some of these dotcom chuckleheads.

    Yeah, when farmers screw up there are crop subsidies to bail them out. How can that be compared with the dot-commers that actually have to suffer?
  • The first Slashdot story, which was about repossessing automobiles, was based on an MSNBC article, but the link to that is broken and searching MSNBC for "repo man" doesn't find it either.
  • Hundreds of failing companies, eager for revenge on the employee that aired their dirty laundery in public and anxious to block issuance of that severance check are currently frantically searching their employee records for "Coward, Anonymous NMI"
  • Never fails when you don't "preview". That should be "laundry".

    At least I got "severance" right.

  • Back when George Bush Sr was president, I saw, several times, information on how his son was the head of the FSLIC (Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation, like today's FDIC [Which existed then as well as now, but for non-S&L banks {I can't think of the term for what kind of banks are covered by FDIC} which is the insitution that insures your bank deposits up to $100,000] that insured the Savings & Loan [S&L]banks)

    I am almost sure that it was George Jr (aka Dubya) that was the head of it, but it could have been another son (Are ther any others besides Jeb?)

    The FSLIC had not kept their insurance requirements strict enough, and it was actually the FSLIC playing some kind of games with the S&Ls to try to keep the FSLIC in business, but instead went belly-up and took the S&Ls down with it, which in turn took the Family farms down with them. Some even said that the big agricorps socially engineered these weaknesses into the FSLIC regulations to make them able to expand by assuming ownership of all the family farms for pennies on the dollar.

    I know this happened, I remember the local (I lived in a small Nebraska town at the time this was happenning, so I am absolutely sure it was a Bush kid in charge) newspaper reporting on what was going on, and we had to report on it in High School. They didn't go into the conspiracy theories, of course. But it's way weird that finding info on this on the net (At least for me) has been pretty much undoable.

  • Sorry, tried it a couple months ago (on google even) and got no results. Freaked me out. Dunno what happened.

    No, I do not have Internet access :)

    Oh, BTW, I invented UFOs :)

  • C'mon, where in the song did they mention such vital-to-the-job things such as:

    • golf clubs
    • electric dart boards
    • plastic helmets
    • squirt guns
    • "Zoho" wine
    I can't really compare the hardships of farmers seeing their family business grow steadily downhill to the things happening with some of these dotcom chuckleheads.

    Cheers,

  • Why don't you read the article... its NOT the same guy, he's in a completely different line of work.
  • Actually a lot of family farms collapsed because they over-borrowed, trying to get bigger. It's not much different than the way these dot-coms grew too fast on VC money.

    The only difference is that the banks were smarter than the VCs (lending instead of buying) and probably got a better return on their investments when farms had to be liquidated to pay off debts than the VCs get when these companies are stripped and sold for parts.

    -jon

  • When I took drivers ed. I remember that we learned the rules for when cops can pull you over. Randomly checking for seatbelts was listed as illegal. They have to have a reason to stop you and pull you over, and if they notice your seatbelt isn't on then they can give you a fine. (This was in WA, may have changed and may be different in other states).
  • Problem with cell phones isn't talking, its dialling. OK if you've got a voice-activated one, but not everyone does.

    As for your statistics: beware the semi-attached figure. Accident rates involving cellphones are going to be under-reported because nobody is going to admit to a policeman after an accident that they were breaking the law by using their cellphone at the time.

    And remember, this guy was also tapping on a PDA on his leg, fielding a pager strapped to another leg, and fumbling with a clipboard of directions. All without enough sleep.

    An accident waiting to happen.

    Paul.

  • Okay, this guy is clearly a middleman; buying the assets in bulk and reselling them. I'd be interested who he's selling to. For example, I'd love a deal on a great office chair, but I'm only going to buy one of them. Who sells this lightly-used stuff? Thanks.
  • Kinda, it's complicated.

    In Nikita, Reno plays a character called the cleaner, who is the expert called in to clean up a assasinations. Reno totally stole the scene and Besson expanded the character to make Leon.

    Meanwhile, Keitel plays the same character in the US remake.

    Then, Tarantino writes someone called Mr Wolf into Pulp Fiction whose job is the same - cleaning up botched crimes. And casts Kietel in that role, although the two characters are very different.
  • Wake up, asshole, you couldn't tell the difference between a successful buisness plan and one bound for failure ...

    Ohhhh but I know a troll when I see one, and your not even a good one.

  • I go through the Globe looking all the time. We're small, and anything we can get cheaper lets us stretch our equipment budget. I ended up picking up a slightly used machine or two up on Ebay because you can't find these auctions listed anywhere.

    It's a shame too, because as a startup in this climate, getting real hardware cheaply would be a Godsend...

    Alex
  • If the company doesn't want to build its business on a dead company's business, they may not need to buy it. He may license the software to them (could even be in a BSD or more liberal license, a worldwide use license), then license to another firm, who knows. It's IP, not real property.

    Nice of you to call someone a slimeball because of his profession. People extended credit to these companies that went under. He tries to get them their money, and gets paid for his service.

    Not a slimeball, everyone comes out ahead.

    Alex
  • Amen for that. Living near the Dallas area (it's no Silicon Valley, but it did have its share of dot cons) I've seen my share of $200 SGI Octanes, $300 Origins, and $600 Onyx2s. You're not kidding about having to beat the dealers, dotcon closeouts are often a total madhouse. Especially when the original vendor of the still-under-warranty equipment shows up to buy back their goods for pennies on the millions (only to resell them as "remanufactured" for 350x the firesale price).
  • he looks like Emilio Estevez, thrives on tense situations, and had some radioactive aliens in the trunk of his car.

    I'm going to go get a "drink."
  • Like the characters in the 1984 movie Repo Man, Pichinson is always intense. When he drives, he cradles his cell phone with his neck, taps on a hand-held computer on his right thigh and stares at a Blackberry e-mail pager between his legs.

    *screeech* Crash!

  • You mean, stolen. If a repo man can do it without being seen, so can a thief. It must suck to have bad security. Normally repo men do not work in hiding, but officially ask whoever runs the place to be handed over the machine.

    Yup, most repo men will be fairly upfront (especially with something "owned" by a company and not an individual) and present their "warrant of reposession".
  • There was so much crap [fuckedcompany.com] in the market that burned through so many investors' dollars it was scary.

    Warren Buffett said it correctly: many of these "bubble companies" were designed to make money off investors, not for them. Serves them right that they're toast.

  • Indeed. We pay $B every year to maintain severe overcapacity in the farming business, because of the sentimental attachment to family farms. Fortunately we are not doing the same for high tech (except aerospace). Let's keep it that way.
  • Looks like what happened is his dashes got deleted. I bet he was using Word's "smart dashes" or whatever they're called and an HTML sanitizer bit him. (If you look at the source, you'll notice that the places which are presumably missing punctuation have two spaces between the words: "7.5 percent of the sales<space><space>about three times..." and so on.)

    --
    BACKNEXTFINISHCANCEL

  • Isn't the 'cleaner' Harvey Keitel in Point of No Return with Bridget Fonda?

    Which is a scene-for-scene remake of Luc Besson's French file La Femme Nikita.

    Also, Besson directed 'The Professional' starring Jean Reno and a [soon to be considered] attractive 12 year old girl named Natalie Portman.

    Forgive me if there is a 'cleaner' in Pulp Fiction as I took this kharma-whoring opportunity to mention Natalie Portman in a post.

  • Theres a few places to buy stuff like this.

    Bid for Assets is a good place to start, http:\\www.bid4assets.com

  • As long as we're pointing out similarities between farms going under and these companies, part of the reason that many family farms went under more recently is that for quite a while farm land was very seriously overpriced - to the point that you couldn't realistically buy a farm and then expect to farm it profitably and make your loan payments. This however, did not stop people from trying. Some bought it planning to hold onto it as an investment. After all, its gone up so far, why shouldn't it continue? This is somewhat parallel to the stock prices of these tech companies - overpriced beyond what could be justified, and when it finally came down it came down hard and a lot of people got burned.
  • Dunno where you could normally find it, but being an employee at a failing company would help. My company was just gutted and sold, and employees can pick up 1 year old PCs for $25 (incluing 17" monitor). Laptops are a little more costly at $125, but worth it. I can't wait till they give a price on the Aeron chairs. :-)

    Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups. [thedaythatcounts.org]
  • If the day ever comes that the Repo Man has to sell off IBM's stuff, maybe I can pose as an employee and buy Big Blue off of him for cheap. Then, I will REALLY have bragging rights on SETI@home :)
  • Yea, we get an article about how some guy thinks he's hot shit and tops at his "biddeness". Like this guy's ego is somehow newsworthy.

    To clue anyone in, when you hear someone brag like the repo man does in this article it is usually a sign of total incompitence not just being a jackass.
  • I was all sympathy for Marty and his sad, sad job, but when I read:

    He leaves early and dashes toward his car. ``I feel like I've just started my day,'' he says. Actually, his day started at 3 a.m., and he will get home at 1 a.m.

    I just had to think that, no, this is impossible without drugs. Who knows what kind of stuff you need to make the job enjoyable?
  • No offense, but don't you have Internet access? A quick Google search ("FSLIC Bush son") confirmed my memory. Plenty of hits. No sign of a cover-up. I mean, yeah, the Bushes are dirty money, and I hate like poison the fact that the Shrub is in the Oval Office, but c'mon! There're plenty of *real* reasons to dislike him; why muddy the waters? If you want to spread conspiracy theories, you can make them a lot more credible by using the correct facts where readily available. Just a tip. Oh, BTW, I've got some great photos of Yeti and UFOs that I can sell you, if you're interested.

  • eVulture (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 01, 2001 @07:24PM (#115121)
    Hey, it's eVulture, from Doonesbury! :-)

  • Re:Instant Karma gonna get you.. (Score:3)

    by Zico ( 14255 ) on Sunday July 01, 2001 @10:12PM (#115122)

    In that recent report that said that people on cell phones were more likely to be in accidents, the accident rate for people talking to passengers wasn't all that much lower. How long before passengers are banned from cars, or police start ticketing people for talking?

    I still remember when people started pushing for mandatory seat belt laws, dismissing as paranoid nuts anyone who suggested that cops would be pulling drivers over at random to make sure they're wearing seat belts. Well, now that cops are doing exactly that, where are these people now?

    Quit asking for the goverment to run everybody's lives for them, they do too much of it already.


    Cheers,

  • Board Members (Score:3)

    by Alpha State ( 89105 ) on Sunday July 01, 2001 @08:22PM (#115123) Homepage
    Without court regulations, Pichinson can close a firm in a few weeks and keep the liquidation out of government documents and thus off board members' resumes.

    I don't see why this should happen. Particularly if I am the shareholder of a company I want to know the background of the board members. I think it's reasonable to be able to find out which companies they've been on the board of in the past.

  • Zoho still on monster.com (Score:3)

    by sigwinch ( 115375 ) on Sunday July 01, 2001 @09:17PM (#115124) Homepage
    Zoho.com was one of the companies in the article. This [monster.com] is their page on monster.com.
    And here's what you'll get as a Zoho employee: The opportunity to be a part of something truly cutting edge, under the leadership of a truly focused, mature executive team. ... So, if you've been searching for a successful career with an industry leader, look no further. Zoho gives you the chance to grow your skills as a professional in a unique environment that blends startup excitement with blue chip stability.
    The irony, she is painful! Bwahahahahahahaha!!
  • Sure! why not? Thats just part of the failed business assets.. And the great thing about mailing lists is that unlike a crate of promotional hats or t-shirts, they can be sold again and again!

    ..Maybe thats why I keep getting so much spam about how I can make *BIG MONEY* buying and selling email adresses. I feel most sorry for the newbies that drop their one email address into online forms and don't know how to filter their spam -

  • What's next for Repo Man? It's his turn now. He's raising a $100 million ``vulture'' fund to buy some of the struggling companies himself, turn them around and sell them for a profit. He's already got a commitment from outside investors for $50 million, and he's pushing for a 35 percent cut on returns way more than the most elite venture firms in the valley.

    He may relent and settle for 30 percent.

    Now, if this is not poetic justice just waiting to happen. Mu ha ha ha....

  • Amateur article (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 01, 2001 @08:45PM (#115127)
    Whoever wrote this article should be sent back to the 6th grade.
    Pichinson was an easy winner, despite his fee of 7.5 percent of the sales about three times the amount of his nearest competitor.
    and
    He says the toys in one room plastic helmets and squirt guns can go to charity.
    Ever hear of a comma, pal? Of course not, you didn't even bother to close the last sentence of the article with a period. Maybe next time you'll dazzle us with iNTeRcAPs, d00d! Sheesh.

  • Interesting choice of words ... (Score:4)

    by OmegaDan ( 101255 ) on Sunday July 01, 2001 @11:42PM (#115128) Homepage
    As the economy leaves wrecked companies in its wake...

    The ECONOMY leaves wrecked companies in its wake? I have news for the author: the internet has spawned the greatest percentage of *the stupidest* business plans in all recorded history. Even con-men were on better ground then alot of these internet firms ...

    I hate to see stupidity

  • Has he paid VA Linux a visit yet? (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 01, 2001 @07:30PM (#115129)

    If not, he will be soon...

  • I had to do this last week (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 01, 2001 @07:53PM (#115130)
    Our main offices were closing, and we had to pick up ALL the equipment from these people. It was sad, the only people left were a few admins trying to close up shop, and a few bean counters trying to inventory everything. It was easy to see why this office closed. I mean who the hell needs a 10 ft mahonany, and bronze plaque with your logo on it, in the loby when you're an internet company!? The equipment we got from them was top of the line. Their were many racks of stuff that was never even opened, and their were 21 inch monitors everywhere. Considering that most programers at our office use 17 inch monitors and p450 systems, we could see why this division had run out of cash so fast. It's funny, we always thought we were the red headed step child in the company, but it turned out that our division was the only one making money. I had no problems getting the equipment from those over paid, and over perked people.

  • Repo men are impressive (Score:5)

    by harlows_monkeys ( 106428 ) on Sunday July 01, 2001 @10:10PM (#115131) Homepage
    Many years ago (long before the dot.com stuff), I worked at a small Unix workstation company (Callan Data Systems...anyone remember them?). We got behind in the payments on this big machine that did something with blueprints (I'm a programmer...I have no idea what this thing did...but it was big...about 6ft wide and 4ft long, and 3ft tall, and it weighed a lot).

    The blueprint machine was in a room in the center of the engineering building. There were two entrances to the building. To go from the front entrance to the blueprint machine room, you would have to go past the office of one of the company owners, and the secretary, and a couple of engineer's offices.

    To get to the blueprint machine room from the back door, you would have to go past my office, and the offices of four other programmers.

    All the desks in all the aforementioned offices faced their doors, so anyone working could easily see anyone who went down the hall.

    One day, the machine was repossesed. It happened between 11am (when someone last used it), and 1pm (when someone tried to use it, and found it was gone). During that time, none of the people in any of the offices I mentioned above went to lunch.

    No one saw anything. Evidently, at least two people managed to walk in, go past several people, and carry the machine out, all without being seen.

  • Oh, the irony... (Score:5)

    by legLess ( 127550 ) on Sunday July 01, 2001 @08:12PM (#115132) Journal
    From the article:
    In the last six months, his firm, Sherwood Partners, has picked up 45 ABC assignments, up from none a year ago. He has enlarged his staff to 20 people from six, and will hire five more. "This business has just exploded," he says.
    So soon we'll need Meta-Repo-Man, to liquidate all the Repo Men who sprang up to cash in on the .com crash.

    "We all say so, so it must be true!"
  • By John Mellencamp:

    The crops we grew last summer weren't enough to pay the loans
    Couldn't buy the seed to plant this spring and the Farmers Bank foreclosed
    Called my old friend Schepman up to auction off the land
    He said John it's just my job and I hope you understand
    Hey calling it your job ol' hoss sure don't make it right
    But if you want me to I'll say a prayer for your soul tonight

    -----------------------

Slashdot Top Deals

1 + 1 = 3, for large values of 1.

Close