I've been using the moniker "Scumbolini" for one reason or another for over fifteen years. Today it occurred to me I should Google the word "Scumbolini" just to see where it may have popped up over the last few years.
It hasn't. Let me clarify that. No one besides myself in recent Google-able history has used the name/term/word "Scumbolini" for anything, anywhere. It is unique to me. Therefore I hereby copyright it for now and forever. It is mine. Don't touch it.
Some have suggested that it is a perversion of "Thumbalina" since there is something of an obsession about her at BOT House. Nothing could be further from the truth. Scumbolini predates Thumbalina (well, our Thumbalina, at least) by many years.
And here's the story for posterity.
I never considered myself a huckster or snake oil salesman or wheeler-dealer, but in the early 90s I was looking for a way to make an extra buck or two.
I heard of a salvor (a person who salvages things) who stumbled on to a literal truckload of used, functional Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) from - of all places - CompuServe, a company long ago swallowed up by AOL. He had the product, I had the market (long story), the means to advertise to that market, and - most importantly - a way to deliver that product to the market. He wanted $50 each and I knew the market would consider $75 a sweat deal (a brand new UPS in those days was about $350).
Cut to the chase, this guy was a complete doofus. I had the market all charged up and ready to buy. I was even taking orders. He left the truck out one night and all the UPSes froze, popping the batteries, and ruining the lot.
A total loss, and a major embarrassment to me because I couldn't deliver the product. And of course he got stuck with a truckload of JUNK. A potentially great deal gone sour.
So anyway, this guy's name was "Tony Scambalone".
When I first saw his name on his business card I thought it was pronounced "SCAM baloney". That in itself nicely summed up the UPS deal.
However, he pronounced his name "SCUM -ba-loan".
I took his pronunciation and my own and came up with "SCUM baloney". From there it was a short hop to "Scumbolini".
Somewhat disrespectful, but the deal went so badly I didn't suffer any guilt over it. Still don't.
I never saw him again but I appropriated his mutated name for my own purposes over the years.
For all I know Tony is in that Big Salvage Yard in the Sky now.
Showing posts with label escenary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label escenary. Show all posts
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Sunday, July 22, 2007
An Improbable Escenary: CSO Hinky
A couple of weeks ago I was called to Mahogany Row to interview for the Chief Security Officer position.
It was all I could do to keep a straight face. In the end, I told them flat out I wasn't their boy, but I wished them good luck and total support for the CSO when they finally got one.
After all, the position's been open for over three years now. The last CSO went mad. Totally fucking mad. Both he and the CIO were tossed out on their asses. The CIO wasn't crazy. His problem stemmed from not being able to keep it in his pants.
Ah, those were the days.
I value what little sanity I have left. This organization is rough on lowly managers, let alone CxO types. Management seems to have greater longevity, at least in my experience. And they are only slightly less mad.
The less said about it, the better, but the new CSO is scheduled to show up before September. It should be fun and I'll tell you all about it, since we don't have a Blog Policy... yet.
It seems I picked a bad time to try to generate "Free iPhone" Google News Alert hits. Stephen Colbert picked the same time to whine about not getting a free iPhone, so he took all the hits. Then he actually got one and got more hits. Maybe if I mention them both in the same sentence I can get a hit.
Done.
In the meantime, Ive got another Google News Alert on the word "escenary". I keep getting the same hit over and over every week. Don't bother looking it up. It's not a real word. It appears to be a word used only by people for whom English is a second language. Check it out. In context it means either "scenery" or "scenario". Here's a useage example for the Google bots...
"In a humorous escenary witnessed by millions of TV viewers, Stephen Colbert conned Apple out of a free iPhone."
Two birds, one stone.
It was all I could do to keep a straight face. In the end, I told them flat out I wasn't their boy, but I wished them good luck and total support for the CSO when they finally got one.
After all, the position's been open for over three years now. The last CSO went mad. Totally fucking mad. Both he and the CIO were tossed out on their asses. The CIO wasn't crazy. His problem stemmed from not being able to keep it in his pants.
Ah, those were the days.
I value what little sanity I have left. This organization is rough on lowly managers, let alone CxO types. Management seems to have greater longevity, at least in my experience. And they are only slightly less mad.
The less said about it, the better, but the new CSO is scheduled to show up before September. It should be fun and I'll tell you all about it, since we don't have a Blog Policy... yet.
It seems I picked a bad time to try to generate "Free iPhone" Google News Alert hits. Stephen Colbert picked the same time to whine about not getting a free iPhone, so he took all the hits. Then he actually got one and got more hits. Maybe if I mention them both in the same sentence I can get a hit.
Done.
In the meantime, Ive got another Google News Alert on the word "escenary". I keep getting the same hit over and over every week. Don't bother looking it up. It's not a real word. It appears to be a word used only by people for whom English is a second language. Check it out. In context it means either "scenery" or "scenario". Here's a useage example for the Google bots...
"In a humorous escenary witnessed by millions of TV viewers, Stephen Colbert conned Apple out of a free iPhone."
Two birds, one stone.
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