Las Vegas, NV - (Nov 17) - Liquid Prozac and gaseous Quaaludes flowed like water, in Las Vegas, early this morning, as attendees at Fall Comdex '97 continued in the, so far, vain attempt to shake the brutal despair which has apparently gripped every last one of them, at all levels of the distribution and, you know, food chain.

With the market for personal computers flatter than a Wired reader's brainwaves, and with not even the hint of a new product or concept anywhere in sight, (and not even the hint of a new scare, or promise, or big lie, anywhere in sight), marketers are rightly fearful they may never move another fucking unit through the fucking "channel" again, as long as they fucking live. If you know what I mean.

"The market for personal computers is saturated," said a major corporate CEO wearing an intentionally blurred-out name tag, "The internet spike is over, and there's no new software or accessory that anyone wants or doesn't already have. Within 5 years, even Microsoft, will be reduced to just doing support and bug-fixing on its full line of legacy apps and OSs. No development. No new products. Not even any upgrades. And Intel will be melting down plants and selling off the raw pieces to avowed nuclear proliferators and terrorists, for use in dirty fusion warheads, at pennies on the dollar, with the government's blessings."

"You can only stretch utter disingenuousness so far," said Bill Gates, in his keynote address, "Before it becomes a chronic pain -- right here," and he pointed to his side.

By far the most popular booth at the show was the Gingko Biloba (or whatever) booth, where veterans and newbies alike scarfed down endless free samples of the "mind-improvement" herb, in the hopes of maybe having, you know, A FUCKING IDEA!!

Market Firmly UP

The stock market rose sharply today, on news that the Spice Girls, the most popular group in entertainment history, are breaking up.

Louis Rukeyser, a generic TV business talking flak, claimed that, "Since the Spice Girls are the only form of entertainment that Americans care about at all, anymore, their breakup will most likely force hapless mass-consumers to either return to their previous only form of entertainment -- which was basically trashing the personal shit out of each other -- or else, they'll have the opportunity to evolve to a new level of entertainment appreciation, where the moment by moment fluctuations of the Stock Market alone, are much more popular than Jesus and the Beatles put together."