The Great Geek Manual

The other night, while flipping through the stations, I got so desperate for something to watch, that I actually turned to CBS, which is quite out of character for me. I ended up watching an episode of NUMB3RS in which one of the characters was describing the strategy of a group of bank robbers with Microsoft’s Minesweeper, and I started to think. What would happen if CBS partnered with Microsoft, the way the NBC news network did? It seems like a natural fit. After all, what two symbols represent evil more clearly than the Windows logo and the Eye of Sauron which CBS persists in using as its logo?

10. The basic premise behind “How I Met Your Mother” would boil down to “I met your mother through MSN Dating & Personals, Where anyone can find love.(TM) Log on now.”

9. David Letterman would still do his top ten list every night on the LATE SHOW, but all his interviews would be conducted live in MSN chat rooms.

8. On “Judging Amy”, Amy would give up her crusade to save the juvenile justice system, and take up the campaign to reform Monopoly regulation instead. Amy’s mom, Maxine, would immediately start dating Bill Gates, only to have him tragically die in the next season.

7. “Out of Practice,” a show currently about a retired lawyer, would likely be replaced with a web cam feed of Microsoft programmers attempting to innovate. The show’s title would remain the same.

6. “The Class” would become “The Base Class,” an hour long round table discussion of the library which provides access to system functionality and is designed to be the foundation on which .NET Framework applications, components, and controls are built.

5. “Two and a half Men” would immediately be cancelled by MSN’s censorship algorithm. Huh … they really do need a better disclosure policy …

4. The new CBS series, “The Papdits,” would center around the family of an Indian programmer who happily codes ten hours a day for a tenth the price of an American programmer. And, while the programmer would never ditch work for a day of hilariously random adventure and would never interrupts his work for jocular exchanges with his co-workers, he would be exceedingly polite.

3. On CSI, instead of tracking down murderers, the team would use computer forensics to track down hackers across the globe in order to arrest them in their mothers’ basement. (Note: Even with Microsoft backing, CBS still would not be l33t enough to use the term “haxors.”)

2. “Big Brother” would take on a whole new meaning as Microsoft enacted new policies requiring viewers to register all of their (television) programs in order to ensure that no program was being used on more than one set at a time.

1. Linux would immediately partner with PBS to provide intelligent, commercial-free, collaborative, community-produced programming that would blow MS-CBS away, but no one would watch it.

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“What if CBS and Microsoft merged?” was originally written by Pipedreamergrey on July 1, 2005 and revised November 6, 2006 for The Great Geek Manual. It may be reposted so long as this notice remains intact. Copyright 2006 Pipedreamergrey.