Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

Tag: google

A Partial Transcript Of Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s Congressional Testimony, 12/11/18

“Could you please state your name and occupation for the committee, please?”

“Yes, Congressman Goodlatte. My name is Sundar Pichai and I am the CEO of Google.”

“I had been informed that you would be wearing a turtleneck, and had died several years ago.”

“I believe you’re thinking of Steve Jobs, sir. Completely different guy.”

“But he did, in fact, wear a turtlenecked garment?”

“He did. Technically, it was a mock-turtleneck, but same ballpark.”

“Hell of an accent you got on you there.”

“I was born and raised in Mumbai, sir.”

“Well, good for you for escaping Communism.”

“Sir, India has never been…y’know what? Forget it. Thank you.”

“I will yield to the Honorable Louie Gohmert, representing the state of Texas.”

“Aw right, now. Looky here. We got us some cowboys and Indians on Capitol Hill. Thass a joke, son.”

“Is it? Ha.”

“Lemme git right to the point, Mr. Prickly.”

“Pichai.”

“In preparation for these hearings, I asked my staff to perform a google on me and what they showed me was outrageous. Absolutely outrageous. I was called ‘a bag of clown shit left in a pizza oven for two hours.’ I was referred to as ‘dumber than a mongoloid after a stroke.’ That’s offensive. My mother had a stroke.”

“Sir, Google does not actually write any of those things. We just collect them from the web according to their popularity.”

“Furthermore, my picture pops up when you enter the search phrase ‘feeble-minded pants-shitter.’ Why is that, sir?”

“Again: this is all based on what people are clicking on.”

“And look at this here: ‘Louie Gohmert couldn’t spell his first name if you spotted him the vowels.’ Do you think that’s appropriate?”

“We are just a search engine, sir.”

“How many cylinders?”

“Excuse me?”

“How many cylinders your engine got?”

“Ah. I see where you’re going with this. Congressman, sometimes words have multiple meanings and–”

“Don’t you didacticate up in here.”

“And sometimes words are just invented on the spot, I guess.”

“I yield the rest of my time to the Honorable Ted Lieu from the disgusting Sodom that is California.”

“Thank you, Congressman.  Good morning, Mr. Pichai. Welcome to the Resistance.”

“Um, good morning, but I am not in whatever group you just talked about.”

“But you hate Trump, right?”

“I was told this hearing would be about technology and business and other subjects I am familiar with.”

“Sure, sure. You wanna get a selfie for the feed? I’m coming up on 900,000 Twitter followers.”

“Good for you. Maybe we’ll get a picture later.”

“Mr. Pichai, following up on what Congressman Gohmert was saying: it is truly terrible some of the things that pop up when you Google Republicans. For example, when you look up my distinguished colleague Steve King from Iowa, you get ‘Steve King looks like how a burning cross smells’ or ‘Steve King masturbates while imagining the Harlem Globetrotters performing their legendary Magic Circle routine using his asshole as the ball’ or ‘Steve King doesn’t hate Jews, he just wishes they were all dead.'”

“Do you have a question for me, Congressman?”

“No, I just wanted to read some mean things about Steve King. I yield my time to my very august colleague, Lamar Smith from Texas.”

“Thank you kindly. Mr. Pickles–”

“Pichai. Pih like in pitcher, chi like in Chinese.”

“–I want to know where my damn headphone jack got up to. I used to have my music on my phone and I could listen to it when I went walking around the Pentagon Mall at 5:00 am. My granddaughter put on all my Bob Wills records, loved it. Favorite time of day. Never any rain in the mall, nosiree. And now my staff has this new phone for me, right? And my music’s still there, but I can’t get the damn ear-things in.”

“Congressman.”

“The hole used to be round, but it’s like a long oval now.”

“Congressman–”

“I tried shoving ’em in there, but the doohickey got bent.”

“Congressman, is there a woman who lives inside your phone and answers your questions?”

“Yes.”

“Is her name Siri?”

“How do you know about her?”

“You’re talking about iPhones, Congressman. We don’t make those.”

“Who does?”

“Apple.”

“Do you know the people who run Apple?’

“I do, yes.”

“Well, can you call over there and get my ear-thing hole back?”

“May I ask for a five minute recess?”

GAVEL NOISE

So You’re Thinking About Writing A Manifesto

Hi there, potential screedist. I hear through the grapevine that you’re thinking about sitting down and sweating out a grand dissertation on precisely what’s wrong with your company, your industry, or society as a whole. You have large, complicated, and nuanced thoughts that can’t be framed in 140 characters, and need to stretch your intellectual legs a bit in the longform. For a certain breed of thinker, there can be no medium other than the manifesto, and it appears that you are among their ranks.

But let’s make sure. First of all…

Congratulations

By writing a manifesto, you’re joining an exclusive club full of some of the loveliest people: the Unabomber, Marx, the Libertarian Party; all have manifestos.

Do you have a job?

Cuz you’re getting fired if you write a manifesto; that’s the lesson of Jerry Maguire. Also, that the human head weighs eight pounds.

Drag science into it!

A proper manifesto needs to use scientific rationale for its argument, and you lose points for citing sources. Watch how a little bit of science helps the medicine go down:

“I don’t like women or their shrill vaginas.”
That’s an opinion, and some might find it offensive.

“Women are biologically inferior to men.”
That’s science, and no one can argue with it.

If genetics doesn’t work, use anatomy. If anatomy doesn’t work, use chemistry. If chemistry doesn’t work, use evolutionary psychology. If evolutionary psychology doesn’t work, then just make something up and call it evolutionary psychology; no one will be able to tell the difference.

Have you figured out whose fault it is?

A manifesto doesn’t have a story, but there needs to be a bad guy. Capitalism? Technology? The Jews? The Lizard People?*

(NOTE: Blaming Muslims is a bit overdone lately, and publishing houses are no longer accepting submissions on the topic.)

You sure you’re right?

Ah, who am I kidding? Of course you are! No one who’s ever written a manifesto has been wrong so far.

Get out there and kick ass, tiger.

 

*I know, I know: the Jews are the Lizard People. I didn’t have time to go into a whole thing about it.