Fri, Dec. 9th meeting: Death and Resurrection

I went back to look at the transcript, but it had mysteriously disappeared. All that was left were a few 'Good nights' after what had been a vicious back alley brawl. So to speak. Granted, you can't 'brawl' in a physical sense inside a chat room, but if you want to get figurative about it? Sharon Tate had her baby ripped out of her while she was still alive and was hung up by the rafters again last night. All I remember were the words 'fucking hate' being typed a lot, mostly as in 'I fucking hate so-and-so.' And frankly, I felt ambushed and didn't know how to respond. There was some kind of powerplay going on there that I never expected. Half the room was divided and our house wasn't standing anymore.

You know, I'm lying, too. I can't in good conscience say 'I felt ambushed and didn't know how to respond.' I felt ambushed, is true. But I did know how to respond. It's just that it took another two hours for us to get to that point. Prickly and Raygun are gone. I wish them well.

Some good feedback ... Fina-freaking-ly!!!!

I received this gmail at my tqrquery@gmail.com address. And it made my day.
Thank you, Nels!

Gmail Inbox

Just an aside...
Nels Stanley to me
But you guys have the most entertaining submission guidelines I've read in a while.

Thank you.

Best,
Nels.

Being the good snake oil salesman, I promptly returned his gmail with, well, you see my marketing je nais c'est quoi?

Mr. Stanley,

Thank you for the feedback. It is good to hear our attempt at serious levity is being noticed. Check out the Free Market menu item right now (The Floor and The Terminal) for some more postings that you may find equally entertaining.

Sincerely, TQR

Staff Portraits Now Visible in Free Market

Architext has done worked in his own good time, and done the site a kick in the pants. Now, all of the staff that posts on ventures in the Free Market have their faces exposed to the cruel light of computer illumination. Please check it out here:

Shiznitz

A Proposal for a New TQR Menu Item: Serial

I fired off this gmail in a fit of inspiration:

Theodore Q. Rorschalk: Serial, as in a menu item to feature the ongoing corporate soap opera. Granted, we haven't keyed on this aspect to much this first quarter cuz we're concentrating on getting the process of story vetting down. But for next quarter I'm talking now. We should have a menu item titled 'Serial' that can be updated on a weekly basis like I have been doing to 'From the Chair' on the main menu.

Creating the 'corporate soap opera' from whole cloth is not even necessary anymore since we've got some stroylines to work with due to the day-to-day operations of the shop.

1. The rivalry twixt Floor and Terminal. The Floor denigrating the Terminal for taking its time and the Terminal looking down their collective noses at the lowly denizens of the slushy bottom feeding Floor. This animosity has real promise for at least on Serial segment.

2. H3K vs. LaFloor in match twixt Terminal Heavyweights. Heck, we could pit them in a real-time cage match thing in the Conference Room. Call it Rage in a Cage or Hell in the Cell (my apologies to World Wrestling Entertainment).

3. The May/December Romance twixt Doomey and DePlancher. Is it real or just the insipid effect of rampant rumour mongering?

These are the ones that come to mind, I'm sure there are more.

Anyhow. I was thinking 'Serial' could be assigned to one staff member a week. It can be written in any form the staffer so chooses (screenplay format/flash fiction/short story/song/epic poem/whatever) and could be handed down from week to week. The stipulation would be that each progressive week's writer incorporate some of the storyline of the last week, or at least not contradict it, so that each Serial builds on the last like a normal soap opera ie Days of Our Lives.

What do you all think?

The Usual Suspects Responded. I wish more folks would cotton to my enthusiasm. Guess I'm going to have to learn most of them by sheer determination.

Gabrielle DePlancher: like that idea. If it's specifically assigned to one person each week, something of new continuing content in a variety [more interesting and diverse] of styles, while at the same time keeping some kind of continuum flowing from post to post. Yes, I say.

Boligard Doomey: i think that is so freakin hot. great idea. a story in the making!

TQR: Yeah. Me too. And now that we have a bit of camaradarie and animosity for each other, we can channel that into some storylines that are not too far from the persona-l truth. You see? I think we ought to start the Serial slowly, using it as a weekly installment hard copy, then the quarter after that maybe graduate to scripts in the Conference Room, then next quarter graduate to vague prompts in the Conference Room to improvise upon. Like actors going from a read through of the script, to rehearsal, to a full blown performance. But then where do we go? Oh, we'll think of something once we get there, right?

We even could write scripts to be acted out in the Conference Room/Stage that could be copied and pasted into the Serial menu item. That would be cool. But this option would probably only work if we had a public view-only Conference Room (which we don't have yet) so that random public people couldn't crash the performance. This type of 'acting' would, of course, also lend itself to improvisation, which would make TQR truly akin to SCTV, one of its inspirations. Dunno. Sound off, if you can.

Boli: well, that was my idea. hey, theo, you are stealing my ideas! nah, maybe i just dreamed i had that idea. i was thinking that we wouldn't need a script, rather we'd have a basic storyline to follow, a setup and a general place to end up, the middle would be a roller coaster ride.

TQR: maybe it was your idea. Maybe it was our telepathic love child. I like the idea of a basic story line. What form would this take instead of a script. More like a movie treatment (are you familiar with that fancy Hollywood lingo?). By the by, when are you going to add some lingo? You were all jacked up to do that thang, and it's been twisting there for months. Hop to! Give me one good lingo, boyo.

DeP: this aspect is really dependent on the ability of its participants to improvise and entertain and be somewhat kinda funny. Are all o' us prepared/capable of that kinda thang do you think?

TQR: sure, but a great script can go a long way toward making some average B list actor look like Sir Laurence Olivier.

DeP: D'accord!

All right, then. And so the makings of a new quarter begin to grind into motion. The whole concept of TQR is keeping it fresh and mining everything that goes into making the e-zine work for dynamic content. Even the fictional corporate soap opera will be inspired by the interactions of the persona on-site, in the Free Market and wherever else they may tangle. Capische, hombre?

Hang out with TQR or suffer the consequences

Dear Investors,This day of our Lord, Dec. 3, 2005, finds TQR in flux, the “it is very hard to get something moving once it has come to rest” type entropic flux. The malaprop destiny of the biz appears to be post-Floor constipation, which I have tried to combat with suppository injections of cheerleading gmail and threats of the cessation of the cafeteria privileges of certain Terminali. I am bullish on the Metamucil-like success of these remedies. Patience is a virtue, Daniel-san. May God rest Mr. Myagi’s Buddhist soul.

Anywhat, the site continues its pourous structural performance, crashing on an almost every-other-day basis. The good news is it doesn’t crash for very long. The bad news is I still have one year left on my contract with the Indians over at HostedToday, the ISP company Architext funneled me to when we first were in the process of finding cyberspace real estate for our conceptual digs Damn that computer program to hell! But Architext is also wise beyond my pithy human comprehension. So… the good news is Sandeep of Katmandu, via HostedToday, is a very nice person and doesn’t begrudge me my occasional tirade. The bad news is the entire IT troubleshooting staff knows my name, first born son’s social security number and wife’s cup size, I am so familiar around there these days! See http://tqrzinester.blogspot.com for further sundry details and rantings.

But we are new and evolving. Becoming, as that loony-bin-inducted Hanabus would say. Please, go with God, and invest in TQR.

Sincerely, Theodore

Terminal Kung Fu Fighters and other anomalies

Today I forwarded capital to the Terminali that somehow didn't translate from the Floor, even th0ugh it was 'sent up' originally. Such are the vicissitudes of running a business, eh?

Hal 3000 has opened up a thread of inquiry and comment on the piece Cyberevenge, Inc. Could this be signs of a Terminal renaissance? Yes, there have been complications; Guevara's home/professional transitions messing with Terminal business at hand as well as Maggie's personal strife affecting her participation. The bulk of the load has falled on the virtual shoulders of Hal and LaFloor. Let us be, let us be. Whisper words o f wisdom, la la la.

Memo to VC's champing at the bit for their Terminaled capital to be vetted: Thank you for your patience. Rest assured, we will get to it eventually. We are a new e-zine with a new modus operandi that will get smoother with each quarter. Owing to the fact this is our first quarter processing the assets of our wonderful venture capitalists, you must know it may take more time than first thought.

Sincerey, the chairman