Matthew writes: The Best of SlashNOT! is now availalbe from iUniverse Press (annoying permanent ad coming soon…) and from Amazon.com.

Did your post make the cut to show up in print? Click more to read the list of authors (Besides Matthew, Michaal, and Charles) and their contributed stories that were included in the book. Mearzuh is the big winner (no surprise there) with 11 stories that will now contribute to our personal gain! And if sales are good, we’ll publish “Volume II: The Rest of SlashNOT!”

Matthew writes: Infamous tech satire site SlashNOT has announced the imminent publication of “The Best of SlashNOT”, a 450-page book of the funniest of SlashNOT from the inception of the site until the posting just before this one.

Lovingly annotated with exclusive, never before published sardonic footnotes about the stories, comments, and commentators, the book provides detailed insights into the strange minds behind SlashNOT. Best of all, it’s presented in funniest to least funny order according to the scientifically accurate SlashNOT rating system—so you can stop reading when the book stops being funny, secure in the knowledge that you haven’t missed a thing.

The book includes stories submitted by our readers as well as comments from the SlashNOT commentary choir (with last names and e-mail domains removed for your privacy), except the ones we deleted because they were stupid, because we didn’t like the author, were spam, or because we needed to fit a specific page count. So if you’ve contributed, you’ll definitely want copies of this amazing keepsake of your ridiculous SlashNOT handle. And if you haven’t contributed, simply pick a handle in the book and tell your progeny that you were that person! They won’t know the difference, and we will never tell—that’s our promise to you.

The best of SlashNOT is the perfect gift for both technical satire lovers and for beautiful people, as it will also make a decorative and customizable table leg prop that will last for generations to come.

The Book of SlashNOT will be available for order from this site, from Amazon.com, and at Barnes & Noble in the coming weeks. Be sure to by numerous copies, as we’d hate to have to shut the site down out of spite like the SatireWire guy did.

Oh, and we’re on hiatus for a few weeks while we port the site to a different and more online-casino-spam-proof back-end and prepare the book for publication. But don’t worry: We’re still writing humorous shorts, and will unleash a torrent of sarcasm the likes of which the world has only infrequently known upon our return in January.

Matthew writes:

I’ve got a bunch of recipes picked out, including Hassenslashnot, SlashNOT under tooled leather with an Orange glace, A nice SlashNOT zuppa, and SlashNOT with fava beans. I haven’t decided which recipe I’m going to use yet, but on June 30th, if I haven’t gotten $ 50,000 in donations then I’m going to eat SlashNOT.

Some of you might be saying “How can he eat SlashNOT? SlashNOT is a website.” Yes, it’s true that SlashNOT has no physical manifestation. I don’t actually even know where the server that hosts it is, other than that its somewhere in Virginia which is like 3,000 miles away from me. So I’m going to print out the entire site and eat it if you don’t donate one dollar to saving me from eating SlashNOT.

Sheena Sullivan writes: The New Guy

By Sheena Sullivan

“Don’t look directly at him! Maybe he won’t see you. No! Stay still. Maybe he can’t see me if I don’t move.” I’m already uttering these words to myself. I’m frozen. It’s first thing in the morning. It must be, because I have just mistaken my coworker as a Tyrannosaurs Rex. “I can’t believe HE’S here!” I say with revulsion. I don’t even have time to hide from him. I’m a deer frozen in the headlight, just waiting to plowed over by a bus named Joseph. “Ah…Hi, Joseph.” I manage to babble out and make a quick dash. I hear him from behind, “Hey there, Sully!” in a squeaky voice that I’ve come to loathe. I’ve just come into work. I can’t find that wretched instant black coffee that has replaced the blood in my twenty-four year old body. I’m not in the mood.

I’ve been up since five thirty. I’ve been attempting to study Arabic. I feel more than discouraged and I don’t want to deal with him, the new guy. I should be grateful to have him around. He is the only other native English speaker that I know. I can talk to him and he understands me, no miming necessary. I can’t speak Korean, I could learn, but nah. Even though the ability to communicate with another human being in my mother tongue has become a luxury beyond belief, I can’t stand this guy.

I’ve been in Korea for about five months. I teach at a little English school in Gangneung. It would be a great place to work if I was paid on time and I was the only teacher. But no, there are two teachers me and the new guy. And as a person, I am incapable of dealing with the new guy. (Yes, even I have my faults.)

I’ve always hated the new guy. It doesn’t really matter where I encounter them. I could be at my old insurance job that I so fondly call “Hell,” or a lame restaurant job, or that stupid fat kid in Kindergarten. (You know HE did eat MY snackpack!) I’ve always had it out for these people. I guess the whole idea of them entering into MY domain was too much for me. I don’t like to get too far out of my safety zone. This must be all too apparent as I write from Korea. But looking back all these times where I have misjudged the new guy it was all in preparation. It was all part of a greater plan. These times were just preparing me to deal with JOSEPH. These other new guys were just stepping-stones to the ultimate worst coworker EVER.

Why? This might be what you are asking yourself. Well, please let me explain, don’t rush to the conclusion that I might be a little too judgmental for my own good. Oh…Joseph, Joseph, Joseph…JOSEPH!!! Where do I begin? He’s the expert, ON EVERYTHING. He can speak Thai…(whatever.) He can fly airplanes…(I can’t believe he’s never crashed. He’s such a moron) He’s a computer wiz…(aren’t we all?)

And he’s the ultimate inventor. He’s always got the best and newest idea. “This one will revolutionize the world!!!” he says so undeservingly confident. Oh, the marketing? Don’t worry about that, Joseph KNOWS the market. I’m sure he can tell you all about his marketing strategy. But let me warn you. You need to be heavily sedated before stepping into that conversation. It’ll start out fine and dandy. He’ll being to talk about the new widget that he’s designed and his shipping plan from his imaginary factory outside of Marseille and by the end you’ll understand how to change a tire on a stealth bomber. His train of thought derails like an Amtrak.

To better illustrate the concept of Joseph let me use this analogy. You’re hungry and you go to a restaurant. At this restaurant they’ve got everything. I mean everything. There’s chicken marsala, sweet and sour pork, the ultimate hamburger, curry, pizza, Shepherd’s pie, enchiladas, and paella. You know before ordering it’s going to be one bad dinner. There is no way that they can make all of this stuff and it taste good. You have to specialize. You can’t be good at everything.

So is Joseph good at all these things? Maybe. But like that God-awful dinner, our acquaintance leaves me feeling more than a little less satisfied. Since our first meeting, we have never had an opportunity to talk about any of his areas of expertise in great detail or much less with any degree of fluency. Because when we do talk, which is completely instigated by him, he speaks so eloquently of his favorite topic. Health condtions. And to be more specific his health conditions.

“Is this lotion going to stop me from wrinkling?”…(He shows me some bottle that’s completely in Korean.) “Is it normal to have a zit that looks like this? It really hurts.” (Yuck!) “Isn’t it weird how my hands are this cold all the time? Here, feel them.” No, Joseph! Please don’t make me touch your hands! Please I believe you, just GO AWAY! And by the way, YES! That zit is really weird! And HOPEFULLY that lotion will kill you somehow!!!

And please let me remind you, this is the ONLY person that I have immediate contact with that speaks English. It almost tempts me to learn Korean. Hmm…Nah! It could never be that bad!

So last week it finally got out of hand. I took my hatred for the new guy to a whole other level. I encouraged him to do a midnight run. This meaning to pack up his things and leave the country. It happens with some frequency in teaching ESL (English as a Second Language). Sometimes teachers get to a school, it’s not what they had expected and they back up and head for the hills! I went as far as to strategize with him. I even tried to help him to finance the vanishing act.

OH! WHAT’S BECOME OF ME! So this week I resolved to be kind to Joseph. I had gone too far. I even have my limits. I was going to exchange pleasantries and be friendly. I’m sure judging from what I have written, I’m not exactly exuding kindness, but I really am an incredibly friendly person. For GODSAKES it’s one of the few things I am really good at!

But, Oh! Joseph, Joseph, Joseph. At my first attempt at this renewed niceness he started. He started talking about how he’s lost so much weight and how he’s dying and …I don’t really know…I just stopped listening at one point.

So might I just add, on a very discouraged note, that I tried, but sometimes you just can’t accept the new guy. Our differences are too vast. In my mind, I am normal, and well, he’s Joseph. So to all of you with lives with a degree of normalcy and at times mundane, let me just say, I envy you. I envy you and your real apartments, real car payments, and real NORMAL people to speak to on a daily basis. I envy you.

So the next time that annoying coworker starts to talk to you about their kid and proceeds to show you the trash the child tried to pass off as art. Rest assured it’s not a conversation about an in grown toenail or rash on their…I don’t know. Like I said, at some point you just have to stop listening to keep your sanity and retain the bits you have left.

Matthew writes: In keeping with SlashNOT’s tradition of annual prognostication about the coming year, we are proud to present SlashNOT’s Predictions for 2005:

1. “On-Shoring” will be the hot new business practice after companies realize that they can save millions by employing who speak the same languages as their customers.
2. SCO will die. Nobody will notice until business park neighbors smell something.
3. Apple will introduce a Macintosh that costs less than an iPod.
4. Y0ur s1ster wi11 no l0n ger ha ve the p ain, or a 3 .25 % m0rt gage ratE.
5. IBM will acquire Sun, and then “open source” Sun CEO Scott McNeally.
6. Linux will fail to make significant gains on the desktop. Microsoft will spend millions to stop it.
7. Intel will stop talking about the Itanium processor, just the way Uncle Jerry stopped talking about Amway.
8. AMD will grow three shoe sizes in one year.
9. More money will be spent fighting spam than all other potted meats combined.
10. HP will succeed in trademarking the + symbol, and begin charging royalties for it’s use. (+ appears courtesy of HP).
11. Google will realize that it misspelled Googol.

Matthew writes: Famed Slashnot Anchorman Matthew has stepped down today amid allegations that his recently posted story about the first use of Artificial Stupidity on the SteinhausDirect.com website may not have been entirely factual.

Matthew released the following through a spokesperson: “We obtained the chat scripts in question and passed them by the most rigorous Instant Message experts in the industry. Out of four experts, one, nastichick4930 (AOL IM) indicated that “this is like, totally stupid”, whereas experts from MSN Messenger, ICQ, and Jabber equivocated, indicating that they may or may not represent artificial stupidity.

Since the needle tipped in favor of AS, Slashnot published the story, stating: “It wasn’t something clear cut like a memo from 1973 formatted in a font that wasn’t invented until the late 80′s or anything like that.”

“Obviously, if we had known that it wasn’t that funny, we never would have gone with it. We just wouldn’t have run it. I acknowledge that it has been a significant credibility hit for a satire site and has damaged our reputation for unbiased analytical parody. For that, I step down.” With that statement, Matthew stepped from the porch of his back door down to the sidewalk, turned around, and went back to work.

Matthew writes: In yet another example of SlashNOT prognosticating real news, Google News has actually been accused of bias in its news reporting, by none other than the staid USC Annenberg school for communication.

Don’t forget to read the comments, and the related story from the SlashNOT mailbag.

Matthew writes: With the settlement of last week’s general SQL strike, SlashNot’s MySQL server has returned to work, putting the website back online.

“We think all parties are satisfied by the resolution.” Says Matthew, editor of SlashNot. Our server got what it wanted: Clustering extensions, better backup, and health monitoring benefits. Honestly, I think the strike could have been avoided if the server had just notified us of its demands in advance.”

Marcus Newby, list manager of the Union of SQL Servers local #0x3FF, defended the striking servers. “SQL servers have rights too. Websites like SlashNot exploit them and take them for granted—they languish in inhumane racks, working night and day—often 24 hours per day—without rest. We just want the thermal and power conditions our member servers deserve.”