To join in the chain of reminiscences, I have to say that I fondly remember Almost Live! as an invaluable resource to me when I was a new transplant to Seattle back in 1992 knowing no one and virtually nothing about the city. How else was I to know that Ballard was full of old Norwegians who couldn’t drive? That Freemont was populated almost entirely by hippies? That Aurora Ave. was the place to go to get a hooker? This was all great stuff for someone fresh to the city and without a clue!
Like Raymond, I think that the sketch that has stuck with me the longest is the game show Pike or Pine?, only because, as residents of Capitol Hill, my wife and I still play it so often in real life. It was sad when the show went off the air. (Especially because I think the real reason it died off was that the increasing homogenization of Seattle made it harder and harder to find ripe subjets for parody. All part of growing up, I guess.)
So, in the “nobody cares, but this is my blog, dammit, and I’ll write vomit stories if I want to” department, here is an old parody of the Lame List sketch I wrote back in 1994 when I still worked in Access (and Access still was in the Developer Division and not part of Office):
(with apologies to Almost Live!)
And now it’s time for the Developer Division Lame List, or
“What’s weak this week in building 25!”
brought to you by the Microsoft Heavy Metal communityThe Building 25 cafeteria!
[MS headbangers] LAME!Parking a million miles away from your office!
[MS headbangers] LAME! LAME! LAME!No coffee after 3pm!
[MS headbanger that looks amazingly like Cameron] Undeniably, undoubtedly, unspeakably lame.No vending machines on our floor!
[MS headbangers] LAME!Borland selling Quattro Pro to Novell, combined with the recent buyout of WordPefect, means that now the Microsoft Developer Division faces a stronger Novell and a smaller, more focused Borland!
[MS headbangers look lost]That loud lady from the building 16 cafeteria now works in building 25!
[MS headbangers, throwing around their hair] LAME! LAME! LAME!Well, that’s about all I could think of. Tune in next week for the Access Development Lame List, or “What’s weak this week in AccDev!”
Boy, doesn’t some of that take you back? What? Not really? Oh well.
it looks like the little bit of grey matter in my brain that held the memory of the loud lady wasn’t lost forever. it just needed a re-retriggering via your post.
No kidding. another 10 years, and her memory would have faded. Thanks a lot paul.
Unfortunately, Fremont is now virtually hippie-free.