Natick, Mass - ( April 16 ) - Microsoft Chairman, Bill Gates, who disappeared in an Air Force A-10 with JonBenet Ramsey over Colorado last week, returned safely today and announced that Microsoft would scrap its creepy "Active Desktop" concept which it's been hyping for several Web-lifetimes now, and replace it with an all new concept, the Acid Desktop.

"Active, Shmactive," said Gates derisively. "That's the kinda crap you get from these straight-arrow Gen-X-er college grads, these days. Man, I don't know about you, but I'm sick of bogus marketing ploys -- and that's why I've scrapped everything -- to come out, as it were, with the all new Acid Desktop."

According to Gates, the all new Acid Desktop would be like, well, taking acid, if ya know what I mean. Which, according to Gates, is also the solution to the fucking bandwidth problem.

"Bandwidth, shmandwidth," said the amnesiac soul from another dimension who inhabited the earthly vehicle known as Bill Gates, "All information is already in the user's head, so there's really nothing to send, except a few start and stop codes and a few neural address codes, of course. And these codes can be sent by simple patterns of pixels and sounds that emanate from the acid desktop and, like..."

He flipped on the overhead monitor displaying the acid desktop...

"...like...." continued Gates

The room was silent as the acid desktop ran through its startup routine.

"Fuuuuuuuuuuck," said Gates, apparently having forgotten to take his vitamin B-12, acid blocker.

"OK," said Gates, all keyboard, laser pointer, mouse, touch screen, 3-D motion sensor, and bio-finger thing.

"I don't think this needs to be said," he said. "And, obviously, of course, the art of all art is disguising this. Making it non-obvious."

"According to according, for example, today," he continued, "Said, 'We have... uh...' In a press, outside the, sources see, his, like, if, you know, I'd done something else, then it wouldn't have been this. But, then, this may not even be this so why bother?"

Despite the loss of several reporters to themselves, Gates push technologied himself together long enough to enumerate his new programming lineup for the all new Microsoft Network -- programming designed specifically for Acid Desktop Version 1.0b1b.

"Our new programming concept," he began, "Is basically just one big interactive forum for relationship marketing, where, you know, self-righteousness is the ultimate punchline of all thought.

"Under this neat new programming concept, for example," he continued, as sources and targets phased in and out around the room, "Flesh, would be always thicker than water -- and, like, the pen would be mightier than the cigarette or the tampon, but not mightier than the cystoscope or whatever.

"So, our premiere new show couldn't be anything but "The Cokie Roberts Spits in Walter Cronkite's Food Show,' where, each week, Cokie Roberts Spits in Walter Cronkite's Food, and Walter calls her a dumbfuck. Now, each week, it's the same plotline, but there's some subtle difference, maybe in the set, maybe in the choices the actors make, maybe in the camera moves, or the direction, maybe in the film stock, or the music, or the instrumentation of the music -- maybe there are 2 or 3 differences.

"So once you know what the difference(s) is/are, you write its/their name(s) down and then start hitting URLs which are anagrams of the word(s) you've written down, and eventually you get to the website that's tied to the show, where you find a shockwave animation that gives you a clue to the URL of the next show which is really the premiere show, and this has all been just a fucking lie, you asshole ....", said Gates.

"OK," Gates continued, "So the real premiere show is called "Your Fucking Soul: On $5.95 a day" -- where, for only $5.95 a day, we take you on a guided tour of your very own fucking soul -- so you can see what you've been missing, you asshole ...," said Gates.

"OK," Gates continued, "Then the next show is called uhhh, "Aggressive Hormones" or something, its all about the inventor of the wet tee-shirt contest or something and how like, sure it was cool for awhile to go around being the inventor of the wet tee shirt contest and all but what happens after people are sick of wet tee shirt contests so every week on this show the guy who invented the wet tee shirt contest walks into a bar and says Hey, I invented the wet tee shirt contest, gimme a free drink, and everybody says you asshole. And though, each week, the plotline is exactly the same, there is a subtle difference in, you know, the main character's pronunciation or regional accent or something or the lead instrument of the orchestra playing the filler music is out of tune by a certain frequency and that frequency is actually the first 4 digits of the IP address or whatever of a website where there's a contest to write left-handed suicide notes to JonBenet Ramsey or whoever it is this week.

"OK," Gates continued, "And speaking of suicide notes and real punchlines to premiere shows where self-righteousness is thicker than flesh even if flesh is thicker than blood, or food is thicker than blood, our next show is called "Food Is Thicker Than Blood," -- no, I'm just kidding, that's a punchline not a show, our next show, which is really the premiere show, cause so far all these shows have been bogus parodies of themselves, you know, lead-in shows just to warm up the audience, so the premiere show is is, you know, is really, uh, called "Online Suicide Of The Day," hey, can't keep up with all the new online suicides taking place everyday on the world wide web, well fuck that shit, cause we'll take care of that for you cause what we do is we scour the top hand-picked web surfers go out and scour the net each day and they come back with all the hot new suicides and then then they, you know, they rate them so you know which the best ones are so you don't have to waste your time watching or going to the website of all those crappy suicides feh who wants to see a crappy suicide, You wanna see a cool suicide, right, and so do we so we'll show you where all the cool suicides are so you don't have to bother, right, or did we already say that who cares we're all on acid now right ok so hey andreessen c'mon try our acid desktop -- hey barksdale, hey mcnealy, hey polese, hey case, hey hey, woody guthrie, come on try our MS acid desktop, cmon cmon, eat rupert murdoch for breakfast, puke ted turner for lunch, whatever...."