ShadowRAM: March 5, 2007

At the risk of pouring fuel on the fire, here's a direct quote: "What do former playmate Anna Nicole Smith and Godfather of Soul James Brown have in common? No, Brown didn't father Smith's child (at least as far as we know.)

"But even if they didn't get together in life, they share the same problem in death—their embalmed bodies are trapped in legal limbos.

"And both could have been resting in peace by now if they'd had Online Safety Deposit Boxes from KeepYouSafe.com."

Two words: Good Lord. I'm steering clear of these people.

Runner Up
A close second prize in the feisty-but-annoying pitch department comes from an agency flacking—perhaps a little too eagerly—for Savvion. It very much wanted reporters to talk to Savvion Senior Vice President Patrick Morrissey and cited the recent JetBlue and Pennsylvania highway fiascos as the ostensible reason.

The thinking, probably, was that Savvion's business process management know-how would have nipped any flight delays and day-long gridlock snafus in the bud.

Yeah, right.

Sorry guys. I was too traumatized from my extensive tarmac time to reopen that festering wound. In fact, your pitches just make me associate these screwups with Savvion. Go figure.

Hey, come to think of it, hasn't Microsoft repeatedly touted JetBlue as a marquee customer? Isn't there some way we can pin all this on Redmond? I'm thinking yessssss...

Seen And Heard
• Oracle has enough dough to snap up half the software industry, but it's apparently too tightfisted to pick up the tax bill on its prizes. Programmer Brian Emmett landed the trip of a lifetime when he won the Oracle Space Sweepstakes in 2005: His knowledge of Oracle's Java and SOAs won him a reservation on an upcoming suborbital space flight. But he relinquished the trip he'd dreamed about after learning he'd have to pay $25,000 in taxes. Oracle covered only the ticket, not the IRS' cut.

Oracle said it will turn the prize over to a backup winner willing to pay Uncle Sam.

After his plight hit the headlines, space-tourism company Benson Space signed up Emmett, a space buff, as a consulting "test passenger" for its first flight, scheduled for late 2008.

• On the morning Avnet announced that John Paget would become the distributor's next global president of its Advanced Technology Solutions division, he spoke to CRN but warned that the call might be cut short as one of the cows on his Texas ranch was about to give birth. In fact, it was the second cow born on Paget's ranch in as many weeks.

• And a big apology to the good folks of Vermont who took exception to a joking reference on these pages to herb smoking and hippy chic-ness in that beautiful state.

The item was written, with love, by a former Burlingtonian (South Union Street and Summit Street) who still views medicinal smoke and hippy chicness with respect and love. Hell, the whole item was written as a compliment. Clearly, it was off the mark, and Shadowram is abjectly sorry.