Who will we bag with Gates gone?

DEFRAG is not the type to needlessly freak out at the thought of change.

We do needlessly freak out at clowns because clowns are scary, but change isn't always - unless it's change involving clowns.

If Defrag was given a beautifully restored federation house within strolling distance of the beach and a good coffee shop, we would almost certainly be willing to embrace that change.

However, there is one looming change that has us afeard.

It has us antsy. It might even make us schmantsy, if such a state existed.

We're too anxious to look it up - by which we mean rapidly approaching deadline and keen to start drinking as soon as possible.

The problem is that we won't have Bill Gates to kick around any more. Yes folks, this month makes it two years since Bill Gates stepped down from day-to-day involvement in running Microsoft, announcing that his role would be phased out within two years.

Now Defrag is no mathematical genius, but our mobile phone has a calculator and we've determined that if you take two years away from two years, you end up with no years, which makes it the end of era.

We've never actually met the man, but we have been close enough to disapprove of his sock choice, and that's the sort of bond you don't ever forget.

There have been some fun times between Bill Gates and Defrag.

Gates had his dominant software and obscene amount of money, and was completely unaware of our existence, while Defrag called him the Gatesmeister and Billgatron and invited our readers to take a photo of themselves, Gates and a chiko roll for reasons that even we can no longer fathom. We're uncertain of what lies beyond the Gatesazoic era. Who will take on the mantle of rich guy in a baggy jumper that was possibly purchased at K-Mart? An ill fitting that bad doesn't happen by accident.

More importantly, who can Defrag mock now?

Warren Buffett is currently the richest man in the world, but he has very little to do with IT.

Sure there's Steve Ballmer, but bagging Microsoft is so passe.

We could make fun of Steve Jobs, but then our inbox would explode with the white-hot rage of a million enraged, humourless Mac users.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin seem the obvious choice, but they just don't have the same name recognition as Bill Gates, who in the 1990s achieved a rock god level of fame.

A rock god with a bad haircut, but a rock god nonetheless.

Even Defrag's mum has heard of Bill Gates, but we don't see anyone asking the Google guys to appear in a Coke commercial.

More worrying is the question of what an extremely driven man worth $US58 billion does when he suddenly has a lot of spare time.

It occurs to Defrag that he could come up with a series of creative ways to make life hell for anyone who ever made fun of him, starting with the kids in primary school and working his way through to the US Justice Department and that dude who threw the pie.

Which is why Defrag is slightly freaked. After all ...

Editors note: Defrag was unable to complete this column because of a freak accident in which robotic fire ants gave her fingers a severe nibbling.

Luckily, they suffered a simultaneous BSOD before they could inflict permanent damage.

TOP 10

This week:
It has been revealed that a US principal did not represent Canada at the Olympics, as his school website claimed. Here are the top 10 signs someone's bio is exaggerated.

10. I'm reading it.

9. Belinda Neal, MP, says she's an expert in dispute resolution.

8. They have the same surname as the boss.

7. Tasmania doesn't have an Olympic team.

6. They claim to have invented the internet, and we all know Al Gore did that.

5. There is no listing on the IMDb for Citizen Kane 2: Electic Boogaloo, so they could not have won an Oscar for it.

4. Listed hobbies include anything other than watching movies, playing Wii and drinking.

3. You're pretty sure there is no such thing as a flux capacitor.

2. You don't know who the governor-general is, but you suspect he is not the 20-year-old who is applying to deliver pizzas.

1. The young woman asking if you would like fries with that has a masters degree in social science. Oh, wait ...

Contributors: Dwight Lemke, Karen Nangle, Graham Wilcox, Paul Higgins, Tim Borten, Kristie Marsh, Liam Harrison, Colin Parker and Richard Atwood.

Next week:
The Trons are a New Zealand band entirely comprised of instrument-playing robots. Send us the top 10 ways you can tell a robot band from a human one.

Answers by Thursday please to OzDefrag@Gmail.com