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August 8, 2005

Herd this one lately..?

This email has been around the block a couple of times, but it is still really funny. Here's my updated-technology version of it :)

A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture in the Klein Karoo, when suddenly a brand-new GP-registered BMW X5 advanced out of a dust cloud towards him.

The driver, a young man in a Hugo Boss suit, Gucci shoes, Diesel sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the shepherd, "If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?"

The shepherd looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing flock and calmly answers, Sure, Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Sony Vaio notebook computer, connects it to the internets via his Vodafone 3G card. He surfs to a Google Earth Pro page, where he calls up the relevant page using coordinates fed from the built-in BMW GPS satellite navigation system via Bluetooth, to get an exact fix on his location. He then feeds to another Google API websourcing app that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop Elements and uploads it to an outsourced image processing facility in Hydrabad, Inda.

Within seconds, he receives an email on his Nokia that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with hundreds of complex formulas. He uploads all of this data via an email on his other Blackberry (because it has a better J2ME client) and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on award-winning Samsung circular printer and finally turns to the shepherd and says, "You have exactly 1586 sheep."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my sheep." says the shepherd. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into back of the X5.

Then the shepherd says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my sheep?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're a consultant." says the shepherd.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required." answered the shepherd.

"You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew; to a question I never asked; and you don't know crap about my business.

"Now give me back my dog."

Posted by sdehaast at August 8, 2005 12:14 PM Posted to chuckle