FEBRUARY 4th - Pie in the Gates



On this day in 1998, Bill Gates was hit in the face with a cream pie while in Brussels. Right in the face. Just took a custard wallop right in the ole noggin. Gates was not volunteering at a circus or a dunk tank at a local Brussels school fair. This was not some type of charity event--Hit a Billionaire in the Face with a Cream Pie! He was actually walking into a meeting with Belgian computer and governmental leaders. But some Belgian dude named Noel Godin who likes to throw pies in famous peoples’ faces as a sort of civil disobedience, orchestrated the prank, instructing a man and a woman to launch some desserts at Gate’s noodle. The prank was supposedly orchestrated because Microsoft’s monopoly in the computer industry at the time was stifling innovation. They may have had a point, as computer innovation seems to have boomed as Apple resurged (with help from Microsoft fearing action because of their monopoly) but for all I know that could be corollary. No I think the main point to take from this little incident is that no matter who you are, no matter how smart, or how rich, you can still get a pie thrown in your face. If it happened to me, I probably wouldn’t have bodyguards usher me inside and the event probably wouldn’t be national news, but there would have been a couple of seconds when Bill Gates and I would have been exactly the same. It is sort of like the “Everybody Poops” thing or that pearl of wisdom you see in the men’s bathroom of 90% of all bars, that no matter how hot she is, or how cool she is, somebody, somewhere is sick of putting up with her. It’s written a little more colorfully than that. Because it’s in bar. Next to a toilet. So there you have it. A pie Bill Gates’ face is basically the same thing as slightly chauvinistic bathroom graffiti. But then again, I have no idea what is written on 90% of the Women’s Bathrooms at bars. I doubt I will ever.

This day has been Marked.

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