The TORPOMETRONOMICON

10 Years of AcmeVaporware Miscommunications

De: Gary Clemenceau

Narrado por: Sam Bradley

A tech-humor cult mainstay for over 30 years, this wayback AcmeVaporware compilation is arguably the weirdest and funniest tech-parody snapshot-of-an-era ever written. Author Gary Clemenceau is a seer and mad hatter of the first order.

Contained herein are all of (fictitious) mega-corporation AcmeVaporware's, "Yesterday's Technology Tomorrow" press releases, supersecret communiques, Powerpointless Presentation notes, impossible product manuals, and general Layer 1 colonic errata associated with a Decade of Tech-Torpor Under the Influence. As you well know, corporate press releases in general are a big stupid archaic waste of time -- and AcmeVaporware's corporate press releases and psychotronic phlogiston are no exception -- but they're the only ones you'll ever read all the way through, OUT LOUD, while laughing. So long as corporate life remains an inhuman slog through grey-minded cubicles, The TORPOMETRONOMICON will be there.

But wait, there's more.

An insane work of staggering Physical-Layer genius, The TORPOMETRONOMICON is not only the ULTIMATE in IT/network bathroom listening (BANNED by several big-name tech companies), it's also one of the few reference books on nearly every helpdesk from Alphaville to Zebulon. The Library of Congress has two copies! When in doubt, pull out the manual.

©1997, 2008 Gary Clemenceau (P)2025 Gary Clemenceau

Humor is hit and miss, narration is top notch

If you, like me, couldn't tell from the product description what this book is even supposed to be: it's a humor/satire of tech review articles. Very dry humor making fun of the technobabble buzzword-packed articles of tech releases from a fictitious company.

Many parts of the book are very funny but it's also at times laborious. Much of the book is "I'm not laughing but I get it" -- other parts are genuinely clever.

Exceptional narration. I'm impressed that the narrator was able to keep up with this intentional babble. His presentation for sure makes it better than it would be raw.

Mostly Classified For Whoever Will Sit Still

Whole hearted zany banter with experimental narrative. It’s not really a storyline but a series of small comedic sketches delivered in nasally bureaucratic style speak corporate memos. I most appreciated how different this felt from the typical audiobook. The narrator handles this mostly well with energetic renditions of material internationally mundane but punctuated with weirdness. The content is often clever but didn’t strike me as more than cute or engineered with such gusto it was sometimes infectious. The narration is in the vein of Monty Python, maybe too much so, and while verbal style sometimes varied binging this book make it feel a bit samey. Translating a memo style format to audiobook seems ambitious and I think the narration does well at elevating the material that might seem difficult in audio format; it’s sometime hammy but always seems full steam. Some of the gags felt redundant, calling an administrator “Dr Smallberries” might be a cartoonish phallic joke the first time but him being referenced frequently enough it got thin (in some ways while each chapter is somewhat standalone there is a subtle continuity that I am not sure amounts to much). Similarly each of the faux memo has a footer that varies in ways from each of the 40ish chapters but discusses things being for “anyone who will just hold still” and “mostly classified” but can by found on “way back machine so… whatever;” by now I’m going to punch anyone else who makes me hear about the way back machine. The memo after memo gag is a cute idea to think about but not as much fun as an experience; but this is the sort of thing that doggedly follows a joke largely in a way that is positive but sometimes wears. A lot of the content was abstract and weird stuff sufficient to rise above the corporate lampoon minded delivery; far out stuff like vampires or a surreal lawyer transport system or no smut day. Some of the references feel dated by now with multiple jokes about Dick Cheney or George Bush; which I think it intended to convey a retro style tone to memos of the past. Overall it felt hit or miss with low impact plot to casually listen to; it's style and tone was irksome at times but I 'got' and appreciate what they were trying for and sometimes it was really good.