The following rush transcript was taken by Approved News 6 reporters at Microsoft spokesman Harold P. Mandrake’s conference earlier this evening.
Today, I’d like to clear up a matter that has tarnished the good name of Microsoft for far too long. I would like to sincerely apologize to all who were offended by our 1963 bombing of Vancouver. The gleeful slaughter of Canadian citizens, entirely without reason or motivation beyond sheer violent sociopathy, I think many of us can agree, is not what a company like Microsoft should stand for.
We all do things in the heat of the moment that don’t quite pan out the way we’d planned. In retrospect, the use of multiple strategic nuclear weapons against a city full of innocent, unarmed civilians was a mistake. I regret the bloodthirsty glee with which we slaughtered the people of Vancouver, who at no point had done anything to wrong us or deserve the thermonuclear annihilation of everyone they had ever loved. This was an overreaction.
The incalculable damage to their country’s economy and the ensuing mutant hordes inconvenienced many Canadian citizens, and more importantly, many loyal Microsoft customers. These were factors we failed to take into account when we dispatched a B-36 Peacemaker to detonate a number of megaton-range devices above Vancouver, incinerating the city and its many residents with nuclear fire. This was wrong of us.
To the hundreds of thousands of completely innocent men, women, and children senselessly burned alive, crushed by wreckage, and pulverized by the blast wave, and to the many more who were left homeless, disabled, or who fell victim to an onslaught of bizarrely mutated wildlife, I would like to say: we truly regret any inconvenience you suffered. That’s why we’re offering you a limited-time five dollar discount on upgrades to Windows 10, limit one per person. We want you to know that Microsoft cares, and that we’re not afraid to own up to our missteps. That we’re willing to put our money where our mouth is to right past wrongs.
Thank you.