Those words have rang oh so true during the past few weeks at our multi-acre tour date processing facility located in beautiful downtown Fresno, CA. What we’re talking about is technology. That’s right. Technology. The same hi-tech bells and whistles that allow us to process and post dates for Black Eyed Peas and John Butler Trio, turned on us a few weeks ago. Like a tiger scrambling for payback against a certain illusionist duo on the Vegas strip, the technology that serves as the core of our concert info infrastructure turned and bit us a new one last month, causing an injury from which we are just now beginning to recover.

It’s called PoopWise, and it’s the software that took a loose collection of 979 individual workers and turned them into the cohesive data processing unit known throughout the world. You see, PoopWise is more than just inter-office email, document sharing and scheduling. It’s the engine upon which our mighty wheels of tour date justice turn, allowing instant communication, immediate signal and response scenarios that have proven to be so crucial in our day-to-day operations. In short, Our PoopWise took a dump and it cannot get up.

But in order to understand how much the PoopWise software meant to us, one must return to those dark and dismal days before the software’s existence. Those days when we had to shout out the dates for Rod Stewart to our editors, those days when we had to actually walk the miles and miles of aisles and corridors whenever summoned to the boss’ office for a well-deserved dress down. Yes, PoopWise made it easy for us. Maybe too easy, for the software allowed us to perform all the functions of tour date gathering – collect, verify, type, flex, bend, grab and post – all within the confines of our individual cubicles.

But now it’s gone. Its wondrous tentacles no longer reach out and infest each and every workstation in the Pollstar.com compound. It no longer allows us to flip dates for The White Stripes, Son Volt and Oasis from one workstation to the next, nor does it enable us to share gossip, innuendo and naked pictures of booking agents at the click of a mouse. Our wondrous, incredible, mind-blowing PoopWise software has vanished into the memory hole of good times past, leaving us shaken and stirred with little hope for the future.

That is, until now.

For no matter how miraculous and benevolent our PoopWise software may have been, our in-house IT department has shown us that it is up to the task of building an alternative to the technology that made us what we are today. An alternative that will allow us, once again, to email each other, share documents and trade PhotoShopped pictures of promoters wheeling and dealing for dates for Particle and Liz Phair while clad only in their undergarments. Yes, the men and women from Pollstar.com’s illustrious IT department have saved us again. What’s more, we’re beta testing their home-brewed PoopWise replacement even as you read this.

However, like all new technology, there is a learning curve involved, a length of time needed to adequately comprehend the incredible leap in scientific know-how created by our IT department.

For example, we’re having a hard time getting used to all this string strung between our cubicles. What’s more, we’re not too sure as to where on our desks we should place all these Dixie Cups.

However, our IT department has assured us that, when the proper moment arrives, they’ll be more than happy to tell us where to put ’em.