Back in the day, I used to haunt a particular dive bar/restaurant on the Sacramento River because I discovered that lots of state legislators... particularly Willie Brown ... used to frequent to do back room deals. i would sit at a table in a dark corner and keep my ears open. I wasn't a well-known journalist and my paper was kinda small, but I was able to get a lot of juicy tips on what was going on in Sacramento.

Last week i did a stealth drop in at public watering hole last week, found a secluded spot and logged on with my new iPad, all the while keeping my ears open. Boy did I hear a couple of great statements from some semi execs that were pounding a few Buds.

Regarding Magma: "Magma's idea of marketing is to send Rajeev out to talk to his buddies and sign them up for a core technology. Then they build a product for the customer around the core that works great for the buddies, but isn't transferrable to anyone else."

Regarding Cadence: "Cadence offered us products at such rock bottom prices we had no choice but to evaluate them."

Regarding Synopsys: "Don't even get me started about Synopsys. We're looking at building our own."

Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of man?....mwahhahaha.