Hey everyone, its Christmas and time to let down the hair (and in the IT industry that means one of two things, either let down lots of hair or remember the time you could let down lots of hair). Anyway, on my wandering around the Net I came across this little ditty.


T'was the night before Christmas, and all through the shop,
The computers were whirring; they never do stop.
The power was on and the temperature right,
In hopes that the input would feed back that night.
The system was ready, the program was coded,
And Windows XP was carefully loaded;
While adding a Christmasy glow to the scene,
The lights on the front, flashed red, white and green.
When out in the hall there arose such a clatter,
The programmer ran to see what was the matter.
Away to the hallway he flew like a flash,
Forgetting his key in his curious dash.
He stood in the hallway and looked all about,
When the door slammed behind him, and he was locked out.
Then, in the computer room what should appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer;
And a little old man, who with scarcely a pause,
Chuckled: "My name is Santa...the last name is Claus."
The computer was startled, confused by the name,
Then it buzzed as it heard the old fellow exclaim:
"This is Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen,
And Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen."
With all these odd names, it was puzzled anew;
It hummed and it clanked, and a main circuit blew.
It searched in its database, trying to "think";
Then the dot-matix printer went out on the blink.
Unable to do its electronic job,
It said in a voice that was almost a sob:
"Your eyes - how they twinkle - your dimples so merry,
Your cheeks so like roses, your nose like a cherry,
Your smile - all these things, I've been programmed to know,
And at data-recall, I am more than so-so;
But your name and your address (computers can't lie),
Are things that I just cannot identify.
You've a jolly old face and a little round belly,
That shakes when you laugh like a bowlful of jelly;
My webcam can see you, but still I insist,
Since you're not in my program, you cannot exist!"
Old Santa just chuckled a merry "ho, ho",
And sat down to type out a quick word or so.
The keyboard clack-clattered, its sound sharp and clean,
As Santa fed this "data" to the machine:
"Kids everywhere know me; I come every year;
The presents I bring add to everyone's cheer;
But you won't get anything - that's plain to see;
Too bad your programmers forgot about me."
Then he faced the machine and said with a shrug,
"Merry Christmas to All," as he pulled out its plug!


MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

And for all those who are still working on the systems on Christmas Eve

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a peripheral was stirring, not even a mouse.
The modem was plugged to the phone line with care
In hopes that a download soon would be there.

Our pirates were nestled all snug in their beds
While visions of unprotects danced in their heads.
And Mama in her kerchief, and I in my cap
Had just settled down for a long winter's nap.

When up on the hard drive there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the monitor I flew like a flash,
Sat down at the keyboard, gave the spacebar a mash.

The sight on the screen, all a'flicker with snow,
Gave the luster of power surge to the menu below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But an autoexec.bat that seemed rather queer.

With a little print driver so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment I had seen a new trick.
More rapid than eagles the cursors they came;
My MIDI whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

"Now Format, now Rename, now Copy, and Enter!
On Num Lock, on Caps Lock, on Scroll Lock, and Printer!
"To the top of the page, to the top of the doc,
Now tab it and bold it and merge it and block!"

As utilities that build up the CPU speed
Clash with just the programs I need,
So up to the screen top the cursors they flew,
With a RAM full of memory and an expansion board too.

And then, in a twinkling I heard on the speaker,
The grinding of the hard drive growing much weaker.
As I tried to reboot and turn it around,
The attributes changed from blue into brown.

I hit the control, the alt, and delete.
The screen message it gave me, I cannot repeat.
It asked me to Ignore, Retry, or Abort.
It told me the parallel had become the comm port.

Its lights how they twinkled; its pixels how merry,
Its prompts were all scrambled, like a bowl full of cherries.
It sounded just like it wanted to blow;
The screen was suddenly white as the snow.

It scrolled its directory before my eyes
With programs I didn't even recognize.
It wouldn't see D:, it wouldn't see E:;
I couldn't get out of B: into C:.

Norton's tried to read it, finally finding the FAT;
But alas! The disk was faulty, and couldn't reformat.
Away flew the DBase; away flew the DOS-es;
Away flew the WordStar; right out with the Windows.

The spreadsheets were spreading; the footers were headings;
What once had been memory was close to forgetting.
When the grinding was over and the smoke had all cleared,
I looked at the hard drive; it was just as I feared.

The 600 meg wonder had crashed in the night;
I'll never be able to block out that sight!
So tell everyone you know to avoid my plight;
Back up your files! Merry Christmas! Good Night!