/usr/share/games/fortunes/songs-poems is in fortunes 1:1.99.1-7.
This file is owned by root:root, with mode 0o644.
The actual contents of the file can be viewed below.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594 595 596 597 598 599 600 601 602 603 604 605 606 607 608 609 610 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620 621 622 623 624 625 626 627 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636 637 638 639 640 641 642 643 644 645 646 647 648 649 650 651 652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659 660 661 662 663 664 665 666 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678 679 680 681 682 683 684 685 686 687 688 689 690 691 692 693 694 695 696 697 698 699 700 701 702 703 704 705 706 707 708 709 710 711 712 713 714 715 716 717 718 719 720 721 722 723 724 725 726 727 728 729 730 731 732 733 734 735 736 737 738 739 740 741 742 743 744 745 746 747 748 749 750 751 752 753 754 755 756 757 758 759 760 761 762 763 764 765 766 767 768 769 770 771 772 773 774 775 776 777 778 779 780 781 782 783 784 785 786 787 788 789 790 791 792 793 794 795 796 797 798 799 800 801 802 803 804 805 806 807 808 809 810 811 812 813 814 815 816 817 818 819 820 821 822 823 824 825 826 827 828 829 830 831 832 833 834 835 836 837 838 839 840 841 842 843 844 845 846 847 848 849 850 851 852 853 854 855 856 857 858 859 860 861 862 863 864 865 866 867 868 869 870 871 872 873 874 875 876 877 878 879 880 881 882 883 884 885 886 887 888 889 890 891 892 893 894 895 896 897 898 899 900 901 902 903 904 905 906 907 908 909 910 911 912 913 914 915 916 917 918 919 920 921 922 923 924 925 926 927 928 929 930 931 932 933 934 935 936 937 938 939 940 941 942 943 944 945 946 947 948 949 950 951 952 953 954 955 956 957 958 959 960 961 962 963 964 965 966 967 968 969 970 971 972 973 974 975 976 977 978 979 980 981 982 983 984 985 986 987 988 989 990 991 992 993 994 995 996 997 998 999 1000 1001 1002 1003 1004 1005 1006 1007 1008 1009 1010 1011 1012 1013 1014 1015 1016 1017 1018 1019 1020 1021 1022 1023 1024 1025 1026 1027 1028 1029 1030 1031 1032 1033 1034 1035 1036 1037 1038 1039 1040 1041 1042 1043 1044 1045 1046 1047 1048 1049 1050 1051 1052 1053 1054 1055 1056 1057 1058 1059 1060 1061 1062 1063 1064 1065 1066 1067 1068 1069 1070 1071 1072 1073 1074 1075 1076 1077 1078 1079 1080 1081 1082 1083 1084 1085 1086 1087 1088 1089 1090 1091 1092 1093 1094 1095 1096 1097 1098 1099 1100 1101 1102 1103 1104 1105 1106 1107 1108 1109 1110 1111 1112 1113 1114 1115 1116 1117 1118 1119 1120 1121 1122 1123 1124 1125 1126 1127 1128 1129 1130 1131 1132 1133 1134 1135 1136 1137 1138 1139 1140 1141 1142 1143 1144 1145 1146 1147 1148 1149 1150 1151 1152 1153 1154 1155 1156 1157 1158 1159 1160 1161 1162 1163 1164 1165 1166 1167 1168 1169 1170 1171 1172 1173 1174 1175 1176 1177 1178 1179 1180 1181 1182 1183 1184 1185 1186 1187 1188 1189 1190 1191 1192 1193 1194 1195 1196 1197 1198 1199 1200 1201 1202 1203 1204 1205 1206 1207 1208 1209 1210 1211 1212 1213 1214 1215 1216 1217 1218 1219 1220 1221 1222 1223 1224 1225 1226 1227 1228 1229 1230 1231 1232 1233 1234 1235 1236 1237 1238 1239 1240 1241 1242 1243 1244 1245 1246 1247 1248 1249 1250 1251 1252 1253 1254 1255 1256 1257 1258 1259 1260 1261 1262 1263 1264 1265 1266 1267 1268 1269 1270 1271 1272 1273 1274 1275 1276 1277 1278 1279 1280 1281 1282 1283 1284 1285 1286 1287 1288 1289 1290 1291 1292 1293 1294 1295 1296 1297 1298 1299 1300 1301 1302 1303 1304 1305 1306 1307 1308 1309 1310 1311 1312 1313 1314 1315 1316 1317 1318 1319 1320 1321 1322 1323 1324 1325 1326 1327 1328 1329 1330 1331 1332 1333 1334 1335 1336 1337 1338 1339 1340 1341 1342 1343 1344 1345 1346 1347 1348 1349 1350 1351 1352 1353 1354 1355 1356 1357 1358 1359 1360 1361 1362 1363 1364 1365 1366 1367 1368 1369 1370 1371 1372 1373 1374 1375 1376 1377 1378 1379 1380 1381 1382 1383 1384 1385 1386 1387 1388 1389 1390 1391 1392 1393 1394 1395 1396 1397 1398 1399 1400 1401 1402 1403 1404 1405 1406 1407 1408 1409 1410 1411 1412 1413 1414 1415 1416 1417 1418 1419 1420 1421 1422 1423 1424 1425 1426 1427 1428 1429 1430 1431 1432 1433 1434 1435 1436 1437 1438 1439 1440 1441 1442 1443 1444 1445 1446 1447 1448 1449 1450 1451 1452 1453 1454 1455 1456 1457 1458 1459 1460 1461 1462 1463 1464 1465 1466 1467 1468 1469 1470 1471 1472 1473 1474 1475 1476 1477 1478 1479 1480 1481 1482 1483 1484 1485 1486 1487 1488 1489 1490 1491 1492 1493 1494 1495 1496 1497 1498 1499 1500 1501 1502 1503 1504 1505 1506 1507 1508 1509 1510 1511 1512 1513 1514 1515 1516 1517 1518 1519 1520 1521 1522 1523 1524 1525 1526 1527 1528 1529 1530 1531 1532 1533 1534 1535 1536 1537 1538 1539 1540 1541 1542 1543 1544 1545 1546 1547 1548 1549 1550 1551 1552 1553 1554 1555 1556 1557 1558 1559 1560 1561 1562 1563 1564 1565 1566 1567 1568 1569 1570 1571 1572 1573 1574 1575 1576 1577 1578 1579 1580 1581 1582 1583 1584 1585 1586 1587 1588 1589 1590 1591 1592 1593 1594 1595 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600 1601 1602 1603 1604 1605 1606 1607 1608 1609 1610 1611 1612 1613 1614 1615 1616 1617 1618 1619 1620 1621 1622 1623 1624 1625 1626 1627 1628 1629 1630 1631 1632 1633 1634 1635 1636 1637 1638 1639 1640 1641 1642 1643 1644 1645 1646 1647 1648 1649 1650 1651 1652 1653 1654 1655 1656 1657 1658 1659 1660 1661 1662 1663 1664 1665 1666 1667 1668 1669 1670 1671 1672 1673 1674 1675 1676 1677 1678 1679 1680 1681 1682 1683 1684 1685 1686 1687 1688 1689 1690 1691 1692 1693 1694 1695 1696 1697 1698 1699 1700 1701 1702 1703 1704 1705 1706 1707 1708 1709 1710 1711 1712 1713 1714 1715 1716 1717 1718 1719 1720 1721 1722 1723 1724 1725 1726 1727 1728 1729 1730 1731 1732 1733 1734 1735 1736 1737 1738 1739 1740 1741 1742 1743 1744 1745 1746 1747 1748 1749 1750 1751 1752 1753 1754 1755 1756 1757 1758 1759 1760 1761 1762 1763 1764 1765 1766 1767 1768 1769 1770 1771 1772 1773 1774 1775 1776 1777 1778 1779 1780 1781 1782 1783 1784 1785 1786 1787 1788 1789 1790 1791 1792 1793 1794 1795 1796 1797 1798 1799 1800 1801 1802 1803 1804 1805 1806 1807 1808 1809 1810 1811 1812 1813 1814 1815 1816 1817 1818 1819 1820 1821 1822 1823 1824 1825 1826 1827 1828 1829 1830 1831 1832 1833 1834 1835 1836 1837 1838 1839 1840 1841 1842 1843 1844 1845 1846 1847 1848 1849 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865 1866 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032 2033 2034 2035 2036 2037 2038 2039 2040 2041 2042 2043 2044 2045 2046 2047 2048 2049 2050 2051 2052 2053 2054 2055 2056 2057 2058 2059 2060 2061 2062 2063 2064 2065 2066 2067 2068 2069 2070 2071 2072 2073 2074 2075 2076 2077 2078 2079 2080 2081 2082 2083 2084 2085 2086 2087 2088 2089 2090 2091 2092 2093 2094 2095 2096 2097 2098 2099 2100 2101 2102 2103 2104 2105 2106 2107 2108 2109 2110 2111 2112 2113 2114 2115 2116 2117 2118 2119 2120 2121 2122 2123 2124 2125 2126 2127 2128 2129 2130 2131 2132 2133 2134 2135 2136 2137 2138 2139 2140 2141 2142 2143 2144 2145 2146 2147 2148 2149 2150 2151 2152 2153 2154 2155 2156 2157 2158 2159 2160 2161 2162 2163 2164 2165 2166 2167 2168 2169 2170 2171 2172 2173 2174 2175 2176 2177 2178 2179 2180 2181 2182 2183 2184 2185 2186 2187 2188 2189 2190 2191 2192 2193 2194 2195 2196 2197 2198 2199 2200 2201 2202 2203 2204 2205 2206 2207 2208 2209 2210 2211 2212 2213 2214 2215 2216 2217 2218 2219 2220 2221 2222 2223 2224 2225 2226 2227 2228 2229 2230 2231 2232 2233 2234 2235 2236 2237 2238 2239 2240 2241 2242 2243 2244 2245 2246 2247 2248 2249 2250 2251 2252 2253 2254 2255 2256 2257 2258 2259 2260 2261 2262 2263 2264 2265 2266 2267 2268 2269 2270 2271 2272 2273 2274 2275 2276 2277 2278 2279 2280 2281 2282 2283 2284 2285 2286 2287 2288 2289 2290 2291 2292 2293 2294 2295 2296 2297 2298 2299 2300 2301 2302 2303 2304 2305 2306 2307 2308 2309 2310 2311 2312 2313 2314 2315 2316 2317 2318 2319 2320 2321 2322 2323 2324 2325 2326 2327 2328 2329 2330 2331 2332 2333 2334 2335 2336 2337 2338 2339 2340 2341 2342 2343 2344 2345 2346 2347 2348 2349 2350 2351 2352 2353 2354 2355 2356 2357 2358 2359 2360 2361 2362 2363 2364 2365 2366 2367 2368 2369 2370 2371 2372 2373 2374 2375 2376 2377 2378 2379 2380 2381 2382 2383 2384 2385 2386 2387 2388 2389 2390 2391 2392 2393 2394 2395 2396 2397 2398 2399 2400 2401 2402 2403 2404 2405 2406 2407 2408 2409 2410 2411 2412 2413 2414 2415 2416 2417 2418 2419 2420 2421 2422 2423 2424 2425 2426 2427 2428 2429 2430 2431 2432 2433 2434 2435 2436 2437 2438 2439 2440 2441 2442 2443 2444 2445 2446 2447 2448 2449 2450 2451 2452 2453 2454 2455 2456 2457 2458 2459 2460 2461 2462 2463 2464 2465 2466 2467 2468 2469 2470 2471 2472 2473 2474 2475 2476 2477 2478 2479 2480 2481 2482 2483 2484 2485 2486 2487 2488 2489 2490 2491 2492 2493 2494 2495 2496 2497 2498 2499 2500 2501 2502 2503 2504 2505 2506 2507 2508 2509 2510 2511 2512 2513 2514 2515 2516 2517 2518 2519 2520 2521 2522 2523 2524 2525 2526 2527 2528 2529 2530 2531 2532 2533 2534 2535 2536 2537 2538 2539 2540 2541 2542 2543 2544 2545 2546 2547 2548 2549 2550 2551 2552 2553 2554 2555 2556 2557 2558 2559 2560 2561 2562 2563 2564 2565 2566 2567 2568 2569 2570 2571 2572 2573 2574 2575 2576 2577 2578 2579 2580 2581 2582 2583 2584 2585 2586 2587 2588 2589 2590 2591 2592 2593 2594 2595 2596 2597 2598 2599 2600 2601 2602 2603 2604 2605 2606 2607 2608 2609 2610 2611 2612 2613 2614 2615 2616 2617 2618 2619 2620 2621 2622 2623 2624 2625 2626 2627 2628 2629 2630 2631 2632 2633 2634 2635 2636 2637 2638 2639 2640 2641 2642 2643 2644 2645 2646 2647 2648 2649 2650 2651 2652 2653 2654 2655 2656 2657 2658 2659 2660 2661 2662 2663 2664 2665 2666 2667 2668 2669 2670 2671 2672 2673 2674 2675 2676 2677 2678 2679 2680 2681 2682 2683 2684 2685 2686 2687 2688 2689 2690 2691 2692 2693 2694 2695 2696 2697 2698 2699 2700 2701 2702 2703 2704 2705 2706 2707 2708 2709 2710 2711 2712 2713 2714 2715 2716 2717 2718 2719 2720 2721 2722 2723 2724 2725 2726 2727 2728 2729 2730 2731 2732 2733 2734 2735 2736 2737 2738 2739 2740 2741 2742 2743 2744 2745 2746 2747 2748 2749 2750 2751 2752 2753 2754 2755 2756 2757 2758 2759 2760 2761 2762 2763 2764 2765 2766 2767 2768 2769 2770 2771 2772 2773 2774 2775 2776 2777 2778 2779 2780 2781 2782 2783 2784 2785 2786 2787 2788 2789 2790 2791 2792 2793 2794 2795 2796 2797 2798 2799 2800 2801 2802 2803 2804 2805 2806 2807 2808 2809 2810 2811 2812 2813 2814 2815 2816 2817 2818 2819 2820 2821 2822 2823 2824 2825 2826 2827 2828 2829 2830 2831 2832 2833 2834 2835 2836 2837 2838 2839 2840 2841 2842 2843 2844 2845 2846 2847 2848 2849 2850 2851 2852 2853 2854 2855 2856 2857 2858 2859 2860 2861 2862 2863 2864 2865 2866 2867 2868 2869 2870 2871 2872 2873 2874 2875 2876 2877 2878 2879 2880 2881 2882 2883 2884 2885 2886 2887 2888 2889 2890 2891 2892 2893 2894 2895 2896 2897 2898 2899 2900 2901 2902 2903 2904 2905 2906 2907 2908 2909 2910 2911 2912 2913 2914 2915 2916 2917 2918 2919 2920 2921 2922 2923 2924 2925 2926 2927 2928 2929 2930 2931 2932 2933 2934 2935 2936 2937 2938 2939 2940 2941 2942 2943 2944 2945 2946 2947 2948 2949 2950 2951 2952 2953 2954 2955 2956 2957 2958 2959 2960 2961 2962 2963 2964 2965 2966 2967 2968 2969 2970 2971 2972 2973 2974 2975 2976 2977 2978 2979 2980 2981 2982 2983 2984 2985 2986 2987 2988 2989 2990 2991 2992 2993 2994 2995 2996 2997 2998 2999 3000 3001 3002 3003 3004 3005 3006 3007 3008 3009 3010 3011 3012 3013 3014 3015 3016 3017 3018 3019 3020 3021 3022 3023 3024 3025 3026 3027 3028 3029 3030 3031 3032 3033 3034 3035 3036 3037 3038 3039 3040 3041 3042 3043 3044 3045 3046 3047 3048 3049 3050 3051 3052 3053 3054 3055 3056 3057 3058 3059 3060 3061 3062 3063 3064 3065 3066 3067 3068 3069 3070 3071 3072 3073 3074 3075 3076 3077 3078 3079 3080 3081 3082 3083 3084 3085 3086 3087 3088 3089 3090 3091 3092 3093 3094 3095 3096 3097 3098 3099 3100 3101 3102 3103 3104 3105 3106 3107 3108 3109 3110 3111 3112 3113 3114 3115 3116 3117 3118 3119 3120 3121 3122 3123 3124 3125 3126 3127 3128 3129 3130 3131 3132 3133 3134 3135 3136 3137 3138 3139 3140 3141 3142 3143 3144 3145 3146 3147 3148 3149 3150 3151 3152 3153 3154 3155 3156 3157 3158 3159 3160 3161 3162 3163 3164 3165 3166 3167 3168 3169 3170 3171 3172 3173 3174 3175 3176 3177 3178 3179 3180 3181 3182 3183 3184 3185 3186 3187 3188 3189 3190 3191 3192 3193 3194 3195 3196 3197 3198 3199 3200 3201 3202 3203 3204 3205 3206 3207 3208 3209 3210 3211 3212 3213 3214 3215 3216 3217 3218 3219 3220 3221 3222 3223 3224 3225 3226 3227 3228 3229 3230 3231 3232 3233 3234 3235 3236 3237 3238 3239 3240 3241 3242 3243 3244 3245 3246 3247 3248 3249 3250 3251 3252 3253 3254 3255 3256 3257 3258 3259 3260 3261 3262 3263 3264 3265 3266 3267 3268 3269 3270 3271 3272 3273 3274 3275 3276 3277 3278 3279 3280 3281 3282 3283 3284 3285 3286 3287 3288 3289 3290 3291 3292 3293 3294 3295 3296 3297 3298 3299 3300 3301 3302 3303 3304 3305 3306 3307 3308 3309 3310 3311 3312 3313 3314 3315 3316 3317 3318 3319 3320 3321 3322 3323 3324 3325 3326 3327 3328 3329 3330 3331 3332 3333 3334 3335 3336 3337 3338 3339 3340 3341 3342 3343 3344 3345 3346 3347 3348 3349 3350 3351 3352 3353 3354 3355 3356 3357 3358 3359 3360 3361 3362 3363 3364 3365 3366 3367 3368 3369 3370 3371 3372 3373 3374 3375 3376 3377 3378 3379 3380 3381 3382 3383 3384 3385 3386 3387 3388 3389 3390 3391 3392 3393 3394 3395 3396 3397 3398 3399 3400 3401 3402 3403 3404 3405 3406 3407 3408 3409 3410 3411 3412 3413 3414 3415 3416 3417 3418 3419 3420 3421 3422 3423 3424 3425 3426 3427 3428 3429 3430 3431 3432 3433 3434 3435 3436 3437 3438 3439 3440 3441 3442 3443 3444 3445 3446 3447 3448 3449 3450 3451 3452 3453 3454 3455 3456 3457 3458 3459 3460 3461 3462 3463 3464 3465 3466 3467 3468 3469 3470 3471 3472 3473 3474 3475 3476 3477 3478 3479 3480 3481 3482 3483 3484 3485 3486 3487 3488 3489 3490 3491 3492 3493 3494 3495 3496 3497 3498 3499 3500 3501 3502 3503 3504 3505 3506 3507 3508 3509 3510 3511 3512 3513 3514 3515 3516 3517 3518 3519 3520 3521 3522 3523 3524 3525 3526 3527 3528 3529 3530 3531 3532 3533 3534 3535 3536 3537 3538 3539 3540 3541 3542 3543 3544 3545 3546 3547 3548 3549 3550 3551 3552 3553 3554 3555 3556 3557 3558 3559 3560 3561 3562 3563 3564 3565 3566 3567 3568 3569 3570 3571 3572 3573 3574 3575 3576 3577 3578 3579 3580 3581 3582 3583 3584 3585 3586 3587 3588 3589 3590 3591 3592 3593 3594 3595 3596 3597 3598 3599 3600 3601 3602 3603 3604 3605 3606 3607 3608 3609 3610 3611 3612 3613 3614 3615 3616 3617 3618 3619 3620 3621 3622 3623 3624 3625 3626 3627 3628 3629 3630 3631 3632 3633 3634 3635 3636 3637 3638 3639 3640 3641 3642 3643 3644 3645 3646 3647 3648 3649 3650 3651 3652 3653 3654 3655 3656 3657 3658 3659 3660 3661 3662 3663 3664 3665 3666 3667 3668 3669 3670 3671 3672 3673 3674 3675 3676 3677 3678 3679 3680 3681 3682 3683 3684 3685 3686 3687 3688 3689 3690 3691 3692 3693 3694 3695 3696 3697 3698 3699 3700 3701 3702 3703 3704 3705 3706 3707 3708 3709 3710 3711 3712 3713 3714 3715 3716 3717 3718 3719 3720 3721 3722 3723 3724 3725 3726 3727 3728 3729 3730 3731 3732 3733 3734 3735 3736 3737 3738 3739 3740 3741 3742 3743 3744 3745 3746 3747 3748 3749 3750 3751 3752 3753 3754 3755 3756 3757 3758 3759 3760 3761 3762 3763 3764 3765 3766 3767 3768 3769 3770 3771 3772 3773 3774 3775 3776 3777 3778 3779 3780 3781 3782 3783 3784 3785 3786 3787 3788 3789 3790 3791 3792 3793 3794 3795 3796 3797 3798 3799 3800 3801 3802 3803 3804 3805 3806 3807 3808 3809 3810 3811 3812 3813 3814 3815 3816 3817 3818 3819 3820 3821 3822 3823 3824 3825 3826 3827 3828 3829 3830 3831 3832 3833 3834 3835 3836 3837 3838 3839 3840 3841 3842 3843 3844 3845 3846 3847 3848 3849 3850 3851 3852 3853 3854 3855 3856 3857 3858 3859 3860 3861 3862 3863 3864 3865 3866 3867 3868 3869 3870 3871 3872 3873 3874 3875 3876 3877 3878 3879 3880 3881 3882 3883 3884 3885 3886 3887 3888 3889 3890 3891 3892 3893 3894 3895 3896 3897 3898 3899 3900 3901 3902 3903 3904 3905 3906 3907 3908 3909 3910 3911 3912 3913 3914 3915 3916 3917 3918 3919 3920 3921 3922 3923 3924 3925 3926 3927 3928 3929 3930 3931 3932 3933 3934 3935 3936 3937 3938 3939 3940 3941 3942 3943 3944 3945 3946 3947 3948 3949 3950 3951 3952 3953 3954 3955 3956 3957 3958 3959 3960 3961 3962 3963 3964 3965 3966 3967 3968 3969 3970 3971 3972 3973 3974 3975 3976 3977 3978 3979 3980 3981 3982 3983 3984 3985 3986 3987 3988 3989 3990 3991 3992 3993 3994 3995 3996 3997 3998 3999 4000 4001 4002 4003 4004 4005 4006 4007 4008 4009 4010 4011 4012 4013 4014 4015 4016 4017 4018 4019 4020 4021 4022 4023 4024 4025 4026 4027 4028 4029 4030 4031 4032 4033 4034 4035 4036 4037 4038 4039 4040 4041 4042 4043 4044 4045 4046 4047 4048 4049 4050 4051 4052 4053 4054 4055 4056 4057 4058 4059 4060 4061 4062 4063 4064 4065 4066 4067 4068 4069 4070 4071 4072 4073 4074 4075 4076 4077 4078 4079 4080 4081 4082 4083 4084 4085 4086 4087 4088 4089 4090 4091 4092 4093 4094 4095 4096 4097 4098 4099 4100 4101 4102 4103 4104 4105 4106 4107 4108 4109 4110 4111 4112 4113 4114 4115 4116 4117 4118 4119 4120 4121 4122 4123 4124 4125 4126 4127 4128 4129 4130 4131 4132 4133 4134 4135 4136 4137 4138 4139 4140 4141 4142 4143 4144 4145 4146 4147 4148 4149 4150 4151 4152 4153 4154 4155 4156 4157 4158 4159 4160 4161 4162 4163 4164 4165 4166 4167 4168 4169 4170 4171 4172 4173 4174 4175 4176 4177 4178 4179 4180 4181 4182 4183 4184 4185 4186 4187 4188 4189 4190 4191 4192 4193 4194 4195 4196 4197 4198 4199 4200 4201 4202 4203 4204 4205 4206 4207 4208 4209 4210 4211 4212 4213 4214 4215 4216 4217 4218 4219 4220 4221 4222 4223 4224 4225 4226 4227 4228 4229 4230 4231 4232 4233 4234 4235 4236 4237 4238 4239 4240 4241 4242 4243 4244 4245 4246 4247 4248 4249 4250 4251 4252 4253 4254 4255 4256 4257 4258 4259 4260 4261 4262 4263 4264 4265 4266 4267 4268 4269 4270 4271 4272 4273 4274 4275 4276 4277 4278 4279 4280 4281 4282 4283 4284 4285 4286 4287 4288 4289 4290 4291 4292 4293 4294 4295 4296 4297 4298 4299 4300 4301 4302 4303 4304 4305 4306 4307 4308 4309 4310 4311 4312 4313 4314 4315 4316 4317 4318 4319 4320 4321 4322 4323 4324 4325 4326 4327 4328 4329 4330 4331 4332 4333 4334 4335 4336 4337 4338 4339 4340 4341 4342 4343 4344 4345 4346 4347 4348 4349 4350 4351 4352 4353 4354 4355 4356 4357 4358 4359 4360 4361 4362 4363 4364 4365 4366 4367 4368 4369 4370 4371 4372 4373 4374 4375 4376 4377 4378 4379 4380 4381 4382 4383 4384 4385 4386 4387 4388 4389 4390 4391 4392 4393 4394 4395 4396 4397 4398 4399 4400 4401 4402 4403 4404 4405 4406 4407 4408 4409 4410 4411 4412 4413 4414 4415 4416 4417 4418 4419 4420 4421 4422 4423 4424 4425 4426 4427 4428 4429 4430 4431 4432 4433 4434 4435 4436 4437 4438 4439 4440 4441 4442 4443 4444 4445 4446 4447 4448 4449 4450 4451 4452 4453 4454 4455 4456 4457 4458 4459 4460 4461 4462 4463 4464 4465 4466 4467 4468 4469 4470 4471 4472 4473 4474 4475 4476 4477 4478 4479 4480 4481 4482 4483 4484 4485 4486 4487 4488 4489 4490 4491 4492 4493 4494 4495 4496 4497 4498 4499 4500 4501 4502 4503 4504 4505 4506 4507 4508 4509 4510 4511 4512 4513 4514 4515 4516 4517 4518 4519 4520 4521 4522 4523 4524 4525 4526 4527 4528 4529 4530 4531 4532 4533 4534 4535 4536 4537 4538 4539 4540 4541 4542 4543 4544 4545 4546 4547 4548 4549 4550 4551 4552 4553 4554 4555 4556 4557 4558 4559 4560 4561 4562 4563 4564 4565 4566 4567 4568 4569 4570 4571 4572 4573 4574 4575 4576 4577 4578 4579 4580 4581 4582 4583 4584 4585 4586 4587 4588 4589 4590 4591 4592 4593 4594 4595 4596 4597 4598 4599 4600 4601 4602 4603 4604 4605 4606 4607 4608 4609 4610 4611 4612 4613 4614 4615 4616 4617 4618 4619 4620 4621 4622 4623 4624 4625 4626 4627 4628 4629 4630 4631 4632 4633 4634 4635 4636 4637 4638 4639 4640 4641 4642 4643 4644 4645 4646 4647 4648 4649 4650 4651 4652 4653 4654 4655 4656 4657 4658 4659 4660 4661 4662 4663 4664 4665 4666 4667 4668 4669 4670 4671 4672 4673 4674 4675 4676 4677 4678 4679 4680 4681 4682 4683 4684 4685 4686 4687 4688 4689 4690 4691 4692 4693 4694 4695 4696 4697 4698 4699 4700 4701 4702 4703 4704 4705 4706 4707 4708 4709 4710 4711 4712 4713 4714 4715 4716 4717 4718 4719 4720 4721 4722 4723 4724 4725 4726 4727 4728 4729 4730 4731 4732 4733 4734 4735 4736 4737 4738 4739 4740 4741 4742 4743 4744 4745 4746 4747 4748 4749 4750 4751 4752 4753 4754 4755 4756 4757 4758 4759 4760 4761 4762 4763 4764 4765 4766 4767 4768 4769 4770 4771 4772 4773 4774 4775 4776 4777 4778 4779 4780 4781 4782 4783 4784 4785 4786 4787 4788 4789 4790 4791 4792 4793 4794 4795 4796 4797 4798 4799 4800 4801 4802 4803 4804 4805 4806 4807 4808 4809 4810 4811 4812 4813 4814 4815 4816 4817 4818 4819 4820 4821 4822 4823 4824 4825 4826 4827 4828 4829 4830 4831 4832 4833 4834 4835 4836 4837 4838 4839 4840 4841 4842 4843 4844 4845 4846 4847 4848 4849 4850 4851 4852 4853 4854 4855 4856 4857 4858 4859 4860 4861 4862 4863 4864 4865 4866 4867 4868 4869 4870 4871 4872 4873 4874 4875 4876 4877 4878 4879 4880 4881 4882 4883 4884 4885 4886 4887 4888 4889 4890 4891 4892 4893 4894 4895 4896 4897 4898 4899 4900 4901 4902 4903 4904 4905 4906 4907 4908 4909 4910 4911 4912 4913 4914 4915 4916 4917 4918 4919 4920 4921 4922 4923 4924 4925 4926 4927 4928 4929 4930 4931 4932 4933 4934 4935 4936 4937 4938 4939 4940 4941 4942 4943 4944 4945 4946 4947 4948 4949 4950 4951 4952 4953 4954 4955 4956 4957 4958 4959 4960 4961 4962 4963 4964 4965 4966 4967 4968 4969 4970 4971 4972 4973 4974 4975 4976 4977 4978 4979 4980 4981 4982 4983 4984 4985 4986 4987 4988 4989 4990 4991 4992 4993 4994 4995 4996 4997 4998 4999 5000 5001 5002 5003 5004 5005 5006 5007 5008 5009 5010 5011 5012 5013 5014 5015 5016 5017 5018 5019 5020 5021 5022 5023 5024 5025 5026 5027 5028 5029 5030 5031 5032 5033 5034 5035 5036 5037 5038 5039 5040 5041 5042 5043 5044 5045 5046 5047 5048 5049 5050 5051 5052 5053 5054 5055 5056 5057 5058 5059 5060 5061 5062 5063 5064 5065 5066 5067 5068 5069 5070 5071 5072 5073 5074 5075 5076 5077 5078 5079 5080 5081 5082 5083 5084 5085 5086 5087 5088 5089 5090 5091 5092 5093 5094 5095 5096 5097 5098 5099 5100 5101 5102 5103 5104 5105 5106 5107 5108 5109 5110 5111 5112 5113 5114 5115 5116 5117 5118 5119 5120 5121 5122 5123 5124 5125 5126 5127 5128 5129 5130 5131 5132 5133 5134 5135 5136 5137 5138 5139 5140 5141 5142 5143 5144 5145 5146 5147 5148 5149 5150 5151 5152 5153 5154 5155 5156 5157 5158 5159 5160 5161 5162 5163 5164 5165 5166 5167 5168 5169 5170 5171 5172 5173 5174 5175 5176 5177 5178 5179 5180 5181 5182 5183 5184 5185 5186 5187 5188 5189 5190 5191 5192 5193 5194 5195 5196 5197 5198 5199 5200 5201 5202 5203 5204 5205 5206 5207 5208 5209 5210 5211 5212 5213 5214 5215 5216 5217 5218 5219 5220 5221 5222 5223 5224 5225 5226 5227 5228 5229 5230 5231 5232 5233 5234 5235 5236 5237 5238 5239 5240 5241 5242 5243 5244 5245 5246 5247 5248 5249 5250 5251 5252 5253 5254 5255 5256 5257 5258 5259 5260 5261 5262 5263 5264 5265 5266 5267 5268 5269 5270 5271 5272 5273 5274 5275 5276 5277 5278 5279 5280 5281 5282 5283 5284 5285 5286 5287 5288 5289 5290 5291 5292 5293 5294 5295 5296 5297 5298 5299 5300 5301 5302 5303 5304 5305 5306 5307 5308 5309 5310 5311 5312 5313 5314 5315 5316 5317 5318 5319 5320 5321 5322 5323 5324 5325 5326 5327 5328 5329 5330 5331 5332 5333 5334 5335 5336 5337 5338 5339 5340 5341 5342 5343 5344 5345 5346 5347 5348 5349 5350 5351 5352 5353 5354 5355 5356 5357 5358 5359 5360 5361 5362 5363 5364 5365 5366 5367 5368 5369 5370 5371 5372 5373 5374 5375 5376 5377 5378 5379 5380 5381 5382 5383 5384 5385 5386 5387 5388 5389 5390 5391 5392 5393 5394 5395 5396 5397 5398 5399 5400 5401 5402 5403 5404 5405 5406 5407 5408 5409 5410 5411 5412 5413 5414 5415 5416 5417 5418 5419 5420 5421 5422 5423 5424 5425 5426 5427 5428 5429 5430 5431 5432 5433 5434 5435 5436 5437 5438 5439 5440 5441 5442 5443 5444 5445 5446 5447 5448 5449 5450 5451 5452 5453 5454 5455 5456 5457 5458 5459 5460 5461 5462 5463 5464 5465 5466 5467 5468 5469 5470 5471 5472 5473 5474 5475 5476 5477 5478 5479 5480 5481 5482 5483 5484 5485 5486 5487 5488 5489 5490 5491 5492 5493 5494 5495 5496 5497 5498 5499 5500 5501 5502 5503 5504 5505 5506 5507 5508 5509 5510 5511 5512 5513 5514 5515 5516 5517 5518 5519 5520 5521 5522 5523 5524 5525 5526 5527 5528 5529 5530 5531 5532 5533 5534 5535 5536 5537 5538 5539 5540 5541 5542 5543 5544 5545 5546 5547 5548 5549 5550 5551 5552 5553 5554 5555 5556 5557 5558 5559 5560 5561 5562 5563 5564 5565 5566 5567 5568 5569 5570 5571 5572 5573 5574 5575 5576 5577 5578 5579 5580 5581 5582 5583 5584 5585 5586 5587 5588 5589 5590 5591 5592 5593 5594 5595 5596 5597 5598 5599 5600 5601 5602 5603 5604 5605 5606 5607 5608 5609 5610 5611 5612 5613 5614 5615 5616 5617 5618 5619 5620 5621 5622 5623 5624 5625 5626 5627 5628 5629 5630 5631 5632 5633 5634 5635 5636 5637 5638 5639 5640 5641 5642 5643 5644 5645 5646 5647 5648 5649 5650 5651 5652 5653 5654 5655 5656 5657 5658 5659 5660 5661 5662 5663 5664 5665 5666 5667 5668 5669 5670 5671 5672 5673 5674 5675 5676 5677 5678 5679 5680 5681 5682 5683 5684 5685 5686 5687 5688 5689 5690 5691 5692 5693 5694 5695 5696 5697 5698 5699 5700 5701 5702 5703 5704 5705 5706 5707 5708 5709 5710 5711 5712 5713 5714 5715 5716 5717 5718 5719 5720 5721 5722 5723 5724 5725 5726 5727 5728 5729 5730 5731 5732 5733 5734 5735 5736 5737 5738 5739 5740 5741 5742 5743 5744 5745 5746 5747 5748 5749 5750 5751 5752 5753 5754 5755 5756 5757 5758 5759 5760 5761 5762 5763 5764 5765 5766 5767 5768 5769 5770 5771 5772 5773 5774 5775 5776 5777 5778 5779 5780 5781 5782 5783 5784 5785 5786 5787 5788 5789 5790 5791 5792 5793 5794 5795 5796 5797 5798 5799 5800 5801 5802 5803 5804 5805 5806 5807 5808 5809 5810 5811 5812 5813 5814 5815 5816 5817 5818 5819 5820 5821 5822 5823 5824 5825 5826 5827 5828 5829 5830 5831 5832 5833 5834 5835 5836 5837 5838 5839 5840 5841 5842 5843 5844 5845 5846 5847 5848 5849 5850 5851 5852 5853 5854 5855 5856 5857 5858 5859 5860 5861 5862 5863 5864 5865 5866 5867 5868 5869 5870 5871 5872 5873 5874 5875 5876 5877 5878 5879 5880 5881 5882 5883 5884 5885 5886 5887 5888 5889 5890 5891 5892 5893 5894 5895 5896 5897 5898 5899 5900 5901 5902 5903 5904 5905 5906 5907 5908 5909 5910 5911 5912 5913 5914 5915 5916 5917 5918 5919 5920 5921 5922 5923 5924 5925 5926 5927 5928 5929 5930 5931 5932 5933 5934 5935 5936 5937 5938 5939 5940 5941 5942 5943 5944 5945 5946 5947 5948 5949 5950 5951 5952 5953 5954 5955 5956 5957 5958 5959 5960 5961 5962 5963 5964 5965 5966 5967 5968 5969 5970 5971 5972 5973 5974 5975 5976 5977 5978 5979 5980 5981 5982 5983 5984 5985 5986 5987 5988 5989 5990 5991 5992 5993 5994 5995 5996 5997 5998 5999 6000 6001 6002 6003 6004 6005 6006 6007 6008 6009 6010 6011 6012 6013 6014 6015 6016 6017 6018 6019 6020 6021 6022 6023 6024 6025 6026 6027 6028 6029 6030 6031 6032 6033 6034 6035 6036 6037 6038 6039 6040 6041 6042 6043 6044 6045 6046 6047 6048 6049 6050 6051 6052 6053 6054 6055 6056 6057 6058 6059 6060 6061 6062 6063 6064 6065 6066 6067 6068 6069 6070 6071 6072 6073 6074 6075 6076 6077 6078 6079 6080 6081 6082 6083 6084 6085 6086 6087 6088 6089 6090 6091 6092 6093 6094 6095 6096 6097 6098 6099 6100 6101 6102 6103 6104 6105 6106 6107 6108 6109 6110 6111 6112 6113 6114 6115 6116 6117 6118 6119 6120 6121 6122 6123 6124 6125 6126 6127 6128 6129 6130 6131 6132 6133 6134 6135 6136 6137 6138 6139 6140 6141 6142 6143 6144 6145 6146 6147 6148 6149 6150 6151 6152 6153 6154 6155 6156 6157 6158 6159 6160 6161 6162 6163 6164 6165 6166 6167 6168 6169 6170 6171 6172 6173 6174 6175 6176 6177 6178 6179 6180 6181 6182 6183 6184 6185 6186 6187 6188 6189 6190 6191 6192 6193 6194 6195 6196 6197 6198 6199 6200 6201 6202 6203 6204 6205 6206 6207 6208 6209 6210 6211 6212 6213 6214 6215 6216 6217 6218 6219 6220 6221 6222 6223 6224 6225 6226 6227 6228 6229 6230 6231 6232 6233 6234 6235 6236 6237 6238 6239 6240 6241 6242 6243 6244 6245 6246 6247 6248 6249 6250 6251 6252 6253 6254 6255 6256 6257 6258 6259 6260 6261 6262 6263 6264 6265 6266 6267 6268 6269 6270 6271 6272 6273 6274 6275 6276 6277 6278 6279 6280 6281 6282 6283 6284 6285 6286 6287 6288 6289 6290 6291 6292 6293 6294 6295 6296 6297 6298 6299 6300 6301 6302 6303 6304 6305 6306 6307 6308 6309 6310 6311 6312 6313 6314 6315 6316 6317 6318 6319 6320 6321 6322 6323 6324 6325 6326 6327 6328 6329 6330 6331 6332 6333 6334 6335 6336 6337 6338 6339 6340 6341 6342 6343 6344 6345 6346 6347 6348 6349 6350 6351 6352 6353 6354 6355 6356 6357 6358 6359 6360 6361 6362 6363 6364 6365 6366 6367 6368 6369 6370 6371 6372 6373 6374 6375 6376 6377 6378 6379 6380 6381 6382 6383 6384 6385 6386 6387 6388 6389 6390 6391 6392 6393 6394 6395 6396 6397 6398 6399 6400 6401 6402 6403 6404 6405 6406 6407 6408 6409 6410 6411 6412 6413 6414 6415 6416 6417 6418 6419 6420 6421 6422 6423 6424 6425 6426 6427 6428 6429 6430 6431 6432 6433 6434 6435 6436 6437 6438 6439 6440 6441 6442 6443 6444 6445 6446 6447 6448 6449 6450 6451 6452 6453 6454 6455 6456 6457 6458 6459 6460 6461 6462 6463 6464 6465 6466 6467 6468 6469 6470 6471 6472 6473 6474 6475 6476 6477 6478 6479 6480 6481 6482 6483 6484 6485 6486 6487 6488 6489 6490 6491 6492 6493 6494 6495 6496 6497 6498 6499 6500 6501 6502 6503 6504 6505 6506 6507 6508 6509 6510 6511 6512 6513 6514 6515 6516 6517 6518 6519 6520 6521 6522 6523 6524 6525 6526 6527 6528 6529 6530 6531 6532 6533 6534 6535 6536 6537 6538 6539 6540 6541 6542 6543 6544 6545 6546 6547 6548 6549 6550 6551 6552 6553 6554 6555 6556 6557 6558 6559 6560 6561 6562 6563 6564 6565 6566 6567 6568 6569 6570 6571 6572 6573 6574 6575 6576 6577 6578 6579 6580 6581 6582 6583 6584 6585 6586 6587 6588 6589 6590 6591 6592 6593 6594 6595 6596 6597 6598 6599 6600 6601 6602 6603 6604 6605 6606 6607 6608 6609 6610 6611 6612 6613 6614 6615 6616 6617 6618 6619 6620 6621 6622 6623 6624 6625 6626 6627 6628 6629 6630 6631 6632 6633 6634 6635 6636 6637 6638 6639 6640 6641 6642 6643 6644 6645 6646 6647 6648 6649 6650 6651 6652 6653 6654 6655 6656 6657 6658 6659 6660 6661 6662 6663 6664 6665 6666 6667 6668 6669 6670 6671 6672 6673 6674 6675 6676 6677 6678 6679 6680 6681 6682 6683 6684 6685 6686 6687 6688 6689 6690 6691 6692 6693 6694 6695 6696 6697 6698 6699 6700 6701 6702 6703 6704 6705 6706 6707 6708 6709 6710 6711 6712 6713 6714 6715 6716 6717 6718 6719 6720 6721 6722 6723 6724 6725 6726 6727 6728 6729 6730 6731 6732 6733 6734 6735 6736 6737 6738 6739 6740 6741 6742 6743 6744 6745 6746 6747 6748 6749 6750 6751 6752 6753 6754 6755 6756 6757 6758 6759 6760 6761 6762 6763 6764 6765 6766 6767 6768 6769 6770 6771 6772 6773 6774 6775 6776 6777 6778 6779 6780 6781 6782 6783 6784 6785 6786 6787 6788 6789 6790 6791 6792 6793 6794 6795 6796 6797 6798 6799 6800 6801 6802 6803 6804 6805 6806 6807 6808 6809 6810 6811 6812 6813 6814 6815 6816 6817 6818 6819 6820 6821 6822 6823 6824 6825 6826 6827 6828 6829 6830 6831 6832 6833 6834 6835 6836 6837 6838 6839 6840 6841 6842 6843 6844 6845 6846 6847 6848 6849 6850 6851 6852 6853 6854 6855 6856 6857 6858 6859 6860 6861 6862 6863 6864 6865 6866 6867 6868 6869 6870 6871 6872 6873 6874 6875 6876 6877 6878 6879 6880 6881 6882 6883 6884 6885 6886 6887 6888 6889 6890 6891 6892 6893 6894 6895 6896 6897 6898 6899 6900 6901 6902 6903 6904 6905 6906 6907 6908 6909 6910 6911 6912 6913 6914 6915 6916 6917 6918 6919 6920 6921 6922 6923 6924 6925 6926 6927 6928 6929 6930 6931 6932 6933 6934 6935 6936 6937 6938 6939 6940 6941 6942 6943 6944 6945 6946 6947 6948 6949 6950 6951 6952 6953 6954 6955 6956 6957 6958 6959 6960 6961 6962 6963 6964 6965 6966 6967 6968 6969 6970 6971 6972 6973 6974 6975 6976 6977 6978 6979 6980 6981 6982 6983 6984 6985 6986 6987 6988 6989 6990 6991 6992 6993 6994 6995 6996 6997 6998 6999 7000 7001 7002 7003 7004 7005 7006 7007 7008 7009 7010 7011 7012 7013 7014 7015 7016 7017 7018 7019 7020 7021 7022 7023 7024 7025 7026 7027 7028 7029 7030 7031 7032 7033 7034 7035 7036 7037 7038 7039 7040 7041 7042 7043 7044 7045 7046 7047 7048 7049 7050 7051 7052 7053 7054 7055 7056 7057 7058 7059 7060 7061 7062 7063 7064 7065 7066 7067 7068 7069 7070 7071 7072 7073 7074 7075 7076 7077 7078 7079 7080 7081 7082 7083 7084 7085 7086 7087 7088 7089 7090 7091 7092 7093 7094 7095 7096 7097 7098 7099 7100 7101 7102 7103 7104 7105 7106 7107 7108 7109 7110 7111 7112 7113 7114 7115 7116 7117 7118 7119 7120 7121 7122 7123 7124 7125 7126 7127 7128 7129 7130 7131 7132 7133 7134 7135 7136 7137 7138 7139 7140 7141 7142 7143 7144 7145 7146 7147 7148 7149 7150 7151 7152 7153 7154 7155 7156 7157 7158 7159 7160 7161 | 100 buckets of bits on the bus
100 buckets of bits
Take one down, short it to ground
FF buckets of bits on the bus
FF buckets of bits on the bus
FF buckets of bits
Take one down, short it to ground
FE buckets of bits on the bus
ad infinitum...
%
99 blocks of crud on the disk,
99 blocks of crud!
You patch a bug, and dump it again:
100 blocks of crud on the disk!
100 blocks of crud on the disk,
100 blocks of crud!
You patch a bug, and dump it again:
101 blocks of crud on the disk! ...
%
A bit of talcum
Is always walcum
-- Ogden Nash
%
A box without hinges, key, or lid,
Yet golden treasure inside is hid.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
A bunch of the boys were whooping it in the Malemute saloon;
The kid that handles the music box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.
-- Robert W. Service
%
A cousin of mine once said about money,
money is always there but the pockets change;
it is not in the same pockets after a change,
and that is all there is to say about money.
-- Gertrude Stein
%
A Elbereth Gilthoniel,
silivren penna m'iriel
o menel aglar elenath!
Na chaered palan-d'iriel
o galadhremmin ennorath,
Fanuilos, le linnathon
nef aear, s'i nef aearon!
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
A fitter fits; Though sinners sin
A cutter cuts; And thinners thin
And an aircraft spotter spots; And paper-blotters blot
A baby-sitter I've never yet
Baby-sits -- Had letters let
But an otter never ots. Or seen an otter ot.
A batter bats
(Or scatters scats);
A potting shed's for potting;
But no one's found
A bounder bound
Or caught an otter otting.
-- Ralph Lewin
%
A is for awk, which runs like a snail, and
B is for biff, which reads all your mail.
C is for cc, as hackers recall, while
D is for dd, the command that does all.
E is for emacs, which rebinds your keys, and
F is for fsck, which rebuilds your trees.
G is for grep, a clever detective, while
H is for halt, which may seem defective.
I is for indent, which rarely amuses, and
J is for join, which nobody uses.
K is for kill, which makes you the boss, while
L is for lex, which is missing from DOS.
M is for more, from which less was begot, and
N is for nice, which it really is not.
O is for od, which prints out things nice, while
P is for passwd, which reads in strings twice.
Q is for quota, a Berkeley-type fable, and
R is for ranlib, for sorting ar table.
S is for spell, which attempts to belittle, while
T is for true, which does very little.
U is for uniq, which is used after sort, and
V is for vi, which is hard to abort.
W is for whoami, which tells you your name, while
X is, well, X, of dubious fame.
Y is for yes, which makes an impression, and
Z is for zcat, which handles compression.
-- THE ABC'S OF UNIX
%
A lady with one of her ears applied
To an open keyhole heard, inside,
Two female gossips in converse free --
The subject engaging them was she.
"I think", said one, "and my husband thinks
That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!"
As soon as no more of it she could hear
The lady, indignant, removed her ear.
"I will not stay," she said with a pout,
"To hear my character lied about!"
-- Gopete Sherany
%
A little word of doubtful number,
A foe to rest and peaceful slumber.
If you add an "s" to this,
Great is the metamorphosis.
Plural is plural now no more,
And sweet what bitter was before.
What am I?
%
A man is like a rusty wheel on a rusty cart,
He sings his song as he rattles along and then he falls apart.
-- Richard Thompson
%
A man of genius makes no mistakes.
His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
-- James Joyce, "Ulysses"
%
A man who fishes for marlin in ponds
will put his money in Etruscan bonds.
%
A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than the pachyderm.
His customary dwelling place
Is deep within the human race.
His childish pride he often pleases
By giving people strange diseases.
Do you, my poppet, feel infirm?
You probably contain a germ.
-- Ogden Nash
%
A pig is a jolly companion,
Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale,
Though mountains may topple and tilt.
When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you,
When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover,
You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,
You'll never go wrong with a pig!
-- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"
%
A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all Heaven in a rage.
-- Blake
%
A salamander scurries into flame to be destroyed.
Imaginary creatures are trapped in birth on celluloid.
-- Genesis, "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway"
I don't know what it's about. I'm just the drummer. Ask Peter.
-- Phil Collins in 1975, when asked about the message behind
the previous year's Genesis release, "The Lamb Lies Down
on Broadway".
%
A single flow'r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet--
One perfect rose.
I knew the language of the floweret;
"My fragile leaves," it said, "his heart enclose."
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it's always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.
-- Dorothy Parker, "One Perfect Rose"
%
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
-- William Blake
%
A-Z affectionately,
1 to 10 alphabetically,
from here to eternity without in betweens,
still looking for a custom fit in an off-the-rack world,
sales talk from sales assistants
when all i want to do is lower your resistance,
no rhythm in cymbals no tempo in drums,
love's on arrival,
she comes when she comes,
right on the target but wide of the mark...
%
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold.
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou?" The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men."
The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.
-- James Henry Leigh Hunt, "Abou Ben Adhem"
%
After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
And you learn that love doesn't mean security,
And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts
And presents aren't promises
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open,
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,
And you learn to build all your roads
On today because tomorrow's ground
Is too uncertain. And futures have
A way of falling down in midflight,
After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting
For someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure...
That you really are strong,
And you really do have worth
And you learn and learn
With every goodbye you learn.
-- Veronic Shoffstall, "Comes the Dawn"
%
After all my erstwhile dear,
My no longer cherished,
Need we say it was not love,
Just because it perished?
-- Edna St. Vincent Millay
%
Again she fled, but swift he came.
Tin'uviel! Tin'uviel!
He called her by her elvish name;
And there she halted listening.
One moment stood she, and a spell
His voice laid on her: Beren came
And doom fell on Tin'uviel
That in his arms lay glistening.
As Beren looked into her eyes
Within the shadows of her hair,
The trembling starlight of the skies
He saw there mirrored shimmering.
Tin'uviel the elven-fair,
Immortal maiden elven-wise,
About him cast her shadowy hair
And arms like silver glimmering.
Long was the way that fate them bore,
O'er stony mountains cold and grey,
Through halls of iron and darkling door,
And woods of nightshade morrowless.
The Sundering Seas between them lay,
And yet at last they met once more,
And long ago they passed away
In the forest singing sorrowless.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
Against Idleness and Mischief
How doth the little busy bee How skillfully she builds her cell!
Improve each shining hour, How neat she spreads the wax!
And gather honey all the day And labours hard to store it well
From every opening flower! With the sweet food she makes.
In works of labour or of skill In books, or work, or healthful play,
I would be busy too; Let my first years be passed,
For Satan finds some mischief still That I may give for every day
For idle hands to do. Some good account at last.
-- Isaac Watts, 1674-1748
%
Ah, but a man's grasp should exceed his reach,
Or what's a heaven for ?
-- Robert Browning, "Andrea del Sarto"
%
Ah, but the choice of dreams to live,
there's the rub.
For all dreams are not equal,
some exit to nightmare
most end with the dreamer
But at least one must be lived ... and died.
%
Ah, my friends, from the prison, they ask unto me,
"How good, how good does it feel to be free?"
And I answer them most mysteriously:
"Are birds free from the chains of the sky-way?"
-- Bob Dylan
%
Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall,
Aleph-null bottles of beer,
You take one down, and pass it around,
Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall.
%
Alive without breath,
As cold as death;
Never thirsty, ever drinking,
All in mail never clinking.
%
All I need to have a good time,
Is a reefer, a woman and a bottle of wine.
With those three things I don't need no sunshine,
A reefer, a woman and a bottle of wine.
All I want is to never grow old,
I want to wash in a bathtub of gold.
I want 97 kilos already rolled,
I want to wash in a bathtub of gold.
I want to light my cigars with 10 dollar bills,
I like to have a cattle ranch in Beverly Hills.
I want a bottle of Red Eye that's always filled,
I like to have a cattle ranch in Beverly Hills.
-- Country Joe and the Fish, "Zachariah"
%
All my friends are getting married,
Yes, they're all growing old,
They're all staying home on the weekend,
They're all doing what they're told.
%
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
All that you touch, And all you create,
All that you see, And all you destroy,
All that you taste, All that you do,
All you feel, And all you say,
And all that you love, All that you eat,
And all that you hate, And everyone you meet,
All you distrust, All that you slight,
All you save, And everyone you fight,
And all that you give, And all that is now,
And all that you deal, And all that is gone,
All that you buy, And all that's to come,
Beg, borrow or steal, And everything under the sun is
in tune,
But the sun is eclipsed
By the moon.
There is no dark side of the moon... really... matter of fact it's all dark.
-- Pink Floyd, "Dark Side of the Moon"
%
All the lines have been written There's been Sandburg,
It's sad but it's true Keats, Poe and McKuen
With all the words gone, They all had their day
What's a young poet to do? And knew what they're doin'
But of all the words written The bird is a strange one,
And all the lines read, So small and so tender
There's one I like most, Its breed still unknown,
And by a bird it was said! Not to mention its gender.
It reminds me of days of So what is this line
Both gloom and of light. Whose author's unknown
It still lifts my spirits And still makes me giggle
And starts the day right. Even now that I'm grown?
I've read all the greats
Both starving and fat,
But none was as great as
"I tot I taw a puddy tat."
-- Etta Stallings, "An Ode To Childhood"
%
All the world's a VAX,
And all the coders merely butchers;
They have their exits and their entrails;
And one int in his time plays many widths,
His sizeof being _N bytes. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the Regent's arms.
And then the whining schoolboy, with his Sun,
And shining morning face, creeping like slug
Unwillingly to school.
-- A Very Annoyed PDP-11
%
All who joy would win Must share it --
Happiness was born a twin.
-- Lord Byron
%
An eye in a blue face
Saw an eye in a green face.
"That eye is like this eye"
Said the first eye,
"But in low place,
Not in high place."
%
An Hacker there was, one of the finest sort
Who controlled the system; graphics was his sport.
A manly man, to be a wizard able;
Many a protected file he had sitting on his table.
His console, when he typed, a man might hear
Clicking and feeping wind as clear,
Aye, and as loud as does the machine room bell
Where my lord Hacker was Prior of the cell.
The Rule of good St Savage or St Doeppnor
As old and strict he tended to ignore;
He let go by the things of yesterday
And took the modern world's more spacious way.
He did not rate that text as a plucked hen
Which says that Hackers are not holy men.
And that a hacker underworked is a mere
Fish out of water, flapping on the pier.
That is to say, a hacker out of his cloister.
That was a text he held not worth an oyster.
And I agreed and said his views were sound;
Was he to study till his head wend round
Poring over books in the cloisters? Must he toil
As Andy bade and till the very soil?
Was he to leave the world upon the shelf?
Let Andy have his labor to himself!
-- Chaucer
[well, almost. Ed.]
%
And all that the Lorax left here in this mess
was a small pile of rocks with the one word, "unless."
Whatever THAT meant, well, I just couldn't guess.
That was long, long ago, and each day since that day,
I've worried and worried and worried away.
Through the years as my buildings have fallen apart,
I've worried about it with all of my heart.
"BUT," says the Oncler, "now that you're here,
the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear!
UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better - it's not.
So... CATCH!" cries the Oncler. He lets something fall.
"It's a truffula seed. It's the last one of all!
"You're in charge of the last of the truffula seeds.
And truffula trees are what everyone needs.
Plant a new truffula -- treat it with care.
Give it clean water and feed it fresh air.
Grow a forest -- protect it from axes that hack.
Then the Lorax and all of his friends may come back!"
%
And as we stand on the edge of darkness
Let our chant fill the void
That others may know
In the land of the night
The ship of the sun
Is drawn by
The grateful dead.
-- Tibetan "Book of the Dead," ca. 4000 BC.
%
And did those feet, in ancient times,
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the Holy Lamb of God
In England's pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon these crowded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark satanic mills?
Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spears! O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
I shall not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword rest in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.
-- William Blake, "Jerusalem"
%
And here I wait so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going thru all of these things twice
-- Dylan, "Memphis Blues Again"
%
And I heard Jeff exclaim,
As they strolled out of sight,
"Merry Christmas to all --
You take credit cards, right?"
-- "Outsiders" comic
%
And if California slides into the ocean,
Like the mystics and statistics say it will.
I predict this motel will be standing,
Until I've paid my bill.
-- Warren Zevon, "Desperados Under the Eaves"
%
And if sometime, somewhere, someone asketh thee,
"Who kilt thee?", tell them it 'twas the Doones of Bagworthy!
%
And if you wonder,
What I am doing,
As I am heading for the sink.
I am spitting out all the bitterness,
Along with half of my last drink.
%
And in the heartbreak years that lie ahead,
Be true to yourself and the Grateful Dead.
-- Joan Baez
%
And miles to go before I sleep.
-- Robert Frost
%
And now your toner's toney, Disk blocks aplenty
And your paper near pure white, Await your laser drawn lines,
The smudges on your soul are gone Your intricate fonts,
And your output's clean as light.. Your pictures and signs.
We've labored with your father, Your amputative absence
The venerable XGP, Has made the Ten dumb,
But his slow artistic hand, Without you, Dover,
Lacks your clean velocity. We're system untounged-
Theses and papers DRAW Plots and TEXage
And code in a queue Have been biding their time,
Dover, oh Dover, With LISP code and programs,
We've been waiting for you. And this crufty rhyme.
Dover, oh Dover, Dover, oh Dover, arisen from dead.
We welcome you back, Dover, oh Dover, awoken from bed.
Though still you may jam, Dover, oh Dover, welcome back to the Lab.
You're on the right track. Dover, oh Dover, we've missed your clean
hand...
%
...and report cards I was always afraid to show
Mama'd come to school
and as I'd sit there softly cryin'
Teacher'd say he's just not tryin'
Got a good head if he'd apply it
but you know yourself
it's always somewhere else
I'd build me a castle
with dragons and kings
and I'd ride off with them
As I stood by my window
and looked out on those
Brooklyn roads
-- Neil Diamond, "Brooklyn Roads"
%
And so it was, later,
As the miller told his tale,
That her face, at first just ghostly,
Turned a whiter shade of pale.
-- Procol Harum
%
And the silence came surging softly backwards
When the plunging hooves were gone...
-- Walter de La Mare, "The Listeners"
%
And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots,
And the Cabots talk only to God.
%
And we heard him exclaim
As he started to roam:
"I'm a hologram, kids,
please don't try this at home!'"
-- Bob Violence
%
And... What in the world ever became of Sweet Jane?
She's lost her sparkle, you see she isn't the same.
Livin' on reds, vitamin C, and cocaine
All a friend can say is "Ain't it a shame?"
-- The Grateful Dead
%
Angels we have heard on High
Tell us to go out and Buy.
-- Tom Lehrer
%
Antonio Antonio
Was tired of living alonio
He thought he would woo Antonio Antonio
Miss Lucamy Lu, Rode of on his polo ponio
Miss Lucamy Lucy Molonio. And found the maid
In a bowery shade,
Sitting and knitting alonio.
Antonio Antonio
Said if you will be my ownio
I'll love tou true Oh nonio Antonio
And buy for you You're far too bleak and bonio
An icery creamry conio. And all that I wish
You singular fish
Is that you will quickly begonio.
Antonio Antonio
Uttered a dismal moanio
And went off and hid
Or I'm told that he did
In the Antartical Zonio.
%
April is the cruellest month...
-- Thomas Stearns Eliot
%
Are there those in the land of the brave
Who can tell me how I should behave
When I am disgraced
Because I erased
A file I intended to save?
%
As for the women, though we scorn and flout 'em,
We may live with, but cannot live without 'em.
-- Frederic Reynolds
%
As I was going up Punch Card Hill,
Feeling worse and worser,
There I met a C.R.T.
And it drop't me a cursor.
C.R.T., C.R.T.,
Phosphors light on you!
If I had fifty hours a day
I'd spend them all at you.
-- Uncle Colonel's Cursory Rhymes
%
As I was passing Project MAC,
I met a Quux with seven hacks.
Every hack had seven bugs;
Every bug had seven manifestations;
Every manifestation had seven symptoms.
Symptoms, manifestations, bugs, and hacks,
How many losses at Project MAC?
%
As I was walking down the street one dark and dreary day,
I came upon a billboard and much to my dismay,
The words were torn and tattered,
From the storm the night before,
The wind and rain had done its work and this is how it goes,
Smoke Coca-Cola cigarettes, chew Wrigleys Spearmint beer,
Ken-L-Ration dog food makes your complexion clear,
Simonize your baby in a Hershey candy bar,
And Texaco's a beauty cream that's used by every star.
Take your next vacation in a brand new Frigedaire,
Learn to play the piano in your winter underwear,
Doctors say that babies should smoke until they're three,
And people over sixty-five should bathe in Lipton tea.
%
As me an' me marrer was readin' a tyape,
The tyape gave a shriek mark an' tried tae escyape;
It skipped ower the gyate tae the end of the field,
An' jigged oot the room wi' a spool an' a reel!
Follow the leader, Johnny me laddie,
Follow it through, me canny lad O;
Follow the transport, Johnny me laddie,
Away, lad, lie away, canny lad O!
-- S. Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
%
As some day it may happen that a victim must be found
I've got a little list -- I've got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground
And who never would be missed -- who never would be missed.
-- Koko, "The Mikado"
%
At times discretion should be thrown aside,
and with the foolish we should play the fool.
-- Menander
%
Avoid Quiet and Placid persons unless you are in Need of Sleep.
-- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
%
Azh nazg durbatal^uk, azh nazg gimbatul,
Azh nazg thrakatal^uk agh burzum ishi krimpatul!
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most Souls would scarcely
get your Feet wet. Fall not in Love, therefore: it will stick to your face.
-- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
%
Be valiant, but not too venturous.
Let thy attire be comely, but not costly.
-- John Lyly
%
Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
-- John Keats
%
Because I do,
Because I do not hope,
Because I do not hope to survive
Injustice from the Palace, death from the air,
Because I do, only do,
I continue...
-- T. S. Pynchon
%
Beneath this stone lies Murphy,
They buried him today,
He lived the life of Riley,
While Riley was away.
%
better !pout !cry
better watchout
lpr why
santa claus < north pole > town
cat /etc/passwd > list
ncheck list
ncheck list
cat list | grep naughty > nogiftlist
cat list | grep nice > giftlist
santa claus < north pole > town
who | grep sleeping
who | grep awake
who | grep 'bad\|good'
for (goodness sake) {
be good
}
%
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
-- T. S. Eliot, "The Hollow Man"
[Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when
referring to system service dispatching.]
%
Big M, Little M, many mumbling mice
Are making midnight music in the moonlight,
Mighty nice!
%
Bit off more than my mind could chew,
Shower or suicide, what do I do?
-- Julie Brown, "Will I Make it Through the Eighties?"
%
Black shiny mollies and bright colored guppies,
Shy little angels as gentle as puppies,
Swimming and diving with scarcely a swish,
They were just some of my tropical fish.
Then I got mantas that sting in the water,
Deadly piranhas that itch for a slaughter,
Savage male betas that bite with a squish,
Now I have many less tropical fish.
If you think that
Fish are peaceful
That's an empty wish.
Just dump them together
And leave them alone,
And soon you will have -- no fish.
-- To My Favorite Things
%
Blackout, heatwave, .44 caliber homicide,
The bums drop dead and the dogs go mad in packs on the West Side,
A young girl standing on a ledge, looks like another suicide,
She wants to hit those bricks,
'cause the news at six got to stick to a deadline,
While the millionaires hide in Beekman place,
The bag ladies throw their bones in my face,
I get attacked by a kid with stereo sound,
I don't want to hear it but he won't turn it down...
-- Billy Joel, "Glass Houses"
%
Boy, get your head out of the stars above,
You get the maximum pleasure from a minimum of love.
Save your heart and let your body be enough,
To get the maximum pleasure from a minimum of love.
Save your heart and let your body be enough,
And get the maximum pleasure from a minimum of love.
-- Mac Macinelli, "Minimum Love"
%
Breathe deep the gathering gloom.
Watch lights fade from every room.
Bed-sitter people look back and lament;
another day's useless energies spent.
Impassioned lovers wrestle as one.
Lonely man cries for love and has none.
New mother picks up and suckles her son.
Senior citizens wish they were young.
Cold-hearted orb that rules the night;
Removes the colors from our sight.
Red is grey and yellow white.
But we decide which is real, and which is an illusion."
-- The Moody Blues, "Days of Future Passed"
%
Brillineggiava, ed i tovoli slati
girlavano ghimbanti nella vaba;
i borogovi eran tutti mimanti
e la moma radeva fuorigraba.
"Figliuolo mio, sta' attento al Gibrovacco,
dagli artigli e dal morso lacerante;
fuggi l'uccello Giuggiolo, e nel sacco
metti infine il frumioso Bandifante".
-- Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky"
%
But has any little atom,
While a-sittin' and a-splittin',
Ever stopped to think or CARE
That E = m c**2 ?
%
But I was there and I saw what you did,
I saw it with my own two eyes.
So you can wipe off that grin;
I know where you've been--
It's all been a pack of lies!
%
But scientists, who ought to know
Assure us that it must be so.
Oh, let us never, never doubt
What nobody is sure about.
-- Hilaire Belloc
%
But soft you, the fair Ophelia:
Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws,
But get thee to a nunnery -- go!
-- Mark "The Bard" Twain
%
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft a-gley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain
For promised joy.
-- Robert Burns, "To a Mouse", 1785
%
Buzz off, Banana Nose; Relieve mine eyes
Of hateful soreness, purge mine ears of corn;
Less dear than army ants in apple pies
Art thou, old prune-face, with thy chestnuts worn,
Dropt from thy peeling lips like lousy fruit;
Like honeybees upon the perfum'd rose
They suck, and like the double-breasted suit
Are out of date; therefore, Banana Nose,
Go fly a kite, thy welcome's overstayed;
And stem the produce of thy waspish wits:
Thy logick, like thy locks, is disarrayed;
Thy cheer, like thy complexion, is the pits.
Be off, I say; go bug somebody new,
Scram, beat it, get thee hence, and nuts to you.
%
By the time you swear you're his,
shivering and sighing
and he vows his passion is
infinite, undying --
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.
-- Dorothy Parker, "Unfortunate Coincidence"
%
By the yard, life is hard.
By the inch, it's a cinch.
%
Calm down, it's only ones and zeroes,
Calm down, it's only bits and bytes,
Calm down, and speak to me in English,
Please realize that I'm not one of your computerites.
%
Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain?
Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes,
A root or two, a torus and a node:
The inverse of my verse, a null domain.
-- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
%
Candy
Is dandy
But liquor
Is quicker.
-- Ogden Nash, "Reflections on Ice-Breaking"
Fortune updates the great quotes: #53.
Candy is dandy; but liquor is quicker,
and sex won't rot your teeth.
%
Catch a wave and you're sitting on top of the world.
-- The Beach Boys
%
Cecil, you're my final hope
Of finding out the true Straight Dope
For I have been reading of Schrodinger's cat
But none of my cats are at all like that.
This unusual animal (so it is said)
Is simultaneously alive and dead!
What I don't understand is just why he
Can't be one or the other, unquestionably.
My future now hangs in between eigenstates.
In one I'm enlightened, in the other I ain't.
If *you* understand, Cecil, then show me the way
And rescue my psyche from quantum decay.
But if this queer thing has perplexed even you,
Then I will *___and* I won't see you in Schrodinger's zoo.
-- Randy F., Chicago, "The Straight Dope, a compendium
of human knowledge" by Cecil Adams
%
Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy,
But it's very funny -- did you ever try buying them without money?
-- Ogden Nash
%
Charlie was a chemist,
But Charlie is no more.
For what he thought was H2O,
Was H2SO4.
%
Children aren't happy without something to ignore,
And that's what parents were created for.
-- Ogden Nash
%
Chivalry, Schmivalry!
Roger the thief has a
method he uses for
sneaky attacks:
Folks who are reading are
Characteristically
Always Forgetting to
Guard their own bac ...
%
Christmas time is here, by Golly; Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens;
Disapproval would be folly; Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens;
Deck the halls with hunks of holly; Even though the prospect sickens,
Fill the cup and don't say when... Brother, here we go again.
On Christmas day, you can't get sore; Relations sparing no expense'll,
Your fellow man you must adore; Send some useless old utensil,
There's time to rob him all the more, Or a matching pen and pencil,
The other three hundred and sixty-four! Just the thing I need... how nice.
It doesn't matter how sincere Hark The Herald-Tribune sings,
It is, nor how heartfelt the spirit; Advertising wondrous things.
Sentiment will not endear it; God Rest Ye Merry Merchants,
What's important is... the price. May you make the Yuletide pay.
Angels We Have Heard On High,
Let the raucous sleighbells jingle; Tell us to go out and buy.
Hail our dear old friend, Kris Kringle, Sooooo...
Driving his reindeer across the sky,
Don't stand underneath when they fly by!
-- Tom Lehrer
%
Cold be hand and heart and bone,
and cold be sleep under stone;
never more to wake on stony bed,
never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.
In the black wind the stars shall die,
and still on gold here let them lie,
till the dark lord lifts his hand
over dead sea and withered land.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
Come fill the cup and in the fire of spring
Your winter garment of repentence fling.
The bird of time has but a little way
To flutter -- and the bird is on the wing.
-- Omar Khayyam
%
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands and crystal brooks
With silken lines, and silver hooks.
There's nothing that I wouldn't do
If you would be my POSSLQ.
You live with me, and I with you,
And you will be my POSSLQ.
I'll be your friend and so much more;
That's what a POSSLQ is for.
And everything we will confess;
Yes, even to the IRS.
Some day on what we both may earn,
Perhaps we'll file a joint return.
You'll share my pad, my taxes, joint;
You'll share my life - up to a point!
And that you'll be so glad to do,
Because you'll be my POSSLQ.
%
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines, and silver hooks.
-- John Donne
%
Come on, Virginia, don't make me wait!
Catholic girls start much too late,
Ah, but sooner or later, it comes down to fate,
I might as well be the one.
Well, they showed you a statue, told you to pray,
Built you a temple and locked you away,
Ah, but they never told you the price that you paid,
The things that you might have done.
So come on, Virginia, show me a sign,
Send up a signal, I'll throw you a line,
That stained glass curtain that you're hiding behind,
Never lets in the sun.
Darling, only the good die young!
-- Billy Joel, "Only The Good Die Young"
%
Come, every frustum longs to be a cone,
And every vector dreams of matrices.
Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze:
It whispers of a more ergodic zone.
-- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
%
Come, landlord, fill the flowing bowl until it does run over,
Tonight we will all merry be -- tomorrow we'll get sober.
-- John Fletcher, "The Bloody Brother", II, 2
%
Come, let us hasten to a higher plane,
Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn,
Their indices bedecked from one to _n,
Commingled in an endless Markov chain!
-- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
%
Come, muse, let us sing of rats!
-- From a poem by James Grainger, 1721-1767
%
Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse
That no compunctious visiting of nature
Shake my fell purpose, not keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall the in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry `Hold, hold!'
-- Lady MacBeth
%
Coming to Stores Near You:
101 Grammatically Correct Popular Tunes Featuring:
(You Aren't Anything but a) Hound Dog
It Doesn't Mean a Thing If It Hasn't Got That Swing
I'm Not Misbehaving
And A Whole Lot More...
%
Confusion will be my epitaph
as I walk a cracked and broken path
If we make it we can all sit back and laugh
but I fear that tomorrow we'll be crying.
-- King Crimson, "In the Court of the Crimson King"
%
Death comes on every passing breeze,
He lurks in every flower;
Each season has its own disease,
Its peril -- every hour.
-- Reginald Heber
%
Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo!
Nora's freezin' on the trolley,
Swaller dollar cauliflower, alleygaroo!
Don't we know archaic barrel,
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou.
Trolley Molly don't love Harold,
Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!
-- Pogo, "Deck Us All With Boston Charlie" [Walt Kelly]
%
Declared guilty... of displaying feelings of an almost human nature.
-- Pink Floyd, "The Wall"
%
Despising machines to a man,
The Luddites joined up with the Klan,
And ride out by night
In a sheeting of white
To lynch all the robots they can.
-- C. M. and G. A. Maxson
%
Didja' ever have to make up your mind,
Pick up on one and leave the other behind,
It's not often easy, and it's not often kind,
Didja' ever have to make up your mind?
-- Lovin' Spoonful
%
Disillusioned words like bullets bark,
As human gods aim for their mark,
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored christs that glow in the dark.
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred.
-- Bob Dylan
%
Do your otters do the shimmy?
Do they like to shake their tails?
Do your wombats sleep in tophats?
Is your garden full of snails?
%
Don't be concerned, it will not harm you,
It's only me pursuing something I'm not sure of,
Across my dreams, with neptive wonder,
I chase the bright elusive butterfly of love.
%
Don't let nobody tell you what you cannot do;
don't let nobody tell you what's impossible for you;
don't let nobody tell you what you got to do,
or you'll never know ... what's on the other side of the rainbow...
remember, if you don't follow your dreams,
you'll never know what's on the other side of the rainbow...
-- melba moore, "the other side of the rainbow"
%
Don't lose
Your head
To gain a minute
You need your head
Your brains are in it.
-- Burma Shave
%
Don't wake me up too soon...
Gonna take a ride across the moon...
You and me.
%
Double Bucky, you're the one,
You make my keyboard so much fun,
Double Bucky, an additional bit or two, (Vo-vo-de-o)
Control and meta, side by side,
Augmented ASCII, 9 bits wide!
Double Bucky, a half a thousand glyphs, plus a few!
Oh, I sure wish that I,
Had a couple of bits more!
Perhaps a set of pedals to make the number of bits four.
Double Double Bucky! Double Bucky left and right
OR'd together, outta sight!
Double Bucky, I'd like a whole word of,
Double Bucky, I'm happy I heard of,
Double Bucky, I'd like a whole word of you!
-- to Nicholas Wirth, who suggested that an extra bit
be added to terminal codes on 36-bit machines for use
by screen editors. [to the tune of "Rubber Ducky"]
%
Down to the Banana Republics,
Down to the tropical sun.
Go the expatriated Americans,
Hoping to find some fun.
Some of them go for the sailing,
Caught by the lure of the sea.
Trying to find what is ailing,
Living in the land of the free.
Some of them are running from lovers,
Leaving no forward address.
Some of them are running tons of ganja,
Some are running from the IRS.
Late at night you will find them,
In the cheap hotels and bars.
Hustling the senoritas,
While they dance beneath the stars.
-- Jimmy Buffet, "Banana Republics"
%
Drink and dance and laugh and lie
Love, the reeling midnight through
For tomorrow we shall die!
(But, alas, we never do.)
-- Dorothy Parker, "The Flaw in Paganism"
%
Easy come and easy go,
some call me easy money,
Sometimes life is full of laughs,
and sometimes it ain't funny
You may think that I'm a fool
and sometimes that is true,
But I'm goin' to heaven in a flash of fire,
with or without you.
-- Hoyt Axton
%
Eleanor Rigby
Sits at the keyboard
And waits for a line on the screen
Lives in a dream
Waits for a signal
Finding some code
That will make the machine do some more.
What is it for?
All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?
Hacker MacKensie
Writing the code for a program that no one will run
It's nearly done
Look at him working, fixing the bugs in the night when there's
nobody there.
What does he care?
All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?
Ah, look at all the lonely users.
Ah, look at all the lonely users.
%
Endless the world's turn, endless the sun's spinning
Endless the quest;
I turn again, back to my own beginning,
And here, find rest.
%
Es brilig war. Die schlichte Toven
Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben;
Und aller-m"umsige Burggoven
Dir mohmen R"ath ausgraben.
-- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass"
%
Euch ist bekannt, was wir beduerfen;
Wir wollen stark Getraenke schluerfen.
-- Goethe, "Faust"
%
Even a man who is pure at heart,
And says his prayers at night
Can become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms,
And the moon is full and bright.
-- The Wolf Man, 1941
%
Even in the moment of our earliest kiss,
When sighed the straitened bud into the flower,
Sat the dry seed of most unwelcome this;
And that I knew, though not the day and hour.
Too season-wise am I, being country-bred,
To tilt at autumn or defy the frost:
Snuffing the chill even as my fathers did,
I say with them, "What's out tonight is lost."
I only hoped, with the mild hope of all
Who watch the leaf take shape upon the tree,
A fairer summer and a later fall
Than in these parts a man is apt to see,
And sunny clusters ripened for the wine:
I tell you this across the blackened vine.
-- Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Even in the Moment of
Our Earliest Kiss", 1931
%
Ever Onward! Ever Onward!
That's the sprit that has brought us fame.
We're big but bigger we will be,
We can't fail for all can see, that to serve humanity
Has been our aim.
Our products now are known in every zone.
Our reputation sparkles like a gem.
We've fought our way thru
And new fields we're sure to conquer, too
For the Ever Onward IBM!
-- Ever Onward, from the 1940 IBM Songbook
%
Ever since I was a young boy,
I've hacked the ARPA net,
From Berkeley down to Rutgers, He's on my favorite terminal,
Any access I could get, He cats C right into foo,
But ain't seen nothing like him, His disciples lead him in,
On any campus yet, And he just breaks the root,
That deaf, dumb, and blind kid, Always has full SYS-PRIV's,
Sure sends a mean packet. Never uses lint,
That deaf, dumb, and blind kid,
Sure sends a mean packet.
He's a UNIX wizard,
There has to be a twist.
The UNIX wizard's got Ain't got no distractions,
Unlimited space on disk. Can't hear no whistles or bells,
How do you think he does it? Can't see no message flashing,
I don't know. Types by sense of smell,
What makes him so good? Those crazy little programs,
The proper bit flags set,
That deaf, dumb, and blind kid,
Sure sends a mean packet.
-- UNIX Wizard
%
Every love's the love before
In a duller dress.
-- Dorothy Parker, "Summary"
%
Every man is as God made him, ay, and often worse.
-- Miguel de Cervantes
%
Every night my prayers I say,
And get my dinner every day;
And every day that I've been good,
I get an orange after food.
The child that is not clean and neat,
With lots of toys and things to eat,
He is a naughty child, I'm sure--
Or else his dear papa is poor.
-- Robert Louis Stevenson
%
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their
fingers crossed. Everybody knows the war is over. Everybody knows the
good guys lost. Everybody knows the fight was fixed: the poor stay
poor, the rich get rich. That's how it goes. Everybody knows.
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking. Everybody knows the captain
lied. Everybody got this broken feeling like their father or their dog
just died.
Everybody talking to their pockets. Everybody wants a box of chocolates
and long stem rose. Everybody knows.
Everybody knows that you love me, baby. Everybody knows that you really
do. Everybody knows that you've been faithful, give or take a night or
two. Everybody knows you've been discreet, but there were so many people
you just had to meet without your clothes. And everybody knows.
And everybody knows it's now or never. Everybody knows that it's me or you.
And everybody knows that you live forever when you've done a line or two.
Everybody knows the deal is rotten: Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
for you ribbons and bows. And everybody knows.
-- Leonard Cohen, "Everybody Knows"
%
Everything's great in this good old world;
(This is the stuff they can always use.)
God's in his heaven, the hill's dew-pearled;
(This will provide for baby's shoes.)
Hunger and War do not mean a thing;
Everything's rosy where'er we roam;
Hark, how the little birds gaily sing!
(This is what fetches the bacon home.)
-- Dorothy Parker, "The Far Sighted Muse"
%
Everywhere you go you'll see them searching,
Everywhere you turn you'll feel the pain,
Everyone is looking for the answer,
Well look again.
-- Moody Blues, "Lost in a Lost World"
%
F: When into a room I plunge, I
Sometimes find some VIOLET FUNGI.
Then I linger, darkly brooding
On the poison they're exuding.
-- The Roguelet's ABC
%
Families, when a child is born
Want it to be intelligent.
I, through intelligence,
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope the baby will prove
Ignorant and stupid.
Then he will crown a tranquil life
By becoming a Cabinet Minister
-- Su Tung-p'o
%
Farewell we call to hearth and hall!
Though wind may blow and rain may fall,
We must away ere break of day
Far over wood and mountain tall.
To Rivendell, where Elves yet dwell
In glades beneath the misty fell,
Through moor and waste we ride in haste,
And whither then we cannot tell.
With foes ahead, behind us dread,
Beneath the sky shall be our bed,
Until at last our toil be passed,
Our journey done, our errand sped.
We must away! We must away!
We ride before the break of day!
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
Felix Catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,
An endothermic quadroped, carnivorous by nature.
Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses.
I find myself intrigued by your sub-vocal oscillations,
A singular development of cat communications
That obviates your basic hedonistic predelection
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.
A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents:
You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance;
And when not being utilitized to aid in locomotion,
It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.
Oh Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display
Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array.
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.
-- Lt. Cmdr. Data, "An Ode to Spot"
%
Fifteen men on a dead man's chest,
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest,
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
-- Stevenson, "Treasure Island"
%
Fifty flippant frogs
Walked by on flippered feet
And with their slime they made the time
Unnaturally fleet.
%
Finality is death.
Perfection is finality.
Nothing is perfect.
There are lumps in it.
%
Five names that I can hardly stand to hear,
Including yours and mine and one more chimp who isn't here,
I can see the ladies talking how the times is gettin' hard,
And that fearsome excavation on Magnolia boulevard,
Yes, I'm goin' insane,
And I'm laughing at the frozen rain,
Well, I'm so alone, honey when they gonna send me home?
Bad sneakers and a pina colada my friend,
Stopping on the avenue by Radio City, with a
Transistor and a large sum of money to spend...
You fellah, you tearin' up the street,
You wear that white tuxedo, how you gonna beat the heat,
Do you take me for a fool, do you think that I don't see,
That ditch out in the Valley that they're diggin' just for me,
Yes, and goin' insane,
You know I'm laughin' at the frozen rain,
Feel like I'm so alone, honey when they gonna send me home?
(chorus)
-- Bad Sneakers, "Steely Dan"
%
Flying saucers on occasion
Show themselves to human eyes.
Aliens fume, put off invasion
While they brand these tales as lies.
%
"For a couple o' pins," says Troll, and grins,
"I'll eat thee too, and gnaw thy shins.
A bit o' fresh meat will go down sweet!
I'll try my teeth on thee now.
Hee now! See now!
I'm tired o' gnawing old bones and skins;
I've a mind to dine on thee now."
But just as he thought his dinner was caught,
He found his hands had hold of naught.
Before he could mind, Tom slipped behing
And gave him the boot to larn him.
Warn him! Darn him!
A bump o' the boot on the seat, Tom thoguht,
Would be the way to larn him.
But harder than stone is the flesh and bone
Of a troll that sits in the hills alone.
As well set your boot to the mountain's root,
For the seat of a troll don't feel it.
Peel it! Heal it!
Old Troll laughed, when he heard Tom groan,
And he knew his toes could feel it.
Tom's leg is game, since home he came,
And his bootless foot is lasting lame;
But Troll don't care, and he's still there
With the bone he boned from its owner.
Doner! Boner!
Troll's old seat is still the same,
And the bone he boned from its owner!
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
For gin, in cruel
Sober truth,
Supplies the fuel
For flaming youth.
-- Noel Coward
%
For knighthood is not in the feats of war,
As for to fight in quarrel right or wrong,
But in a cause which truth cannot defer:
He ought himself for to make sure and strong,
Just to keep mixt with mercy among:
And no quarrel a knight ought to take
But for a truth, or for the common's sake.
-- Stephen Hawes
%
"Force is but might," the teacher said--
"That definition's just."
The boy said naught but thought instead,
Remembering his pounded head:
"Force is not might but must!"
%
Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.
-- Dorothy Parker, "Inventory" [or "Not so Deep as a Well"?]
%
Friends, Romans, Hipsters,
Let me clue you in;
I come to put down Caesar, not to groove him.
The square kicks some cats are on stay with them;
The hip bits, like, go down under;
so let it lay with Caesar. The cool Brutus
Gave you the message: Caesar had big eyes;
If that's the sound, someone's copping a plea,
And, like, old Caesar really set them straight.
Here, copacetic with Brutus and the studs, --
for Brutus is a real cool cat;
So are they all, all cool cats, --
Come I to make this gig at Caesar's laying down.
%
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving,
Whatever gods may be,
That no life lives forever,
That dead men rise up never,
That even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea.
-- Swinburne
%
Get in touch with your feelings of hostility against the dying light.
-- Dylan Thomas [paraphrased periphrastically]
%
Get out, you old Wight! Vanish in the sunlight!
Shrivel like the cold mist, like the winds go wailing,
Out into the barren lands far beyond the mountains!
Come never here again! Leave your barrow empty!
Lost and forgotten be, darker than the darkness,
Where gates stand for ever shut, till the world is mended.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
Gibson's Springtime Song (to the tune of "Deck the Halls"):
'Tis the season to chase mousies (Fa la la la la, la la la la)
Snatch them from their little housies (...)
First we chase them 'round the field (...)
Then we have them for a meal (...)
Toss them here and catch them there (...)
See them flying through the air (...)
Watch them fly and hear them squeal (...)
Falling mice have great appeal (...)
See the hunter stretched before us (...)
He's chased the mice in field and forest (...)
Watch him clean his long white whiskers (...)
Of the blood of little critters (...)
%
Gil-galad was an Elven-king.
Of him the harpers sadly sing:
the last whose realm was fair and free
between the Mountains and the Sea.
His sword was long, his lance was keen,
his shining helm afar was seen;
the countless stars of heaven's field
were mirrored in his silver shield.
But long ago he rode away,
and where he dwelleth none can say;
for into darkness fell his star
in Mordor where the shadows are.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
Gimme Twinkies, gimme wine,
Gimme jeans by Calvin Kline ...
But if you split those atoms fine,
Mama keep 'em off those genes of mine!
Gimme zits, take my dough,
Gimme arsenic in my jelly roll ...
Call the devil and sell my soul,
But Mama keep dem atoms whole!
-- Milo Bloom, "The Split-Atom Blues," in "Bloom County"
%
Give me the avowed, the erect, the manly foe,
Bold I can meet -- perhaps may turn his blow!
But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send,
Save me, oh save me from the candid friend.
-- George Canning
%
Give me your students, your secretaries,
Your huddled writers yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your Selectric III's.
Give these, the homeless, typist-tossed to me.
I lift my disk beside the processor.
-- Inscription on a Word Processor
%
Go placidly amid the noise and waste,
And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof.
Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep.
Rotate your tires.
Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself,
And heed well their advice -- even though they be turkeys.
Know what to kiss -- and when.
Remember that two wrongs never make a right,
But that three do.
Wherever possible, put people on "HOLD".
Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
And despite the changing fortunes of time,
There is always a big future in computer maintenance.
You are a fluke of the universe ...
You have no right to be here.
Whether you can hear it or not, the universe
Is laughing behind your back.
-- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
%
Go placidly amid the noise and waste, and remember what value there may
be in owning a piece thereof.
-- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
%
God rest ye CS students now, The bearings on the drum are gone,
Let nothing you dismay. The disk is wobbling, too.
The VAX is down and won't be up, We've found a bug in Lisp, and Algol
Until the first of May. Can't tell false from true.
The program that was due this morn, And now we find that we can't get
Won't be postponed, they say. At Berkeley's 4.2.
(chorus) (chorus)
We've just received a call from DEC, And now some cheery news for you,
They'll send without delay The network's also dead,
A monitor called RSuX We'll have to print your files on
It takes nine hundred K. The line printer instead.
The staff committed suicide, The turnaround time's nineteen weeks.
We'll bury them today. And only cards are read.
(chorus) (chorus)
And now we'd like to say to you CHORUS: Oh, tidings of comfort and joy,
Before we go away, Comfort and joy,
We hope the news we've brought to you Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.
Won't ruin your whole day.
You've got another program due, tomorrow, by the way.
(chorus)
-- to God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
%
Gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fields
Sold in a market down in New Orleans
Scarred old slaver knows he's doing alright
Hear him whip the women, just around midnight
Ah, brown sugar how come you taste so good?
Ah, brown sugar just like a young girl should
Drums beating cold English blood runs hot
Lady of the house wonderin' where it's gonna stop
House boy knows that he's doing alright
You should a heard him just around midnight.
...
I bet your mama was tent show queen
And all her girlfriends were sweet sixteen
I'm no school boy but I know what I like
You should have heard me just around midnight.
-- Rolling Stones, "Brown Sugar"
%
Got a wife and kids in Baltimore Jack,
I went out for a ride and never came back.
Like a river that don't know where it's flowing,
I took a wrong turn and I just kept going.
Everybody's got a hungry heart.
Everybody's got a hungry heart.
Lay down your money and you play your part,
Everybody's got a hungry heart.
I met her in a Kingstown bar,
We fell in love, I knew it had to end.
We took what we had and we ripped it apart,
Now here I am down in Kingstown again.
Everybody needs a place to rest,
Everybody wants to have a home.
Don't make no difference what nobody says,
Ain't nobody likes to be alone.
-- Bruce Springsteen, "Hungry Heart"
%
Graphics blind the eyes.
Audio files deafen the ear.
Mouse clicks numb the fingers.
Heuristics weaken the mind.
Options wither the heart.
The Guru observes the net
but trusts his inner vision.
He allows things to come and go.
His heart is as open as the ether.
%
H: If a 'GOBLIN (HOB) waylays you,
Slice him up before he slays you.
Nothing makes you look a slob
Like running from a HOB'LIN (GOB).
-- The Roguelet's ABC
%
Hack placidly amidst the noisy printers and remember what prizes there
may be in Science. As fast as possible get a good terminal on a good system.
Enter your data clearly but always encrypt your results. And listen to others,
even the dull and ignorant, for they may be your customers. Avoid loud and
aggressive persons, for they are sales reps.
If you compare your outputs with those of others, you may be surprised,
for always there will be greater and lesser numbers than you have crunched.
Keep others interested in your career, and try not to fumble; it can be a real
hassle and could change your fortunes in time.
Exercise system control in your experiments, for the world is full of
bugs. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive
for linearity and everywhere papers are full of approximations. Strive for
proportionality. Especially, do not faint when it occurs. Neither be cyclical
about results; for in the face of all data analysis it is sure to be noticed.
Take with a grain of salt the anomalous data points. Gracefully pass
them on to the youth at the next desk. Nurture some mutual funds to shield
you in times of sudden layoffs. But do not distress yourself with imaginings
-- the real bugs are enough to screw you badly. Murphy's Law runs the
Universe -- and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt <Curl>B*n dS = 0.
Therefore, grab for a piece of the pie, with whatever proposals you
can conceive of to try. With all the crashed disks, skewed data, and broken
line printers, you can still have a beautiful secretary. Be linear. Strive
to stay employed.
-- Technolorata, "Analog"
%
"Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn, But ranged as infantry,
We should have sat us down to wet And staring face to face,
Right many a nipperkin! I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.
I shot him dead because --
Because he was my foe, He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,
Just so: my foe of course he was; Off-hand-like -- just as I --
That's clear enough; although Was out of work -- had sold his traps
No other reason why.
Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat, if met where any bar is
Or help to half-a-crown."
-- Thomas Hardy
%
Half a bee, philosophically, must ipso facto half not be.
But half the bee has got to be, vis-a-vis its entity. See?
But can a bee be said to be or not to be an entire bee,
When half the bee is not a bee, due to some ancient injury?
%
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.
-- Pink Floyd
%
Hard Copies and Chmod
And everyone thinks computers are impersonal
cold diskdrives hardware monitors
user-hostile software
of course they're only bits and bytes
and characters and strings
and files
just some old textfiles from my old boyfriend
telling me he loves me and
he'll take care of me
simply a discarded printout of a friend's directory
deep intimate secrets and
how he doesn't trust me
couldn't hurt me more if they were scented in lavender or mould
on personal stationery
-- terri@csd4.milw.wisc.edu
%
Hark, the Herald Tribune sings,
Advertising wondrous things.
Angels we have heard on High
Tell us to go out and Buy.
-- Tom Lehrer
%
Have you ever felt like a wounded cow
halfway between an oven and a pasture?
walking in a trance toward a pregnant
seventeen-year-old housewife's
two-day-old cookbook?
-- Richard Brautigan
%
Have you seen how Sonny's burning,
Like some bright erotic star,
He lights up the proceedings,
And raises the temperature.
-- The Birthday Party, "Sonny's Burning"
%
Have you seen the old man in the closed down market,
Kicking up the papers in his worn out shoes?
In his eyes you see no pride, hands hang loosely at his side
Yesterdays papers, telling yesterdays news.
How can you tell me you're lonely,
And say for you the sun don't shine?
Let me take you by the hand
Lead you through the streets of London
I'll show you something to make you change your mind...
Have you seen the old man outside the sea-man's mission
Memories fading like the metal ribbons that he wears.
In our winter city the rain cries a little pity
For one more forgotten hero and a world that doesn't care...
%
Have you seen the well-to-do, up and down Park Avenue?
On that famous thoroughfare, with their noses in the air,
High hats and Arrow collars, white spats and lots of dollars,
Spending every dime, for a wonderful time...
If you're blue and you don't know where to go to,
Why don't you go where fashion sits,
...
Dressed up like a million dollar trooper,
Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper, (super dooper)
Come, let's mix where Rockefeller's walk with sticks,
Or umberellas, in their mitts,
Puttin' on the Ritz.
...
If you're blue and you don't know where to go to,
Why don't you go where fashion sits,
Puttin' on the Ritz.
Puttin' on the Ritz.
Puttin' on the Ritz.
Puttin' on the Ritz.
%
He heard there oft the flying sound
Of feet as light as linden-leaves,
Of music welling underground,
In hidden hollows quavering.
Now withered lay the hemlock-sheaves,
And one by one with sighing sound
Whispering fell the beechen leaves
In the wintry woodland wavering.
He sought her ever, wandering far
Where leaves of years were thickly strewn,
By light of moon and ray of star
In frosty heavens shivering.
Her mantle glinted in the moon,
As on a hill-top high and far
She danced, and at her feet was strewn
A mist of silver quivering.
When winter passed, she came again,
And her song released the sudden spring,
Like rising lark, and falling rain,
And melting water bubbling.
He saw the elven-flowers spring
About her feet, and healed again
He longed by her to dance and sing
Upon the grass untroubling.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
He thought he saw an albatross
That fluttered 'round the lamp.
He looked again and saw it was
A penny postage stamp.
"You'd best be getting home," he said,
"The nights are rather damp."
%
He who invents adages for others to peruse
takes along rowboat when going on cruise.
%
He who loses, wins the race,
And parallel lines meet in space.
-- John Boyd, "Last Starship from Earth"
%
He's been like a father to me,
He's the only DJ you can get after three,
I'm an all-night musician in a rock and roll band,
And why he don't like me I don't understand.
-- The Byrds
%
Her locks an ancient lady gave
Her loving husband's life to save;
And men -- they honored so the dame --
Upon some stars bestowed her name.
But to our modern married fair,
Who'd give their lords to save their hair,
No stellar recognition's given.
There are not stars enough in heaven.
%
Here I am again right where I know I shouldn't be
I've been caught inside this trap too many times
I must've walked these steps and said these words a
thousand times before
It seems like I know everybody's lines.
-- David Bromberg, "How Late'll You Play 'Til?"
%
Here I sit, broken-hearted,
All logged in, but work unstarted.
First net.this and net.that,
And a hot buttered bun for net.fat.
The boss comes by, and I play the game,
Then I turn back to net.flame.
Is there a cure (I need your views),
For someone trapped in net.news?
I need your help, I say 'tween sobs,
'Cause I'll soon be listed in net.jobs.
%
Here in my heart, I am Helen;
I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least.
I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Sta"el;
I'm Salome, moon of the East.
Here in my soul I am Sappho;
Lady Hamilton am I, as well.
In me R'ecamier vies with Kitty O'Shea,
With Dido, and Eve, and poor Nell.
I'm all of the glamorous ladies
At whose beckoning history shook.
But you are a man, and see only my pan,
So I stay at home with a book.
-- Dorothy Parker
%
HERE LIES LESTER MOORE
SHOT 4 TIMES WITH A .44
NO LES
NO MOORE
-- tombstone, in Tombstone, AZ
%
Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo!
Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow!
Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
Hey! Come derry dol! Hop along, my hearties!
Hobbits! Ponies all! We are fond of parties.
Now let the fun begin! Let us sing together!
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! My darling!
Light goes the weather-wind and the feathered starling.
Down along under Hill, shining in the sunlight,
Waiting on the doorstep for the cold starlight,
There my pretty lady is, River-woman's daughter,
Slender as the willow-wand, clearer than the water.
Old Tom Bombadil water-lilies bringing
Comes hopping home again. Can you hear him singing?
Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! and merry-o
Goldberry, Goldberry, merry yellow berry-o!
Poor old Willow-man, you tuck your roots away!
Tom's in a hurry now. Evening will follow day.
Tom's going home again water-lilies bringing.
Hey! come derry dol! Can you hear me singing?
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
Hey! now! Come hoy now! Whither do you wander?
Up, down, near or far, here, there or yonder?
Sharp-ears, Wise-nose, Swish-tail and Bumpkin,
White-socks my little lad, and old Fatty Lumpkin!
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
Hey, diddle, diddle the overflow pdl
To get a little more stack;
If that's not enough then you lose it all
And have to pop all the way back.
%
Hickory Dickory Dock,
The mice ran up the clock,
The clock struck one,
The others escaped with minor injuries.
%
Hier liegt ein Mann ganz obnegleich;
Im Leibe dick, an Suden reich.
Wir haben ihn in das Grab gesteckt, Here lies a man with sundry flaws
Weil es uns dunkt er sei verreckt. And numerous Sins upon his head;
We buried him today because
As far as we can tell, he's dead.
-- PDQ Bach's epitaph, as requested by his cousin Betty
Sue Bach and written by the local doggeral catcher;
"The Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach", Peter Schickele
%
Higgeldy Piggeldy,
Hamlet of Elsinore
Ruffled the critics by
Dropping this bomb:
"Phooey on Freud and his
Psychoanalysis --
Oedipus, Shmoedipus,
I just love Mom."
%
...his disciples lead him in; he just does the rest.
-- The Who, "Tommy"
%
History is curious stuff
You'd think by now we had enough
Yet the fact remains I fear
They make more of it every year.
%
Hit them biscuits with another touch of gravy,
Burn that sausage just a match or two more done.
Pour my black old coffee longer,
While that smell is gettin' stronger
A semi-meal ain't nuthin' much to want.
Loan me ten, I got a feelin' it'll save me,
With an ornery soul who don't shoot pool for fun,
If that coat'll fit you're wearin',
The Lord'll bless your sharin'
A semi-friend ain't nuthin' much to want.
And let me halfway fall in love,
For part of a lonely night,
With a semi-pretty woman in my arms.
Yes, I could halfway fall in deep--
Into a snugglin', lovin' heap,
With a semi-pretty woman in my arms.
-- Elroy Blunt
%
Ho! Ho! Ho! to the bottle I go
To heal my heart and drown my woe.
Rain may fall and wind may blow,
And many miles be still to go,
But under a tall tree I will lie,
And let the clouds go sailing by.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
Ho! Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo!
By water, wood and hill, by reed and willow,
By fire, sun and moon, harken now and hear us!
Come, Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us!
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
Hop along my little friends, up the Withywindle!
Tom's going on ahead candles for to kindle.
Down west sinks the Sun; soon you will be groping.
When the night-shadows fall, then the door will open,
Out of the winfow-panes light will twinkle yellow.
Fear no alder black! Heed no hoary willow!
Fear neither root nor bough! Tom goes on before you.
Hey now! merry dol! We'll be waiting for you!
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
-- Pink Floyd
%
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!
-- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland"
%
How doth the VAX's C-compiler
Improve its object code.
And even as we speak does it
Increase the system load.
How patiently it seems to run
And spit out error flags,
While users, with frustration, all
Tear their clothes to rags.
%
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall!
All the king's horses,
And all the king's men,
Had scrambled eggs for breakfast again!
%
I always will remember -- I was in no mood to trifle;
'Twas a year ago November -- I got down my trusty rifle
I went out to shoot some deer And went out to stalk my prey --
On a morning bright and clear. What a haul I made that day!
I went and shot the maximum I tied them to my bumper and
The game laws would allow: I drove them home somehow,
Two game wardens, seven hunters, Two game wardens, seven hunters,
And a cow. And a cow.
The Law was very firm, it People ask me how I do it
Took away my permit-- And I say, "There's nothin' to it!
The worst punishment I ever endured. You just stand there lookin' cute,
It turns out there was a reason: And when something moves, you shoot."
Cows were out of season, and And there's ten stuffed heads
One of the hunters wasn't insured. In my trophy room right now:
Two game wardens, seven hunters,
And a pure-bred guernsey cow.
-- Tom Lehrer, "The Hunting Song"
%
I am changing my name to Chrysler
I am going down to Washington, D.C.
I will tell some power broker
What they did for Iacocca
Will be perfectly acceptable to me!
I am changing my name to Chrysler,
I am heading for that great receiving line.
When they hand a million grand out,
I'll be standing with my hand out,
Yessir, I'll get mine!
%
I B M
U B M
We all B M
For I B M!!!!
-- H.A.R.L.I.E.
%
I can live without
Someone I love
But not without
Someone I need.
-- "Safety"
%
I can see him a'comin'
With his big boots on,
With his big thumb out,
He wants to get me.
He wants to hurt me.
He wants to bring me down.
But some time later,
When I feel a little straighter,
I'll come across a stranger
Who'll remind me of the danger,
And then.... I'll run him over.
Pretty smart on my part!
To find my way... In the dark!
-- Phil Ochs
%
I can't complain, but sometimes I still do.
-- Joe Walsh
%
I don't know what Descartes' got,
But booze can do what Kant cannot.
-- Mike Cross
%
I don't need no arms around me...
I don't need no drugs to calm me...
I have seen the writing on the wall.
Don't think I need anything at all.
No! Don't think I need anything at all!
All in all, it was all just bricks in the wall.
All in all, it was all just bricks in the wall.
-- Pink Floyd, "Another Brick in the Wall", Part III
%
I don't wanna argue, and I don't wanna fight,
But there will definitely be a party tonight...
%
I don't want a pickle,
I just wanna ride on my motorsickle.
And I don't want to die,
I just want to ride on my motorcy.
Cle.
-- Arlo Guthrie
%
I gave my love an Apple, that had no core;
I gave my love a building, that had no floor;
I wrote my love a program, that had no end;
I gave my love an upgrade, with no cryin'.
How can there be an Apple, that has no core?
How can there be a building, that has no floor?
How can there be a program, that has no end?
How can there be an upgrade, with no cryin'?
An Apple's MOS memory don't use no core!
A building that's perfect, it has no flaw!
A program with GOTOs, it has no end!
I lied about the upgrade, with no cryin'!
%
I get up each morning, gather my wits.
Pick up the paper, read the obits.
If I'm not there I know I'm not dead.
So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.
Oh, how do I know my youth is all spent?
My get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went.
But in spite of it all, I'm able to grin,
And think of the places my get-up has been.
-- Pete Seeger
%
I had an errand there: gathering water-lilies,
green leaves and lilies white to please my pretty lady,
the last ere the year's end to keep them from the winter,
to flower by her pretty feet till the snows are melted.
Each year at summer's end I go to find them for her,
in a wide pool, deep and clear, far down Withywindle;
there they open first in spring and there they linger latest.
By that pool long ago I found the River-daughter,
fair young Goldberry sitting in the rushes.
Sweet was her singing then, and her heart was beating!
And that proved well for you--for now I shall no longer
go down deep again along the forest-water,
no while the year is old. Nor shall I be passing
Old Man Willow's house this side of spring-time,
not till the merry spring, when the River-daughter
dances down the withy-path to bathe in the water.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.
The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow--
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller, like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.
-- R. L. Stevenson
%
I have learned
To spell hors d'oeuvres
Which still grates on
Some people's n'oeuvres.
-- Warren Knox
%
I have lots of things in my pockets;
None of them is worth anything.
Sociopolitical whines aside,
Gan you give me, gratis, free,
The price of half a gallon
Of Gallo extra bad
And most of the bus fare home.
%
I have no doubt the Devil grins,
As seas of ink I spatter.
Ye gods, forgive my "literary" sins--
The other kind don't matter.
-- Robert W. Service
%
I have that old biological urge,
I have that old irresistible surge,
I'm hungry.
%
I knew Leo G. Carrol
Was over a barrel
When Tarantula took to the hills. ["Lick it!"]
And I really got hot
When I saw Jeanette Scott
Fight a triffid that spits poison and kills.
Science fiction, double feature
Doctor X will build a creature.
See androids fighting Brad and Janet
Anne Francis stars in Forbidden Planet
Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh
At the late night, double feature, picture show.
-- The Rocky Horror Picture Show
%
I know if you been talkin' you done said
just how suprised you wuz by the living dead.
You wuz suprised that they could understand you words
and never respond once to all the truth they heard.
But don't you get square!
There ain't no rule that says they got to care.
They can always swear they're deaf, dumb and blind.
%
I lately lost a preposition;
It hid, I thought, beneath my chair
And angrily I cried, "Perdition!
Up from out of under there."
Correctness is my vade mecum,
And straggling phrases I abhor,
And yet I wondered, "What should he come
Up from out of under for?"
-- Morris Bishop
%
I lay my head on the railroad tracks,
Waitin' for the double E.
The railroad don't run no more.
Poor poor pitiful me. [chorus]
Poor poor pitiful me, poor poor pitiful me.
These young girls won't let me be,
Lord have mercy on me!
Woe is me!
Well, I met a girl, West Hollywood,
Well, I ain't naming names.
But she really worked me over good,
She was just like Jesse James.
She really worked me over good,
She was a credit to her gender.
She put me through some changes, boy,
Sort of like a Waring blender. [chorus]
I met a girl at the Rainbow Bar,
She asked me if I'd beat her.
She took me back to the Hyatt House,
I don't want to talk about it. [chorus]
-- Warren Zevon, "Poor Poor Pitiful Me"
%
I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah
Where it bubbles all the time like a giant carbonated soda
S-O-D-A soda
I saw the little runt sitting there on a log
I asked him his name and in a raspy voice he said Yoda
Y-O-D-A Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda
Well I've been around but I ain't never seen
A guy who looks like a Muppet but he's wrinkled and green
Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda
Well I'm not dumb but I can't understand
How he can raise me in the air just by raising his hand
Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda
-- Weird Al Yankovic, "The Star Wars Song," to the tune of
"Lola" by the Kinks
%
I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Man's;
I will not Reason and Compare; my business is to Create.
-- William Blake, "Jerusalem"
%
I never saw a purple cow
I never hope to see one
But I can tell you anyhow
I'd rather see than be one.
-- Gellett Burgess
I've never seen a purple cow
I never hope to see one
But from the milk we're getting now
There certainly must be one
-- Odgen Nash
Ah, yes, I wrote "The Purple Cow"
I'm sorry now I wrote it
But I can tell you anyhow
I'll kill you if you quote it.
-- Gellett Burgess, many years later
%
I owe, I owe,
It's off to work I go...
%
I really hate this damned machine
I wish that they would sell it.
It never does quite what I want
But only what I tell it.
%
"I said, "Preacher, give me strength for round 5."
He said,"What you need is to grow up, son."
I said,"Growin' up leads to growin' old,
And then to dying, and to me that don't sound like much fun."
-- John Cougar, "The Authority Song"
%
I saw a man pursuing the Horizon,
'Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this,
I accosted the man,
"It is futile," I said.
"You can never--"
"You lie!" He cried,
and ran on.
-- Stephen Crane
%
I see a bad moon rising.
I see trouble on the way.
I see earthquakes and lightnin'
I see bad times today.
Don't go 'round tonight,
It's bound to take your life.
There's a bad moon on the rise.
-- J. C. Fogerty, "Bad Moon Rising"
%
I see the eigenvalue in thine eye,
I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh.
Bernoulli would have been content to die
Had he but known such _a-squared cos 2(phi)!
-- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
%
I sent a letter to the fish, I said it very loud and clear,
I told them, "This is what I wish." I went and shouted in his ear.
The little fishes of the sea, But he was very stiff and proud,
They sent an answer back to me. He said "You needn't shout so loud."
The little fishes' answer was And he was very proud and stiff,
"We cannot do it, sir, because..." He said "I'll go and wake them if..."
I sent a letter back to say I took a kettle from the shelf,
It would be better to obey. I went to wake them up myself.
But someone came to me and said But when I found the door was locked
"The little fishes are in bed." I pulled and pushed and kicked and
knocked,
I said to him, and I said it plain And when I found the door was shut,
"Then you must wake them up again." I tried to turn the handle, But...
"Is that all?" asked Alice.
"That is all." said Humpty Dumpty. "Goodbye."
%
I sent a message to another time,
But as the days unwind -- this I just can't believe,
I sent a message to another plane,
Maybe it's all a game -- but this I just can't conceive.
...
I met someone who looks at lot like you,
She does the things you do, but she is an IBM.
She's only programmed to be very nice,
But she's as cold as ice, whenever I get too near,
She tells me that she likes me very much,
But when I try to touch, she makes it all too clear.
...
I realize that it must seem so strange,
That time has rearranged, but time has the final word,
She knows I think of you, she reads my mind,
She tries to be unkind, she knows nothing of our world.
-- ELO, "Yours Truly, 2095"
%
I shot a query into the net.
I haven't got an answer yet, A posted message called me rotten
But seven people gave me hell For ignoring mail I'd never gotten;
And said I ought to learn to spell; An angry message asked me, Please
Don't send such drivel overseas;
A lawyer sent me private mail
And swore he'd slap my ass in jail -- One netter thought it was a hoax:
I'd mentioned Un*x in my gem "Hereafter, post to net dot jokes!";
And failed to add the T and M; Another called my grammar vile
And criticized my writing style.
Each day I scan each Subject line
In hopes the topic will be mine;
I shot a query into the net.
I haven't got an answer yet...
-- Ed Nather
%
I stood on the leading edge,
The eastern seaboard at my feet.
"Jump!" said Yoko Ono
I'm too scared and good-looking, I cried.
Go on and give it a try,
Why prolong the agony, all men must die.
-- Roger Waters, "The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking"
%
I think that I shall never hear
A poem lovelier than beer.
The stuff that Joe's Bar has on tap,
With golden base and snowy cap.
The stuff that I can drink all day
Until my mem'ry melts away.
Poems are made by fools, I fear
But only Schlitz can make a beer.
%
I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Indeed, unless the billboards fall
I'll never see a tree at all.
-- Ogden Nash
%
I think that I shall never see
A thing as lovely as a tree.
But as you see the trees have gone
They went this morning with the dawn.
A logging firm from out of town
Came and chopped the trees all down.
But I will trick those dirty skunks
And write a brand new poem called 'Trunks'.
%
"I thought that you said you were 20 years old!"
"As a programmer, yes," she replied,
"And you claimed to be very near two meters tall!"
"You said you were blonde, but you lied!"
Oh, she was a hacker and he was one, too,
They had so much in common, you'd say.
They exchanged jokes and poems, and clever new hacks,
And prompts that were cute or risque'.
He sent her a picture of his brother Sam,
She sent one from some past high school day,
And it might have gone on for the rest of their lives,
If they hadn't met in L.A.
"Your beard is an armpit," she said in disgust.
He answered, "Your armpit's a beard!"
And they chorused: "I think I could stand all the rest
If you were not so totally weird!"
If she had not said what he wanted to hear,
And he had not done just the same,
They'd have been far more honest, and never have met,
And would not have had fun with the game.
-- Judith Schrier, "Face to Face After Six Months of
Electronic Mail"
%
I used to be such a sweet sweet thing, 'til they got a hold of me,
I opened doors for little old ladies, I helped the blind to see,
I got no friends 'cause they read the papers, they can't be seen,
With me, and I'm feelin' real shot down,
And I'm, uh, feelin' mean,
No more, Mr. Nice Guy,
No more, Mr. Clean,
No more, Mr. Nice Guy,
They say "He's sick, he's obscene".
My dog bit me on the leg today, my cat clawed my eyes,
Ma's been thrown out of the social circle, and Dad has to hide,
I went to church, incognito, when everybody rose,
The reverend Smithy, he recognized me,
And punched me in the nose, he said,
(chorus)
He said "You're sick, you're obscene".
-- Alice Cooper, "No More Mr. Nice Guy"
%
I was born in a barrel of butcher knives
Trouble I love and peace I despise
Wild horses kicked me in my side
Then a rattlesnake bit me and he walked off and died.
-- Bo Diddley
%
I was eatin' some chop suey,
With a lady in St. Louie,
When there sudden comes a knockin' at the door.
And that knocker, he says, "Honey,
Roll this rocker out some money,
Or your daddy shoots a baddie to the floor."
-- Mr. Miggle
%
I went home with a waitress,
The way I always do.
How I was I to know?
She was with the Russians too.
I was gambling in Havana,
I took a little risk.
Send lawyers, guns, and money,
Dad, get me out of this.
-- Warren Zevon, "Lawyers, Guns and Money"
%
I went over to my friend, he was eatin' a pickle.
I said "Hi, what's happenin'?"
He said "Nothin'."
Try to sing this song with that kind of enthusiasm;
As if you just squashed a cop.
-- Arlo Guthrie, "Motorcycle Song"
%
I will not play at tug o' war.
I'd rather play at hug o' war,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles,
And everyone wins.
-- Shel Silverstein, "Hug o' War"
%
I woke up a feelin' mean
went down to play the slot machine
the wheels turned round,
and the letters read
"Better head back to Tennessee Jed"
-- Grateful Dead
%
I would like to know
What I was fencing in
And what I was fencing out.
-- Robert Frost
%
I'd never cry if I did find
A blue whale in my soup...
Nor would I mind a porcupine
Inside a chicken coop.
Yes life is fine when things combine,
Like ham in beef chow mein...
But lord, this time I think I mind,
They've put acid in my rain.
-- - Milo Bloom
%
I'd rather laugh with the sinners,
Than cry with the saints,
The sinners are much more fun!
-- Billy Joel, "Only The Good Die Young"
%
I'll grant thee random access to my heart,
Thoul't tell me all the constants of thy love;
And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove
And in our bound partition never part.
Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain?
Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes,
A root or two, a torus and a node:
The inverse of my verse, a null domain.
I see the eigenvalue in thine eye,
I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh.
Bernoulli would have been content to die
Had he but known such a-squared cos 2(thi)!
-- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
%
I'll learn to play the Saxophone,
I play just what I feel.
Drink Scotch whisky all night long,
And die behind the wheel.
They got a name for the winners in the world,
I want a name when I lose.
They call Alabama the Crimson Tide,
Call me Deacon Blues.
-- Becker and Fagan, "Deacon Blues"
%
I'll see you... on the dark side of the moon...
-- Pink Floyd
%
I'm an artist.
But it's not what I really want to do.
What I really want to do is be a shoe salesman.
I know what you're going to say --
"Dreamer! Get your head out of the clouds."
All right! But it's what I want to do.
Instead I have to go on painting all day long.
The world should make a place for shoe salesmen.
-- J. Feiffer
%
I'm free -- and freedom tastes of reality.
-- The Who
%
I'm just as sad as sad can be!
I've missed your special date.
Please say that you're not mad at me
My tax return is late.
-- Modern Lines for Modern Greeting Cards
%
i'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be
living apart.
-- e. e. cummings
%
I'm N-ary the tree, I am,
N-ary the tree, I am, I am.
I'm getting traversed by the parser next door,
She's traversed me seven times before.
And ev'ry time it was an N-ary (N-ary!)
Never wouldn't ever do a binary. (No sir!)
I'm 'er eighth tree that was N-ary.
N-ary the tree I am, I am,
N-ary the tree I am.
-- Stolen from Herman's Hermits
%
I'm So Miserable Without You It's Almost Like Having You Here
-- Song title by Stephen Bishop.
She Got the Gold Mine, I Got the Shaft
-- Song title by Jerry Reed.
When My Love Comes Back from the Ladies' Room Will I Be Too Old to Care?
-- Song title by Lewis Grizzard.
I Don't Know Whether to Kill Myself or Go Bowling
-- Unattributed song title.
Drop Kick Me, Jesus, Through the Goal Posts of Life
-- Unattributed song title.
%
I'm very good at integral and differential calculus,
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous;
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
-- Gilbert & Sullivan, "Pirates of Penzance"
%
I've been on this lonely road so long,
Does anybody know where it goes,
I remember last time the signs pointed home,
A month ago.
-- Carpenters, "Road Ode"
%
I've built a better model than the one at Data General
For data bases vegetable, animal, and mineral
My OS handles CPUs with multiplexed duality;
My PL/1 compiler shows impressive functionality.
My storage system's better than magnetic core polarity,
You never have to bother checking out a bit for parity;
There isn't any reason to install non-static floor matting;
My disk drive has capacity for variable formatting.
I feel compelled to mention what I know to be a gloating point:
There's lots of room in memory for variables floating-point,
Which shows for input vegetable, animal, and mineral
I've built a better model than the one at Data General.
-- Steve Levine, "A Computer Song" (To the tune of
"Modern Major General", from "Pirates of Penzance",
by Gilbert & Sullivan)
%
I've finally found the perfect girl,
I couldn't ask for more,
She's deaf and dumb and over-sexed,
And owns a liquor store.
%
I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
A bit or byte to read or write,
I/O, I/O, I/O...
%
I
am
not
very
happy
acting
pleased
whenever
prominent
scientists
overmagnify
intellectual
enlightenment
%
IBM had a PL/I,
Its syntax worse than JOSS;
And everywhere this language went,
It was a total loss.
%
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free,
... it expects what never was and never will be.
-- Thomas Jefferson
%
If a system is administered wisely,
its users will be content.
They enjoy hacking their code
and don't waste time implementing
labor-saving shell scripts.
Since they dearly love their accounts,
they aren't interested in other machines.
There may be telnet, rlogin, and ftp,
but these don't access any hosts.
There may be an arsenal of cracks and malware,
but nobody ever uses them.
People enjoy reading their mail,
take pleasure in being with their newsgroups,
spend weekends working at their terminals,
delight in the doings at the site.
And even though the next system is so close
that users can hear its key clicks and biff beeps,
they are content to die of old age
without ever having gone to see it.
%
If all be true that I do think,
There be five reasons why one should drink;
Good friends, good wine, or being dry,
Or lest we should be by-and-by,
Or any other reason why.
%
If all the seas were ink,
And all the reeds were pens,
And all the skies were parchment,
And all the men could write,
These would not suffice
To write down all the red tape
Of this Government.
%
If an S and an I and an O and a U
With an X at the end spell Su;
And an E and a Y and an E spell I,
Pray what is a speller to do?
Then, if also an S and an I and a G
And an HED spell side,
There's nothing much left for a speller to do
But to go commit siouxeyesighed.
-- Charles Follen Adams, "An Orthographic Lament"
%
If Dr. Seuss Were a Technical Writer.....
Here's an easy game to play.
Here's an easy thing to say:
If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report!
If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,
And the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash,
And your data is corrupted 'cause the index doesn't hash,
then your situation's hopeless, and your system's gonna crash!
You can't say this? What a shame, sir!
We'll find you another game, sir.
If the label on the cable on the table at your house,
Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,
But your packets want to tunnel on another protocol,
That's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall,
And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss,
So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse,
Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang,
'Cause as sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang!
When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk,
And the microcode instructions cause unnecessary risc,
Then you have to flash your memory and you'll want to ram your rom.
Quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your mom!
-- DementDJ@ccip.perkin-elmer.com (DementDJ) [rec.humor.funny]
%
If I could read your mind, love,
What a tale your thoughts could tell,
Just like a paperback novel,
The kind the drugstore sells,
When you reach the part where the heartaches come,
The hero would be me,
Heroes often fail,
You won't read that book again, because
the ending is just too hard to take.
I walk away, like a movie star,
Who gets burned in a three way script,
Enter number two,
A movie queen to play the scene
Of bringing all the good things out in me,
But for now, love, let's be real
I never thought I could act this way,
And I've got to say that I just don't get it,
I don't know where we went wrong but the feeling is gone
And I just can't get it back...
-- Gordon Lightfoot, "If You Could Read My Mind"
%
If I could stick my pen in my heart,
I would spill it all over the stage.
Would it satisfy ya, would it slide on by ya,
Would you think the boy was strange?
Ain't he strange?
...
If I could stick a knife in my heart,
Suicide right on the stage,
Would it be enough for your teenage lust,
Would it help to ease the pain?
Ease your brain?
-- Rolling Stones, "It's Only Rock'N Roll"
%
If I don't drive around the park,
I'm pretty sure to make my mark.
If I'm in bed each night by ten,
I may get back my looks again.
If I abstain from fun and such,
I'll probably amount to much;
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.
-- Dorothy Parker
%
If I promised you the moon and the stars, would you believe it?
-- Alan Parsons Project
%
If I traveled to the end of the rainbow
As Dame Fortune did intend,
Murphy would be there to tell me
The pot's at the other end.
-- Bert Whitney
%
If researchers wrote nursery rhymes...
Little Miss Muffet sat on her gluteal region,
Eating components of soured milk.
On at least one occasion,
along came an arachnid and sat down beside her,
Or at least in her vicinity,
And caused her to feel an overwhelming, but not paralyzing, fear,
Which motivated the patient to leave the area rather quickly.
-- Ann Melugin Williams
%
If she had not been cupric in her ions,
Her shape ovoidal,
Their romance might have flourished.
But he built tetrahedral in his shape,
His ions ferric,
Love could not help but die,
Uncatylised, inert, and undernourished.
%
If you had just a minute to breathe,
And they granted you one final wish,
Would you ask for something
Like another chance?
-- Traffic, "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys"
%
If you stick a stock of liquor in your locker,
It is slick to stick a lock upon your stock.
Or some joker who is slicker,
Will trick you of your liquor,
If you fail to lock your liquor with a lock.
%
If you're worried by earthquakes and nuclear war,
As well as by traffic and crime,
Consider how worry-free gophers are,
Though living on burrowed time.
-- Richard Armour, WSJ, 11/7/83
%
Il brilgue: les t^oves libricilleux
Se gyrent et frillant dans le guave,
Enm^im'es sont les gougebosquex,
Et le m^omerade horgrave.
Es brilig war. Die schlichte Toven
Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben;
Und aller-mumsige Burggoven
Dir mohmen Rath ausgraben.
-- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass"
%
In /users3 did Kubla Kahn
A stately pleasure dome decree,
Where /bin, the sacred river ran
Through Test Suites measureless to Man
Down to a sunless C.
%
In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun.
Find the fun and snap! The job's a game.
And every task you undertake, becomes a piece of cake,
a lark, a spree; it's very clear to see.
-- Mary Poppins
%
In high school in Brooklyn
I was the baseball manager,
proud as I could be
I chased baseballs,
gathered thrown bats
handed out the towels Eventually, I bought my own
It was very important work but it was dark blue while
for a small spastic kid, the official ones were green
but I was a team member Nobody ever said anything
When the team got to me about my blue jacket;
their warm-up jackets the guys were my friends
I didn't get one Yet it hurt me all year
Only the regular team to wear that blue jacket
got these jackets, and among all those green ones
surely not a manager Even now, forty years after,
I still recall that jacket
and the memory goes on hurting.
-- Bart Lanier Safford III, "An Obscured Radiance"
%
In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space
Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways.
Our asymptotes no longer out of phase,
We shall encounter, counting, face to face.
-- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
%
In the dimestores and bus stations
People talk of situations
Read books repeat quotations
Draw conclusions on the wall.
-- Bob Dylan
%
In the early morning queue,
With a listing in my hand.
With a worry in my heart, There on terminal number 9,
Waitin' here in CERAS-land. Pascal run all set to go.
I'm a long way from sleep, But I'm waitin' in the queue,
How I miss a good meal so. With this code that ever grows.
In the early mornin' queue, Now the lobby chairs are soft,
With no place to go. But that can't make the queue move fast.
Hey, there it goes my friend,
I've moved up one at last.
-- Ernest Adams, "Early Morning Queue", to "Early
Morning Rain" by G. Lightfoot
%
In the land of the dark the Ship of the
Sun is driven by the Grateful Dead.
-- Egyptian Book of the Dead
%
In this vale
Of toil and sin
Your head grows bald
But not your chin.
-- Burma Shave
%
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forest ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
-- S. T. Coleridge, "Kubla Kahn"
%
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree
But only if the NFL to a franchise would agree.
%
Into love and out again,
Thus I went and thus I go.
Spare your voice, and hold your pen:
Well and bitterly I know
All the songs were ever sung,
All the words were ever said;
Could it be, when I was young,
Someone dropped me on my head?
-- Dorothy Parker, "Theory"
%
It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,
Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt.
It lies behind starts and under hills,
And empty holes it fills.
It comes first and follows after,
Ends life, kills laughter.
%
It hangs down from the chandelier
Nobody knows quite what it does
Its color is odd and its shape is weird
It emits a high-sounding buzz
It grows a couple of feet each day
and wriggles with sort of a twitch
Nobody bugs it 'cause it comes from
a visiting uncle who's rich!
-- To "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear"
%
It happened long ago
In the new magic land
The Indians and the buffalo
Existed hand in hand
The Indians needed food
They need skins for a roof
They only took what they needed
And the buffalo ran loose
But then came the white man
With his thick and empty head
He couldn't see past his billfold
He wanted all the buffalo dead
It was sad, oh so sad.
-- Ted Nugent, "The Great White Buffalo"
%
It is not good for a man to be without knowledge,
and he who makes haste with his feet misses his way.
-- Proverbs 19:2
%
It used to be the fun was in
The capture and kill.
In another place and time
I did it all for thrills.
-- Lust to Love
%
It was one time too many
One word too few
It was all too much for me and you
There was one way to go
Nothing more we could do
One time too many
One word too few
-- Meredith Tanner
%
It's faster horses,
Younger women,
Older whiskey and
More money.
-- Tom T. Hall, "The Secret of Life"
%
It's gonna be alright,
It's almost midnight,
And I've got two more bottles of wine.
%
It's just a jump to the left
And then a step to the right.
Put your hands on your hips
And pull your knees in tight.
It's the pelvic thrust
That really gets you insa-a-a-a-ane
LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN!
-- Rocky Horror Picture Show
%
It's just apartment house rules,
So all you 'partment house fools
Remember: one man's ceiling is another man's floor.
One man's ceiling is another man's floor.
-- Paul Simon, "One Man's Ceiling Is Another Man's Floor"
%
It's Like This
Even the samurai
have teddy bears,
and even the teddy bears
get drunk.
%
It's not against any religion to want to dispose of a pigeon.
-- Tom Lehrer, "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park"
%
It's so confusing choosing sides in the heat of the moment,
just to see if it's real,
Oooh, it's so erotic having you tell me how it should feel,
But I'm avoiding all the hard cold facts that I got to face,
So ask me just one question when this magic night is through,
Could it have been just anyone or did it have to be you?
-- Billy Joel, "Glass Houses"
%
John Dame May Oscar
Was Gay Was Whitty Was Wilde
But Gerard Hopkins But John Greenleaf But Thornton
Was Manley Was Whittier Was Wilder
-- Willard Espy
%
John the Baptist after poisoning a thief,
Looks up at his hero, the Commander-in-Chief,
Saying tell me great leader, but please make it brief
Is there a hole for me to get sick in?
The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly,
Saying death to all those who would whimper and cry.
And dropping a barbell he points to the sky,
Saying the sun is not yellow, it's chicken.
-- Bob Dylan, "Tombstone Blues"
%
Just a song before I go, Going through security
To whom it may concern, I held her for so long.
Traveling twice the speed of sound She finally looked at me in love,
It's easy to get burned. And she was gone.
When the shows were over Just a song before I go,
We had to get back home, A lesson to be learned.
And when we opened up the door Traveling twice the speed of sound
I had to be alone. It's easy to get burned.
She helped me with my suitcase,
She stands before my eyes,
Driving me to the airport
And to the friendly skies.
-- Crosby, Stills, Nash, "Just a Song Before I Go"
%
Just machines to make big decisions,
Programmed by men for compassion and vision,
We'll be clean when their work is done,
We'll be eternally free, yes, eternally young,
What a beautiful world this will be,
What a glorious time to be free.
-- Donald Fagon, "What A Beautiful World"
%
`Just the place for a Snark!' the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.
'Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true.'
%
`Just the place for a Snark!' the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.
`Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true.'
%
Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone,
Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you,
I went out this morning and I wrote down this song,
Just can't remember who to send it to...
Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain,
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end,
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend,
But I always thought that I'd see you again.
Thought I'd see you one more time again.
-- James Taylor, "Fire and Rain"
%
K: Cobalt's metal, hard and shining;
Cobol's wordy and confining;
KOBOLDS topple when you strike them;
Don't feel bad, it's hard to like them.
-- The Roguelet's ABC
%
Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp! cries she
With silent lips. Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me...
-- Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus"
%
Knock Knock... (who's there?) Ether! (ether who?) Ether Bunny... Yea!
[chorus]
Yeay!
Stay on the Happy side, always on the happy side,
Stay on the Happy side of life!
Bum bum bum bum bum bum
You will feel no pain, as we drive you insane,
So Stay on the Happy Side of life!
Knock Knock... (who's there?) Anna! (anna who?)
An another ether bunny... [chorus]
Knock Knock... (who's there?) Stilla! (stilla who?)
Still another ether bunny... [chorus]
Knock Knock... (who's there?) Yetta! (yetta who?)
Yet another ether bunny... [chorus]
Knock Knock... (who's there?) Cargo! (cargo who?)
Cargo beep beep and run over ether bunny... [chorus]
Knock Knock... (who's there?) Boo! (boo who?)
Don't Cry! Ether bunny be back next year! [chorus]
%
Ladies and Gentlemen, Hobos and Tramps,
Cross-eyed mosquitos and bowlegged ants,
I come before you to stand behind you
To tell you of something I know nothing about.
Next Thursday (which is good Friday),
There will be a convention held in the
Women's Club which is strictly for Men.
Admission is free, pay at the door,
Pull up a chair, and sit on the floor.
It was a summer's day in winter,
And the snow was raining fast,
As a barefoot boy with shoes on,
Stood sitting in the grass.
Oh, that bright day in the dead of night,
Two dead men got up to fight.
Three blind men to see fair play,
Forty mutes to yell "Hooray"!
Back to back, they faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other.
A deaf policeman heard the noise,
Came and arrested those two dead boys.
%
Ladles and Jellyspoons!
I come before you to stand behind you,
To tell you something I know nothing about.
Since next Thursday will be Good Friday,
There will be a fathers' meeting, for mothers only.
Wear your best clothes, if you don't have any,
And please stay at home if you can possibly be there.
Admission is free, please pay at the door.
Have a seat on me: please sit on the floor.
No matter where you manage to sit,
The man in the balcony will certainly spit.
We thank you for your unkind attention,
And would now like to present our next act:
"The Four Corners of the Round Table."
%
Lady, lady, should you meet
One whose ways are all discreet,
One who murmurs that his wife
Is the lodestar of his life,
One who keeps assuring you
That he never was untrue,
Never loved another one...
Lady, lady, better run!
-- Dorothy Parker, "Social Note"
%
Ladybug, ladybug,
Look to your stern!
Your house is on fire,
Your children will burn!
So jump ye and sing, for
The very first time
The four lines above
Have been put into rhyme.
-- Walt Kelly
%
Last night I met upon the stair
A little man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
Gee how I wish he'd go away!
%
Latin is a language,
As dead as can be.
First it killed the Romans,
And now it's killing me.
%
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
%
Let us go then you and I
while the night is laid out against the sky
like a smear of mustard on an old pork pie.
"Nice poem Tom. I have ideas for changes though, why not come over?"
-- Ezra
%
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
-- T. S. Eliot, "Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
%
Let us treat men and women well;
Treat them as if they were real;
Perhaps they are.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
%
Life is like a tin of sardines.
We're, all of us, looking for the key.
-- Beyond the Fringe
%
Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
-- John Lennon, "Beautiful Boy"
%
Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us.
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has bought us.
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.
-- James Weldon Johnson
%
Lighten up, while you still can,
Don't even try to understand,
Just find a place to make your stand,
And take it easy.
-- The Eagles, "Take It Easy"
%
Like corn in a field I cut you down,
I threw the last punch way too hard,
After years of going steady, well, I thought it was time,
To throw in my hand for a new set of cards.
And I can't take you dancing out on the weekend,
I figured we'd painted too much of this town,
And I tried not to look as I walked to my wagon,
And I knew then I had lost what should have been found,
I knew then I had lost what should have been found.
And I feel like a bullet in the gun of Robert Ford
I'm as low as a paid assassin is
You know I'm cold as a hired sword.
I'm so ashamed we can't patch it up,
You know I can't think straight no more
You make me feel like a bullet, honey,
a bullet in the gun of Robert Ford.
-- Elton John "I Feel Like a Bullet"
%
"Lines that are parallel meet at Infinity!"
Euclid repeatedly, heatedly, urged.
Until he died, and so reached that vicinity:
in it he found that the damned things diverged.
-- Piet Hein
%
Lisp, Lisp, Lisp Machine,
Lisp Machine is Fun.
Lisp, Lisp, Lisp Machine,
Fun for everyone.
%
Little Fly,
Thy summer's play If thought is life
My thoughtless hand And strength & breath,
Has brush'd away. And the want
Of thought is death,
Am not I
A fly like thee? Then am I
Or art not thou A happy fly
A man like me? If I live
Or if I die.
For I dance
And drink & sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.
-- William Blake, "The Fly"
%
Lizzie Borden took an axe,
And plunged it deep into the VAX;
Don't you envy people who
Do all the things ___YOU want to do?
%
Logicians have but ill defined
As rational the human kind.
Logic, they say, belongs to man,
But let them prove it if they can.
-- Oliver Goldsmith
%
Louie Louie, me gotta go
Louie Louie, me gotta go
Fine little girl she waits for me
Me catch the ship for cross the sea
Me sail the ship all alone Three nights and days me sail the sea
Me never thinks me make it home Me think of girl constantly
(chorus) On the ship I dream she there
I smell the rose in her hair
Me see Jamaica moon above (chorus, guitar solo)
It won't be long, me see my love
I take her in my arms and then
Me tell her I never leave again
-- The real words to The Kingsmen's classic "Louie Louie"
%
Love in your heart wasn't put there to stay.
Love isn't love 'til you give it away.
-- Oscar Hammerstein II
%
Love, which is quickly kindled in a gentle heart,
seized this one for the fair form
that was taken from me-and the way of it afficts me still.
Love, which absolves no loved one from loving,
seized me so strongly with delight in him,
that, as you see, it does not leave me even now.
Love brought us to one death.
-- La Divina Commedia: Inferno V, vv. 100-06
%
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man,
You, with your fresh thoughts
Care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name
Sorrow's springs are the same:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
-- Gerard Manley Hopkins.
%
Meanehwael, baccat meaddehaele, monstaer lurccen;
Fulle few too many drincce, hie luccen for fyht.
[D]en Hreorfneorht[d]hwr, son of Hrwaerow[p]heororthwl,
AEsccen aewful jeork to steop outsyd.
[P]hud! Bashe! Crasch! Beoom! [D]e bigge gye
Eallum his bon brak, byt his nose offe;
Wicced Godsylla waeld on his asse.
Monstaer moppe fleor wy[p] eallum men in haelle.
Beowulf in bacceroome fonecall bemaccen waes;
Hearen sond of ruccus saed, "Hwaet [d]e helle?"
Graben sheold strang ond swich-blaed scharp
Sond feorth to fyht [d]e grimlic foe.
"Me," Godsylla saed, "mac [d]e minsemete."
Heoro cwyc geten heold wi[p] faemed half-nelson
Ond flyng him lic frisbe bac to fen.
Beowulf belly up to meaddehaele bar,
Saed, "Ne foe beaten mie faersom cung-fu."
Eorderen cocca-colha yce-coeld, [d]e reol [p]yng.
-- Not Chaucer, for certain
%
Most folks they like the daytime,
'cause they like to see the shining sun.
They're up in the morning,
off and a-running till they're too tired for having fun.
But when the sun goes down,
and the bright lights shine, my daytime has just begun.
Now there are two sides to this great big world,
and one of them is always night.
If you can take care of business in the sunshine, baby,
I guess you're gonna be all right.
Don't come looking for me to lend you a hand.
My eyes just can't stand the light.
'Cause I'm a night owl honey, sleep all day long.
-- Carly Simon
%
Mummy dust to make me old;
To shroud my clothes, the black of night;
To age my voice, an old hag's cackle;
To whiten my hair, a scream of fright;
A blast of wind to fan my hate;
A thunderbolt to mix it well --
Now begin thy magic spell!
-- Walter Disney, "Snow White"
%
My analyst told me that I was right out of my head,
But I said, "Dear Doctor, I think that it is you instead.
Because I have got a thing that is unique and new,
To prove it I'll have the last laugh on you.
'Cause instead of one head -- I've got two.
And you know two heads are better than one.
%
My Bonnie looked into a gas tank,
The height of its contents to see!
She lit a small match to assist her,
Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me.
%
My calculator is my shepherd, I shall not want
It maketh me accurate to ten significant figures,
and it leadeth me in scientific notation to 99 digits.
It restoreth my square roots and guideth me along paths of floating
decimal points for the sake of precision.
Yea, tho I walk through the valley of surprise quizzes,
I will fear no prof, for my calculator is there to hearten me.
It prepareth a log table to comfort me, it prepareth an
arc sin for me in the presence of my teachers.
It annoints my homework with correct solutions, my interpolations are
over.
Surely, both precision and accuracy shall follow me all the days of my
life, and I shall dwell in the house of Texas instruments forever.
%
My darling wife was always glum.
I drowned her in a cask of rum,
And so made sure that she would stay
In better spirits night and day.
%
My love runs by like a day in June,
And he makes no friends of sorrows.
He'll tread his galloping rigadoon
In the pathway or the morrows.
He'll live his days where the sunbeams start
Nor could storm or wind uproot him.
My own dear love, he is all my heart --
And I wish somebody'd shoot him.
-- Dorothy Parker, part 3
%
My love, he's mad, and my love, he's fleet,
And a wild young wood-thing bore him!
The ways are fair to his roaming feet,
And the skies are sunlit for him.
As sharply sweet to my heart he seems
As the fragrance of acacia.
My own dear love, he is all my dreams --
And I wish he were in Asia.
-- Dorothy Parker, part 2
%
My My, hey hey
Rock and roll is here to stay The king is gone but he's not forgotten
It's better to burn out This is the story of a Johnny Rotten
Than to fade away It's better to burn out than it is to rust
My my, hey hey The king is gone but he's not forgotten
It's out of the blue and into the black Hey hey, my my
They give you this, but you pay for that Rock and roll can never die
And once you're gone you can never come back There's more to the picture
When you're out of the blue Than meets the eye
And into the black
-- Neil Young
"My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue), Rust Never Sleeps"
%
"My name is Sue! How do you do?! Now you gonna die!"
Well, I hit him hard right between the eyes,
And he went down, but to my surprise,
Come up with a knife and cut off a piece of my ear.
So I busted a chair right across his teeth,
And we crashed through the walls and into the streets,
Kickin' and a-gougin' in the mud and the blood and beer.
Now I tell you, I've fought tougher men,
But I really can't remember when:
He kicked like a mule and he bit like a crocodile.
But I heard him laugh and then I heard him cuss,
And he went for his gun, but I pulled mine first,
And he sat there lookin' at me, and I saw him smile.
He said: "Son, this world is rough,
And if a man's gonna make it he's gotta be tough,
And I knew I wouldn't be there to help you along.
So I give you that name and I said goodbye,
And I knew you'd have to get tough or die,
And it's that name that's helped to make you strong!
-- Johnny Cash, "A Boy Named Sue"
%
My own dear love, he is strong and bold
And he cares not what comes after.
His words ring sweet as a chime of gold,
And his eyes are lit with laughter.
He is jubilant as a flag unfurled --
Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him.
My own dear love, he is all my world --
And I wish I'd never met him.
-- Dorothy Parker, part 1
%
My pen is at the bottom of a page,
Which, being finished, here the story ends;
'Tis to be wished it had been sooner done,
But stories somehow lengthen when begun.
-- Byron
%
My soul is crushed, my spirit sore
I do not like me anymore,
I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse,
I ponder on the narrow house
I shudder at the thought of men
I'm due to fall in love again.
-- Dorothy Parker, "Enough Rope"
%
Nature to all things fixed the limits fit,
And wisely curbed proud man's pretending wit.
As on the land while here the ocean gains,
In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains;
Thus in the soul while memory prevails,
The solid power of understanding fails;
Where beams of warm imagination play,
The memory's soft figures melt away.
-- Alexander Pope (on runtime bounds checking?)
%
Near the Studio Jean Cocteau
On the Rue des Ecoles
lived an old man
with a blind dog
Every evening I would see him
guiding the dog along
the sidewalk, keeping
a firm grip on the leash
so that the dog wouldn't
run into a passerby
Sometimes the dog would stop
and look up at the sky
Once the old man
noticed me watching the dog
and he said, "Oh, yes,
this one knows
when the moon is out,
he can feel it on his face"
-- Barry Gifford
%
Neuroses are red,
Melancholia's blue.
I'm schizophrenic,
What are you?
%
New York's got the ways and means;
Just won't let you be.
-- The Grateful Dead
%
New York-- to that tall skyline I come
Flyin' in from London to your door
New York-- lookin' down on Central Park
Where they say you should not wander after dark.
New York.
-- Simon and Garfunkle
%
Next, upon a stool, we've a sight to make you drool.
Seven virgins and a mule, keep it cool, keep it cool.
-- ELP, "Karn Evil 9" (1st Impression, Part 2)
%
Nine megs for the secretaries fair,
Seven megs for the hackers scarce,
Five megs for the grads in smoky lairs,
Three megs for system source;
One disk to rule them all,
One disk to bind them,
One disk to hold the files
And in the darkness grind 'em.
%
Nine-track tapes and seven-track tapes
And tapes without any tracks;
Stretchy tapes and snarley tapes
And tapes mixed up on the racks --
Take hold of the tape
And pull off the strip,
And then you'll be sure
Your tape drive will skip.
-- Uncle Colonel's Cursory Rhymes
%
No one likes us.
I don't know why.
We may not be perfect, We give them money,
But heaven knows we try. But are they grateful?
But all around, No, they're spiteful,
Even our old friends put us down. And they're hateful.
Let's drop the big one, They don't respect us,
And see what happens. So let's surprise them
We'll drop the big one,
And pulverize 'em.
Asia's crowded,
Europe's too old,
Africa is far too hot, We'll save Australia.
And Canada's too cold. Don't wanna hurt no kangaroos.
And South America stole our name We'll build an All-American amusement
Let's drop the big one, park there--
There'll be no one left to blame us. They got surfin', too!
Boom! goes London,
And Boom! Paree.
More room for you, Oh, how peaceful it'll be!
And more room for me, We'll set everybody free!
And every city, You'll wear a Japanese kimono, babe;
The whole world round, There'll be Italian shoes for me!
Will just be another American town. They all hate us anyhow,
So, let's drop the big one now.
Let's drop the big one now!
-- Randy Newman, "Drop the Big One"
%
No pig should go sky diving during monsoon
For this isn't really the norm.
But should a fat swine try to soar like a loon,
So what? Any pork in a storm.
No pig should go sky diving during monsoon,
It's risky enough when the weather is fine.
But to have a pig soar when the monsoon doth roar
Cast even more perils before swine.
%
No plain fanfold paper could hold that fractal Puff --
He grew so fast no plotting pack could shrink him far enough.
Compiles and simulations grew so quickly tame
And swapped out all their data space when Puff pushed his stack frame.
(refrain)
Puff, he grew so quickly, while others moved like snails
And mini-Puffs would perch themselves on his gigantic tail.
All the student hackers loved that fractal Puff
But DCS did not like Puff, and finally said, "Enough!"
(refrain)
Puff used more resources than DCS could spare.
The operator killed Puff's job -- he didn't seem to care.
A gloom fell on the hackers; it seemed to be the end,
But Puff trapped the exception, and grew from naught again!
(refrain)
Refrain:
Puff the fractal dragon was written in C,
And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory.
Puff the fractal dragon was written in C,
And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory.
%
"No program is perfect,"
They said with a shrug.
"The customer's happy--
What's one little bug?"
But he was determined, Then change two, then three more,
The others went home. As year followed year.
He dug out the flow chart And strangers would comment,
Deserted, alone. "Is that guy still here?"
Night passed into morning. He died at the console
The room was cluttered Of hunger and thirst
With core dumps, source listings. Next day he was buried
"I'm close," he muttered. Face down, nine edge first.
Chain smoking, cold coffee, And his wife through her tears
Logic, deduction. Accepted his fate.
"I've got it!" he cried, Said "He's not really gone,
"Just change one instruction." He's just working late."
-- The Perfect Programmer
%
No rock so hard but that a little wave
May beat admission in a thousand years.
-- Tennyson
%
No sooner had Edger Allen Poe
Finished his old Raven,
then he started his Old Crow.
%
No, his mind is not for rent
To any god or government.
Always hopeful, yet discontent,
He knows changes aren't permanent -
But change is.
%
Nothing that's forced can ever be right,
If it doesn't come naturally, leave it.
That's what she said as she turned out the light,
And we bent our backs as slaves of the night,
Then she lowered her guard and showed me the scars
She got from trying to fight
Saying, oh, you'd better believe it.
[...]
Well nothing that's real is ever for free
And you just have to pay for it sometime.
She said it before, she said it to me,
I suppose she believed there was nothing to see,
But the same old four imaginary walls
She'd built for livin' inside
I said oh, you just can't mean it.
[...]
Well nothing that's forced can ever be right,
If it doesn't come naturally, leave it.
That's what she said as she turned out the light,
And she may have been wrong, and she may have been right,
But I woke with the frost, and noticed she'd lost
The veil that covered her eyes,
I said oh, you can leave it.
-- Al Stewart, "If It Doesn't Come Naturally, Leave It"
%
Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure;
Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.
-- George Gordon, Lord Byron, "Don Juan"
%
Now I lay me back to sleep.
The speaker's dull; the subject's deep.
If he should stop before I wake,
Give me a nudge for goodness' sake.
-- Anonymous
%
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the double lock will keep;
May no brick through the window break,
And, no one rob me till I awake.
%
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I should die before I wake,
I'll cry in anguish, "Mistake!! Mistake!!"
%
Now I lay me down to study,
I pray the Lord I won't go nutty.
And if I fail to learn this junk,
I pray the Lord that I won't flunk.
But if I do, don't pity me at all,
Just lay my bones in the study hall.
Tell my teacher I've done my best,
Then pile my books upon my chest.
%
Now it's time to say goodbye
To all our company...
M-I-C (see you next week!)
K-E-Y (Why? Because we LIKE you!)
M-O-U-S-E.
%
Now let the song begin! Let us sing together
Of sun, star, moon and mist, rain and cloudy weather,
Light on the budding leaf, dew on the feather,
Wind on the open hill, bells on the heather,
Reeds by the shady pool, lilies on the water:
Old Tom Bombadil and the River-daughter!
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
Now of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It leaves me only fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
-- A. E. Housman
%
Now that day wearies me,
My yearning desire
Will receive more kindly,
Like a tired child, the starry night.
Hands, leave off your deeds,
Mind, forget all thoughts;
All of my forces
Yearn only to sink into sleep.
And my soul, unguarded,
Would soar on widespread wings,
To live in night's magical sphere
More profoundly, more variously.
-- Hermann Hesse, "Going to Sleep"
%
Now what would they do if I just sailed away?
Who the hell really compelled me to leave today?
Runnin' low on stories of what made it a ball,
What would they do if I made no landfall?"
-- Jimmy Buffet, "Landfall"
%
Now's the time to have some big ideas
Now's the time to make some firm decisions
We saw the Buddha in a bar down south
Talking politics and nuclear fission
We see him and he's all washed up --
Moving on into the body of a beetle
Getting ready for a long long crawl
He ain't nothing -- he ain't nothing at all...
Death and Money make their point once more
In the shape of Philosophical assassins
Mark and Danny take the bus uptown
Deadly angels for reality and passion
Have the courage of the here and now
Don't taking nothing from the half-baked buddhas
When you think you got it paid in full
You got nothing -- you got nothing at all...
We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha.
We know his name and he mustn't get away.
We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha.
It would take one shot -- to blow him away...
-- Shriekback, "Gunning for the Buddah"
%
O give me a home,
Where the buffalo roam,
Where the deer and the antelope play,
Where seldom is heard
A discouraging word,
'Cause what can an antelope say?
%
O love, could thou and I with fate conspire
To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire,
Might we not smash it to bits
And mould it closer to our hearts' desire?
-- Omar Khayyam, tr. FitzGerald
%
O slender as a willow-wand! O clearer than clear water!
O reed by the living pool! Fair river-daughter!
O spring-time and summer-time, and spring again after!
O wind on the waterfall, and the leaves' laughter!
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
O! Wanderers in the shadowed land
despair not! For though dark they stand,
all woods there be must end at last,
and see the open sun go past:
the setting sun, the rising sun,
the day's end, or the day begun.
For east or west all woods must fail ...
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
Observe yon plumed biped fine.
To activate its captivation,
Deposit on its termination,
A quantity of particles saline.
%
Of all the words of witch's doom
There's none so bad as which and whom.
The man who kills both which and whom
Will be enshrined in our Who's Whom.
-- Fletcher Knebel
%
Oh don't the days seem lank and long
When all goes right and none goes wrong,
And isn't your life extremely flat
With nothing whatever to grumble at!
%
Oh give me your pity!
I'm on a committee, We attend and amend
Which means that from morning And contend and defend
to night, Without a conclusion in sight.
We confer and concur,
We defer and demur, We revise the agenda
And reiterate all of our thoughts. With frequent addenda
And consider a load of reports.
We compose and propose,
We suppose and oppose, But though various notions
And the points of procedure are fun; Are brought up as motions,
There's terribly little gets done.
We resolve and absolve;
But we never dissolve,
Since it's out of the question for us
To bring our committee
To end like this ditty,
Which stops with a period, thus.
-- Leslie Lipson, "The Committee"
%
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a 4BSD?
My friends all got sources, so why can't I see?
Come all you moby hackers, come sing it out with me:
To hell with the lawyers from AT&T!
%
"Oh, 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
And whence such fair garments such prosperi-ty?"
"Oh, didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.
"You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,
Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;
And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!"
"Yes: That's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.
"At home in the barton you said `thee' and `thou,'
And `thik oon' and `theas oon' and `t'other;' but now
Your talking quite fits 'ee for compa-ny!"
"Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.
"Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak
But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,
And your little gloves fit like as on any la-dy!"
"We never do work when we're ruined," said she.
"You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,
And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem
To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!"
"True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she.
"I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!"
"My dear--a raw country girl, such as you be,
Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she.
-- Thomas Hardy
%
Oh, by the way, which one's Pink?
-- Pink Floyd
%
Oh, give me a home,
Where the buffalo roam,
And I'll show you a house with a really messy kitchen.
%
Oh, give me a locus where the gravitons focus
Where the three-body problem is solved,
Where the microwaves play down at three degrees K,
And the cold virus never evolved. (chorus)
We eat algea pie, our vacuum is high,
Our ball bearings are perfectly round.
Our horizon is curved, our warheads are MIRVed,
And a kilogram weighs half a pound. (chorus)
If we run out of space for our burgeoning race
No more Lebensraum left for the Mensch
When we're ready to start, we can take Mars apart,
If we just find a big enough wrench. (chorus)
I'm sick of this place, it's just McDonald's in space,
And living up here is a bore.
Tell the shiggies, "Don't cry," they can kiss me goodbye
'Cause I'm moving next week to L4! (chorus)
CHORUS: Home, home on LaGrange,
Where the space debris always collects,
We possess, so it seems, two of Man's greatest dreams:
Solar power and zero-gee sex.
-- to Home on the Range
%
Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay
I muck with indices and structs all day
And when it works, I shout hoo-ray
Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay
%
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of --
Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence.
Hovering there
I've chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up along delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark, or even eagle flew;
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
-- John Gillespie Magee Jr., "High Flight"
%
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania.
-- Dorothy Parker, "Comment"
%
Oh, the Slithery Dee, he crawled out of the sea.
He may catch all the others, but he won't catch me.
No, he won't catch me, stupid ol' Slithery Dee.
He may catch all the others, but AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!
-- The Smothers Brothers
%
Oh, when I was in love with you,
Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
How well did I behave.
And now the fancy passes by,
And nothing will remain,
And miles around they'll say that I
Am quite myself again.
-- A. E. Housman
%
Oh, yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of livin' is gone.
-- John Cougar, "Jack and Diane"
%
Old Mother Hubbard lived in a shoe,
She had so many children,
She didn't know what to do.
So she moved to Atlanta.
%
Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard
To fetch her poor daughter a dress.
When she got there, the cupboard was bare
And so was her daughter, I guess...
%
Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow,
Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow.
None has ever caught him yet, for Tom, he is the master:
His songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
On a morning from a Bogart movie, in a country where they turned back time,
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre contemplating a crime.
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running like a watercolor in the rain.
Don't bother asking for explanations, she'll just tell you that she came
In the Year of the Cat.
She doesn't give you time for questions, as she locks up your arm in hers,
And you follow 'till your sense of which direction completely disappears.
By the blue-tiled walls near the market stall there's a hidden door she
leads you to.
These days, she say, I feel my life just like a river running through
The Year of the Cat.
Well, she looks at you so coolly,
And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea.
She comes in incense and patchouli,
So you take her to find what's waiting inside
The Year of the Cat.
Well, morning comes and you're still with her, but the bus and the tourists
are gone,
And you've thrown away your choice and lost your ticket, so you have to stay on.
But the drum-beat strains of the night remain in the rhythm of the new-born day.
You know some time you're bound to leave her, but for now you're going to stay
In the Year of the Cat.
-- Al Stewart, "Year of the Cat"
%
On the good ship Enterprise
Every week there's a new surprise
Where the Romulans lurk
And the Klingons often go berserk.
Yes, the good ship Enterprise
There's excitement anywhere it flies
Where Tribbles play
And Nurse Chapel never gets her way.
See Captain Kirk standing on the bridge,
Mr. Spock is at his side.
The weekly menace, ooh-ooh
It gets fried, scattered far and wide.
It's the good ship Enterprise
Heading out where danger lies
And you live in dread
If you're wearing a shirt that's red.
-- Doris Robin and Karen Trimble of The L.A. Filkharmonics,
"The Good Ship Enterprise," to the tune of "The Good Ship Lollipop"
%
Once again dread deed is done.
Canon sleeps,
his all-knowing eye shaded
to human chance and circumstance.
Peace reigns anew o'er Pine Valley,
but Canon's sleep is troubled.
Beware, scant days past the Ides of July.
Impatient hands wait eagerly
to grasp, to hold
scant moments of time
wrested from life in the full
glory of Canon's power;
held captive by his unblinking eye.
Three golden orbs stand watch;
one each to toll the day, hour, minute
until predestiny decrees his reawakening.
When that feared moment arives,
"Ask not for whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee."
-- "I extended the loan on your Camera, at the Pine
Valley Pawn Shop today"
%
Once there was a little nerd who loved to read your mail,
And then yank back the i-access times to get hackers off his tail,
And once as he finished reading from the secretary's spool,
He wrote a rude rejection to her boyfriend (how uncool!)
And this as delivermail did work and he ran his backfstat,
He heard an awful crackling like rat fritters in hot fat,
And hard errors brought the system down 'fore he could even shout!
And the bio bug'll bring yours down too, ef you don't watch out!
And once they was a little flake who'd prowl through the uulog,
And when he went to his blit that night to play at being god,
The ops all heard him holler, and they to the console dashed,
But when they did a ps -ut they found the system crashed!
Oh, the wizards adb'd the dumps and did the system trace,
And worked on the file system 'til the disk head was hot paste,
But all they ever found was this: "panic: never doubt",
And the bio bug'll crash your box too, ef you don't watch out!
When the day is done and the moon comes out,
And you hear the printer whining and the rk's seems to count,
When the other desks are empty and their terminals glassy grey,
And the load is only 1.6 and you wonder if it'll stay,
You must mind the file protections and not snoop around,
Or the bio bug'll getcha and bring the system down!
%
Once upon this midnight incoherent,
While you pondered sentient and crystalline,
Over many a broken and subordinate
Volume of gnarly lore,
While I pestered, nearly singing,
Sudddenly there came a hewing,
As of someone profusely skulking,
Skulking at my chamber door.
%
One bright Sunday morning, in the shadows of the steeple,
By the Relief Office, I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there whistling,
This land was made for you and me.
Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back,
This land was made for you and me.
As I went walking, I saw a sign there,
And on the sign it said: "No Trespassing."
But on the other side, it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.
-- Woody Guthrie, "This Land Is Your Land" (verses 4, 6, 7)
[If you ever wondered why Arlo was so anti-establishment when his dad
wrote such wonderful patriotic songs, the answer is that you haven't
heard all of Woody's songs]
%
One day,
A mad meta-poet,
With nothing to say,
Wrote a mad meta-poem
That started: "One day,
A mad meta-poet,
With nothing to say,
Wrote a mad meta-poem
That started: "One day,
[...]
sort of close".
Were the words that the poet,
Finally chose,
To bring his mad poem,
To some sort of close".
Were the words that the poet,
Finally chose,
To bring his mad poem,
To some sort of close".
%
One good thing about music,
Well, it helps you feel no pain.
So hit me with music;
Hit me with music now.
-- Bob Marley, "Trenchtown Rock"
%
One pill makes you larger, And if you go chasing rabbits
And one pill makes you small. And you know you're going to fall.
And the ones that mother gives you, Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Don't do anything at all. Has given you the call.
Go ask Alice Call Alice
When she's ten feet tall. When she was just small.
When men on the chessboard When logic and proportion
Get up and tell you where to go. Have fallen sloppy dead,
And you've just had some kind of And the White Knight is talking
mushroom backwards
And your mind is moving low. And the Red Queen's lost her head
Go ask Alice Remember what the dormouse said:
I think she'll know. Feed your head.
Feed your head.
Feed your head.
-- Jefferson Airplane, "White Rabbit"
%
One reason why George Washington
Is held in such veneration:
He never blamed his problems
On the former Administration.
-- George O. Ludcke
%
One thing about the past.
It's likely to last.
-- Ogden Nash
%
One toke over the line, sweet Mary,
One toke over the line,
Sittin' downtown in a railway station,
One toke over the line.
Waitin' for the train that goes home,
Hopin' that the train is on time,
Sittin' downtown in a railway station,
One toke over the line.
%
Other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies.
-- Antony and Cleopatra
%
Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be;
They are but broken lights of thee.
-- Tennyson
%
Our sires' age was worse that our grandsires'.
We their sons are more worthless than they:
so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt.
-- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace)
%
Parsley
is gharsley.
-- Ogden Nash
%
Payeen to a Twang
Derrida
Ore-Ida
potato.
If you dared,
I'd ask you
to go dig
up your ides under brown-
tubered skies.
where pitchforked
you will ask
Derrida?
%
Picking up the pieces of my sweet shattered dream,
I wonder how the old folks are tonight,
Her name was Ann, and I'll be damned if I recall her face,
She left me not knowing what to do.
Carefree Highway, let me slip away on you,
Carefree Highway, you seen better days,
The morning after blues, from my head down to my shoes,
Carefree Highway, let me slip away, slip away, on you...
Turning back the pages to the times I love best,
I wonder if she'll ever do the same,
Now the thing that I call livin' is just bein' satisfied,
With knowing I got noone left to blame.
Carefree Highway, I got to see you, my old flame...
Searching through the fragments of my dream shattered sleep,
I wonder if the years have closed her mind,
I guess it must be wanderlust or tryin' to get free,
From the good old faithful feelin' we once knew.
-- Gordon Lightfoot, "Carefree Highway"
%
Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:
"Pipe a song about a Lamb!"
So I piped with merry cheer.
"Piper, pipe that song again;"
So I piped: he wept to hear.
-- William Blake, "Songs of Innocence"
%
Plagiarize, plagiarize,
Let no man's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
Don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize.
Only be sure to call it research.
-- Tom Lehrer
%
Planet Claire has pink hair.
All the trees are red.
No one ever dies there.
No one has a head....
%
Please stand for the National Anthem:
Australians all, let us rejoice,
For we are young and free.
We've golden soil and wealth for toil
Our home is girt by sea.
Our land abounds in nature's gifts
Of beauty rich and rare.
In history's page, let every stage
Advance Australia Fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia Fair.
Thank you. You may resume your seat.
%
Please stand for the National Anthem:
God save our Gracious Queen!
Long live our Noble Queen!
God save the Queen!
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign o'er us!
God save the Queen!
Thank you. You may resume your seat.
%
Please stand for the National Anthem:
O Canada
Our home and native land
True patriot love
In all thy sons' command
With glowing hearts we see thee rise
The true north strong and free
From far and wide, O Canada
We stand on guard for thee
God keep our land glorious and free
O Canada we stand on guard for thee
O Canada we stand on guard for thee
Thank you. You may resume your seat.
%
Please stand for the National Anthem:
Oh, say can you see by dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Thank you. You may resume your seat.
%
Power, like a desolating pestilence,
Pollutes whate'er it touches...
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley
%
Probable-Possible, my black hen,
She lays eggs in the Relative When.
She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive Now
Because she's unable to postulate How.
-- Frederick Winsor
%
Proposed Country & Western Song Titles
I Can't Get Over You, So I Get Up and Go Around to the Other Side
If You Won't Leave Me Alone, I'll Find Someone Who Will
I Knew That You'd Committed a Sin When You Came Home Late With
Your Socks Outside-in
I'm a Rabbit in the Headlights of Your Love
Don't Kick My Tires If You Ain't Gonna Take Me For a Ride
I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well
I Still Miss You, Baby, But My Aim's Gettin' Better
I've Got Red Eyes From Your White Lies and I'm Blue All the Time
-- "Wordplay"
%
Proposed Country & Western Song Titles
I Don't Mind If You Lie to Me, As Long As I Ain't Lyin' Alone
I Wouldn't Take You to a Dog Fight Even If I Thought You Could Win
If You Leave Me, Walk Out Backwards So I'll Think You're Comin' In
Since You Learned to Lip-Sync, I'm At Your Disposal
My John Deere Was Breaking Your Field, While Your Dear John Was
Breaking My Heart
Don't Cry, Little Darlin', You're Waterin' My Beer
Tennis Must Be Your Racket, 'Cause Love Means Nothin' to You
When You Say You Love Me, You're Full of Prunes, 'Cause Living
With You Is the Pits
I Wanted Your Hand in Marriage but All I Got Was the Finger
-- "Wordplay"
%
Proposed Country & Western Song Titles
She Ain't Much to See, but She Looks Good Through the Bottom of a Glass
If Fingerprints Showed Up On Skin, I Wonder Who's I'd Find On You
I'm Ashamed to be Here, but Not Ashamed Enough to Leave
It's Commode Huggin' Time In The Valley
If You Want to Keep the Beer Real Cold, Put It Next to My Ex-wife's Heart
If You Get the Feeling That I Don't Love You, Feel Again
I'm Ashamed To Be Here, But Not Ashamed Enough To Leave
It's the Bottle Against the Bible in the Battle For Daddy's Soul
My Wife Ran Off With My Best Friend, And I Sure Miss Him
Don't Cut Any More Wood, Baby, 'Cause I'll Be Comin' Home With A Load
I Loved Her Face, But I Left Her Behind For You
%
Put another password in,
Bomb it out, then try again.
Try to get past logging in,
We're hacking, hacking, hacking.
Try his first wife's maiden name,
This is more than just a game.
It's real fun, but just the same,
It's hacking, hacking, hacking.
-- To the tune of "Music, Music, Music?"
%
rain falls where clouds come
sun shines where clouds go
clouds just come and go
-- Florian Gutzwiller
%
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp.
Acids stain you,
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give.
Gas smells awful--
You might as well live!
-- Dorothy Parker, "Resume", 1926
%
Reach into the thoughts of friends,
And find they do not know your name.
Squeeze the teddy bear too tight,
And watch the feathers burst the seams.
Touch the stained glass with your cheek,
And feel its chill upon your blood.
Hold a candle to the night,
And see the darkness bend the flame.
Tear the mask of peace from God,
And hear the roar of souls in hell.
Pluck a rose in name of love,
And watch the petals curl and wilt.
Lean upon the western wind,
And know you are alone.
-- Dru Mims
%
Reclaimer, spare that tree!
Take not a single bit!
It used to point to me,
Now I'm protecting it.
It was the reader's CONS
That made it, paired by dot;
Now, GC, for the nonce,
Thou shalt reclaim it not.
%
Remember that whatever misfortune may be your lot, it could only be
worse in Cleveland.
-- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
%
Remember thee
Ay, thou poor ghost while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there.
-- William Shakespeare, "Hamlet"
%
Remove me from this land of slaves,
Where all are fools, and all are knaves,
Where every knave and fool is bought,
Yet kindly sells himself for nought;
-- Jonathan Swift
%
Roland was a warrior, from the land of the midnight sun,
With a Thompson gun for hire, fighting to be done.
The deal was made in Denmark, on a dark and stormy day,
So he set out for Biafra, to join the bloody fray.
Through sixty-six and seven, they fought the Congo war,
With their fingers on their triggers, knee deep in gore.
Days and nights they battled, the Bantu to their knees,
They killed to earn their living, and to help out the Congolese.
Roland the Thompson gunner...
His comrades fought beside him, Van Owen and the rest,
But of all the Thompson gunners, Roland was the best.
So the C.I.A decided, they wanted Roland dead,
That son-of-a-bitch Van Owen, blew off Roland's head.
Roland the headless Thompson gunner...
Roland searched the continent, for the man who'd done him in.
He found him in Mombasa, in a bar room drinking gin,
Roland aimed his Thompson gun, he didn't say a word,
But he blew Van Owen's body from there to Johannesburg.
The eternal Thompson gunner, still wandering through the night,
Now it's ten years later, but he stills keeps up the fight.
In Ireland, in Lebanon, in Palestine, in Berkeley,
Patty Hearst... heard the burst... of Roland's Thompson gun, and bought it.
-- Warren Zevon, "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner"
%
Romeo was restless, he was ready to kill,
He jumped out the window 'cause he couldn't sit still,
Juliet was waiting with a safety net,
Said "don't bury me 'cause I ain't dead yet".
-- Elvis Costello
%
Roses are red;
Violets are blue.
I'm schizophrenic,
And so am I.
%
Saturday night in Toledo Ohio,
Is like being nowhere at all,
All through the day how the hours rush by,
You sit in the park and you watch the grass die.
-- John Denver, "Saturday Night in Toledo Ohio"
%
Say it with flowers,
Or say it with mink,
But whatever you do,
Don't say it with ink!
-- Jimmie Durante
%
Say many of cameras focused t'us,
Our middle-aged shots do us justice.
No justice, please, curse ye!
We really want mercy:
You see, 'tis the justice, disgusts us.
-- Thomas H. Hildebrandt
%
Say my love is easy had,
Say I'm bitten raw with pride,
Say I am too often sad --
Still behold me at your side.
Say I'm neither brave nor young,
Say I woo and coddle care,
Say the devil touched my tongue --
Still you have my heart to wear.
But say my verses do not scan,
And I get me another man!
-- Dorothy Parker, "Fighting Words"
%
Say! You've struck a heap of trouble--
Bust in business, lost your wife;
No one cares a cent about you,
You don't care a cent for life;
Hard luck has of hope bereft you,
Health is failing, wish you'd die--
Why, you've still the sunshine left you
And the big blue sky.
-- R. W. Service
%
Science Fiction, Double Feature.
Frank has built and lost his creature.
Darkness has conquered Brad and Janet.
The servants gone to a distant planet.
Wo, oh, oh, oh.
At the late night, double feature, Picture show.
I want to go, oh, oh, oh.
To the late night, double feature, Picture show.
-- Rocky Horror Picture Show
%
Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise?
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
-- Edgar Allen Poe, "Science, a Sonnet"
%
Scintillate, scintillate, globule vivific,
Fain how I pause at your nature specific,
Loftily poised in the ether capacious,
Highly resembling a gem carbonaceous.
Scintillate, scintillate, globule vivific,
Fain how I pause at your nature specific.
%
Scratch the disks, dump the core, Shut it down, pull the plug
Roll the tapes across the floor, Give the core an extra tug
And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash.
Teletypes smashed to bits. Mem'ry cards, one and all,
Give the scopes some nasty hits Toss out halfway down the hall
And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash.
And we've also found Just flip one switch
When you turn the power down, And the lights will cease to twitch
You turn the disk readers into trash. And the tape drives will crumble
in a flash.
Oh, it's so much fun, When the CPU
Now the CPU won't run Can print nothing out but "foo,"
And the system is going to crash. The system is going to crash.
-- To the tune of "As the Caissons go Rolling Along"
%
Seduced, shaggy Samson snored.
She scissored short. Sorely shorn,
Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed,
Silently scheming,
Sightlessly seeking
Some savage, spectacular suicide.
-- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
%
Seek for the Sword that was broken:
In Imladris it dwells;
There shall be counsels taken
Stronger than Morgul-spells.
There shall be shown a token
That Doom is near at hand,
For Isildur's Bane shall waken,
And the Halfling forth shall stand.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
She asked me, "What's your sign?"
I blinked and answered "Neon,"
I thought I'd blow her mind...
%
She blinded me with science!
%
She can kill all your files;
She can freeze with a frown.
And a wave of her hand brings the whole system down.
And she works on her code until ten after three.
She lives like a bat but she's always a hacker to me.
-- Apologies to Billy Joel
%
She stood on the tracks
Waving her arms
Leading me to that third rail shock
Quick as a wink
She changed her mind
She gave me a night
That's all it was
What will it take until I stop
Kidding myself
Wasting my time
There's nothing else I can do
'Cause I'm doing it all for Leyna
I don't want anyone new
'Cause I'm living it all for Leyna
There's nothing in it for you
'Cause I'm giving it all to Leyna
-- Billy Joel, "All for Leyna" (Glass Houses)
%
SHIFT TO THE LEFT!
SHIFT TO THE RIGHT!
POP UP, PUSH DOWN,
BYTE, BYTE, BYTE!
%
Shift to the left,
Shift to the right,
Mask in, mask out,
BYTE, BYTE, BYTE !!!
%
Since I hurt my pendulum
My life is all erratic.
My parrot who was cordial
Is now transmitting static.
The carpet died, a palm collapsed,
The cat keeps doing poo.
The only thing that keeps me sane
Is talking to my shoe.
-- My Shoe
%
Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
That washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is a noble thing!
O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain,
and the brook that leaps from hill to plain;
but better than rain or rippling streams
is Water Hot that smokes and steams.
O! Water cold we may pour at need
down a thirsty throat and be glad indeed;
but better is Beer, if drink we lack,
and Water Hot poured down the back.
O! Water is fair that leaps on high
in a fountain white beneath the sky;
but never did fountain sound so sweet
as splashing Hot Water with my feet!
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
Snow-white! Snow-white! O Lady clear!
O Queen beyond the Western Sea!
O Light to us that wander here
Amid the world of woven trees!
Gilthoniel! O Elbereth!
Clear are thy eyes and bright thy breath!
Snow-white! Snow-white! We sing to thee
In a far land beyond the Sea.
O stars that in the Sunless Year
With shining hand by her were sown,
In windy fields now bright and clear
We see you silver blossom blown!
O Elbereth! Gilthoniel!
We still remember, we who dwell
In this far land beneath the trees,
Thy starlight on the Western Seas.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
So much
depends
upon
a red
wheel
barrow
glazed with
rain
water
beside
the white
chickens.
-- William Carlos Williams, "The Red Wheel Barrow"
%
So, you better watch out!
You better not cry!
You better not pout!
I'm telling you why,
Santa Claus is coming, to town.
He knows when you've been sleeping,
He know when you're awake.
He knows if you've been bad or good,
He has ties with the CIA.
So...
%
So... so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell?
Blue skies from pain? Did they get you to trade
Can you tell a green field Your heroes for ghosts?
From a cold steel rail? Hot ashes for trees?
A smile from a veil? Hot air for a cool breeze?
Do you think you can tell? Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange
A walk on part in a war
For the lead role in a cage?
-- Pink Floyd, "Wish You Were Here"
%
Soldiers who wish to be a hero
Are practically zero,
But those who wish to be civilians,
They run into the millions.
%
Some of them want to use you,
Some of them want to be used by you,
...Everybody's looking for something.
-- Eurythmics
%
Some primal termite knocked on wood.
And tasted it, and found it good.
And that is why your Cousin May
Fell through the parlor floor today.
-- Ogden Nash
%
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction, ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
-- Robert Frost, "Fire and Ice"
%
Sometimes I feel like I'm fading away,
Looking at me, I got nothin' to say.
Don't make me angry with the things games that you play,
Either light up or leave me alone.
%
Sometimes I live in the country,
And sometimes I live in town.
And sometimes I have a great notion,
To jump in the river and drown.
%
Sometimes the light's all shining on me,
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me
What a long strange trip it's been.
-- The Grateful Dead, "American Beauty"
%
Speak roughly to your little boy,
And beat him when he sneezes:
He only does it to annoy
Because he knows it teases.
Wow! wow! wow!
I speak severely to my boy,
And beat him when he sneezes:
For he can thoroughly enjoy
The pepper when he pleases!
Wow! wow! wow!
-- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland"
%
Speak roughly to your little VAX,
And boot it when it crashes;
It knows that one cannot relax
Because the paging thrashes!
Wow! Wow! Wow!
I speak severely to my VAX,
And boot it when it crashes;
In spite of all my favorite hacks
My jobs it always thrashes!
Wow! Wow! Wow!
%
Speaking of Godzilla and other things that convey horror:
With a purposeful grimace and a Mongo-like flair
He throws the spinning disk drives in the air!
And he picks up a Vax and he throws it back down
As he wades through the lab making terrible sounds!
Helpless users with projects due
Scream "My God!" as he stomps on the tape drives, too!
Oh, no! He says Unix runs too slow! Go, go, DECzilla!
Oh, yes! He's gonna bring up VMS! Go, go, DECzilla!"
* VMS is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation.
* DECzilla is a trademark of Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of Death, Inc.
-- Curtis Jackson
%
Spring is here, spring is here,
Life is skittles and life is beer.
%
St. Patrick was a gentleman
who through strategy and stealth
drove all the snakes from Ireland.
Here's a toasting to his health --
but not too many toastings
lest you lose yourself and then
forget the good St. Patrick
and see all those snakes again.
%
Stayed in bed all morning just to pass the time,
There's something wrong here, there can be no more denying,
One of us is changing, or maybe we just stopped trying,
And it's too late, baby, now, it's too late,
Though we really did try to make it,
Something inside has died and I can't hide and I just can't fake it...
It used to be so easy living here with you,
You were light and breezy and I knew just what to do
Now you look so unhappy and I feel like a fool.
There'll be good times again for me and you,
But we just can't stay together, don't you feel it too?
But I'm glad for what we had and that I once loved you...
But it's too late baby...
It's too late, now darling, it's too late...
-- Carol King, "Tapestry"
%
Step back, unbelievers!
Or the rain will never come.
Somebody keep the fire burning, someone come and beat the drum.
You may think I'm crazy, you may think that I'm insane,
But I swear to you, before this day is out,
you folks are gonna see some rain!
%
Strange things are done to be number one
In selling the computer The Druids were entrepreneurs,
IBM has their strategem And they built a granite box
Which steadily grows acuter, It tracked the moon, warned of monsoons,
And Honeywell competes like Hell, And forecast the equinox
But the story's missing link Their price was right, their future
Is the system old at Stonemenge sold bright,
By the firm of Druids, Inc. The prototype was sold;
From Stonehenge site their bits and byte
Would ship for Celtic gold.
The movers came to crate the frame;
It weighed a million ton!
The traffic folk thought it a joke The man spoke true, and thus to you
(the wagon wheels just spun); A warning from the ages;
"They'll nay sell that," the foreman Your stock will slip if you can't ship
spat, What's in your brochure's pages.
"Just leave the wild weeds grow; See if it sells without the bells
"It's Druid-kind, over-designed, And strings that ring and quiver;
"And belly up they'll go." Druid repute went down the chute
Because they couldn't deliver.
-- Edward C. McManus, "The Computer at Stonehenge"
%
Suffering alone exists, none who suffer;
The deed there is, but no doer thereof;
Nirvana is, but no one is seeking it;
The Path there is, but none who travel it.
-- "Buddhist Symbolism", Symbols and Values
%
Sun in the night, everyone is together,
Ascending into the heavens, life is forever.
-- Brand X, "Moroccan Roll/Sun in the Night"
%
/\ SUN of them wants to use you,
\\ \
/ \ \\ / SUN of them wants to be used by you,
/ / \/ / //\
\//\ \// / SUN of them wants to abuse you,
/ / /\ /
/ \\ \ SUN of them wants to be abused ...
\ \\
\/
-- Eurythmics
%
Sweet sixteen is beautiful Bess,
And her voice is changing -- from "No" to "Yes".
%
System/3! System/3!
See how it runs! See how it runs!
Its monitor loses so totally!
It runs all its programs in RPG!
It's made by our favorite monopoly!
System/3!
%
T: One big monster, he called TROLL.
He don't rock, and he don't roll;
Drink no wine, and smoke no stogies.
He just Love To Eat Them Roguies.
-- The Roguelet's ABC
%
Take a look around you, tell me what you see,
A girl who thinks she's ordinary lookin' she has got the key.
If you can get close enough to look into her eyes
There's something special right behind the bitterness she hides.
And you're fair game,
You never know what she'll decide, you're fair game,
Just relax, enjoy the ride.
Find a way to reach her, make yourself a fool,
But do it with a little class, disregard the rules.
'Cause this one knows the bottom line, couldn't get a date.
The ugly duckling striking back, and she'll decide her fate.
(chorus)
The ones you never notice are the ones you have to watch.
She's pleasant and she's friendly while she's looking at your crotch.
Try your hand at conversation, gossip is a lie,
And sure enough she'll take you home and make you wanna die.
(chorus)
-- Crosby, Stills, Nash, "Fair Game"
%
Take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog is finally getting
enough cheese.
-- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
%
Tan me hide when I'm dead, Fred,
Tan me hide when I'm dead.
So we tanned his hide when he died, Clyde,
It's hanging there on the shed.
All together now...
Tie me kangaroo down, sport,
Tie me kangaroo down.
Tie me kangaroo down, sport,
Tie me kangaroo down.
%
Tell me why the stars do shine,
Tell me why the ivy twines,
Tell me why the sky's so blue,
And I will tell you just why I love you.
Nuclear fusion makes stars to shine,
Phototropism makes ivy twine,
Rayleigh scattering makes sky so blue,
Sexual hormones are why I love you.
%
Tell me, O Octopus, I begs,
Is those things arms, or is they legs?
I marvel at thee, Octopus;
If I were thou, I'd call me us.
-- Ogden Nash
%
Terence, this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
It gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It sleeps well the horned head:
We poor lads, 'tis our turn now
To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time.
Moping, melancholy mad:
Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad.
-- A. E. Housman
%
That feeling just came over me.
-- Albert DeSalvo, the "Boston Strangler"
%
That money talks,
I'll not deny,
I heard it once,
It said "Good-bye.
-- Richard Armour
%
The Advertising Agency Song
When your client's hopping mad,
Put his picture in the ad.
If he still should prove refractory,
Add a picture of his factory.
%
The all-softening overpowering knell,
The tocsin of the soul, -- the dinner bell.
-- Lord Byron
%
The bank called to tell me that I'm overdrawn,
Some freaks are burning crosses out on my front lawn,
And I *can't*believe* it, all the Cheetos are gone,
It's just ONE OF THOSE DAYS!
-- Weird Al Yankovic, "One of Those Days"
%
The bank sent our statement this morning,
The red ink was a sight of great awe!
Their figures and mine might have balanced,
But my wife was too quick on the draw.
%
The Bird of Time has but a little way to fly ...
and the bird is on the wing.
-- Omar Khayyam
%
The boy stood on the burning deck,
Eating peanuts by the peck.
His father called him, but he could not go,
For he loved those peanuts so.
%
The camel has a single hump;
The dromedary two;
Or else the other way around.
I'm never sure. Are you?
-- Ogden Nash
%
The carbonyl is polarized,
The delta end is plus.
The nucleophile will thus attack,
The carbon nucleus.
Addition makes an alcohol,
Of types there are but three.
It makes a bond, to correspond,
From C to shining C.
-- Prof. Frank Westheimer, to "America the Beautiful"
%
The common cormorant, or shag,
Lays eggs inside a paper bag;
The reason, you will see, no doubt,
Is to keep the lightning out.
But what these unobservant birds
Have failed to notice is that herds
Of bears may come with buns
And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.
%
The difference between us is not very far,
cruising for burgers in daddy's new car.
%
The eyes of Texas are upon you,
All the livelong day;
The eyes of Texas are upon you,
You cannot get away;
Do not think you can escape them
From night 'til early in the morn;
The eyes of Texas are upon you
'Til Gabriel blows his horn.
-- University of Texas' school song
%
The garden is in mourning;
The rain falls cool among the flowers.
Summer shivers quietly
On its way towards its end.
Golden leaf after leaf
Falls from the tall acacia.
Summer smiles, astonished, feeble,
In this dying dream of a garden.
For a long while, yet, in the roses,
She will linger on, yearning for peace,
And slowly
Close her weary eyes.
-- Hermann Hesse, "September"
%
The glances over cocktails
That seemed to be so sweet
Don't seem quite so amorous
Over Shredded Wheat
%
The good (I am convinced, for one)
Is but the bad one leaves undone.
Once your reputation's done
You can live a life of fun.
-- Wilhelm Busch
%
The good life was so elusive
It really got me down
I had to regain some confidence
So I got into camouflage
%
The good time is approaching,
The season is at hand.
When the merry click of the two-base lick
Will be heard throughout the land.
The frost still lingers on the earth, and
Budless are the trees.
But the merry ring of the voice of spring
Is borne upon the breeze.
-- Ode to Opening Day, "The Sporting News", 1886
%
The grave's a fine and private place,
but none, I think, do there embrace.
-- Andrew Marvell
%
The hope that springs eternal
Springs right up your behind.
-- Ian Drury, "This Is What We Find"
%
The Junior God now heads the roll
In the list of heaven's peers;
He sits in the House of High Control,
And he regulates the spheres.
Yet does he wonder, do you suppose,
If, even in gods divine,
The best and wisest may not be those
Who have wallowed awhile with the swine?
-- Robert W. Service
%
The ladies men admire, I've heard,
Would shudder at a wicked word.
Their candle gives a single light;
They'd rather stay at home at night.
They do not keep awake till three,
Nor read erotic poetry.
They never sanction the impure,
Nor recognize an overture.
They shrink from powders and from paints...
So far, I've had no complaints.
-- Dorothy Parker
%
The leaves were long, the grass was green,
The hemlock-umbels tall and fair,
And in the glade a light was seen
Of stars in shadow shimmering.
Tin'uviel was dancing there
To music of a pipe unseen,
And light of stars was in her hair,
And in her raiment glimmering.
There Beren came from mountains colds,
And lost he wandered under leaves,
And where the Elven-river rolled
He walked alone and sorrowing.
He peered between the hemlock-leaves
And saw in wonder flowers of gold
Upon her mantle and her sleeves,
And her hair like shadow following.
Enchantment healed his weary feet
That over hills were doomed to roam;
And forth he hastened, strong and fleet,
And grasped at moonbeams glistening.
Through woven woods in Elvenhome
She lightly fled on dancing feet,
And left him lonely still to roam
In the silent forest listening.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
The lights are on,
but you're not home;
Your will
is not your own;
Your heart sweats,
Your teeth grind;
Another kiss
and you'll be mine...
You like to think that you're immune to the stuff
(Oh Yeah!)
It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough;
You know you're gonna have to face it,
You're addicted to love!"
-- Robert Palmer
%
The little town that time forgot,
Where all the women are strong,
The men are good-looking,
And the children above-average.
-- Prairie Home Companion
%
The Lord and I are in a sheep-shepherd relationship, and I am in
a position of negative need.
He prostrates me in a green-belt grazing area.
He conducts me directionally parallel to non-torrential aqueous
liquid.
He returns to original satisfaction levels my psychological makeup.
He switches me on to a positive behavioral format for maximal
prestige of His identity.
It should indeed be said that notwithstanding the fact that I make
ambulatory progress through the umbragious inter-hill mortality slot, terror
sensations will no be initiated in me, due to para-etical phenomena.
Your pastoral walking aid and quadrupic pickup unit introduce me
into a pleasurific mood state.
You design and produce a nutriment-bearing furniture-type structure
in the context of non-cooperative elements.
You act out a head-related folk ritual employing vegetable extract.
My beverage utensil experiences a volume crisis.
It is an ongoing deductible fact that your inter-relational
empathetical and non-ventious capabilities will retain me as their
target-focus for the duration of my non-death period, and I will possess
tenant rights in the housing unit of the Lord on a permanent, open-ended
time basis.
%
The makers may make
and the users may use,
but the fixers must fix
with but minimal clues
%
The man she had was kind and clean
And well enough for every day,
But oh, dear friends, you should have seen
The one that got away.
-- Dorothy Parker, "The Fisherwoman"
%
The morning sun when it's in your face really shows your age,
But that don't bother me none; in my eyes you're everything.
I know I keep you amused,
But I feel I'm being used.
Oh, Maggie, I wish I'd never seen your face.
You took me away from home,
Just to save you from being alone;
You stole my heart, and that's what really hurts.
I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school,
Or steal my daddy's cue and make a living out of playing pool,
Or find myself a rock 'n' roll band,
That needs a helping hand,
Oh, Maggie I wish I'd never seen your face.
You made a first-class fool out of me,
But I'm as blind as a fool can be.
You stole my soul, and that's a pain I can do without.
-- Rod Stewart, "Maggie May"
%
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all they Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
%
The net of law is spread so wide,
No sinner from its sweep may hide.
Its meshes are so fine and strong,
They take in every child of wrong.
O wondrous web of mystery!
Big fish alone escape from thee!
-- James Jeffrey Roche
%
The night passes quickly when you're asleep
But I'm out shufflin' for something to eat
...
Breakfast at the Egg House,
Like the waffle on the griddle,
I'm burnt around the edges,
But I'm tender in the middle.
-- Adrian Belew
%
The one L lama, he's a priest
The two L llama, he's a beast
And I will bet my silk pyjama
There isn't any three L lllama.
-- O. Nash, to which a fire chief replied that occasionally
his department responded to something like a "three L lllama."
%
The Pig, if I am not mistaken,
Gives us ham and pork and Bacon.
Let others think his heart is big,
I think it stupid of the Pig.
-- Ogden Nash
%
The Poet Whose Badness Saved His Life
The most important poet in the seventeenth century was George
Wither. Alexander Pope called him "wretched Wither" and Dryden said of his
verse that "if they rhymed and rattled all was well".
In our own time, "The Dictionary of National Biography" notes that his
work "is mainly remarkable for its mass, fluidity and flatness. It usually
lacks any genuine literary quality and often sinks into imbecile doggerel".
High praise, indeed, and it may tempt you to savour a typically
rewarding stanza: It is taken from "I loved a lass" and is concerned with
the higher emotions.
She would me "Honey" call,
She'd -- O she'd kiss me too.
But now alas! She's left me
Falero, lero, loo.
Among other details of his mistress which he chose to immortalize
was her prudent choice of footwear.
The fives did fit her shoe.
In 1639 the great poet's life was endangered after his capture by
the Royalists during the English Civil War. When Sir John Denham, the
Royalist poet, heard of Wither's imminent execution, he went to the King and
begged that his life be spared. When asked his reason, Sir John replied,
"Because that so long as Wither lived, Denham would not be accounted the
worst poet in England."
-- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
%
The Preacher, the Politician, the Teacher,
Were each of them once a kiddie.
A child, indeed, is a wonderful creature.
Do I want one? God Forbiddie!
-- Ogden Nash
%
The Rabbits The Cow
Here is a verse about rabbits The cow is of the bovine ilk;
That doesn't mention their habits. One end is moo, the other, milk.
-- Ogden Nash
%
The rain it raineth on the just
And also on the unjust fella,
But chiefly on the just, because
The unjust steals the just's umbrella.
-- Lord Bowen
%
The rhino is a homely beast,
For human eyes he's not a feast.
Farewell, farewell, you old rhinoceros,
I'll stare at something less prepoceros.
-- Ogden Nash
%
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
The smiling Spring comes in rejoicing,
And surly Winter grimly flies.
Now crystal clear are the falling waters,
And bonnie blue are the sunny skies.
Fresh o'er the mountains breaks forth the morning,
The ev'ning gilds the oceans's swell:
All creatures joy in the sun's returning,
And I rejoice in my bonnie Bell.
The flowery Spring leads sunny Summer,
The yellow Autumn presses near;
Then in his turn come gloomy Winter,
Till smiling Spring again appear.
Thus seasons dancing, life advancing,
Old Time and Nature their changes tell;
But never ranging, still unchanging,
I adore my bonnie Bell.
-- Robert Burns, "My Bonnie Bell"
%
The soldier came knocking upon the queen's door.
He said, "I am not fighting for you any more."
The queen knew she had seen his face someplace before,
And slowly she let him inside.
He said, "I see you now, and you're so very young,
But I've seen more battles lost than I have battles won,
And I have this intuition that it's all for your fun.
And now will you tell me why?"
-- Suzanne Vega, "The Queen and The Soldier"
%
The sounds of the nouns are mostly unbound.
In town a noun might wear a gown,
or further down, might dress a clown.
A noun that's sound would never clown,
but unsound nouns jump up and down.
The sound of a noun could distrub the plowing,
and then, my dear, you'd be put in the pound.
But please don't let that get you down,
the renown of your gown is the talk of the town.
-- A. Nonnie Mouse
%
The street preacher looked so baffled
When I asked him why he dressed
With forty pounds of headlines
Stapled to his chest.
But he cursed me when I proved to him
I said, "Not even you can hide.
You see, you're just like me.
I hope you're satisfied."
-- Bob Dylan
%
The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright --
And this was very odd, because it was
The middle of the night.
-- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"
%
The Thought Police are here. They've come
To put you under cardiac arrest.
And as they drag you through the door
They tell you that you've failed the test.
-- Buggles, "Living in the Plastic Age"
%
The thrill is here, but it won't last long
You'd better have your fun before it moves along...
%
The trouble with a kitten is that
When it grows up, it's always a cat
-- Ogden Nash.
%
The trouble with you
Is the trouble with me.
Got two good eyes
But we still don't see.
-- Robert Hunter, "Workingman's Dead"
%
The truth you speak has no past and no future.
It is, and that's all it needs to be.
%
The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks
Which practically conceal its sex.
I think it clever of the turtle
In such a fix to be so fertile.
-- Ogden Nash
%
The weather is here, I wish you were beautiful.
My thoughts aren't too clear, but don't run away.
My girlfriend's a bore; my job is too dutiful.
Hell nobody's perfect, would you like to play?
I feel together today!
-- Jimmy Buffet, "Coconut Telegraph"
%
The wind doth taste so bitter sweet,
Like Jaspar wine and sugar,
It must have blown through someone's feet,
Like those of Caspar Weinberger.
-- P. Opus
%
The wombat lives across the seas,
Among the far Antipodes.
He may exist on nuts and berries,
Or then again, on missionaries;
His distant habitat precludes
Conclusive knowledge of his moods.
But I would not engage the wombat
In any form of mortal combat.
-- "The Wombat"
%
The Worst American Poet
Julia Moore, "the Sweet Singer of Michigan" (1847-1920) was so bad that
Mark Twain said her first book gave him joy for 20 years.
Her verse was mainly concerned with violent death -- the great fire
of Chicago and the yellow fever epidemic proved natural subjects for her pen.
Whether death was by drowning, by fits or by runaway sleigh, the
formula was the same:
Have you heard of the dreadful fate
Of Mr. P. P. Bliss and wife?
Of their death I will relate,
And also others lost their life
(in the) Ashbula Bridge disaster,
Where so many people died.
Even if you started out reasonably healthy in one of Julia's poems,
the chances are that after a few stanzas you would be at the bottom of a
river or struck by lightning. A critic of the day said she was "worse than
a Gatling gun" and in one slim volume counted 21 killed and 9 wounded.
Incredibly, some newspapers were critical of her work, even
suggesting that the sweet singer was "semi-literate". Her reply was
forthright: "The Editors that has spoken in this scandalous manner have went
beyond reason." She added that "literary work is very difficult to do".
-- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
%
The Worst Lines of Verse
For a start, we can rule out James Grainger's promising line:
"Come, muse, let us sing of rats."
Grainger (1721-67) did not have the courage of his convictions and deleted
these words on discovering that his listeners dissolved into spontaneous
laughter the instant they were read out.
No such reluctance afflicted Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833-70) who was
inspired by the subject of war.
"Flash! flash! bang! bang! and we blazed away,
And the grey roof reddened and rang;
Flash! flash! and I felt his bullet flay
The tip of my ear. Flash! bang!"
By contrast, Cheshire cheese provoked John Armstrong (1709-79):
"... that which Cestria sends, tenacious paste of solid milk..."
While John Bidlake was guided by a compassion for vegetables:
"The sluggard carrot sleeps his day in bed,
The crippled pea alone that cannot stand."
George Crabbe (1754-1832) wrote:
"And I was ask'd and authorized to go
To seek the firm of Clutterbuck and Co."
William Balmford explored the possibilities of religious verse:
"So 'tis with Christians, Nature being weak
While in this world, are liable to leak."
And William Wordsworth showed that he could do it if he really tried when
describing a pond:
"I've measured it from side to side;
Tis three feet long and two feet wide."
-- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
%
The young lady had an unusual list,
Linked in part to a structural weakness.
She set no preconditions.
%
The, uh, snowy mountains are like really cold, eh?
And the, um, plains stretch out like my moms girdle, eh?
There's lotsa beers and doughnuts for everyone, eh?
So the last one to be peaceful and everything is a big idiot,
Eh?
So shut yer face up and dry yer mucklucks by the fire, eh?
And dream about girls with their high beams on, eh?
They may be cold, but that's okay! Beer's better that way!
Eh?
-- A, like, Tribute to the Great White North, eh?
Beauty!
%
Then here's to the City of Boston,
The town of the cries and the groans.
Where the Cabots can't see the Kabotschniks,
And the Lowells won't speak to the Cohns.
-- Franklin Pierce Adams
%
There are bad times just around the corner,
There are dark clouds hurtling through the sky
And it's no good whining
About a silver lining
For we know from experience that they won't roll by...
-- Noel Coward
%
There are places I'll remember
All my life though some have changed.
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain.
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends I still recall.
Some are dead and some are living,
In my life I've loved them all.
But of all these friends and lovers,
There is no one compared with you,
All these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new.
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before,
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I'll love you more.
-- Lennon/McCartney, "In My Life", 1965
%
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
-- Robert W. Service
%
There is in certain living souls
A quality of loneliness unspeakable,
So great it must be shared
As company is shared by lesser beings.
Such a loneliness is mine; so know by this
That in immensity
There is one lonelier than you.
%
There is no point in waiting.
The train stopped running years ago.
All the schedules, the brochures,
The bright-colored posters full of lies,
Promise rides to a distant country
That no longer exists.
%
There is something in the pang of change
More than the heart can bear,
Unhappiness remembering happiness.
-- Euripides
%
There once was a Sailor who looked through a glass
And spied a fair mermaid with scales on her... island.
Where seagulls flew over their nest.
She combed the long hair which hung over her... shoulders.
And caused her to tickle and itch.
The sailor cried out "There's a beautiful... mermaid.
A sittin' out there on the rocks."
The crew came a running, all grabbing their... glasses.
And crowded four deep to the rail.
All eager to share in this fine piece of... news.
...
"Throw out a line and we'll lasso her... flippers.
And soon we will certainly find
If mermaids are better before or be... brave
My dear fellows," The captain cried out.
And cursing with spleen.
This song may be dull, but it's certainly clean.
-- Oscar Brand, "A Clean Song"
%
There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good, she was very, very good
And when she was bad, she was very, very popular.
-- Max Miller, "The Max Miller Blue Book"
%
There's a lesson that I need to remember
When everything is falling apart
In life, just like in loving
There's such a thing as trying to hard
You've gotta sing
Like you don't need the money
Love like you'll never get hurt
You've gotta dance
Like nobody's watching
It's gotta come from the heart
If you want it to work.
-- Kathy Mattea
%
There's a thrill in store for all for we're about to toast
The corporation that we represent.
We're here to cheer each pioneer and also proudly boast,
Of that man of men our sterling president
The name of T. J. Watson means
A courage none can stem
And we feel honored to be here to toast the IBM.
-- Ever Onward, from the 1940 IBM Songbook
%
There's amnesia in a hangknot,
And comfort in the ax,
But the simple way of poison will make your nerves relax.
There's surcease in a gunshot,
And sleep that comes from racks,
But a handy draft of poison avoids the harshest tax.
You find rest on the hot squat,
Or gas can give you pax,
But the closest corner chemist has peace in packaged stacks.
There's refuge in the church lot
When you tire of facing facts,
And the smoothest route is poison prescribed by kindly quacks.
Chorus: With an *ugh!* and a groan, and a kick of the heels,
Death comes quiet, or it comes with squeals --
But the pleasantest place to find your end
Is a cup of cheer from the hand of a friend.
-- Jubal Harshaw, "One For The Road"
%
There's little in taking or giving,
There's little in water or wine:
This living, this living, this living,
Was never a project of mine.
Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is
The gain of the one at the top,
For art is a form of catharsis,
And love is a permanent flop,
And work is the province of cattle,
And rest's for a clam in a shell,
So I'm thinking of throwing the battle --
Would you kindly direct me to hell?
-- Dorothy Parker
%
They told me you had proven it When they discovered our results
About a month before. Their hair began to curl
The proof was valid, more or less Instead of understanding it
But rather less than more. We'd run the thing through PRL.
He sent them word that we would try Don't tell a soul about all this
To pass where they had failed For it must ever be
And after we were done, to them A secret, kept from all the rest
The new proof would be mailed. Between yourself and me.
My notion was to start again
Ignoring all they'd done
We quickly turned it into code
To see if it would run.
%
They went rushing down that freeway,
Messed around and got lost.
They didn't care... they were just dying to get off,
And it was life in the fast lane.
-- Eagles, "Life in the Fast Lane"
%
They wouldn't listen to the fact that I was a genius,
The man said "We got all that we can use",
So I've got those steadily-depressin', low-down, mind-messin',
Working-at-the-car-wash blues.
-- Jim Croce
%
Thinks't thou existence doth depend on time?
It doth; but actions are our epochs; mine
Have made my days and nights imperishable,
Endless, and all alike, as sands on the shore,
Innumerable atoms; and one desert,
Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break,
But nothing rests, save carcasses and wrecks,
Rocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitterness.
%
"Thirty days hath Septober,
April, June, and no wonder.
all the rest have peanut butter
except my father who wears red suspenders."
%
Thirty white horses on a red hill,
First they champ,
Then they stamp,
Then they stand still.
-- Tolkien
%
This ae nighte, this ae nighte,
Everye nighte and alle,
Fire and sleet and candlelyte,
And Christe receive thy saule.
-- The Lykewake Dirge
%
This here's the wattle,
The emblem of our land.
You can stick it in a bottle;
You can hold it in your hand.
Amen!
-- Monty Python
%
This is for all ill-treated fellows
Unborn and unbegot,
For them to read when they're in trouble
And I am not.
-- A. E. Housman
%
This is the story of the bee
Whose sex is very hard to see
You cannot tell the he from the she
But she can tell, and so can he
The little bee is never still
She has no time to take the pill
And that is why, in times like these
There are so many sons of bees.
%
This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
Not with a bang but with a whimper.
-- T. S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men"
%
This land is my land, and only my land,
I've got a shotgun, and you ain't got one,
If you don't get off, I'll blow your head off,
This land is private property.
-- Apologies to Woody Guthrie
%
This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down.
%
Those who sweat in flames of hell, Leaden eared, some thought their bowels
Here's the reason that they fell: Lispeth forth the sweetest vowels.
While on earth they prayed in SAS, These they offered up in praise
PL/1, or other crass, Thinking all this fetid haze
Vulgar tongue. A rapsody sung.
Some the lord did sorely try Jabber of the mindless horde
Assembling all their pleas in hex. Sequel next did mock the lord
Speech as crabbed as devil's crable Slothful sequel so enfangled
Hex that marked on Tower Babel Its speaker's lips became entangled
The highest rung. In his bung.
Because in life they prayed so ill
And offered god such swinish swill
Now they sweat in flames of hell
Sweat from lack of APL
Sweat dung!
%
Though I respect that a lot
I'd be fired if that were my job
After killing Jason off and
Countless screaming argonauts
Bluebird of friendliness
Like guardian angels it's
Always near
Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch
Who watches over you
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
Not to put too fine a point on it
Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
-- "Birdhouse in your Soul", They Might Be Giants
%
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien, "The Lord of the Rings"
%
Throw away documentation and manuals,
and users will be a hundred times happier.
Throw away privileges and quotas,
and users will do the Right Thing.
Throw away proprietary and site licenses,
and there won't be any pirating.
If these three aren't enough,
just stay at your home directory
and let all processes take their course.
%
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine And then one day you find
Staying home to watch the rain Ten years have got behind you
You are young and life is long No one told you when to run
And there is time to kill today You missed the starting gun
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter Hanging on in quiet desperation
is the English way
Never seem to find the time The time is gone, the song is over
Plans that either come to nought Thought I'd something more to say...
Or half a page of scribbled lines
-- Pink Floyd, "Time"
%
Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, "Why, why, why?"
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.
-- The Books of Bokonon
%
Tim and I a hunting went
We found three damsels in a tent,
As they were three, and we were two,
I bucked one and Timbuktu.
-- the only known poem using the word "Timbuktu"
%
Time goes, you say?
Ah no!
Time stays, *we* go.
-- Austin Dobson
%
Time washes clean
Love's wounds unseen.
That's what someone told me;
But I don't know what it means.
-- Linda Ronstadt, "Long Long Time"
%
'Tis the dream of each programmer,
Before his life is done,
To write three lines of APL,
And make the damn things run.
%
To A Quick Young Fox
Why jog exquisite bulk, fond crazy vamp,
Daft buxom jonquil, zephyr's gawky vice?
Guy fed by work, quiz Jove's xanthic lamp--
Zow! Qualms by deja vu gyp fox-kin thrice.
-- Lazy Dog
%
to be nobody but yourself in a world
which is doing its best night and day
to make you like everybody else
means to fight the hardest battle
any human being can fight and
never stop fighting.
-- e.e. cummings
%
To code the impossible code, This is my quest --
To bring up a virgin machine, To debug that code,
To pop out of endless recursion, No matter how hopeless,
To grok what appears on the screen, No matter the load,
To write those routines
To right the unrightable bug, Without question or pause,
To endlessly twiddle and thrash, To be willing to hack FORTRAN IV
To mount the unmountable magtape, For a heavenly cause.
To stop the unstoppable crash! And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest,
And the queue will be better for this, That my code will run CUSPy and calm,
That one man, scorned and When it's put to the test.
destined to lose,
Still strove with his last allocation
To scrap the unscrappable kludge!
-- To "The Impossible Dream", from Man of La Mancha
%
To err is human,
To purr feline.
-- Robert Byrne
%
To err is human, to purr feline.
To err is human, two curs canine.
To err is human, to moo bovine.
%
To everything there is a season, a time for every pupose under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to gain, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war, and a time of peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-9
%
To stand and be still,
At the Birkenhead drill,
Is a damned tough bullet to chew.
-- Rudyard Kipling
%
To whom the mornings are like nights,
What must the midnights be!
-- Emily Dickinson (on hacking?)
%
To write a sonnet you must ruthlessly
strip down your words to naked, willing flesh.
Then bind them to a metaphor or three,
and take by force a satisfying mesh.
Arrange them to your will, each foot in place.
You are the master here, and they the slaves.
Now whip them to maintain a constant pace
and rhythm as they stand in even staves.
A word that strikes no pleasure? Cast it out!
What use are words that drive not to the heart?
A lazy phrase? Discard it, shrug off doubt,
and choose more docile words to take its part.
A well-trained sonnet lives to entertain,
by making love directly to the brain.
%
Tobacco is a filthy weed,
That from the devil does proceed;
It drains your purse, it burns your clothes,
And makes a chimney of your nose.
-- B. Waterhouse
%
Too cool to calypso,
Too tough to tango,
Too weird to watusi
-- The Only Ones
%
Troll sat alone on his seat of stone,
And munched and mumbled a bare old bone;
For many a year he had gnawed it near,
For meat was hard to come by.
Done by! Gum by!
In a cave in the hills he dwelt alone,
And meat was hard to come by.
Up came Tom with his big boots on.
Said he to Troll: "Pray, what is youn?
For it looks like the shin o' my nuncle Tim,
As should be a-lyin in graveyard.
Caveyard! Paveyard!
This many a year has Tim been gone,
And I thought he were lyin' in graveyard."
"My lad," said Troll, "this bone I stole.
But what be bones that lie in a hole?
Thy nuncle was dead as a lump o' lead,
Afore I found his shinbone.
Tinbone! Thinbone!
He can spare a share for a poor old troll
For he don't need his shinbone."
Said Tom: "I don't see why the likes o' thee
Without axin' leave should go makin' free
With the shank or the shin o' my father's kin;
So hand the old bone over!
Rover! Trover!
Though dead he be, it belongs to he;
So hand the old bnone over!"
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
Try not.
Do.
Or do not.
There is no try.
%
"Twas bergen and the eirie road
Did mahwah into patterson: "Beware the Hopatcong, my son!
All jersey were the ocean groves, The teeth that bite, the nails
And the red bank bayonne. that claw!
Beware the bound brook bird, and shun
He took his belmar blade in hand: The kearney communipaw."
Long time the folsom foe he sought
Till rested he by a bayway tree And, as in nutley thought he stood,
And stood a while in thought. The Hopatcong with eyes of flame,
Came whippany through the englewood,
One, two, one, two, and through And garfield as it came.
and through
The belmar blade went hackensack! "And hast thou slain the Hopatcong?
He left it dead and with it's head Come to my arms, my perth amboy!
He went weehawken back. Hohokus day! Soho! Rahway!"
He caldwell in his joy.
Did mahwah into patterson:
All jersey were the ocean groves,
And the red bank bayonne.
-- Paul Kieffer
%
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. "Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
All mimsy were the borogroves The jaws that bite, the claws
And the mome raths outgrabe. that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird,
He took his vorpal sword in hand And shun the frumious Bandersnatch!"
Long time the manxome foe he sought.
So rested he by the tumtum tree And as in uffish thought he stood
And stood awhile in thought. The Jabberwock, with eyes aflame
Came whuffling through the tulgey wood
One! Two! One! Two! And through and And burbled as it came!
through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack. "Hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
He left it dead, and took its head, Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
And went galumphing back. Oh frabjous day! Calooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogroves
And the mome raths outgrabe.
-- Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky"
%
'Twas bullig, and the slithy brokers
Did buy and gamble in the craze "Beware the Jabberstock, my son!
All rosy were the Dow Jones stokers The cost that bites, the worth
By market's wrath unphased. that falls!
Beware the Econ'mist's word, and shun
He took his forecast sword in hand: The spurious Street o' Walls!"
Long time the Boesk'some foe he sought -
Sake's liquidity, so d'vested he, And as in bearish thought he stood
And stood awhile in thought. The Jabberstock, with clothes of tweed,
Came waffling with the truth too good,
Chip Black! Chip Blue! And through And yuppied great with greed!
and through
The forecast blade went snicker-snack! "And hast thou slain the Jabberstock?
It bit the dirt, and with its shirt, Come to my firm, V.P.ish boy!
He went rebounding back. O big bucks day! Moolah! Good Play!"
He bought him a Mercedes Toy.
'Twas panic, and the slithy brokers
Did gyre and tumble in the Crash
All flimsy were the Dow Jones stokers
And mammon's wrath them bash!
-- Peter Stucki, "Jabberstocky"
%
Twas FORTRAN as the doloop goes
Did logzerneg the ifthen block
All kludgy were the function flows
And subroutines adhoc.
Beware the runtime-bug my friend
squrooneg, the false goto
Beware the infiniteloop
And shun the inprectoo.
-- "OUTCONERR," to the scheme of "Jabberwocky"
%
'Twas midnight on the ocean, Her children all were orphans,
Not a streetcar was in sight, Except one a tiny tot,
So I stepped into a cigar store Who had a home across the way
To ask them for a light. Above a vacant lot.
The man behind the counter As I gazed through the oaken door
Was a woman, old and gray, A whale went drifting by,
Who used to peddle doughnuts Its six legs hanging in the air,
On the road to Mandalay. So I kissed her goodbye.
She said "Good morning, stranger", This story has a morale
Her eyes were dry with tears, As you can plainly see,
As she put her head between her feet Don't mix your gin with whiskey
And stood that way for years. On the deep and dark blue sea.
-- Midnight On The Ocean
%
'Twas midnight, and the UNIX hacks
Did gyre and gimble in their cave
All mimsy was the CS-VAX
And Cory raths outgrabe.
"Beware the software rot, my son!
The faults that bite, the jobs that thrash!
Beware the broken pipe, and shun
The frumious system crash!"
%
'Twas the night before crisis, and all through the house,
Not a program was working not even a browse.
The programmers were wrung out too mindless to care,
Knowing chances of cutover hadn't a prayer.
The users were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of inquiries danced in their heads.
When out in the lobby there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my tube to see what was the matter.
And what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a Super Programmer, oblivious to fear.
More rapid than eagles, his programs they came,
And he whistled and shouted and called them by name;
On Update! On Add! On Inquiry! On Delete!
On Batch Jobs! On Closing! On Functions Complete!
His eyes were glazed over, his fingers were lean,
From Weekends and nights in front of a screen.
A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread...
-- "Twas the Night before Crisis"
%
'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period
preceding the annual Yuletide celebration, And
throughout our place of residence,
Kinetic activity was not in evidence among the
possessors of this potential, including that
species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus.
Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward
edge of the woodburning caloric apparatus,
Pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an
imminent visitation from an eccentric
philanthropist among whose folkloric appelations
is the honorific title of St. Nicklaus ...
%
Twenty two thousand days.
Twenty two thousand days.
It's not a lot.
It's all you've got.
Twenty two thousand days.
-- Moody Blues, "Twenty Two Thousand Days"
%
Two men looked out from the prison bars,
One saw mud--
The other saw stars.
Now let me get this right: two prisoners are looking out the window.
While one of them was looking at all the mud -- the other one got hit
in the head.
%
Tyger, Tyger, burning bright Where the hammer? Where the chain?
In the forests of the night, In what furnace was thy brain?
What immortal hand or eye What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
Burnt in distant deeps or skies When the stars threw down their spears
The cruel fire of thine eyes? And water'd heaven with their tears
On what wings dare he aspire? Dare he laugh his work to see?
What the hand dare seize the fire? Dare he who made the lamb make thee?
And what shoulder & what art Tyger, Tyger, burning bright
Could twist the sinews of they heart? In the forests of the night,
And when thy heart began to beat What immortal hand or eye
What dread hand & what dread feet Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Could fetch it from the furnace deep
And in thy horrid ribs dare steep
In the well of sanguine woe?
In what clay & in what mould
Were thy eyes of fury roll'd?
-- William Blake, "The Tyger"
%
U: There's a U -- a Unicorn!
Run right up and rub its horn.
Look at all those points you're losing!
UMBER HULKS are so confusing.
-- The Roguelet's ABC
%
Under the wide and heavy VAX
Dig my grave and let me relax
Long have I lived, and many my hacks
And I lay me down with a will.
These be the words that tell the way:
"Here he lies who piped 64K,
Brought down the machine for nearly a day,
And Rogue playing to an awful standstill."
%
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig my grave and let me lie,
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And laid me down with a will,
And this be the verse that you grave for me,
Here he lies where he longed to be,
Home is the sailor home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
-- Robert Loius Stevenson, "Requiem"
%
Up against the net, redneck mother,
Mother who has raised your son so well;
He's seventeen and hackin' on a Macintosh,
Flaming spelling errors and raisin' hell...
%
Upon the hearth the fire is red,
Beneath the roof there is a bed;
But not yet weary are our feet,
Still round the corner we may meet
A sudden tree or standing stone
That none have seen but we alone. Still round the corner there may wait
Tree and flower and leaf and grass, A new road or a secret gate,
Let them pass! Let them pass! And though we pass them by today
Hill and water under sky, Tomorrow we may come this way
Pass them by! Pass them by! And take the hidden paths that run
Towards the Moon or to the Sun,
Home is behind, the world ahead, Apple, thorn, and nut and sloe,
And there are many paths to tread Let them go! Let them go!
Through shadows to the edge of night, Sand and stone and pool and dell,
Until the stars are all alight. Fare you well! Fare you well!
Then world behind and home ahead,
We'll wander back to home and bed.
Mist and twilight, cloud and shade,
Away shall fade! Away shall fade!
Fire and lamp, and meat and bread,
And then to bed! And then to bed!
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
Voiceless it cries,
Wingless flutters,
Toothless bites,
Mouthless mutters.
%
Volcanoes have a grandeur that is grim
And earthquakes only terrify the dolts,
And to him who's scientific
There is nothing that's terrific
In the pattern of a flight of thunderbolts!
-- W. S. Gilbert, "The Mikado"
%
Wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us.
-- R. Burns
%
Wake now my merry lads! Wake and hear me calling!
Warm now be heart and limb! The cold stone is fallen;
Dark door is standing wide; dead hand is broken.
Night under Night is flown, and the Gate is open!
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
%
Wake up all you citizens, hear your country's call,
Not to arms and violence, But peace for one and all.
Crush out hate and prejudice, fear and greed and sin,
Help bring back her dignity, restore her faith again.
Work hard for a common cause, don't let our country fall.
Make her proud and strong again, democracy for all.
Yes, make our country strong again, keep our flag unfurled.
Make our country well again, respected by the world.
Make her whole and beautiful, work from sun to sun.
Stand tall and labor side by side, because there's so much to be done.
Yes, make her whole and beautiful, united strong and free,
Wake up, all you citizens, It's up to you and me.
-- Pansy Myers Schroeder
%
Wanna tell you all a story 'bout a man named Jed,
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed.
But then one day he was shootin' at some food,
When up through the ground come a bubblin' crude -- oil, that is;
black gold; 'Texas tea' ...
Well the next thing ya know, old Jed's a millionaire.
The kinfolk said, 'Jed, move away from there!'
They said, 'Californy is the place ya oughta be',
So they loaded up the truck and they moved to Beverly -- Hills, that is;
swimmin' pools; movie stars.
%
Was there a time when dancers with their fiddles
In children's circuses could stay their troubles?
There was a time they could cry over books,
But time has set its maggot on their track.
Under the arc of the sky they are unsafe.
What's never known is safest in this life.
Under the skysigns they who have no arms
Have cleanest hands, and, as the heartless ghost
Alone's unhurt, so the blind man sees best.
-- Dylan Thomas, "Was There A Time"
%
Watching girls go passing by
It ain't the latest thing
I'm just standing in a doorway
I'm just trying to make some sense
Out of these girls passing by A smile relieves the heart that grieves
The tales they tell of men Remember what I said
I'm not waiting on a lady I'm not waiting on a lady
I'm just waiting on a friend I'm just waiting on a friend
...
Don't need a whore
Don't need no booze
Don't need a virgin priest Ooh, making love and breaking hearts
But I need someone I can cry to It is a game for youth
I need someone to protect But I'm not waiting on a lady
I'm just waiting on a friend
I'm just waiting on a friend
-- Rolling Stones, "Waiting on a Friend"
%
We don't need no education, we don't need no thought control.
-- Pink Floyd
%
We don't need no indirection We don't need no compilation
We don't need no flow control We don't need no load control
No data typing or declarations No link edit for external bindings
Hey! did you leave the lists alone? Hey! did you leave that source alone?
Chorus: (Chorus)
Oh No. It's just a pure LISP function call.
We don't need no side-effecting We don't need no allocation
We don't need no flow control We don't need no special-nodes
No global variables for execution No dark bit-flipping for debugging
Hey! did you leave the args alone? Hey! did you leave those bits alone?
(Chorus) (Chorus)
-- "Another Glitch in the Call", a la Pink Floyd
%
We gotta get out of this place,
If it's the last thing we ever do.
-- The Animals
%
we will invent new lullabies, new songs, new acts of love,
we will cry over things we used to laugh &
our new wisdom will bring tears to eyes of gentle
creatures from other planets who were afraid of us till then &
in the end a summer with wild winds &
new friends will be.
%
We wish you a Hare Krishna
We wish you a Hare Krishna
We wish you a Hare Krishna
And a Sun Myung Moon!
-- Maxwell Smart
%
We're happy little Vegemites,
As bright as bright can be.
We all all enjoy our Vegemite
For breakfast, lunch and tea.
%
We're Knights of the Round Table
We dance whene'er we're able
We do routines and chorus scenes We're knights of the Round Table
With footwork impeccable Our shows are formidable
We dine well here in Camelot But many times
We eat ham and jam and Spam a lot. We're given rhymes
That are quite unsingable
In war we're tough and able, We're opera mad in Camelot
Quite indefatigable We sing from the diaphragm a lot.
Between our quests
We sequin vests
And impersonate Clark Gable
It's a busy life in Camelot.
I have to push the pram a lot.
-- Monty Python
%
We've tried each spinning space mote
And reckoned its true worth:
Take us back again to the homes of men
On the cool, green hills of Earth.
The arching sky is calling
Spacemen back to their trade.
All hands! Standby! Free falling!
And the lights below us fade.
Out ride the sons of Terra,
Far drives the thundering jet,
Up leaps the race of Earthmen,
Out, far, and onward yet--
We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on the fleecy skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth.
-- Robert A. Heinlein, 1941
%
Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends!
We're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside!
There behind the glass there's a real blade of grass,
Be careful as you pass, move along, move along.
Come inside, the show's about to start,
Guaranteed to blow your head apart.
Rest assured, you'll get your money's worth,
Greatest show, in heaven, hell or earth!
You gotta see the show! It's a dynamo!
You gotta see the show! It's rock 'n' roll!
-- ELP, "Karn Evil 9" (1st Impression, Part 2)
%
Well I looked at my watch and it said a quarter to five,
The headline screamed that I was still alive,
I couldn't understand it, I thought I died last night.
I dreamed I'd been in a border town,
In a little cantina that the boys had found,
I was desperate to dance, just to dig the local sounds.
When along came a senorita,
She looked so good that I had to meet her,
I was ready to approach her with my English charm,
When her brass knuckled boyfriend grabbed me by the arm,
And he said, grow some funk of your own, amigo,
Grow some funk of your own.
We no like to with the gringo fight,
But there might be a death in Mexico tonite.
...
Take my advice, take the next flight,
And grow some funk, grow your funk at home.
-- Elton John, "Grow Some Funk of Your Own"
%
Well, fancy giving money to the Government!
Might as well have put it down the drain.
Fancy giving money to the Government!
Nobody will see the stuff again.
Well, they've no idea what money's for --
Ten to one they'll start another war.
I've heard a lot of silly things, but, Lor'!
Fancy giving money to the Government!
-- A. P. Herbert
%
Well, I don't know where they come from but they sure do come,
I hope they comin' for me!
And I don't know how they do it but they sure do it good,
I hope they doin' it for free!
They give me cat scratch fever... cat scratch fever!
First time that I got it I was just ten years old,
Got it from the kitty next door...
I went to see the doctor and he gave me the cure,
I think I got it some more!
Got a bad scratch fever...
-- Ted Nugent, "Cat Scratch Fever"
%
Well, my daddy left home when I was three,
And he didn't leave much for Ma and me,
Just and old guitar an'a empty bottle of booze.
Now I don't blame him 'cause he ran and hid,
But the meanest thing that he ever did,
Was before he left he went and named me Sue.
...
But I made me a vow to the moon and the stars,
I'd search the honkey tonks and the bars,
And kill the man that give me that awful name.
It was Gatlinburg in mid-July,
I'd just hit town and my throat was dry,
Thought I'd stop and have myself a brew,
At an old saloon on a street of mud,
Sitting at a table, dealing stud,
Sat that dirty (bleep) that named me Sue.
...
Now, I knew that snake was my own sweet Dad,
From a wornout picture that my Mother had,
And I knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye...
-- Johnny Cash, "A Boy Named Sue"
%
Well, my terminal's locked up, and I ain't got any Mail,
And I can't recall the last time that my program didn't fail;
I've got stacks in my structs, I've got arrays in my queues,
I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues.
If you think that it's nice that you get what you C,
Then go : illogical statement with your whole family,
'Cause the Supreme Court ain't the only place with : Bus error views.
I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues.
On a PDP-11, life should be a breeze,
But with VAXen in the house even magnetic tapes would freeze.
Now you might think that unlike VAXen I'd know who I abuse,
I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues.
-- Core Dumped Blues
%
Well, some take delight in the carriages a-rolling,
And some take delight in the hurling and the bowling,
But I take delight in the juice of the barley,
And courting pretty fair maids in the morning bright and early.
%
Well, we're big rock singers, we've got golden fingers,
And we're loved everywhere we go.
We sing about beauty, and we sing about truth,
At ten thousand dollars a show.
We take all kind of pills to give us all kind of thrills,
But the thrill we've never known,
Is the thrill that'll get'cha, when you get your picture,
On the cover of the Rolling Stone.
I got a freaky old lady, name of Cole King Katie,
Who embroiders on my jeans.
I got my poor old gray-haired daddy,
Drivin' my limousine.
Now it's all designed, to blow our minds,
But our minds won't be really be blown;
Like the blow that'll get'cha, when you get your picture,
On the cover of the Rolling Stone.
We got a lot of little, teen-aged, blue-eyed groupies,
Who'll do anything we say.
We got a genuine Indian guru, that's teachin' us a better way.
We got all the friends that money can buy,
So we never have to be alone.
And we keep gettin' richer, but we can't get our picture,
On the cover of the Rolling Stone.
-- Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show
[As a note, they eventually DID make the cover of RS. Ed.]
%
What awful irony is this?
We are as gods, but know it not.
%
What did ya do with your burden and your cross?
Did you carry it yourself or did you cry?
You and I know that a burden and a cross,
Can only be carried on one man's back.
-- Louden Wainwright III
%
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore --
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over --
Like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
Like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
-- Langston Hughes
%
What has roots as nobody sees,
Is taller than trees,
Up, up it goes,
And yet never grows?
%
What pains others pleasures me,
At home am I in Lisp or C;
There i couch in ecstasy,
'Til debugger's poke i flee,
Into kernel memory.
In system space, system space, there shall i fare--
Inside of a VAX on a silicon square.
%
What segment's this, that, laid to rest
On FHA0, is sleeping?
What system file, lay here a while This, this is "acct.run,"
While hackers around it were weeping? Accounting file for everyone.
Dump, dump it and type it out,
The file, the highseg of login.
Why lies it here, on public disk
And why is it now unprotected?
A bug in incant, made it thus. Mount, mount all your DECtapes now
And copy the file somehow, somehow. The problem has not been corrected.
Dump, dump it and type it out,
The file, the highseg of login.
-- to Greensleeves
%
What we Are is God's gift to us.
What we Become is our gift to God.
%
What with chromodynamics and electroweak too
Our Standardized Model should please even you,
Tho' once you did say that of charm there was none
It took courage to switch as to say Earth moves not Sun.
Yet your state of the union penultimate large
Is the last known haunt of the Fractional Charge,
And as you surf in the hot tub with sourdough roll
Please ponder the passing of your sole Monopole.
Your Olympics were fun, you should bring them all back
For transsexual tennis or Anamalon Track,
But Hollywood movies remain sinfully crude
Whether seen on the telly or Remotely Viewed.
Now fasten your sunbelts, for you've done it once more,
You said it in Leipzig of the thing we adore,
That you've built an incredible crystalline sphere
Whose German attendants spread trembling and fear
Of the death of our theory by Particle Zeta
Which I'll bet is not there say your article, later.
-- Sheldon Glashow, Physics Today, December, 1984
%
What's love but a second-hand emotion?
-- Tina Turner
%
What, still alive at twenty-two,
A clean upstanding chap like you?
Sure, if your throat 'tis hard to slit,
Slit your girl's, and swing for it.
Like enough, you won't be glad,
When they come to hang you, lad:
But bacon's not the only thing
That's cured by hanging from a string.
So, when the spilt ink of the night
Spreads o'er the blotting pad of light,
Lads whose job is still to do
Shall whet their knives, and think of you.
-- Hugh Kingsmill
%
When a lion meets another with a louder roar,
the first lion thinks the last a bore.
-- G. B. Shaw
%
When I think about myself,
I almost laugh myself to death,
My life has been one great big joke, Sixty years in these folks' world
A dance that's walked The child I works for calls me girl
A song that's spoke, I say "Yes ma'am" for working's sake.
I laugh so hard I almost choke Too proud to bend
When I think about myself. Too poor to break,
I laugh until my stomach ache,
When I think about myself.
My folks can make me split my side,
I laughed so hard I nearly died,
The tales they tell, sound just like lying,
They grow the fruit,
But eat the rind,
I laugh until I start to crying,
When I think about my folks.
-- Maya Angelou
%
When in panic, fear and doubt,
Drink in barrels, eat, and shout.
%
When in this world the headlines read
Of those whose hearts are filled with greed
Who rob and steal from those who need
The cry goes up with blinding speed for Underdog (UNDERDOG!)
Underdog (UNDERDOG!)
Speed of lightning, roar of thunder
Fighting all who rob or plunder
Underdog (ah-ah-ah-ah)
Underdog
UNDERDOG!
%
When in trouble or in doubt,
run in circles, scream and shout.
%
When license fees are too high,
users do things by hand.
When the management is too intrusive,
users lose their spirit.
Hack for the user's benefit.
Trust them; leave them alone.
%
When love is gone, there's always justice.
And when justice is gone, there's always force.
And when force is gone, there's always Mom.
Hi, Mom!
-- Laurie Anderson
%
When my fist clenches crack it open,
Before I use it and lose my cool.
When I smile tell me some bad news,
Before I laugh and act like a fool.
And if I swallow anything evil,
Put you finger down my throat.
And if I shiver please give me a blanket,
Keep me warm let me wear your coat
No one knows what it's like to be the bad man,
to be the sad man.
Behind blue eyes.
No one knows what its like to be hated,
to be fated,
To telling only lies.
-- The Who
%
When oxygen Tech played Hydrogen U.
The Game had just begun, when Hydrogen scored two fast points
And Oxygen still had none
Then Oxygen scored a single goal
And thus it did remain, At Hydrogen 2 and Oxygen 1
Called because of rain.
%
When someone makes a move We'll send them all we've got,
Of which we don't approve, John Wayne and Randolph Scott,
Who is it that always intervenes? Remember those exciting fighting scenes?
U.N. and O.A.S., To the shores of Tripoli,
They have their place, I guess, But not to Mississippoli,
But first, send the Marines! What do we do? We send the Marines!
For might makes right, Members of the corps
And till they've seen the light, All hate the thought of war:
They've got to be protected, They'd rather kill them off by
peaceful means.
All their rights respected, Stop calling it aggression--
Till somebody we like can be elected. We hate that expression!
We only want the world to know
That we support the status quo;
They love us everywhere we go,
So when in doubt, send the Marines!
-- Tom Lehrer, "Send The Marines"
%
When the Guru administers, the users
are hardly aware that he exists.
Next best is a sysop who is loved.
Next, one who is feared.
And worst, one who is despised.
If you don't trust the users,
you make them untrustworthy.
The Guru doesn't talk, he hacks.
When his work is done,
the users say, "Amazing:
we implemented it, all by ourselves!"
%
When the leaders speak of peace
The common folk know
That war is coming
When the leaders curse war
The mobilization order is already written out.
Every day, to earn my daily bread
I go to the market where lies are bought
Hopefully
I take my place among the sellers.
-- Bertolt Brecht, "Hollywood"
%
When users see one GUI as beautiful,
other user interfaces become ugly.
When users see some programs as winners,
other programs become lossage.
Pointers and NULLs reference each other.
High level and assembler depend on each other.
Double and float cast to each other.
High-endian and low-endian define each other.
While and until follow each other.
Therefore the Guru
programs without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Warnings arise and he lets them come;
processes are swapped and he lets them go.
He has but doesn't possess,
acts but doesn't expect.
When his work is done, he deletes it.
That is why it lasts forever.
%
When you and I are far apart
Can sorrow break your tender heart?
I love you darling, yes I do;
Sleep is so sweet when I dream of you;
All you are is a blossoming rose.
Night is here so I must close.
With care read the first word of each line.
You will find a question of mine.
-- Yours hopefully, The VAX.
%
When you find yourself in danger,
When you're threatened by a stranger,
When it looks like you will take a lickin'...
There is one thing you should learn,
When there is no one else to turn to,
Caaaall for Super Chicken!! (**bwuck-bwuck-bwuck-bwuck**)
Caaaall for Super Chicken!!
%
When you get what you want in your struggle for self
And the world makes you king for a day,
Just go to a mirror and look at yourself
And see what that man has to say.
For it isn't your father or mother or wife
Whose judgement upon you must pass;
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the one staring back from the glass.
Some people may think you a straight-shootin' chum
And call you a wonderful guy,
But the man in the glass says you're only a bum
If you can't look him straight in the eye.
He's the fellow to please, never mind all the rest,
For he's with you clear up to the end,
And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test
If the man in the glass is your friend.
You may fool the whole world down the pathway of life
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But your final reward will be heartaches and tears
If you've cheated the man in the glass.
%
When you meet a master swordsman,
show him your sword.
When you meet a man who is not a poet,
do not show him your poem.
-- Rinzai, ninth century Zen master
%
When you overesteem great hackers,
more users become cretins.
When you develop encryption,
more users become crackers.
The Guru leads
by emptying user's minds
and increasing their quotas,
by weakening their ambition
and toughening their resolve.
When users lack knowledge and desire,
management will not try to interfere.
Practice not-looping,
and everything will fall into place.
%
When you're a Yup
You're a Yup all the way
From your first slice of Brie
To your last Cabernet.
When you're a Yup
You're not just a dreamer
You're making things happen
You're driving a Beamer.
%
When you're away, I'm restless, lonely,
Wretched, bored, dejected; only
Here's the rub, my darling dear
I feel the same when you are near.
-- Samuel Hoffenstein, "When You're Away"
%
Whenever Richard Cory went downtown,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean-favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good morning," and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich -- yes, richer than a king --
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
-- E. A. Robinson, "Richard Cory"
%
WHERE CAN THE MATTER BE
Oh, dear, where can the matter be
When it's converted to energy?
There is a slight loss of parity.
Johnny's so long at the fair.
%
Where's the man could ease a heart
Like a satin gown?
-- Dorothy Parker, "The Satin Dress"
%
Where, oh, where, are you tonight?
Why did you leave me here all alone?
I searched the world over, and I thought I'd found true love.
You met another, and *PPHHHLLLBBBBTTT*, you wuz gone.
Gloom, despair and agony on me.
Deep dark depression, excessive misery.
If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.
Oh, gloom, despair and agony on me.
-- Hee Haw
%
Whether weary or unweary, O man, do not rest,
Do not cease your single-handed struggle.
Go on, do not rest.
-- An old Gujarati hymn
%
Whether you can hear it or not,
The Universe is laughing behind your back.
-- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
%
While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things,
The fate of empires and the fall of kings;
While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
The Rights of Woman merit some attention.
-- Robert Burns, Address on "The Rights of Woman", 26/10 1792
%
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
-- Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven"
[Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when
referring to hardware interrupts.]
And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine.
-- William Wordsworth, "She Was a Phantom of Delight"
[Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when
referring to software interrupts.]
%
While walking down a crowded
City street the other day,
I heard a little urchin
To a comrade turn and say,
"Say, Chimmey, lemme tell youse,
I'd be happy as a clam
If only I was de feller dat
Me mudder t'inks I am.
"She t'inks I am a wonder, My friends, be yours a life of toil
An' she knows her little lad Or undiluted joy,
Could never mix wit' nuttin' You can learn a wholesome lesson
Dat was ugly, mean or bad. From that small, untutored boy.
Oh, lot o' times I sit and t'ink Don't aim to be an earthly saint
How nice, 'twould be, gee whiz! With eyes fixed on a star:
If a feller was de feller Just try to be the fellow that
Dat his mudder t'inks he is." Your mother thinks you are.
-- Will S. Adkin, "If I Only Was the Fellow"
%
Whip it, baby.
Whip it right.
Whip it, baby.
Whip it all night!
%
Who does not love wine, women, and song,
Remains a fool his whole life long.
-- Johann Heinrich Voss
%
Who loves not wisely but too well
Will look on Helen's face in hell,
But he whose love is thin and wise
Will view John Knox in Paradise.
-- Dorothy Parker
%
Who made the world I cannot tell;
'Tis made, and here am I in hell.
My hand, though now my knuckles bleed,
I never soiled with such a deed.
-- A. E. Housman
%
Who to himself is law no law doth need,
offends no law, and is a king indeed.
-- George Chapman
%
Why are you watching
The washing machine?
I love entertainment
So long as it's clean.
Professor Doberman:
While the preceding poem is unarguably a change from the guarded
pessimism of "The Hound of Heaven," it cannot be regarded as an unqualified
improvement. Obscurity is of value only when it tends to clarify the poetic
experience. As much as one is compelled to admire the poem's technique, one
must question whether its byplay of complex literary allusions does not in
fact distract from the unity of the whole. In the final analysis, one
receives the distinct impression that the poem's length could safely have
been reduced by a factor of eight or ten without sacrificing any of its
meaning. It is to be hoped that further publication of this poem can be
suspended pending a thorough investigation of its potential subversive
implications.
%
With/Without - and who'll deny it's what the fighting's all about?
-- Pink Floyd
%
Woke up this mornin' an' I had myself a beer,
Yeah, Ah woke up this mornin' an' I had myself a beer
The future's uncertain and the end is always near.
-- Jim Morrison, "Roadhouse Blues"
%
Woke up this morning, don't believe what I saw.
Hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore.
Seems I'm not alone in being alone.
Hundred billion castaways looking for a call.
-- The Police, "Message in a Bottle"
%
Yea from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records.
-- Hamlet
%
Yes me, I got a bottle in front of me.
And Jimmy has a frontal lobotomy.
Just different ways to kill the pain the same.
But I'd rather have a bottle in front of me,
Than to have to have a frontal lobotomy.
I might be drunk but at least I'm not insane.
-- Randy Ansley M.D. (Dr. Rock)
%
Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today --
I think he's from the CIA.
%
"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
"All your papers these days look the same;
Those William's would be better unread --
Do these facts never fill you with shame?"
"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
"I wrote wonderful papers galore;
But the great reputation I found that I'd won,
Made it pointless to think any more."
%
"You are old, father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head --
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"
"In my youth," father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."
"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door --
Pray what is the reason of that?"
"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
"I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment -- one shilling the box --
Allow me to sell you a couple?"
%
"You are old," said the youth, "and I'm told by my peers
That your lectures bore people to death.
Yet you talk at one hundred conventions per year --
Don't you think that you should save your breath?"
"I have answered three questions and that is enough,"
Said his father, "Don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!"
%
"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak --
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"
"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."
"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose --
What made you so awfully clever?"
"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!"
%
"You are old," said the youth, "and your programs don't run,
And there isn't one language you like;
Yet of useful suggestions for help you have none --
Have you thought about taking a hike?"
"Since I never write programs," his father replied,
"Every language looks equally bad;
Yet the people keep paying to read all my books
And don't realize that they've been had."
%
"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
And make errors few people could bear;
You complain about everyone's English but yours --
Do you really think this is quite fair?"
"I make lots of mistakes," Father William declared,
"But my stature these days is so great
That no critic can hurt me -- I've got them all scared,
And to stop me it's now far too late."
%
You can grovel with a lover, you can grovel with a friend,
You can grovel with your boss, and it never has to end.
(chorus) Grovel, grovel, grovel, every night and every day,
Grovel, grovel, grovel, in your own peculiar way.
You can grovel in a hallway, you can grovel in a park,
You can grovel in an alley with a mugger after dark.
(chorus)
You can grovel with your uncle, you can grovel with your aunt,
You can grovel with your Apple, even though you say you can't.
(chorus)
%
You go down to the pickup station,
craving warmth and beauty;
You settle for less than fascination --
a few drinks later you're not so choosy.
And the closing lights strip off the shadows
on this strange new flesh you've found --
Clutching the night to you like a fig leaf
you hurry to the blackness
and the blankets to lay down an impression
and your loneliness.
-- Joni Mitchell
%
You got to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues,
And you know it don't come easy ...
I don't ask for much, I only want trust,
And you know it don't come easy ...
%
You know my heart keeps tellin' me,
You're not a kid at thirty-three,
You play around you lose your wife,
You play too long, you lose your life.
Some gotta win, some gotta lose,
Goodtime Charlie's got the blues.
%
You may be right, I may be crazy,
But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for!
-- Billy Joel
%
You will find me drinking gin
In the lowest kind of inn,
Because I am a rigid Vegetarian.
-- G. K. Chesterton
%
You'll always be,
What you always were,
Which has nothing to do with,
All to do, with her.
-- Company
%
Your wise men don't know how it feels
To be thick as a brick.
-- Jethro Tull, "Thick As A Brick"
%
Your worship is your furnaces
which, like old idols, lost obscenes,
have molten bowels; your vision is
machines for making more machines.
-- Gordon Bottomley, 1874
%
Yours is not to reason why,
Just to Sail Away.
And when you find you have to throw
Your Legacy away;
Remember life as was it is,
And is as it were;
Chasing sounds across the galaxy
'Till silence is but a blur.
-- QYX.
%
We found you hiding
We found you lying
Choking on the dirt and sand.
Your former glories
And all the stories
Dragged and washed with eager hands.
-- ``Cities in Dust'', "Tinderbox", Siouxsie & the Banshees.
%
|