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Poetry Cornered

Another Fine Homemade Parachute Page, Crafted With Love

Margaret

Do you remember punch cards stacked on a college desk
Do you remember print outs stacked up so very statuesque
Do you remember the compiler in the basement lab
Do you remember I thought it was four spaces not a tab

By the way didn't I fix that bug?
Please excuse me, I really meant to fix that bug
So sorry, I really meant to fix that bug
Cause you fixed mine

Margaret is it too soon to say it’s working
And Margaret should we get it to complete once again?
I just can't go on pretending I got it the first time you explained

Read the rest — Aug 31, 2017 in Poetry Cornered

’Twas the Night Before Canada Day

'Twas the night before Canada Day, when all through the igloo
Not a hoser was stirring, not even for a brew-
Ski;
The snowshoes were hung by the outhouse with care,
In hopes that @jdalrymple soon would be there;

The mooselings were nestled all snug in their holes;
With visions of grizzly bears dancing on some po—
Wait, that was me…
And mamma in her goalie helmet, and I in my Rush shirt,
Had just finished a two-four, we weren't feelin' any hurt,

When out on the snow there arose such a fuss,
I sprang from my hammock, hockey hair all a-mussed,
And what to my wandering eye did appear,
But a giant toboggan pulled by eight cans of beer,

Read the rest — Jun 30, 2014 in Poetry Cornered

2114

I. Overture
"And the licensed shall inherit the earth."


II. Radio of iTunes
We've taken care of everything
The tunes you hear
The Boards you Spring
The pictures that give (App Store reviewer approved) pleasure
To your eye
All for one, yes—All. For. One.
Curate together
Average ratings
Never need to wonder
How or why

Read the rest — Jun 2, 2014 in Poetry Cornered

Apache Server

Well they screwed up the back end dev in the repo last night now they screwed up his workflow too
Down in the conference room they're gettin' ready for a fight gonna see what them JavaScript boys can do

Now there's trouble bustin' in from outta RESTful states and the P.M. can't get no relief
Gonna be a rumble out on the foosball deck and the QA lead's hangin' on by the skin of her teeth

Everything times out, baby, that's a fact
But maybe everything that times out someday comes back
Switch your caching on fix your CSS with fervor and push it tonight to the Apache server

Read the rest — Nov 22, 2013 in Poetry Cornered

Working on the Weekend

Everyone’s watchin’ to see if you can ship,
Everyone’s waitin’ for you, Oh shi—…
Everyone’s wonderin’ did you catch all the “lorem ipsum”
Cos everyone’s worried, you’re gonna make ’em look dumb, look dumb…

Everybody’s workin’ on the weekend
Cos somebody forgot to test IE
Hey yeah…!
Everybody’s goin' off the deep end
Everybody needs some extra pants, Oh

Read the rest — Oct 23, 2013 in Poetry Cornered

Working on the Weekend

Everyone's watching to see which bugs you fix
Everyone's looking at the queue, oh woe…
Everyone's wondering will you deploy tonight
Everyone's trying to launch it right, launch it right

Everybody's working on the weekend
Everybody’s wearing their unwashed pants
Everybody's long gone off the deep end
Everybody’s forking a second branch, oh woe…

Read the rest — Sep 22, 2013 in Poetry Cornered

Cachin’

Cachin’ Cachin’ Cachin’

Keep testin’, testin’, testin’,
Doritos we are ingestin’,
Keep them templates testin’
Drupaaaaaaaal!
Don’t try to understand it,
Just try, catch, var_dump it
When you wrote this had you glue sniffed?
Man, this function’s regurgitatin’
But some booze will be a-waitin’,
A-waiting at the end of my shift.

Read the rest — Jun 22, 2013 in Poetry Cornered

Square Icons

Square icons go on every screen
Square icons are the boss
Square icons on the shiny OS
Square icons got no gloss
Square icons are the latest thing
Square icons take the cake
Square icons gonna be everywhere
Square icons got nothing fake

Sometimes pushing beziers around
Sometimes pulling out the rug
Sometimes pushing all the buttons
Sometimes looking oh so smug
It's the power and the glory
Getting kicked out of paradise
It's a cinderella story
They no longer look like dice

Read the rest — Jun 10, 2013 in Poetry Cornered

The Spirit of WWDC

Begin the keynote
With a friendly voice,
A CEO, unobtrusive
Shows those sales figures, so elusive
And the payment total makes your morning mood

Off on your way
Hit the afternoon sessions,
There is magic at your fingers
For the notifications ever linger,
Demanding contact 
In your earbudded solitude.

Read the rest — Jun 10, 2013 in Poetry Cornered

Skeuomorphic Man

He's a Limey and a lover
His hardware's turning green
He's a middle-aged romantic
Wants to run the big machine

He's got a problem with his linens
But you know he'll find a cure
He's cleaning up his systems
To keep his icons pure

Learning to match the beat of the Windows Phone man
Learning to catch the heat of the BlackBerry man

Read the rest — Jun 6, 2013 in Poetry Cornered

Tim Cook

A supply chain warrior
Lean mean stride,
Today's Tim Cook's
Got a mean stock slide.
Though his software's not for rent,
Don't put him down as arrogant.
His reserve, a quiet defense,
Riding out the market's events.
The market…

What you say about his company
Is what you say about society.
-Catch the MacBook -Catch the iPad
-Catch the iPhone -Wait, it's just a fad!
The world is, the world is,
Dumptrucks full of cash are deep,
Maybe as his arms are wide.

Read the rest — Jun 6, 2013 in Poetry Cornered

Burnaby-Lougheed

Sprawling on the fringes of the GVA
In geometric mandate
An insulated candidate
In between the bright lights
And the far unlit electorate

Campaigning it all seems so one-sided
Resumes all provided
The future pre-decided
Detached and subdivided
In the Translink fare paid zone
Nowhere is the voter
Or the other voter
Or the other voter
Or the other voter
Or the other voter so alone

Read the rest — May 28, 2013 in Poetry Cornered

Adobe Creative Cloud

Better rifle through your wallet,
Dontcha be too proud,
Cos you’re all gonna subscribe,
To the ’Dobe Creative Cloud!

Gonna get real used
To the Updater interface,
Which app’ll finish first?
It’s a marathon, not a race!

Read the rest — May 6, 2013 in Poetry Cornered

WordPress Blues

@petethedude’s nerves are fraying,
This code’s gonna get a trebucheting,
When no one wins, ev’ryone’ll lose,
He’s got the Wordpress Blues

Settings don’t stick,
(Paid) theme don’t work.
Time to cut some cruft,
Look out! He’s reaching for his dirk!

Read the rest — Apr 8, 2013 in Poetry Cornered

Adobe Updater Blues

Get on your knees, you lowly supplicator,
Prepare to run the Adobe App Updater,
Better make a little prayer, better leave a little offering,
Say, got yer soul handy? Time for a proffering.

Is that a lousy rhyme? You’ll find a better one,
Lots of time left ’fore the first download is done,
Now you know what they say, a watched pot never—
Whoops! Timeout error,  it’s a futile endeavour!

Read the rest — Mar 19, 2013 in Poetry Cornered

WordPress Blues

Well I stepped in some shit,
With holes in my shoes,
An’ I didn’t even care,
Cos I got the Wordpress Blues.

My dog up and croaked,
But mister, there’s worse news,
It stripped out all my <p> tags,
Lord, spare me the Wordpress Blues.

Read the rest — February, 2013 in Poetry Cornered

Internet Explorer Blues

Internet Explorer,
You're making my head sorer,
From all the damage to my layout
That you do…

Internet Explorer,
I tremble at the horror,
That z-planing looks like something
I stepped in with my shoe…

Internet Explorer,
That's output from a corn-borer,
I hit the refresh a hundred,
A thousand times…

Read the rest — December, 2012 in Poetry Cornered

WordPress Blues

Aw, screw you, WordPress
I did not need this duress
Just upload my goddamned file
That beach ball's been spinning for more than a while.

Jeez, it looks like you got stuck
And I was just about to—FUCK!
Why are you inserting that tag?
Working with you's like bathing in a quag-
Mire. This is dire.

Read the rest — October, 2012 in Poetry Cornered

WordPress Blues

Ah got me the WordPress Blues, yes ah do, yes ah do…
Cos I woke up this morning, an’ I entered some code…

…But when I saw what you’d done, things did not well bode
You chopped out my <p>, an’ I was too sick to laugh… (that’s a rhyme, foax…)

Read the rest — September, 2012 in Poetry Cornered

A Young Person’s PHP Primer

A is for array,
    with values and keys;
B is for boolean,
    true or false, don’t tease!

C is for constant,
    defined only once;
So you’d better get it right,
    coz D is for dunce.

Read the rest — May, 2012 in Poetry Cornered

Sales Are Off the Charts

(In Tim Cook’s office:)
‘And the man who holds the stock options
Must be the one to start
To injection mould a new reality,
Our sales are off the charts!’

(At RIM World HQ:)
‘The Blackberry and the PlayBook,
Aren’t being added to the carts!
We’re feeling kinda hosed right now,
Our sales are dropping like a dart!’

Read the rest — April, 2012 in Poetry Cornered

Office 2007

Here I sit, sending myself mail;
I pray you, Outlook, please don't fail;
You have no margin, your padding, weak;
I just want a border, am *I* the freak?

The size is wrong, that's much too large;
The CD'll say it looks like a barge;
The leading's off, but that's okay;
You've spited me enough today.

Read the rest — September, 2011 in Poetry Cornered

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Patent Lawsuit

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the fax of the patent lawsuit.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a blog post
In which there are three patent lawsuits.

III
The patent lawsuit whirled in the blogosphere.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
An OS and an OEM
Are one.
An OS and an OEM and a patent lawsuit
Are one.

Read the rest — August, 2011 in Poetry Cornered

I'm Losing My Edge

Yeah, I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge.
The kids are coming up from behind.
I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge to the kids from Twitter and from Google+.
But I was there.
I was there in 1968.
I was there at Doug Englebart's Mother of All Demos.
In San Francisco.
I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge to the kids whose tweets I see when they get on the phones.
I'm losing my edge to the Internet seekers who can tell me every tweet of every good designer from early 2007 to late 2007.
I'm losing my edge to all the kids in 4Chan and Baidu.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Brooklynites with one letter handles and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered baud rates.
But I'm losing my edge.

Read the rest — July, 2011 in Poetry Cornered