Twas the Geek Before Christmas
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the shop,
The computers were whirring; they never did stop.
The power was on and the temperature right,
In hopes that AI would surface that night.
The system was ready, the program was coded,
The backups and files had been carefully loaded;
An inadvertent Christmasy glow to the scene,
The lights on the console, flashed red, white and green.
Out in the hall there arose such a clatter,
The coder ran to see what was the matter.
Away down the hallway he flew like a flash,
Forgetting his keyfob in his curious dash.
He stood in the hallway and looked all about,
When the door slammed behind him, and he was locked out.
In the computer room what should appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer;
A little old man, with scarcely a pause,
Chuckled: “My name is Santa…last name Claus.”
The computer was whirred, scanning the name,
Then it bleeped as it heard the old fellow exclaim:
“This is Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen,
And Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen.”
With all these odd names, it was searching anew;
It hummed and clicked; the sub-queries grew.
It spawned new threads, trying to “think”;
Then the T1 connection went out on the blink.
Unable to parse electronic job,
It intoned in a voice most unlike a sob:
“Your eyes - how they twinkle - your dimples so merry,
Your cheeks so like roses, your nose like a cherry?
“Your smile - all these things, I’ve been programmed to know,
And at data-recall, I am more than so-so;
But your name and your address (computers can’t lie),
Are things that I just cannot identify.
“You’ve a jolly old face and a little round belly,
That shakes when you laugh like a bowlful of jelly;
My cameras can see you, but still I insist,
Since you’re not in my program, you cannot exist!”
Old Santa just chuckled a merry “ho, ho”,
And sat down to type out a quick word or so.
The keyboard clack-clattered, its sound sharp and clean,
As Santa fed this reply to the machine:
“Kids everywhere know me; I come every year;
The presents I bring add to everyone’s cheer;
But you won’t get anything - that’s plain to see;
Too bad your programmers forgot about me.”
Then he faced the machine and said with a shrug,
“Merry Christmas to All,” as he pulled out its plug!
Paraphrased from the piece found on the hotrod forums. Author unknown.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and thank each and every one of you for reading Militant Geek this year. Back to our regularly scheduled sarcasm tomorrow.
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