[ILUG-Social] Millenium Pie

[Shane Dempsey]

Some of you may have seen this before but I 
reckon that its still worth a second look

    ...shane 

> 
 Millennium Pie
 (with apologies to Don McLean)

 A long, long time ago... I can still remember how
 Computers used to make me smile.
 And I knew if I had my chance,
 That I could make electrons dance,
 And maybe I'd be happy for a while.
 But January made me shiver,
 it chilled me deep down in my liver,
 Bad news I'd collected...
 I couldn't get connected.
 I can't remember back that day
 When I first knew the Y2K
 But something touched me anyway,
The day computers died.
 So, ...Bye, bye to the next digit of Pi

 Ran my PC on some DC but the voltage was dry
 And good ol' boys were sending e-mail replies
 Saying this will be the day I retire
 this will be the day I retire

 Can you write in C plus plus ?
 And do you have faith in your local bus If the driver tells 
 you
 so ?
Do you believe in Compaq's goals
 Can software save your mortal soul
And can you teach me how to type real slow ?
Well I thought that you were prepared
 'Cause your memo said you weren't impaired
 Your stationery's swell
 But you can go to hell
I was a lonely teenage Unix hack
 With an incantation and a modem jack
 but I knew the cat had left the sack
 The day computers died
 I started singin'...
 Bye, bye to the next digit of Pi
 Ran my PC on some DC but the voltage was dry
 And good ol' boys were sending e-mail replies
 Saying this will be the day I retire
 this will be the day I retire

 Now for 10 years we've ignored the threat
 And we haven't solved the problem yet
 But that's not how it used to be
When the luddites read for the king and queen
 with a light they filled with kerosene
And some manuals they stole from you and me
And while Bill Gates was looking pleased
 Time stole his monopolies
 The courtroom was adjourned
No verdict was returned
 While Apple tried a color scheme
 The engineers returned to steam
 And we had purges of their dreams
 The day computers died
 We were singin'

 Bye, bye to the next digit of Pi
 Ran my PC on some DC but the voltage was dry
And good ol' boys were sending e-mail replies
Saying this will be the day I retire
this will be the day I retire

 Intel inside in an iron smelter
The food leftover from my fallout shelter
 Twinkies old and aging fast
 I'd rather eat the grass
Q and A tried for a system crash
With the tester on the sidelines in a cast
 Now the timeshare net was running Doom
 While mainframes played a marching tune
 We all tried to log in
 Oh, but we never could begin
'Cause Cobol tried to take the field,
 And Hollerith refused to yield.
 Do you recall what was revealed,
The day computers died?
 We started singing

Bye, bye to the next digit of Pi
 Ran my PC on some DC but the voltage was dry
 And good ol' boys were sending e-mail replies
Saying this will be the day I retire
 this will be the day I retire
 There we were all in a state

A generation- really late
 With no time left to start again
So come on mouse be nimble, mouse be quick
 Don't let my spreadsheet data stick
 Cause data is the devil's only friend.
 As I watched him on my screen
My hands and face were drenched in steam
No angel born in hell
Could run that stupid shell
 And as the ball climbed high into the night
To call the sacrificial night
 I saw Dick Clark laughing with delight
the day computers died.
I met a girl with a cell phone
 And I asked her for a dial tone
 But she just smiled and turned away

 I went down to the software store

 Where I'd seen computers years before
 But the man there said the games there wouldn't play
And in the streets the children screamed
The lovers cried and the poets dreamed
 their interface was spoken
The Internet was broken

And the three things I connect to most
The Website, Lan and the Network host
 Every single one was toast
 The day computers died
 They were singin'

 Bye, bye to the next digit of Pi
 Ran my PC on some DC but the voltage was dry
And good ol' boys were sending e-mail replies
 Saying this will be the day I retire
 this will be the day I retire

--
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Shane Dempsey -         sdempsey at tssg.wit.ie
TSSG Researcher        http://www-tssg.wit.ie
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