Great Poem
From: R. Daniel Braun (rBraun@IUNET.IUPUI.EDU)
Fri Aug 29 20:33:42 1997
I know this is an attachment. It comes from a trusted friend and I think is
virus free. This e-mail manager (Groupwise Office from Novell) will not
forward anything except as an attachment. Sorry
I hope you will enjoy it enough to forgive me.
Dan
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R. Daniel Braun, MD FACOG "Money will buy you a fine dog
Clinical Professor OB/GYN but only love will make it
Indiana University School of Medicine wag its tail"
Indianapolis, IN Richard "Kinky"
OBGYN.net, International Rep. U.S. Friedman
Kinky Friedman for President
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 1997 02:10:00, -0500
From: MRS RUTH B BRACK <JJMG19A@prodigy.com>
To: rbraun@indyunix.iupui.edu
Subject: Funnie
Hey Dan, Thought this might Tickle your Fancy, If you haven't heard it.
A corollary?
[ A modern version of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven"]
Abort, Retry, Ignore?
Once upon a midnight dreary,
fingers cramped and vision bleary,
System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor,
Longing for the warmth of bed sheets,
still I sat there doing spreadsheets.
Having reached the bottom line I took a floppy from the
drawer,
I then invoked the SAVE command and waited for the disk to
store,
Only this and nothing more.
Deep into the monitor peering,
long I sat there wond'ring, fearing,
Doubting, while the disk kept churning, turning yet to churn
some more.
But the silence was unbroken,
and the stillness gave no token.
"Save!" I said, "You cursed mother! Save my data from
before!"
One thing did the phosphors answer, only this and nothing
more,
Just, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
Was this some occult illusion,
some maniacal intrusion?
These were choices undesired, ones I'd never faced before.
Carefully I weighed the choices
as the disk made impish noises.
The cursor flashed, insistent, waiting, baiting me to type
some more.
Clearly I must press a key,choosing one and nothing more,
From "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
With fingers pale and trembling,
slowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored,
Praying for some guarantee,
timidly, I pressed a key.
But on the screen there still persisted words appearing as
before.
Ghastly grim they blinked and taunted, haunted, as my
patience wore,
Saying "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
I tried to catch the chips off guard,
and pressed again, but twice as hard
I pleaded with the cursed machine: I begged and cried and
then I
swore.
Now in mighty desperation,
trying random combinations,
Still there came the incantation, just as senseless as
before.
Cursor blinking, angrily winking, blinking nonsense as
before.
Reading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
There I sat, distraught, exhausted,
by my own machine accosted.
Getting up I turned away and paced across the office floor.
And then I saw a dreadful sight:
a lightning bolt cut through the night.
A gasp of horror overtook me, shook me to my very core.
The lightning zapped my previous data, lost and gone
forevermore.
Not even, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
To this day I do not know
the place to which lost data go.
What demonic nether world is wrought where lost data will
bestored,
Beyond the reach of mortal souls,
beyond the ether, into black holes?
But sure as there's C, Pascal, Lotus, Ashton-Tate and more,
You will one day be left to wander, lost on some Plutonian
shore,
Pleading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
Kenneth B.
JJMG19A@Prodigy.com
