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Text File | 1999-06-26 | 2.6 KB | 115 lines | [TEXT/ttxt] |
- The Night Before Machack
- By Raphael Spies
-
- ’Twas the night before Machack,
- And all through the house,
- No electronic was stirring,
- Not even a mouse.
-
- The cables were strung to the modems with care
- In hopes that the hackman soon would be there.
- The iMacs were nestled
- All snug in their places
- While visions of useless hacks
- danced in their cases.
-
- And I in my "Mac-my-day" shirt
- And Andy in his cap,
- Had just settled down for a
- Pre-MacHack nap,
- When out on the lawn
- There arose such a clatter,
- I sprang from my bed
- To see what was the matter.
- Away to the window I flew like a flash,
- Tore open the shutters
- And threw up the sash.
-
- The moon was the color
- Of newfallen snow
- And there in the sky,
- A man in a backhoe,
- With an unshaven face,
- So wan with no tan
- I knew in a moment
- He was the Hackman.
-
- More rapid than Ethernet
- His packets they came,
- And he whistled and shouted
- And called them by name.
-
- Now Appletalk, SCSI,
- DVD, disk,
- On Firewire, on Zip drive,
- On memory and RISC.
-
- Hack through the ports,
- Pierce the firewall,
- Now dash away, dash away,
- Dash away all!
-
- As five dweebs toward new
- blue-and-whites fly,
- their overclocked processors smoke to the sky.
-
- In through the wires
- The packets they flew,
- Filling drives full of games
- And the Hackman too.
-
- And then in a twinkling,
- I heard like a hive,
- The whirring and humming
- Of cable and drive.
- As I drew in my head
- And was turning around,
- Out through the cable Hackman came with a bound.
-
- He was dressed all in rags
- From his head to his toes.
- And his threads were all tarnished
- With Jolt from hack shows.
- A bundle of games
- He had flung on his back
- He looked just like a
- Maccie opening his iMac.
-
- His eyes how they twinkled!
- His dimples, how merry,
- His cheeks were like roses,
- His nose like strawberry.
- His droll little mouth
- Was drawn up like a bow,
- And the beard on his chin
- Had a Bondi blue glow.
- The bottle of soda
- He held tight in his hand,
- And the scent of caffeine was really quite grand.
- He had heavy cheecks
- And a round little head that shook when he laughed like he'd just been fed.
-
- He was skinny and tall and a right jolly young hacker,
- and I laughed when I saw him like dicker and dacker.
- A wink of his eye and
- A twist of his head,
- Soon gave me to know
- I had nothing to dread.
- He spoke not a word
- But went straight to
- His work and filled all
- The stockings then turned
- With a jerk.
-
- And laying his finger
- Aside of his head,
- Giving a nod, through the cable he sped.
- He sprang to his backhoe
- To his team double clicked
- And away they all flew like a boy who had been picked.
-
- But I heard him
- Exclaim as he zoomed
- Out of sight
- "Happy MacHack... to all"
- And to all a long night!"