Max's Cool Beans
Monk fish croon their soothing songs of snooze...
Clive Maxfield
10/16/2012 10:05 AM EDT
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear... I feel a challenge coming on. This was triggered by my recent blog Yet still the dog doth grunt and snore…
As you may recall, I was visualizing a Discworld-esque scene that takes place in the wee hours of the morning (see also my Got Discworld? blog). In particular, I was envisaging a furtive figure making his way down an alleyway and tapping on a door. Then a flap in the door opens and the following exchange takes place between the doorkeeper and the furtive figure:
Furtive Figure: "A gibbous moon hangs pendulously in the sky..."
Doorkeeper: "Monk fish croon their soothing songs of snooze..."
Furtive Figure: "Yet still the dog doth grunt and snore..."
Well, the first comment to this blog was from Brian, who spake as follows:
Furtive Figure: "Yet still the P&R doth route evermore…"
As soon as I saw this I thought to myself "Now, there's a challenge if ever I saw one!" So, now I'm wondering who can come up with the best lines. These could be related to programmable devices and/or microcontrollers and/or their design tools and methodologies. For example, I will start the ball rolling with the following humble offering:
Doorkeeper: "The error log portends a day of woe..."
But we don’t need to restrain ourselves only to technology. I must admit that I was rather taken by my own "...croon their soothing songs of snooze..." line, so let's leave the door flung wide open and admit anything that "goes with the flow" as it were.
So... are you up to the challenge?
If you found this article to be of interest, visit Programmable Logic Designline where – in addition to my Max's Cool Beans blogs – you will find the latest and greatest design, technology, product, and news articles with regard to programmable logic devices of every flavor and size (FPGAs, CPLDs, CSSPs, PSoCs...).
Also, you can obtain a highlights update delivered directly to your inbox by signing up for my weekly newsletter – just Click Here to request this newsletter using the Manage Newsletters tab (if you aren't already a member you'll be asked to register, but it's free and painless so don't let that stop you [grin]).
As you may recall, I was visualizing a Discworld-esque scene that takes place in the wee hours of the morning (see also my Got Discworld? blog). In particular, I was envisaging a furtive figure making his way down an alleyway and tapping on a door. Then a flap in the door opens and the following exchange takes place between the doorkeeper and the furtive figure:
Furtive Figure: "A gibbous moon hangs pendulously in the sky..."
Doorkeeper: "Monk fish croon their soothing songs of snooze..."
Furtive Figure: "Yet still the dog doth grunt and snore..."
Well, the first comment to this blog was from Brian, who spake as follows:
Furtive Figure: "Yet still the P&R doth route evermore…"
As soon as I saw this I thought to myself "Now, there's a challenge if ever I saw one!" So, now I'm wondering who can come up with the best lines. These could be related to programmable devices and/or microcontrollers and/or their design tools and methodologies. For example, I will start the ball rolling with the following humble offering:
Doorkeeper: "The error log portends a day of woe..."
But we don’t need to restrain ourselves only to technology. I must admit that I was rather taken by my own "...croon their soothing songs of snooze..." line, so let's leave the door flung wide open and admit anything that "goes with the flow" as it were.
So... are you up to the challenge?
If you found this article to be of interest, visit Programmable Logic Designline where – in addition to my Max's Cool Beans blogs – you will find the latest and greatest design, technology, product, and news articles with regard to programmable logic devices of every flavor and size (FPGAs, CPLDs, CSSPs, PSoCs...).
Also, you can obtain a highlights update delivered directly to your inbox by signing up for my weekly newsletter – just Click Here to request this newsletter using the Manage Newsletters tab (if you aren't already a member you'll be asked to register, but it's free and painless so don't let that stop you [grin]).
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Max the Magnificent
10/16/2012 12:06 PM EDT
Furtive Figure: "The system speaks in tongues unknown to me..."
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Max the Magnificent
10/16/2012 12:20 PM EDT
Doorkeeper: "Your wife's countenance bodes not well for thee..."
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Max the Magnificent
10/17/2012 4:08 PM EDT
I wish I'd said "Thy wife's..."
That would have sounded better...
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Max the Magnificent
10/16/2012 12:20 PM EDT
Furtive Figure: "That man Dilbert knows a thing or three..."
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David Ashton
10/16/2012 6:10 PM EDT
Doorkeper: "The moving printhead writes, and having writ, moves on...."
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Max the Magnificent
10/16/2012 6:18 PM EDT
LOL (but "Doorkeper"? :-)
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David Ashton
10/16/2012 8:35 PM EDT
Rats...refer to previous comments about proofreading.. always needs one more read...
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Brian_D
10/16/2012 9:27 PM EDT
" Now, there's a challenge if ever I saw one!
Intended not as a challenge, but merely
a ruse to divert your laser-like focus away
from the Mirrored Ball of Shiny Things for
a few picoseconds...
" Yet still the P&R doth route evermore
A monosyllabic "PAR" hearkens more closely to
the mellifluous metre of your original prose.
Place and Route (PAR), as brought to us by
NeoCAD, which still lives on as 'par.exe' in
the current Xilinx and Lattice FPGA software:
"PAR: Place And Route Diamond_1.4_Production (87).
"Copyright (c) 1991-1994 by NeoCAD Inc. All rights reserved.
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Max the Magnificent
10/17/2012 9:37 AM EDT
I love "Mirrored Ball of Shiny Things" .. .surely you can work that into a line...
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Brian_D
10/16/2012 10:09 PM EDT
With a few minor edits, let us hijack the envisioned scene as an engineering status meeting, deep in the heart of Ankh-Morpork's technology district, on the eve of a product shipment deadline:
Furtive Figure: "A gibbous moon hangs pendulously in the sky..."
Doorkeeper: "Sails the bitstream with the morning tide..."
Furtive Figure: "The error log portends a day of woe..."
Doorkeeper: "Monk fish croon their soothing songs of SDC..."
Furtive Figure: "Yet still the PAR doth route evermore."
Alternate lines:
"Marketing prattles of product peril..."
"Constraints weave their wary web of closure..."
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Max the Magnificent
10/17/2012 9:38 AM EDT
LOL LOL LOL
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vapats
10/17/2012 9:03 AM EDT
Are you looking for Shakespeare, or Lewis Carrol-esque Jabberwocky? :-)
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Max the Magnificent
10/17/2012 9:38 AM EDT
Give me both!!!
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vapats
10/18/2012 8:25 AM EDT
How about some haiku?
(not mine; they're all cribbed)
Windows XP crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
Seeing my great fault
Through darkening blue windows
I begin again
Errors have occurred.
They won't tell you where or why;
Lazy programmers.
Login incorrect.
Only perfect spellers may
enter this system.
wind catches lily
scatt'ring petals to the wind:
segmentation fault
First snow, then silence.
This thousand dollar screen dies
so beautifully.
The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao, until
You bring fresh toner.
Yesterday it worked
Today it is not working
Windows is like that
To have no errors
Would be life without meaning
No struggle, no joy
You step in the stream,
but the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
Hal, open the file
Hal, open the damn file, Hal
open the file, please Hal
The ten thousand things
How long do any persist?
Netscape, too, has gone.
Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.
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Max the Magnificent
10/18/2012 9:19 AM EDT
I can no longer hear the word Haiku without thinking of "Spam Haiku"
http://www.kbeamer.com/spam_haiku.html
For example...
Blue can of steel
what promise do you hold?
salt flesh so ripe
My friend pork shoulder
I return to you. this time
I've brought mayonnaise
And who dares mock Spam?
you? you? you are not worthy
of one rich pink fleck
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MarvA
10/18/2012 11:24 AM EDT
How about a twist on the more conventional meter?
"Faces are red.
Screens are blue.
Windows sucks,
but what else can we do?"
I know, I know. Linux et all, but try to introduce that into my household.
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Max the Magnificent
10/18/2012 11:28 AM EDT
Roses are Red,
Violets are Blue,
Some Poems Rhyme,
But this one doesn't :-)
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antedeluvian
10/18/2012 9:27 AM EDT
Doorkeeper: "Colourless green ideas sleep furiously."
(Actually a quote from Noam Chomsky as discussed in "The Violinist's Thumb" by Sam Kean.)
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Max the Magnificent
10/18/2012 9:42 AM EDT
"The Violinist's Thumb" is sitting on the shelf behind me crying out to be read ... it's the next one on my list after I've finished reading the current batch :-)
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antedeluvian
10/19/2012 12:31 PM EDT
I'm reading it because you mentioned it some time back.
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Max the Magnificent
10/19/2012 12:34 PM EDT
If it's anything like as good as "The Disappearing Spoon" by the same author then it will be brilliant -- I can't wait to read it myself -- I just have too much on my plate at the moment...
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WKetel
10/27/2012 7:07 PM EDT
My favorite line to append to a description of something unpleasant to do is " not nearly as much fun as it sounds like", as in "emergency drain snaking at 10:30 PM on Saturday evening is not nearly as much fun as it sounds like". Or "Rushing the child to the hospital emergency room is not nearly as much fun as it sounds like". It also can be attached to many descriptions of tasks assigned by a pointy haired boss similar to the "Dilbert" model.
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Max the Magnificent
10/29/2012 11:11 AM EDT
LOL
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