Version 1.0

Original lyrics are copyright © 2024 by Jerry James. All other lyrics are covered by their original copyrights. I have attempted to identify the copyright holders and the effective dates of the copyrights, as noted below. If my information is incorrect, please let me know and I will fix the attributions.

I do not grant permission to redistribute the contents of this page. When people start passing this kind of thing around via email, some schmuck invariably decides to “improve” the content. (That’s what happened to Gene Ziegler’s poem, “A Grandchild’s Guide to Using Grandpa’s Computer”.) Also, I’m a software developer. That means that anything I write is liable to be updated to a later version some day. So if you want to share any of this content, just pass around the URL, not the actual content. That way everybody gets to see the latest version, and I don’t have to track down somebody who ruined my work in the name of improving it.

You can send me suggestions for improvements and additions if you like, but if your suggestion consists of more than a few words, I won’t be able to use it. Otherwise, we’d wind up with multiple copyright holders, and I just don’t want to deal with that. Sorry.

Contents

  1. Ode

Ode to an Operating System I Found on a Flash Drive in the Parking Lot One Midsummer Morning

I drove to work this sunny morn,
With steering wheel and beeping horn,
And when I parked my car, see here!
A red flash drive was lying near.

I scooped it up and went inside
To see if I could stem the tide
Of bug reports and RFEs
That soon will rise above my knees.

This flash drive, though, what should I do?
Does it belong to me, or who?
Finders keepers, turn it in?
Or maybe I'll just plug it in!

I popped it into my machine
And saw a light start flashing green.
Before I knew it, on my screen
I saw a logo, mighty keen!

It was an f all curlicued.
I checked: it is quite well reviewed.
I can browse the web, read my mail
And pipe stuff that I cat through tail.

For music it's got vlc.
For splitting streams it still has tee.
Old gimp is here for graphics fun,
And networking? It's got a tun.

This great OS is my new love,
So I think I will give a shove
To MiniSquish, my former flame.
Bye bye MS! Ain't that a shame?

I see your faces. They forbode
Dismay at calling this an ode.
But there's no call to rant or cuss;
It's certainly ode-iferous.