Once upon a work day dreary, while I sat quite bored and weary,
over many a quaint and curious volume of technical chore,
whilst I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
as of gentle cyber rapping, rapping at my office door,
”Tis my boss’, I muttered, ‘tapping at my office door -
only this and nothing more’.

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the cold December,
and each separate blinking pixel wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished for ‘morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow,
from the webs a relief of sorrow, sorrow for the mounting chore -
For the ware and care of never ending systems to endure -
Nameless here forevermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of a solo person
thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
so that now, without remission I arose and stood repeating
’tis my boss harassing, perhaps just passing by my office door,
some late visit, possibly inquisit at my office door,
This it is and nothing more’.

Presently my soul grew stronger, fearing interruption no longer,
‘Sir’ said I, ‘or madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
but the fact is I was mapping and so gently you came rapping,
very faintly you were tapping, tapping at my office door.
Darkness there and nothing more.

Deep down the hallway peering, long I stood quite oddly fearing,
doubting, dreaming dreams no nerd ever dared to dream before;
but the silence was unbroken, and the hallway gave no token,
And there was no word there spoken only darkness and the floor,
Merely this and nothing more.

Back to my desk now turning, all my soul within me burning,
soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
‘Surely’ said I, ‘the janitor must be cleaning this office floor’
Let me see then what there is to see, this office I must explore.
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore.
‘Tis the janitor and nothing more!’

Open here I flung the door, and reams of paper scattered
into the hallway flattered as if someone had adore,
perhaps a shot of coffee, something warm and frothy
a mug of the hot elixir, will my sanity restore.
Is it boredom, nothing more?

Now with my coffee steaming I returned to the office beaming
for there was no noisy rapping, no unfamiliar tapping,
tapping at my office door. Again I gazed with focus,
authoring my hokus-pokus when a wind blew open the door,
stirring papers tattered as they settle to the floor.
God damned wind! Nothing more.

Much I marveled now as I shouted to the wall,
‘might as well start with water, perhaps something a bit hotter
why don’t you light a fire if you seek to end the bore’
And then another tapping, an incessant gangly rapping now much louder than before
It was quite a trouncing, a truly noisy pouncing upon my office door.
I’ve gone mad. Nothing more.

T’was the night before Tuesday, and all through the house
not a creature was stirring, except for this mouse.
It wasn’t the furry little creature beware
but the clickable scroll wheeled thing right down there.

The admin was nestled all snug and well fed
while visions of data transfers danced in his head.
Wrapped up in a snuggie and wearing a cap
he’d just signed off for a quick kind of nap.

When out on the nets there arose such a clatter
he sprang to login and see what was the matter.
Into the server he flew using flash
to check the event log for reasons of crash.

His face glinting dim with monitors glow
the appearance of sleep deprivation did show.
When what to his watering eyes should appear
but a server elf fixing the things he held dear.

With little elf hands and a tiny mouse click
I knew in a moment that would do the trick.
More rapid than eagles his patches they came
and he whistled and shouted and called them by name.

On Windows, on Linux, and Mac now just listen
I’m the server elf here to make your web presence glisten.
From open source to closed, I’ll download a haul
and update, update, update them all!

Of the people, by the people?
Which people?
Collect the information,
inhale it. Consume it. Know IT.
It is neither write nor wrong,
to know.

If you picked a side…

you lost.

She travels with me on vacations and business trips alike, we spend foggy nights in London, locked in embrace. We share daiquiri’s as the sun sets over sandy beaches. My constant companion, my love, my porn star. When we’re apart I long for her, to see her lips, her hips, her inviting eyes. She’s there after work, waiting for me to return. We spend lazy Sunday’s in bed, together, dreaming about the future. Should we have kids? How many? What will we name them and which sports will they play. Baseball I say. She agrees, repeatedly…emphatically.

She has no idea who I am of course. We’ve never met, my love and I, and we never will. I’m in love with a porn star.

Knowing Elves, we think…

An Elf can be a wonderful friend. An Elf will fix your shoes while you sleep, but they’ll also steal a sock. Not both socks, that might go unnoticed. But when you only have 1 of 2 socks that always gets your attention. Really Elves are just attention starved little Vin Diesel wannabes who crave the bright lights of the big stage, unfortunately when an Elf is on the big stage its hard to see them regardless of how bright the lights are because they’re so damn small.

It’s odd how Elves work (and even odder that they seem to be needlessly nocturnal and mischievous). An Elf is a very short creature, which can be disconcerting to the overly height conscious. They generally mean no harm to the vertically gifted, but we despise and are suspicious of them all the same. An Elf can bake a delicious cookie and a crispy cracker but an Elf cannot change your oil. You may suspect this is because they cannot reach the oil pan under your car but this is not true. In fact they can reach and are quite strong for their size but they have an inexplicable fear of fossil based lubricants. Leading scientists believe this is either because they are descendant from dinosaurs or simply because they are completely insane.

The most important thing to know is that an Elf cannot be trusted. They will say they are leading you to gold, or bringing you a cheeseburger but really they are not. DO NOT BE MISLEAD.

Anytime an Elf offers some gift be sure to get it in writing and have is signed in Elf blood, because an Elf is really just a grifter in a midget’s midget body (imagine a midget calling something else a midget and there you have a dirty grifter Elf). At very least the bloody signature could be used to conjure some DNA replica of the Elf that could be used against it in the Ultimate Elf Fighting Championship. It’s also important to realize that the US courts cannot try or convict an Elf because they do not exist. That was all just a figment of your imagination. Your shoes are still broken dummy, and your sock is stuck behind the dryer.

Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it?

<Quoted from an episode of “The Simpsons”>

<Where Homer poses the question to Auto the bus driver>

The question is moot. Jesus would have no idea how to use a microwave.

<Not quoted from any known prior broadcast or printing> 

Could Chuck Norris microwave a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it? 

Never…

You’re saying Chuck Norris can’t make something infinitely hot? Because I think he could.

No he can, and does microwave infinitely hot burritos.  He also eats them.

So Chuck Norris could gnaw on the sun and spit out neutrinos?

I suppose he could if he decided to.  You see nothing hurts Chuck, his chest hair & dead skin & tears cure cancer, influenza, black plague, and rashes.  A wink from Chuck Norris would not only cause a woman to faint but to die and be reborn instantly.

Do you think that Hadron collider is a feeble attempt to move a proton so fast it could out run Chuck Norris?

I think it’s trying to make a Chuck Norris slash Unicorn super being….but that’s just me.

Wow.  That’s a pretty outrageous claim.  I was under the impression that Unicorns are make-believe…Chuck Norris is real.

Yeah yeah yeah.

So could a Unicorn use a magical microwave to heat a make-believe burrito so hot that it could not eat it?

No a unicorn would never touch a microwave.  I’m pretty sure when those got invented all the unicorns in the world died.  At least that’s what my pastor said.  Regardless, Unicorns eat sunshine not burritos. 

You’re dodging the question Senator.

If it was a make-believe pink sparkly microwave that produced sunshine rays & happy baby giggles then yes the Unicorn could eat it.

Do you mean to imply that the Unicorn would eat the microwave and the burrito?

No, just that the Unicorn would only use a make-believe pink sparkly microwave to heat the burrito with sunshine rays and baby giggles and of course, that the Unicorn could then eat that burrito.

Well I said it was a magical microwave, I assumed that would imply pink spakliness.  But for arguments sake we can assume that the burrito was stuffed full of refried beans, sunshine, jalapeño and baby giggles.

Yes the unicorn can eat that burrito.

Even at extreme Unicorn singeing temperatures that this make-believe pink sparkly sunshine ray and baby giggle enabled microwave could produce?

Yes.

So we must conclude that both unicorns (non-existent as they may be) and Chuck Norris are both superior to Jesus in their ability to endure extreme temperatures (or conversely that Jesus is not able to use a microwave very well).

<Sarcastic cough>

Yes, I think that is correct.

So all that remains is an objective microwave usage test for each of the three – if my hypothesis is correct both the Unicorn and Chuck Norris should score notably higher than Jesus due to their being a) known to be alive during an era in human history when microwaves were available for use or b) able to create or acquire make-believe kitchen appliances as in the case of the Unicorn. 

We can then have each of them consume the burrito and measure their response using a standardized ‘pain’ (or magical equivalent) scale to rate the relative hotness of the burrito.  Correlating that data with the microwave usage test scores should provide a definitive conclusion: 

“…We must conclude that while there is no relationship demonstrated between a beings’ ability to consume immeasurably hot burritos and ones ability to effectively (perhaps even masterfully?) operate a microwave, both Chuck Norris and the Unicorn perform better on both scales and so must be found to be superior to Jesus in regard to the inquiry “Could ‘x’ microwave a burrito so hot that ‘x’ itself could not eat it?”.