I posted the following yesterday on the Turbo IBM blog...for all you technogeeks out there.
T'was the Night Before Xbox
T'was the night before Christmas, and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even my mouse.
The stockings were hung by the ThinkPad with care,
In hopes that Virtual Santa soon would be there.
The children were nestled, all snug in their beds
While visions of MySpace danced in their heads.
And mama with her Razr, me my Treo tap tap,
We'd shut down our browsers for a long winter's nap.
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I fired up Google Maps, to see what was the matter.
Away to my Windows, I flew with a crash,
Tore open the shutters, launched the new rev of Flash.
The Google Moon crescent loomed on the new-fallen snow,
Gave the lustre of mid-day to the oriented objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a virtual sleigh, and eight virtual reindeer.
With my brand new hard drive, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it was Virtual Saint Nick.
More rapid than Ethernet his cursors they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!
"Now iMac, Now, Intel! Now, AMD and Vixen!"
On, Taligent! On, NeXTSTEP, On, on DOS and UNIX File System!
To the top of the monitor, to the LAN mount on the wall!
Control-Alt-Delete, Control-Alt-Delete, Control-Alt-Delete All!"
As pixels and icons that with the reboot must fly,
When they meet a general protection fault, and hang in the sky,
So up to the house-top the cursors they flew,
With the sleigh full of iPods, and Virtual Saint Nicholas, too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof,
The prancing and pawing of each virtual hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
In through my Gmail Saint Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed in Linden fur, from his head to his foot,
His avatar all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of eToys, he had flung on his back,
Looking quite the computer geek, scrolling his nimble mouse trac.
His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose a Blackberry.
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow
The white beard of his chin, controlled by a macro.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
Electric smoke from his head circling like a big wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like an Xbox on the telly!
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, up on that fake e-bookshelf.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know, my fertile imagination misled.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a smirk,
And laying his finger aside that big virtual nose,
He gave up a nod, and up my computer screen he rose!
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like a Halo-launched missile.
But I heard him exclaim, 'ere he bolted out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good Skype!"
Happy Holidays!
Todd "Turbo" Watson
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