Stay the patient course
Of little worth is your ire
The network is down

-- David Ansel

There is a chasm
of carbon and silicon
the software can't bridge

-- Rahul Sonnad

Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.

-- Peter Rothman

The code was willing,
It considered your request,
But the chips were weak.

-- Barry L. Brumitt

Printer not ready.
Could be a fatal error.
Have a pen handy?

-- Pat Davis

A file that big?
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.

-- David J. Liszewski

ABORTED effort:
Close all that you have.
You ask way too much.

-- Mike Hagler

Yesterday it worked
Today it is not working
Windows is like that

-- Margaret Segall

You step in the stream,
but the water has moved on.
This page is not here.

-- Cass Whittington

New hardware was found.
Please insert new driver disk.
Could have bought a MAC.

-- Anonymous submission

1. He had only one major publication.
2. It was in Hebrew.
3. It had no references.
4. It wasn't published in a refereed journal.
5. Some even doubt he wrote it by himself.
6. It may be true that he created the world, but what has he done since then?
7. The scientific community has had a hard time replicating his results.
8. He never applied to the ethics board for permission to use human subjects.
9. When one experiment went awry he tried to cover it by drowning his subjects.
10. When subjects didn't behave as predicted, he deleted them from the sample.
11. He rarely came to class, just told students to read the book.
12. Some say he had his son teach the class.
13. He expelled his first two students for learning.
14. Although there were only 10 requirements, most of his students failed his tests.
15. His office hours were infrequent and often held on limited access mountain tops.
16. No record of working well with colleagues.

#1 QUOTH THE COMPUTER
(Author Unknown)

Once upon a midnight dreary,
Fingers cramped and vision bleary,
System manuals piled high
And wasted paper on the floor,
Longing for the warmth of bedsheets,
Still I sat there, doing spreadsheets:
Having reached the bottom line,
I took a floppy from the drawer.
Typing with a steady hand,
I then invoked the SAVE command
And waited for the disk to store
Only this and nothing more.

Deep into the monitor peering,
Long I sat there wond'ring, fearing,
Doubting, while the disk kept churning,
Turning yet to churn some more.
"Save!" I said, "You cursed mother!
Save my data from before!"
One thing did the phosphors answer,
Only this and nothing more,
Just, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

Was this some occult illusion?
Some maniacal intrusion?
These were choices undesired,
Ones I'd never faced before.
Carefully, I weighed the choices
As the disk made impish noises.
The cursor flashed, insistent, waiting,
Baiting me to type some more.
Clearly I must press a key,
Choosing one and nothing more,
From "Choose Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

With my fingers pale and trembling,
Slowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending,
Hoping all would be restored,
Praying for some guarantee,
Timidly I pressed a key.
But on the screen there still persisted
Words appearing as before.
Ghastly grim they blinked and taunted,
Haunted, as my patience wore,
Saying "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

I tried to catch the chips off-guard --
I pressed again, but twice as hard.
I pleaded with the cursed machine:
I begged and cried and then I swore.
Now in desperation,
Trying random combinations,
Still there came the incantation,
Just as senseless as before.
Cursor blinking, angrily winking,
Blinking nonsense as before.
Reading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

There I sat, distraught, exhausted -
By my own machine accosted
Getting up I turned away
And paced across the office floor.
And then I saw dreadful sight:
A lightning bolt cut through the night.
A gasp of horror overtook me,
Shook me to my core.
The lightning zapped my previous data,
Lost and gone forevermore.
Not even, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

To this day I do not know
The place to which lost data goes.
What demonic nether world
Is wrought where data will be stored,
Beyond the reach of mortal souls,
Beyond the ether, into black holes?
But sure as there's C, Pascal, Lotus,
Ashton-Tate, Windows and more,
You will one day be left to wander,
Lost on some Plutonian shore,
Pleading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"