X-NEWS: spcvxb alt.folklore.computers: 5155 Relay-Version: VMS News - V6.0 13.10.90 VAX/VMS V5.4; site spcvxb.spc.edu Path: spcvxb.spc.edu!njin!rutgers!att!bu.edu!bass.bu.edu!ardai Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Computer Christmas songs Message-ID: <68111@bu.edu.bu.edu> From: ardai@bass.bu.edu (Michael Ardai) Date: 8 Nov 90 01:36:32 GMT Sender: news@bu.edu.bu.edu References: <1990Nov7.155401.14194@cs.rochester.edu> Distribution: alt Organization: Boston University Lines: 137 In article <1990Nov7.155401.14194@cs.rochester.edu> ferguson@cs.rochester.edu (George Ferguson) writes: >With the holiday season around the corner... Does anyone remember those >computerized versions of the old Christmas classics? I mean things like >"Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" which started something like: > > make list > check list; check list > who | grep naughty > naughty > who | grep nice > nice > This was posted here at BU a few years back, written by Richard Alpert better !pout !cry better watchout lpr why santa claus < north pole > town cat /etc/passwd > list ncheck list ncheck list cat list | grep naughty > nogiftlist cat list | grep nice > giftlist santa claus < north pole > town who | grep sleeping who | grep awake who | grep bad || good for (goodness sake) { be good } better !pout !cry better watchout lpr why santa claus < north pole > town And then there is this golden oldie (not quite a song, but close): A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS ------------------------- Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual yuletide celebration, and throughout our place of residence, kinetic activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this potential, including that species of domestic rodent known as Mus Musculus. Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of the wood burning caloric apparatus, pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an imminent visitation from the eccentric philantropist among whose folkloric appellations is the honorific title of St. Nicholas. The prepubescent siblings, comfortably ensconced in their respective accommodations of repose, were experiencing subconscious visual hallucinations of variegated fruit confections moving rhythmically through their cerebrums. My conjugal partner and I, attired in our nocturnal head coverings, were about to take slumberous advantage of the hibernal darkness when upon the avenaceous exterior portion of the grounds there ascended such a cacophony of dissonance that I felt compelled to arise with alacrity from my place of repose for the purpose of ascertaining the precise source thereof. Hastening to the casement, I forthwith opened the barriers sealing this fenestration, noting thereupon that the lunar brilliance without, reflected as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline precipitation, might be said to rival that of the solar meridian itself-- thus permitting my incredulous optical sensory organs to behold a miniature airborne runnered conveyance drawn by eight diminutive specimens of the genus Rangifer, piloted by a miniscule aged chauffeur so ebullient and nimble that it became instantly aware to me that he was indeed our anticipated caller. With his ungulate motive power travelling at what may possibly have been more vertiginious velocity than patriotic alar predators, he voiciferated loudly, expelled breath musically through contracted labia, and addressed each of the octet by his or her respective cognomen - "Now Dasher, now Dancer..." et al. - guiding them to the uppermost exterior level of our abode, through which structure I could readily distinguish the concatenations of each of the 32 cloven pedal extremities. As I retracted my cranium from its erstwhile location, and was performing a 180-degree pivot, our distinguished visitant achieved - with utmost celerity and via a downward leap - entry by way of the smoke passage. He was clad entirely in animal pelts soiled by the ebon residue from the oxidations of carboniferous fuels which had accumulated on the walls thereof. His resemblence to a street vendor I attributed largely to the plethora of assorted playthings he bore dorsally in a commodious cloth receptacle. His orbs were scintillant with reflected luminosity, while his submaxiallary dermal indentations gave every evidence of engaging amiablity. The capillaries of his malar regions and nasal appurtenance were engorged with blood which suffused the subcutaneous layers, the former approximating the coloration of Albion's floral emblem, the latter that of the Prunus Avium, or sweet cherry. His amusing sub- and supralabials resembled nothing so much as a common loop knot, and their ambient hirsute facial adornment appeared like small, tabular and columnar crystals of frozen water. Clenched firmly between his incisors was a smoking piece whose gray fumes, forming a tenuous ellipse about his occiput, were suggestive of a decorative seasonal circlet of holly. His visage was wider than it was high, and when he waxed audibly mirthful, his corpulant abdominal region undulated in the manner of impectinated fruit syrup in a hemispherical container, He was, in short, neither more nor less than an obese, jocund, multigenarian gnome, the optical perception of whom rendered me risibly frolicsome despite every effort to refrain from so being. By rapidly lowering and then elevating one eyelid and rotating his head slightly to one side, he indicated that trepidation on my part was groundless. Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the aforementioned appended hosiery with various of the aforementioned articles of merchandise extracted from the aforementioned previously dorsally transported cloth receptacle. Upon completion of this task, he executed an abrupt about-face, placed a single manual digit in lateral juxtaposition of his olefactory organ, inclined his cranium forward in a gesture of leave-taking, and forthwith effected his egress by renegotiating (in reverse) the smoke passage. He then propelled himself in a short vector onto his conveyance, directed a musical expulsion of air through his contracted oral sphincter to the antlered quadrupeds of burden, and proceeded to soar aloft in a movement hitherto observable chiefly among the seed-bearing portions of a common weed. But I overheard his parting exclamation, audible immediately prior to his vehiculation beyond the limits of visibility: "Ecstatic yuletide to the planetary constituancy, and to that selfsame assemblage, my sincerest wishes for a salubriously beneficial and gratifyingly pleasurable period between sunset and dawn." (Originally from Eleonore Johnson at Teknowledge by way of Peter Karp and Info-Cobol) -- \|/ Michael L. Ardai ardai@bu-pub.bu.edu --- --------------------------------------------------------------- /|\ ...!sun!teda!ardai (preferred)