All this talk about cloud computing, and who will be the winners and the losers got me to go digging deep into the archives – Roger Miller and King of the Road (1965)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qgmxPb-ego

Servers for sale or rent
Tapes to let – fifty cents
No need to backup now
We’re all movin’ to the cloud

Ah, but, now that our files are moved
What to do with all that space we used?
I’m a man of means by no means
King of the clouds

Third time we’ve been offline
No solution, what a crime
Got to tell the boss the news
Now we’re singin’ the cloud-broke blues
I take old modems that I found
Slow, but still they power on
I’m a man of means by no means
King of the clouds

I know every cable run to every wall
All of the phone jacks, we used to make calls
And every handset in every room
And everything kept working
Before there were clouds, I sing …

What happened to those days?
Work was fun, with time to play
No need to virtualize
We didn’t have to tell no lies

Ah, but, these days they’re not the same
Buying eight or twelve domain names
I’m a man of means by no means
King of the clouds

Recently, someone was having some compatibility issues with displaying the content of a web site. It would display fine with Chrome, but not IE9 — go figure. That got me to start humming this song almost immediately!

(Please note: I use IE9 all the time. I’m just having fun with it all!)

“With a Little Help from My Browser”
(aka Beatles With a Little Help from my Friends)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmOtWyjs8iU

What would you think if your browser just died
Would you download and start using Chrome?
Pull up your site, but don’t run and hide
I’m sure that we’ll get you back home

Oh, I get burned when I’m using IE
Mmmm, I get fried when I’m using IE
Yes, I’m gonna die when I’m using IE

Do you need a better browser?
I just need something that works
Could it be any browser?
I just can’t deal with the quirks

What do you do when you can’t browse a site?
Does it worry you that you can’t surf?
How do you feel by the end of the day?
Are you mad because IE just doesn’t work?

Oh, I get burned when I’m using IE
Mmmm, I get fried when I’m using IE
Yes, I’m gonna die when I’m using IE

Can you find a better browser?
You just need something that works
Could it be any browser?
We just can’t deal with the quirks

Oh, I get burned when I’m using IE
Mmmm, I get fried when I’m using IE
Yes, I’m gonna die when I’m using IE, when I’m using I …. E … !

I’m sitting here babysitting an SBS 2003 server with Exchange issues, and started singing this song from Simon & Garfunkel:

Homeward Bound
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex8YNIhXydE

I’m sitting at my desktop station
Remoted into my destination
On a tour of error logs,
The server runs like a worn-out dog
And ev’ry boot is neatly planned
For this tech is a one-man band

Ready for bed, I wish I was,
Ready for bed,
No! for the server’s not booting,
No! for the defrag is crashing,
No! ’cause my backup lies waiting
Silently for me.

Ev’ry patch is an endless stream
Of error codes and hopeless dreams.
And each file looks the same to me,
Permissions and the password keys
And ev’ry error dump I see
Reminds me that I long to be,

Ready for bed, I wish I was,
Ready for bed,
No! for the server’s not booting,
No! for the defrag is crashing,
No! ’cause my backup lies waiting
Silently for me.

Tonight we’ll try to boot again,
I’ll play the game and pretend.
And all my work comes back to me
In posts I sent to the MVPs
One more boot, I’m on my knees
I need someone to encourage me!

Ready for bed, I think I am,
Ready for bed,
Yes! the server is booting,
Yes! The email is flowing,
Yes! ‘The backup is running
Silently for me.
Silently for me.

March 14th is ithe official holiday for Pi! I wish I could take credit for the following, but I cannot. It comes from CNN and Elizabeth Landau – http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/03/13/pi-day-and-american-pi/

Pi is the ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle. Celebrate it on Saturday, March 14! In honor of Pi Day, March 14 (because it’s 3/14, like 3.14), I came up with the basis for this song, inspired by Don McClean’s 1971 song “American Pie,” when I was in high school. Feel free sing along with that tune.

American Pi
by Elizabeth Landau

A long, long time ago, it was one December when I thought I’d found the end of pi.
And if I’d had some batteries, my efforts would have surely pleased
That math fair judge, and that’s no lie.
But tests and papers made me shiver with every paper they’d deliver.
More bad news in chemistry,
Just needed that time to study.
I can’t remember if I cried when I realized that I hadn’t tried
Before something clicked off deep inside
And then, my calculator died.

CHORUS:
So why, why can’t I calculate pi
I just want to see the numbers 3.1415
And if that’s all, then let’s keep it alive
‘Cause my calculator seems to have died.
My calculator seems to have died.

Did you write the law of sines, or draw two perfect parallel lines
Without a ruler helping you?
Can you still use a protractor, or find just one imaginary factor
Of a polynomial of order 2?
Well I had a TI-83 when a great misfortune came to me
The screen began to blur – I couldn’t even find my curve!
I was a lonely teenage computer freak,
My pencils were chewed but my glasses were sleek,
And the future was looking pretty bleak
The day my calculator died.

[CHORUS]

Books, eraser, graphing paper, I was just a young number chaser
Searching for the holy grail.
Like Archimedes, Ramanujan, and Gregory, Leibniz, van Ceulen,
I could approximate, but then I’d fail!
My calculator was in a daze,
It just wouldn’t run on new AAAs.
The math fair was in an hour
And I was still out of power.
I knew that I was running out of time
A new formula would have been sublime
But all that I could do was rhyme
The day my calculator died.

[CHORUS]

“We know it’s not the pi you eat, this pie’s a far more delicate treat
And it can be so much fun.
Well, Pi is a movie, Pi’s a perfume,
The digits of pi could fill a room,
But could ever find the very last one?”
And although this poem was nice and sweet
In my heart I knew it couldn’t compete.
The other kids had proof.
I felt like such a goof!
And, as I sat down I felt disgraced,
Like I had just gotten a pie in the face.
I knew that I had really lost the race
The day my calculator died.

[CHORUS]

I met a guy in Period 3 who seemed like he could help me
At least he didn’t turn away.
My calculator looked so sad, but I know this kid of course was glad
To make me feel worse on Pi Day.
He said, “I can’t believe you were so dumb.
All you need is a new lithium.”
I asked, “What do you mean?”
He wouldn’t even come clean
And tell me there’s another set of batteries besides the quartet.
So until I get some, and it resets
I think I’ll eat some pie.

So why, why can’t I calculate pi
I just want to see the numbers 3.1415
And if that’s all, then let’s keep it alive
But my calculator didn’t really die!

I originally blogged this at http://msmvps.com/blogs/kwsupport/archive/2010/03/14/pi-day-song.aspx

No, this was NOT written during Christmas time. It’s March, and I’ve been up all night trying to upgrade Windows 7.

Jingle Bells (Windows H*LL)

Dashing through the house
Looking for a mouse
O’er the stairs I fly
Asking God — “Why?”

Nothing’s going right
It’s the middle of the night
It’s no fun to sit and glare
At the laptop over there

Oh,
Windows H*LL, something smells
Rebooting one more time
It ain’t fun, can’t you tell
When I can’t think of better rhymes

Oh, Upgrade dies, and how time flies,
Looking for some help
Oh, what fun it is to find
That Susan’s still online!

Windows H*LL, something smells
Rebooting one more time
It ain’t fun, can’t you tell
When I can’t think of better rhymes

I write this song for our MVP lead (Mark Clagett)

My Favorite Things
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwTphY_QMUo&feature=fvwrel

Summits and con-calls and unscheduled meetings
Newsgroups and emails, outside it’s still raining
Bundles of patches all tied up in string
These are a few of my favorite things..

Dev teams and schedules, while running and talking
Day time and night time, and yet we keep moving
Servers and testing with bugs that need fixing
These are a few of my favorite things

When the calls stop,
When the lights go out,
And it’s time to brave the cold,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don’t feel … so old!

Happy Birthday.