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Sep. 21st, 2010 @ 03:09 pm 
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This morning I was asked to change my password on my work computer, as I must do every four months. And I sat there waiting for it to authorise my new password, and I thought, I have measured out my life in login codes.
And, as it so often does, then my brain screwed me out of several hours of productivity.
THE .DOC FILE OF J ALFRED PRUFROCK
with deepest apologies to T.S. Eliot
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a laptop, put in sleep mode on a table
Let us go through certain half-deserted streets
The blinking-light retreats
Of restless nights in free-wifi cafes
And public libraries with internet
Streets that follow like messageboard argument
of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming blog post
Oh, do not ask, "What, yaoi?"
Let us go and post an entry.
In the room the players come and go
Talking of their scores on Halo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the Windows PC
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the Macintosh
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening
Lingered upon the trackpads in their case
Let fall upon its back the crumbs that fall to keyboards,
Slipped by the flashdrive, made a sudden leap
and seeing that it was a soft October night
Curled once about the mouse, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the desk,
Rubbing its back upon the Windows PC;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the icons that you meet;
There will be time to murder and respawn
And time for all the Chrome and Firefox
That drag and drop a website on your plate;
Time for .doc and time for .ppt
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred fanfics and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the players come and go
Talking of their scores on Halo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Is this wanky?" "Is this fair?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair
With a comment on the level of your player
[They will say: "How his server's lagging slow!"]
My morning cosplay, collar mounting firmly to the chin
My website rich and modest, but accessed by a simple login
[They will say: "But how his content's growing thin!"]
Do I dare
Disturb the interwebs?
In a minute there is time
For fanfictions and revisions which Google Docs may reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the RPs, archives, messageboards
I have measured out my life with usernames.
I know the voices dying with a 404
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
And I have known the mods already, known them all --
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase
And when I am banhammered, sprawling on a pin,
When I am banned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the fragments of my browser cache?
And how should I presume?
And I have known the sites already, known them all —-
Sites that are Web two-oh, white and bare
[But on my cellphone, still given to fail!]
It is the javascript impress
That makes them so digress?
Sites that stretch out like a table, or word-wrap like a shawl
And should I then presume?
And how should I log in?
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through archived files
And watched the dialup sequences that blink
No more from AOL in lonely Windows?
I should have been a line of ragged code,
Scuttling through the compiler, breaking apps.
And the messageboard, the website, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep...tired...or it malingers
Returning 404, here in front of me.
Should I, after iPhone apps and prices,
Have the strength to force AT&T to crisis?
But though I have wept and emailed, wept and played,
Though I have seen my avatar brought in upon a platter,
I am no hacker -- and here's no great matter;
I have seen the screen of my laptop flicker,
And I have seen the eternal bluescreen hold my eye, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the games, social media, the blogs,
Among the twitters, among some talk of IRC logs,
Would it have been worth while
To have bitten off the fandom with a smile,
To have squeezed the internet into a ball
To roll it toward some ass on Yahoo Questions
To say, "I am Babbage, come from the dead,
Come back to ban you all, I shall ban you all" --
If one, sending a textmessage, autocorrected
Should say: "That is not what I typed at all.
That is not it. LOL."
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would have been worth while
After the LOLcats and the macros and the youtube clips,
After the spambots, after the blog space, after LiveJournal trailing on the floor --
And Digg, and so much more? --
It is impossible to type just what I mean!
But as if a new .avi threw the nerves in patterns on the screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, texting or throwing back Red Bull,
And turning towards the PC, should say,
"That is not what I typed at all.
That is not it. OH LOL."
No! I am not Lovelace,
nor was meant to be,
Am on some messageboard, one that will do
To send things viral, start a meme or two,
Edit the wiki, no doubt an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Pwning, sometimes, but anonymous,
Filled with citations, all a bit obtuse;
These edits, indeed, almost ridiculous --
Can you not work Google?
I grow old... I grow old...
I shall add some links to my blog roll.
Shall I change my default pic? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall play some World of Warcraft, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the servers singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen cats talking in capslock on the web,
All up in ur fridge, eatin' ur food
When my laptop lights the darkness white and black.
We have lingered in the tubes of internet,
By URLS wreathed with info, loaded-down
Till cellphones ringing wake us, and we drown.
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Okay, this is spectacular
... and a little unnerving, actually.
Yeah, unnerving is the word I would use.
![[User Picture Icon]](https://v.dreamwidth.org/78860/63311) |
| From: | ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) mecurtin |
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September 21st, 2010 08:59 pm (UTC) |
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Yo, man. I got a FUCKIN HUGE INTERNET here for you.
*cracks knuckles* So, how far can you stand to have this linked?
LOL, well, the internet is large, it contains multitudes -- wait, wrong poet.
Link away, have fun :)
oh my god, I bow for such brilliance! This was excellent. I love how well Eliot's poems work in fandom rewritings, and this is like some kind of meta-computer-fandom take on it. Wow!
Oh, do not ask, "What, yaoi?"
Scared the cats.
This is lulzy, and yet also a mashup somewhere between lovely and unsettling. Particularly this:
I should have been a line of ragged code,
Scuttling through the compiler, breaking apps.
Wonderful, wonderful!
*applauds*
I... I need to print this out and hang this on my office door.
It can go next to the "O hai just fyi" version of "This is just to say."
"O hai just fyi" version of "This is just to say?"
...WHERE?!?
Just very recently I was able to recite The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock.
This was indeed unnerving. And awesome.
Clever, and quite lovely as well.
![[User Picture Icon]](https://v.dreamwidth.org/76761/60728) |
| From: | lomedet |
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September 21st, 2010 11:11 pm (UTC) |
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*dies laughing*
*hands you ALL the internets*
This is the most glorious pastiche ever.
Bravo!
Links this on plurk, and thus on twitter as well.
![[User Picture Icon]](https://v.dreamwidth.org/912488/273609) |
| From: | bodlon |
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September 22nd, 2010 12:44 am (UTC) |
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*jawdrop*
Fuck me, that's brilliant.
![[User Picture Icon]](https://v.dreamwidth.org/260788/98125) |
| From: | jadey |
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September 22nd, 2010 12:54 am (UTC) |
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I should have been a line of ragged code,
Scuttling through the compiler, breaking apps.
Beautiful.
![[User Picture Icon]](https://v.dreamwidth.org/495634/509659) |
| From: | coriana |
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September 22nd, 2010 01:58 am (UTC) |
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I can't decide whether my favorite line is "curled once about the mouse, and fell asleep" (for its subtlety, and because for a moment I was convinced that was how the poem actually goes) or "I should've been a line of ragged code" -- but my next favorite is definitely the stanza on wiki --
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Pwning, sometimes, but anonymous,
Filled with citations, all a bit obtuse;
These edits, indeed, almost ridiculous --
Can you not work Google?
SO MUCH WIN.
~ c.
When I hit "curled once about the mouse" I LOLed at myself, because it was so perfect. Made me happy :D
![[User Picture Icon]](https://v.dreamwidth.org/17439/37209) |
| From: | norah |
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September 22nd, 2010 02:50 am (UTC) |
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To say, "I am Babbage, come from the dead,
Come back to ban you all, I shall ban you all" --
If one, sending a textmessage, autocorrected
Should say: "That is not what I typed at all.
That is not it. LOL."
I think this is my favorite bit, but it's hard to say. You made me smile, and today that was a tall order. Thank you.
![[User Picture Icon]](https://v.dreamwidth.org/452727/103985) |
| From: | erika |
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September 23rd, 2010 02:26 am (UTC) |
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I agree with this comment.
I have heard the servers singing, each to each.
That's actually a really awesome image. This whole thing is kinda awesome, actually, and I'm probs going to pass around to My People.
Please feel free! Glad you enjoyed it :)
Sir, I bow to your awesomely awesomeness of awesome.
| From: | (Anonymous) |
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September 22nd, 2010 10:13 am (UTC) |
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Here thanks to azurelunatic's twitter link. This is beautiful. Wish I'd had it 6 years ago when I was studying Eliot in high school.
| From: | (Anonymous) |
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September 22nd, 2010 10:45 am (UTC) |
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Plus one. This is amazing, and the original is one of my favorite poems ever.
![[User Picture Icon]](https://v.dreamwidth.org/122606/181473) |
| From: | bientot |
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September 22nd, 2010 11:25 am (UTC) |
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You continue to be brilliant beyond belief, even at your advanced age! :)
Aw, thank you. Nice to know an old fart like me has still got it!
![[User Picture Icon]](https://v.dreamwidth.org/186123/51591) |
| From: | lapislaz |
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September 22nd, 2010 02:39 pm (UTC) |
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This is awesome like an awesome thing.
Here from Twistedchick. I also saw it on LJ (and commented on the brilliance)
Yea. Not much more to say than brilliant really.
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