This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--------------8C6B26E8556977B0ADAA54CD
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Happy Holidays Everyone!

--------------8C6B26E8556977B0ADAA54CD
Content-Type: message/rfc822
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline

Received: from [207.228.68.135] (ts18ip135.cadvision.com [207.228.68.135])
        by huey.cadvision.com (8.8.5/8.8.5/DCE/TRI) with ESMTP id HAA40116
        for <[log in to unmask]>; Tue, 23 Dec 1997 07:02:10 -0700
X-Sender: [log in to unmask]
Message-Id: <l03102802b0c4eca7fb7c@[207.228.68.135]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 05:21:17 +0100
To: [log in to unmask]
From: Beverly Reynolds <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Merry Christmas

>Subject: A Computer Christmas Poem
>
>> 'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the nets
>> Not a mousie was stirring, not even the pets.
>> The floppies were stacked by the modem with care
>> In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.
>> The files were nestled all snug in a folder
>> The screen saver turned on, the weather was colder.
>>
>> And leaving the keyboard along with my mouse
>> I turned from the screen to the rest of the house.
>> When up from the drive there arose such a clatter
>> I turned to the screen to see what was the matter.
>> Away to the mouse I flew like a flash,
>> Zoomed open a window in fear of a crash...
>>
>> The glow from the screen on the keyboard below
>> Gave an electronic luster to all my macros.
>> When what to my wondering eyes should appear
>> But a little sleigh icon with eight tiny reindeer
>> And a tiny disk driver so SCSI and quick
>> I knew in a nano it must be Saint Nick.
>>
>> More rapid than trackballs his cursors they came,
>> He whistled and shouted and faxed them by name.
>> "Now Flasher! Now Dasher! Now Raster and Bixel!
>> On Phosphor! On Photon! On Baudrate and Pixel!
>> To the top of the stack. To the top of the heap."
>> Then each little reindeer made a soft beep.
>>
>> As data that before the wild electrons fly,
>> When they meet with a node, mount to the drive,
>> So up to the screentop the cursors they flew
>> With a sleigh full of disks and databits, too.
>> And then in a twinkling I heard the high whine
>> Of a modem connecting at a baud rate so fine.
>>
>> As I gazed at the screen with a puzzling frown
>> St. Nicholas logged on though I thought I was down.
>> He was dressed all in bytes from header to footer
>> And the words on the screen said "Don't you reboot 'er."
>> A bundle of bits he had flung on his back
>> And he looked like a programmer starting his hack.
>>
>> His eyes how they glazed, his hair was so scary,
>> His cola was jolt, not flavored with cherry.
>> His droll little mouth was drawn up like a GIF
>> And the pixels of his beard sure gave me a lift.
>> The stump of a routine he held tight in his code
>> And I knew he had made it past the last node.
>>
>> He spoke not a word but looked right at me
>> And I saw in a flash his file was .SEA.
>> He self-decompressed and I watched him unfold,
>> Into a jolly old elf, a sight to behold.
>> And the whispering sound of my hard drive's head
>> Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
>>
>> He went straight to his work without saying a word
>> And filled all the folders of this happy nerd.
>> And 'tis the whole truth, as the story is told,
>> That giving a nod up the window he scrolled,
>> He sprang to the serial port as if truly on fire
>> And away they all flew down the thin copper wire.
>>
>> But I heard him exclaim as he scrolled out of sight
>> "Happy Christmas to All, and to all a good night."




--------------8C6B26E8556977B0ADAA54CD--