Contribute to VHS’ first X-mas Tree!

tl;dr: come help build VHS’ first christmas tree on Tuesday!

Long version:
‘Twas a month before Christmas, when all through the space
Not a hacker was stirring, not even to lase;
The tools were left on the bench without care,
In hopes that St. DanHOC soon would be there;

3D printers were lined up all neat in a row,
While STL files of gears stood ready to go;
Some drawers of resistors, and some drawers full of caps,
Were out on the table with a bunch more old crap,

When out in the alley there arose such a racket,
Nevermind, just the cops nabbing a guy selling crack …et
Up the stairs I went yet another time
to make myself feel bad about that last forced rhyme.

I stumbled through the dark, nearly fell to the floor
to switch on the LEDs from Olympics of yore,
When, what to my wondering eyes should I see,
But laser-cut plywood in the shape of a tree!

With nothing better to do than reword this poem,
into a call to all hackers to contribute some items,
to hang from VHS’ very first X-mas tree,
but it first needs to be built; who’ll help me?

“Now, Funvill! Rantenki! now, Loial and Twirlip!
On, Nutter! Vanjuggler! on, Fishboy and Goldfish!
and to you not on IRC, please hear my call!
Come hack away! hack away! hack away all!”

Make ornaments that light up,  that beep, blink, and spin,
The tree will be covered in wires so you can tap in,
to a five volt and twelve volt and common bus;
there will be plenty of amps to supply all of us.

With the tree full of gadgets and neat little devices.
It’d be prudent to heed just one more piece of advice:
All these electronic doodads can make our tree a bit warm.
Perhaps instead of a star or an angel we’d consider a smoke alarm?

And with floor space at a such premium these days
The tree needs to fit in VHS some other way.
I think I’ve come up with a method you’ll all find appealing;
We’ll hang the tree upside down from some hooks in the ceiling!

If our kick-ass tree doesn’t get us on Hack A Day
Then nothing will; just give up, there’s no way.
But we still have our humble hack space community
Brought closer this X-mas by making this sweet tree.

I almost forgot the piece-de-resistance,
Something cool that everyone wants:
A miniature train that choo choos ’round the tree.
How can we do it? Not sure.  Beats me.

There’s only so much hacking one can hack in a night
But now the tree has just a little more light.
So head home, sleepy hacker, head home in the rain.
Make haste, weary hacker, lest you miss the last train.

Watch out for the rats in the alley, between dumpsters they skitter,
they have bedbugs, disease; they’re nasty-ass critters.
If you stay clear from these vermin, you have nothing to fear
Though I swear they get bigger and faster each year.

I shouldn’t be so hard on them; they’re just trying to survive,
Just don’t try to tell that to guys who dumpster dive.
If you can see past their grossness they’re actually sort of cute
Though it’s hard to see past grossness when they’re feasting on puke.

As I made my way out of the hack space today,
One of dems gross rodents got dang in my way.   //aw hells naw!
I heard him sqeak english (and I thought “this can’t be right”)
“Hacky X-mas to all, and to all a good-night!”

 

laser-cut pieces of the tree waiting to be assembled on Tuesday!

1 Comment on “Contribute to VHS’ first X-mas Tree!

  1. Awesome poem! Thanks for kicking off the Happy Hacker Holiday Season, John!