On Byron's Don Juan

Something a little different (reading the news all the time is getting depressing):

To you, dear Byron, yes, to you I sing,
And heap upon you all the praise you're due,
Your dedication rare was quite the thing,
When that great epic Don was penned by you:
Though oft your metre left my head aching,
And your abuse of rhyme has made me blue.
But nonetheless I was in truth amused,
Despite the poetry that you've abused.

Although your satire proved to be mighty,
I wish you'd not made quite so good a jape,
For, sooth, in places, the poem hurts me,
As cry I must at how you rhythm rape.
(For an example, all of you can see
This poem here, where I the bottom scrape:
In mockery of mockery of rhyme,
Although this poem's quite after its time.)

Vet Bill Woes

Our Athos has been a bad kitty,
And that's why I'm penning this ditty:
He swallowed a string,
Shat out the same thing,
Now Athos is feeling self-pity.

No ruptures were found in his bowels,
Though you wouldn't know that from his yowls:
I saw the vet's bill,
And soon felt a chill,
"It's how much!?" was all I could howl.

Our new cat, Athos (like the musketeer!) swallowed a string some time. We suspect it was before we got him on August 30th, as we don't leave string around and he's had diarhhea and some vomiting the entire time since then. Fortunately it didn't rupture his intestines or get knotted up on the way out, so he's relatively okay. The vet cut him open to check the intestines for ruptures since that can lead to nasty infections, but they were just a bit sore. Phew. Nonetheless, he has been an expensive cat so far: this is the fourth time we've had to take him to the vet in the past 9 days. Hopefully now he will be doing better!

ode to CERN

In tunnels deep beneath Die Schweiz's trails:
Magnetic coils gain power at command,
By engineers who hope they will unveil
A phsyics marvel new to any land;
Though budget problems threatened to disband,
The mighty Hadron, over sixteen miles,
Which cost quite more than its initial plans;
But now stands ready to partake of trials,
This new construction's bound to make bold Hermes smile.

Though some cry danger, and forsee our death,
For fear the test may cause a new black hole,
The rest of us await with bated breath,
To see what can be learned from Science bold,
And hope that out of this vacuum-like cold,
The sought-for Boson will to us reveal,
The secrets of our universe so old,
And like Prometheus, the fire will steal,
And give us a new definition of what's real.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7604293.stm

The Cable Provider: A lampoon

Something a little different today, as I just got off the phone with "Censored Communications", who apparently charges an extra $6 a month for wireless with a company-provided wireless cable modem, or $4 a month for wireless even if you use your own wireless router. Because

There once was a cable provider,
Whose policies couldn't be snider*,
They offered you more,
For a dollar or four,
That those could get for free that were wiser.

Since it's all about money and profit,
They'd inform you not to regret it,
But give them the cash,
For their service slapdash:
"The air isn't free!" they'll explain it.

*(OED: definition 1: 1. Counterfeit, sham, bogus. Also more widely, inferior, worthless.)

"Millionaire" from 50p bet

There once was a better from England,
Whose bets were quite awfully unplanned,
He bet on the long shots,
But one day it paid off,
And the new millionaire was quite unmanned!

URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/north_yorkshire/7260526.stm

A switch to limericks

Spenserian Stanzas proved to be too difficult for my facile understanding of the niceties of metre and rhyme. Thus, I will be switching to something easier for the month. Limericks! Next month, I will probably switch to something else again. Hurrah.

Russian Rocket Riot

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7418860.stm

No hard-fought independence war was this,
The bright glare of the rockets was not red,
The smoking fires which lit them with a hiss,
Which fortunately left no victims dead,
But gave a show to them they'd not forget,
As rockets flew at random through the town,
And residents ran by with low-down heads,
Just hoping that the errant missiles' sound,
Would be all that they heard, and they would not touch down.

The Arctic Affair

In regards to: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7417123.stm

The snowmobiles ranged wide across the shelf,
Of country vast and empty; naught but ice,
Which coldly lingered, left alone with self,
Those men whose visit was like Eurydice,
A quickened sortie, over in a trice,
With one exception: they would soon return,
Not back to Hades, but to somewhere nice,
And leave the barren ice floes there behind,
Although the cracks in them left little peace of mind.

Live Bookmark Feed Failed to Load

Today, my live bookmark feed failed to load, so I thought I would write about that instead of the news.

Alas, the dreary morning of today,
Did also play a hand in my distress;
It led my RSS reader astray,
And left me sans sujet and in much stress,
As I would have to work with much finesse,
To point my browser to the news by hand,
And see what happened; there was no express,
To show me quick what happened in the land,
And thus instead I wrote this garbage, quite unmanned.

Alas, poor firefox! Though I knew it well,
To misquote Shakespeare, and to merry make,
Thy noble rule is over, shot to hell!
Alas! Alack, to think you were a flake,
And all it took was one simple mistake,
In someone's coding, though I know not where,
And crunch, and smash, and crash, you swiftly break,
Thus leaving me with nothing left to share,
Save gibberish I wrote from nothing as I dared.

Guantanamo

This one is terrible. My apologies.

As time draws onwards in the world outside,
The seasons passing as they often do,
The men in here were tortured 'til they cried
Their secrets--whether real or made anew--
To stop the painful agony endured,
And Paying ev'ry day for alleged crimes,
Against humanity; This treatment rude,
Their fondest mem'ries of their native climes,
Obliterated by their captors over time.

And now the US Supreme Justice states,
That in their cells they must forever sit,
Unable to be freed or face their fates,
For crimes of war they did, or not, commit,
For reasons as here follow: As, to wit,
The treatments used to have them spill their guts,
Don't sit too well with international writ;
So there they'll stay under this sad tenet,
Which surely is enough to drive all sane men nuts.

Foldit: Solving Puzzles for Science.

Aghast by dreary news from every port,
I turn to something lighter for today,
An entertaining electronic sport,
And something that the youngest child could play,
But also can help researchers display,
The forms of proteins best to fight disease:
And if your protein puzzle wins the day,
And is rewarded by the Noble peers,
The Nobel Prize will be part yours, and earned with ease.

An interesting tool is what results,
With mind of man and ease of game combined,
And databases there to store results,
In cases a player successfully finds,
A combination that restores the minds,
Of people with Alzheimer's, or the cure,
For AIDS or Cancer, in their proteins binds,
And rid the body of all that's impure;
I think that many will be snagged by this game's lure.


URL: http://fold.it/portal/adobe_main

The Dark Continent?

Again the focus turns to old Afrique,
More discord and confusion there to find,
And makes me wonder: were I not so meek,
Would I ignore it for my peace of mind?
As currently I push it all behind,
So as to carry on my easy life,
Where everything that's needed can be mine:
A job, and shelter, money; soon, a wife,
While in less well-off countries people die from strife.

This time, far South, a domino effect,
As refugees from other crises near;
Perhaps because of Apartheid's neglect,
A Xenophobic aftershock is clear,
And brings out in survivors deadly fear,
That everything they fled from might again,
Be safer for the lives that they hold dear,
So they return back whence they came again,
To face with bleak distress what may become of them.

China Quake

The Quake in China drawing to an end,
'midst mourning and 'midst public shows of grief;
In Sichuan the rescue teams still wend,
And hope that they can give some small relief,
In order to relieve the heavy grief,
That's felt by victims and by those still trapped;
And in the public eye the nation's Chief,
Thanks donators with all their sources tapped,
As China shows the world that in some things it's apt.

The rescue teams from many other lands,
As well as those from not so far afield,
Search through the ruins with a noble plan:
To dig through rubble, and to make it yield,
To get survivors out and have them healed;
And wearily to take the hapless dead,
And bury in mass graves while watchers reel,
And mourn their loved ones 'midst the earth's bloodshed;
While words of horror form but must remain unsaid.

Cyclone Nargis

On Burmese shores the aftermath still shows,
'midst accusations of the inhumane,
In Irawaddy delta, ruled by woes,
The Burmese Junta gives in with disdain,
And finally accepts care for the pain,
Of all its starving citizens who wait,
For food to come so they can eat again,
Too weary and unfortunate of late,
To take into their hands the matter of their fate.

The vote on which the Junta were hell-bent,
They carried out despite the nation's plight,
And claim they passed by ninety-two percent,
"Democratized" their governmental right,
And now they have "the people's" gathered might,
Or so they'll claim, when foreigners look in,
To criticize this or the other wight,
For something they perceive to be a sin,
And as before, the government, not people, win.

Zimbabwe Poll Run-off: Dare We Hope?

In southern Africa the time draws near,
For hope to find its glory or defeat:
Election run-off peaceful? Or as feared,
More threats of violence spilling into streets,
With ethnic cleansing claims, and such downbeat,
Disasters as were in the Kenyan state;
Mugabe and Tsvangirai will compete,
And all the other nations can but wait,
And see what will emerge for this one's lonely fate.

As always in the governmental world,
The people seem to gain the greatest loss;
As standing 'neath your leader's flag, unfurled,
To show the opposition who's the boss,
Oft seems to lionize the very dross,
And send into the margins those who care,
In an attempt to force your views across,
So that your leader can be sent up there,
To stand triumphant and to glory in fanfare.

Prologue

Lo I the man, whose muse whilome did mask,
As time her taught, in lowly lim'rick's form,
Am now enforst a far unfitter task,
To Spenser's stanza's my low rhymes transform,
And gibber on a blog, as is the norm,
Though entries here will not be in dull prose,
Although this may discourage all the swarms,
Of readers who prefer to look at those,
I hope upon this blog some ones will views bestow.

So then as follows are my duties here,
To daily post up interesting things,
And if I can find none of those, ne'er fear,
I shall make up a number of doings,
To lend to your imaginations wings;
And if my scansion doth destroy your brain,
I can but lift my hands, and grasp and wring,
In anguish at the thought of causing pain,
When all I wanted was to please the lofty brain.