* From: arr@xenon.x.org (A. Rich) * Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery,bofh.compfh.ibm.pc * Subject: abort retry ignore * Date: 09 Jan 1996 18:11:10 -0500 * did you ever read "The Raven" by poe? * im sure that this has been out there a while, but i just came across * it and thought it highly appropriate. * * ------------ * * Abort, Retry, Ignore? * * Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary, * System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor, * Longing for the warmth of bed sheets, still I sat there doing spreadsheets. * Having reached the bottom line I took a floppy from the drawer, * I then invoked the SAVE command and waited for the disk to store, * Only this and nothing more. * * Deep into the monitor peering, long I sat there wond'ring, fearing, * Doubting, while the disk kept churning, turning yet to churn some more. * But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token. * "Save!" I said, "You cursed mother! Save my data from before!" * One thing did the phosphors answer, only this and nothing more, * Just, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?" * * Was this some occult illusion, some maniacal intrusion? * These were choices undesired, ones I'd never faced before. * Carefully I weighed the choices as the disk made impish noises. * The cursor flashed, insistent, waiting, baiting me to type some more. * Clearly I must press a key, choosing one and nothing more, * From "Abort, Retry, Ignore?" * * With fingers pale and trembling, slowly toward the keyboard bending, * Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored, * Praying for some guarantee, timidly, I pressed a key. * But on the screen there still persisted words appearing as before. * Ghastly grim they blinked and taunted, haunted, as my patience wore, * Saying "Abort, Retry, Ignore?" * * I tried to catch the chips off guard, and pressed again, but twice as hard. * I pleaded with the cursed machine: I begged and cried and then I swore. * Now in mighty desperation, trying random combinations, * Still there came the incantation, just as senseless as before. * Cursor blinking, angrily winking, blinking nonsense as before. * Reading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?" * * There I sat, distraught, exhausted, by my own machine accosted. * Getting up I turned away and paced across the office floor. * And then I saw a dreadful sight: a lightning bolt cut through the night. * A gasp of horror overtook me, shook me to my very core. * The lightning zapped my previous data, lost and gone forevermore. * Not even, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?" * * To this day I do not know the place to which lost data go. * What demonic nether world us wrought where lost data will be stored, * Beyond the reach of mortal souls, beyond the ether, into black holes? * But sure as there's C, Pascal, Lotus, Ashton-Tate and more, * You will be one day be left to wander, lost on some Plutonian shore, * Pleading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?" * * -- Author unknownHERE is hillary's habitrail.