Home of the Autographed Cat – Page 7 – Gwnewch y pethau bychain

On Her Majesty’s Sysop Service

On October 27, 2016

On Her Majesty’s SysOp Service
by Rob Wynne
TTTO: “You Only Live Twice” by Leslie Bricusse & John Barry

You always save twice or so they say;
One set for your files on a well supplied RAID.
You always save twice, so we have avowed.
A backup is stored on disk, tape or cloud

And data will stack up, and platforms will fry
Don’t think of the backup, and the data will die

This NAS is for you, so pay the price
Keep your data true, and always save twice.

And data will stack up, and platforms will fry
Don’t think of the backup, and the data will die

This NAS is for you, so pay the price
Keep your data true, and always save twice.

Inspired by Bill Sutton’s unfortunate travails with his PC, and by his delightful “Goldfinger” parody detailing them.

Sour Grapes

By autographedcat

On October 27, 2016

In Songs

Sour Grapes
(or, Reflections on George Lucas’s comments about the new Star Wars film)
by Rob Wynne
TTTO: “Send in the Clowns” by Stephen Sondheim

Doesn’t it suck?
Don’t you agree
This film that everyone’s praising
Wasn’t by me
Send in the clones.

Isn’t it sick?
Isn’t it sad?
Everyone loves this new Star Wars
It makes me mad.
Where are the clones?
Send in the clones

Just when I’d stopped
changing the score
Finally selling
the rights for billions more
Walking the carpet again
With my usual strut
Sure of my place
No one asks, but…

What have I wrought?
Jar Jar was panned
I thought that you’d want what I want
Sorry, my fans
But where are the clones?
Quick, send in the clones!
Don’t bother, new plans

Aren’t I rich?
Is that not enough?
Seeing that Abrams succeeded
where I failed is rough
And where are the clones?
There ought to be clones?
Well, maybe next film…

Cluttergathering

By autographedcat

On October 27, 2016

In Blog

I’ve been meaning to start back up with some general blogging, but because I majored in Procrastination (with a doulbe minor in Blowing Things Off and Well Nevermind), I haven’t been.

Towards the notion of getting started again — along with making sure my website Songbook is up to date — I’m going to start posting things here that have previously been posted in other places (primarily Facebook) over the last little while. So you may see things you saw earlier, or things you never saw but which are long divorced from their original context. Just a heads up. Hope it’s not annoying and stuff. 🙂

Pass The Sage

By autographedcat

On October 26, 2016

In Songs

Pass the Sage
by Rob Wynne
TTTO: “Turn the Page” by Bob Seger

In a spacious TV studio, east of Tokyo
You can listen to the sous chefs as they scurry to and fro
And you wonder if tonight you’ll make an ice cream out of roe

And your thoughts will soon be focused on your culinary lore
When the chairman calls the challenger to step out on the floor
And you wonder if this night will be just like the nights before

Oh, here I am, stirring the wok again
There I am, watching the gauge
Here I go….racing the clock again
There I go…pass the sage

You walk into the stadium, and you stand upon the height
And you feel his eyes upon you, as he chooses you to fight
And another kitchen battle’s on; What will we cook tonight?

Sometimes you can’t hear ’em talk, other times you can
All those same old clichés: is that pudding, or a flan?
And you’re almost out of flour, but still you make it stand

Oh, here I am….Stirring the wok again
There I am, watching the gauge
Here I go….racing the clock again
There I go…pass the sage

From the moment that the grill is fired until the plates are served
All your skills and your talents are a legacy preserved
You cook to prove your iron reputation is deserved

Later, when the tastings done, and the compliments are shared
The chairman counts the ballot and the victor is declared
You know another challenge waits, and you will be prepared

Oh, here I am….Stirring the wok again
There I am, watching the gauge
Here I go….racing the clock again
There I go…there I go…

One new song debuted in my Orycon set in 2015. I actually wrote this a while ago, but decided not to post it until after I’d sung it in the wild somewhere, and that was the first time I had the chance.

Many people have written Iron Chef songs. This one is mine.

The Shining Wit

By autographedcat

On October 19, 2016

In Songs

The Shining Wit
by Rob Wynne
TTTO: “Act Naturally” by Johnny Russell and Voni Morrison

I’m gonna get myself a girlfriend
I’m gonna go make all these women see
That I’m a man who knows how to explain things
And all I gotta say is “Well, actually…”

I promise you that I know all about it
I’m quite an expert, you can surely tell
Don’t worry your pretty head about it
‘Cause I can make it simple as well

I know you’ll nod and see that I am right, here.
And jump into my arms and softly squee
You’ll fall for me the moment that I step up
To interrupt you, saying, “Well, actually…”

Yet somehow I wind up sad and lonely
It makes me so mad; I just cannot see
I know that I did nothing to deserve this
The only thing I said was “Well, actually…”

I promise you that I know all about it
I’m quite an expert, you can surely tell
Don’t worry your pretty head about it
‘Cause I can make it simple as well

I guess that she was just another hater
But I will get a girl eventually
She will not be able to resist me
When I interrupt her saying “Well, actually…”

Many thanks to Twitter user David Ballard (@dvdbllrd) for the inspiration for this.

I Just Claimed A Gym

By autographedcat

On July 29, 2016

In Songs

I Just Claimed A Gym
by Rob Wynne
TTTO: “I’ve Just Seen A Face” by John Lennon and Paul McCartney

I just claimed a gym
I don’t know if I’ll sink or swim
now that I have. It’s just a place for me
to fight with all the Pokemon I’ve caught

la-la-la-la-la-la

Had it been another day
I might have walked the other way
And maybe caught a Pikichu
But as it is, I’ll fight a duel tonight

li-li-li-li-li-li

Strolling, yes I am strolling
Pokeballs rolling across the way

I have never played a game like this
I’ve been out walking and I’ve missed
things that were out of sight
Until I learned they were a pokestop

ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba

Strolling, yes I am strolling
Pokeballs rolling across the way

I just claimed a gym
I don’t know if I’ll sink or swim
now that I have. It’s just a place for me
to fight with all the Pokemon I’ve caught

la-la-la-la-la-la

Strolling, yes I am strolling
Pokeballs rolling across the way

Inspired by Mary Bertke playing Pokemon Go.

The Art Of The Possible

By autographedcat

On July 26, 2016

In Blog

Final thought for the night. A couple of premises. You don’t have to accept my premises, but it’s useful for you to understand these things when I’m talking.

Politics is a process designed to craft policy. Politics that is not aimed towards crafting policy is a sideshow. Looking for that one special candidate that matches you perfectly in every way isn’t politics. It’s dating.

Further, the process of politics (designed to ultimately craft policy) is about coalition building. That’s the whole point of it; to put together a group of people who agree on most things to advance a common agenda, and to give and take on the margins where everyone doesn’t agree so that everyone gets most of what they want.

So, there’s this disaffected group of people who say they hate the Democratic party, want nothing to do with it or the Democratic party’s nominee, and are generally wanting to burn the whole thing down and replace it with….something. So this conversation keeps happening:

Democrats: “We’d like you to join the coalition. What do you want?”

Them: “There’s nothing you could say or do that would make me support you.”

And the Democrats say “Okay”, and start to talk to the next person down the line.

Them: “Hey! Why are you ignoring me??”

They’re ignoring you because you told them you were unreachable. The work right now is to reach as many people as possible and get them to join our coalition. If you don’t want to get on board, then you don’t have to, but you don’t then get to sit in the middle of the hall and complain about how you don’t like Democrats. We asked you to join, and you said you didn’t want to. That’s absolutely your right, and I will defend it to the death, as soon as I get done with all this work I’m doing electing all these Democrats. Check back in December.

If you want to be part of this conversation, roll your sleeves up and get back to work. There’s a lot to do, and we’ve got 430 House seats and 33 Senate seats to flip over, and state houses and state legislatures to work on and a million other things to do. And I know there’s a lot you’d like to push forward too. We could help you with that. A lot of us want the same thing you do. But you gotta join and put your shoulder to the wheel. Because that’s how things get done.

Politics isn’t about idealism. Politics is work. It’s tough and frustrating and sometimes it feels like we are absolutely nowhere. And some days it feels like if we gave just a little bit more, we could push things closer to what we want. But we’re not going to get better wages for workers and better access to education and healthcare and a million other things if you can’t at least sing along when it comes around on the guitar.

Break’s over. Time to get to work.

Goodnight. I love you all – even the ones that don’t see eye to eye yet.

Inclement Weather Advisory

By autographedcat

On February 24, 2015

In Songs

Inclement Weather Advisory
by Rob Wynne and Jeff Williams
TTTO: “A Kind Of Hush” by Herman’s Hermits

There’s a kind of slush
All over the road, today
All over the road you can hear the sound
Of fast-skidding cars
Watch out for that tree!

Let’s the two of us
Stay inside the house, today
I don’t want to go out and get in the way
of fast-skidding cars

Now listen very carefully
Come closer and see cars sliding into the ditch
Hey, ain’t that a bitch?
The only sound that you will hear
is when the cars begin to skid and career
Roll over and over

There’s a kind of slush
All over the road, today
All over the road you can hear the sound
Of fast-skidding cars

Fa la-la la-la la-la
Fa-la la-la la-la la-la
Fa-la-la-la-la Fa-la la-la-la
Fa la-la la-la

Now listen very carefully
Come closer and see cars sliding into the ditch
Hey, ain’t that a bitch?
The only sound that you will hear
is when the cars begin to skid and career
Roll over and over

There’s a kind of slush
All over the road, today
All over the road you can hear the sound
Of fast-skidding cars
Of fast-skidding cars
Of fast-skidding cars

Tadpoolery Episode 39: Game of Spones

By autographedcat

On July 9, 2014

In Blog

There’s a new episode of Tadpoolery! In this episode, Rob and Bryan discuss

Sports, briefly
Tadpool as community / online friendships
Nerdtacular is coming!
Weird news: carjackers foiled by manual transmission.
Steam sale controversy.
Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.
Game of Thrones season finale ( spoilers! )
NepoTuneism: “Winter is Coming” by Sunnie Larson and friends.

As always, you can subscribe to Tadpoolery on iTunes or download/listen at our webpage.

Enjoy, and thanks for listening!

Tadpoolery: And we’re back…

By autographedcat

On June 30, 2014

In Blog

In January of 2011, Scott Johnson and Brian Ibbott launched a podcast called “The Morning Stream“, a culmination of Scott’s long-time desire to do a morning-drive style radio program that reflected his particularly geeky sensibilities. Like other shows he produced, TMS was live-streamed as it was recorded, and an active chat room interacted with the hosts. Some of us started hanging out in that chatroom even when nothing was being broadcast, and a community began to coalesce. The community was nicknamed “The Tadpool”, riffing off of the name of Scott’s studio, Frogpants Studios, and soon after that, a Facebook community was created to foster a less real-time (and more enduring) interaction between fans.

As time went on, we realised that a lot of very cool people were hanging out in this community, and a small group of us decided to start a show focused on the community, in order to better get to know people. It was called “Tadpoolery”, and was hosted by Bryan Provost, Nick Nizzi, and myself, along with a rotating guest from the Tadpool that we would chat with about whatever sorts of things that person was primarily interested in. Due to the random nature of our guests backgrounds, the episodes could cover a wide variety of of topics, and frequently would range so far afield that our tagline became “The tangent is the topic.”

The original incarnation of Tadpoolery ran for 36 episodes. Towards the end of that run, we started to feel like the lack of structure was actually becoming a liability, and decided to take a brief hiatus to retool the show and get a better handle on what we wanted to do with it. For a variety of reasons, we didn’t return from that hiatus as planned.

Two years later…

Bryan and I actually started talking about rebooting the show last year, just after Nerdtacular. We wanted to keep the same vibe the original show had — it’s very much a product of the Tadpool — while giving it room to expand and evolve into something of wider and more general interest. Around the end of last year, we did a test show, which went well but had some technical difficulties. Once those were finally resolved and scheduling was worked out, we’ve now officially relaunched Tadpoolery and released our first new episodes.

Episode 37 is the test episode we recorded last year. The topics include:

Breaking Bad
Dragon Age Heroes (android)
World of Warcraft
Kingdom of Amalur IP sale
Fallout 4 hoax
Stealth games
Weird news: recreational marijuana dispensery names
Weird news: The Slutcracker (Burlesque parody of the Nutcracker)
Music: Marian Call, “Sketchbook”, Postmodern Jukebox

Episode 38 was recorded last week, where we discussed:

Travel and Tadmeets (Tadpool Meetups)
Nerdtacular is coming!
Tattoos
You Can’t Watch Everything (Josh Williams)
Nerd Rage
Star Wars and Star Wars
Iconic Vs. Definitive Portrayals
Summer of 1994 (Brian Duff)
I love the 2000s
NepoTuneism: Tom Smith, “307 Ale”
Steam Summer Sale (Rocksmith, Skyrim)
Catching Up ON Old Content (video games and TV, especially)

So as you can see, the tangent is still the topic. 🙂 You can subscribe to Tadpoolery on ITunes, or get episodes directly from our webpage. New episodes will be released on Friday.

It’s good to finally have my show back on the air. I’ve really missed making it, and I hope you enjoy listening to it.