MAMEWorld Forums - The Loony Bin - 'Twas The Night Before MAME

'Twas The Night Before MAME
or: A Visit From St. Nicola (Mickola?)
by Stiletto (ed. Mog)
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'Twas the night before Wednesday, and all through the list;
Not a member was posting, not even on Gist!
The code was all pushed up to Github with care,
In hopes that St. Nicola soon would be there;

The "emu-newzboys" were all snug with their sites,
With visions of Hotel Mario in sight!
And your humble Stiletto, in torn jeans and cap,
Was researching tech stuff, and talking to hap;

When out in the 'Net, there arose such a clatter
I sprang to my desk to survey the matter.
Away into Windows I flew, acting rash,
And opened a browser to check the commit hash.

The URL on my page, white as the snows,
Linked to MAMEDEV's Git, as fast as it goes,
To that repo, where what to my eyes should appear,
But a lightning-fast Vespa with MAMEdev (and beer),

With a slick little driver so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nic'!
More rapid than eagles, his fingers they flew,
He chanted and cursed til' his face had turned blue;

"On OG! On Aaron! On Vas, AJR, Osso -
On 'Belmont! On P-Mack! On Moogle and Angelo!
From the top of the server and its firewall,
Now code away, type away, hack away all!"

As developers whose experience befit,
When finding encryption, they blew it to shit.
So onto the server the source code it flew,
With a ZIP file of toys and St. Nicola too.

And then, at a speed that was really quite keen,
Those coders and hackers arrived on the scene.
As I moved the mouse with my hand and scrolled down,
St. Nicola leapt to the page with a bound.

He dressed all in khaki, from head to his feet,
The tattered appearance, it looked rather beat.
With a bundle of PCBs flung on his back,
He looked like he was ready to hack.

His eyes -- how they twinkled! His pimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like ashes, his knuckles were hairy!
His droll little mouth had drawn up in a bow,
And the stubble on his chin clearly needed a mow.

He held a vape pen rather tight in his teeth,
And the vapor - it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and the slightest beer gut,
The smell on his breath, why, I shall not guess what.

He chuckled, and grinned, and looked pleased with himself -
I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
I peeked at my wristwatch and I felt somewhat dead,
I realized at 3:30 at night's time for bed.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And compiled the source code; then turned with a jerk,
Then sent up the builds faster than I could doze,
And giving a nod, from the repo they rose;

He sprang to his scooter, to the team gave a whistle,
And soon they all left with the speed of a missile.
But I heard him exclaim, as they drove out of sight,
"ENJOY THE NEW MAME, GUYS, AND HAVE A GOOD NIGHT!"

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- Stiletto (ed. Mog)

Quote:

Merry Christmas, Happy Yule, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Festivus and Happy December 25th... and a Happy New Year! In other words, Happy Holidays to all, and to all a good night!