The Printer Spool

[kjn]

A friend of mine fought for a long time with the new university printer system, and told of his woes of Facebook. Given my sometime experiences as a sysadmin myself, I immediately latched onto the CUPS system, resulting in "The Printer Spool", ttto Auld Lang Syne. It later turned out the issue wasn't CUPS- or driver-related, but rather about documentation.


Should printing servers be forgot
And make me to a fool?
Should printing servers be forgot
The printer spool!

The printer spool, my dear
The printer spool
We'll tak a CUPS of horror yet,
The printer spool

And surely ye'll be driven mad!
And surely I'll be too!
We'll tak a CUPS of horror yet,
The printer spool!

The printer spool, my dear…

We twa hae read all through the docs,
And seen the screenshots cruel;
But we've been driven to a weary fit,
The printer spool.

The printer spool, my dear…

So lend a hand, my trusty fiere!
and gie's ye magic tool
And we’ll tak' a right gude-willie hand,
The printer spool.

The printer spool, my dear…

Comments

[thnidu]

Excellent!
Two suggestions, one for grammar/idiom and one for scansion:

Line 2: make of me a fool

Last line of verses: The (DUM-dum) printer spool
Some appropriate word with that stress pattern. I don't think you want "goddamn", much less "fucking", but that's the rhythm the line calls for.

[kjn]

Thanks! I followed Burns' original there in the verses, but your first suggestion is nice!