Posts Tagged ‘Techno-Stress’

Limerick Ode To Info Overload

Tuesday, October 17th, 2023

Does it feel like your head might explode?
Do you suffer from brain overload?
Here’s a trick you might try:
It should help. Wait! Stand by!
Seems I’ve lost my pc’s logon code.

(Today is Information Overload Day which falls annually on the third Tuesday of October.)

Limerick-Off Monday – Rhyme Word: HOARD, HORDE, or WHORED at the end of any one line

Sunday, October 29th, 2017

It’s Limerick-Off time, once again. And that means I write a limerick, and you write your own, using the same rhyme word. Then you post your limerick(s) as a comment to this post and, if you’re a Facebook user, on Facebook too.

I hope you’ll join me in writing limericks using HOARD, HORDE, or WHORED at the end of any one line. (Homonyms or homophones are fine.)

The best submission will be crowned Limerick-Off Award Winner. (Here’s last week’s Limerick-Off Award Winner.)

Additionally, you may write themed limericks related to CHAOS, using any rhyme scheme. And of course I’ll present an extra award — one for the best CHAOS-related limerick.

How will your poems be judged? By meter, rhyme, cleverness, and humor. (If you’re feeling a bit fuzzy about limerick writing rules, here’s my How To Write A Limerick article.)

I’ll announce the winners on November 12, 2017, right before I post the next Limerick-Off. So that gives you two full weeks to submit your clever, polished verse. Your submission deadline is Saturday, November 11, 2017 at 10:00 p.m. (Eastern Time.)

Here’s my limerick:

I return from the shore, all restored,
Feeling mellow, no longer unmoored.
Store my oars in the shed,
Long for bed, but instead,
I check texts (I’m well-bred) from the horde.

Please feel free to enter my Limerick-Off by posting your limerick(s) in my comments. And if you’re on Facebook, I hope you’ll join my friends in that same activity on my Facebook Limerick-Off post.

To receive an email alert whenever I post a new Limerick-Off, please email Madkane@MadKane.com Subject: MadKane’s Newsletter. Thanks!

You Won’t Believe This, But… (Revisiting My Luddite Self)

Friday, February 14th, 2014

I wrote the following limerick in response to a personal request from Ralph Nader. And yes, I know that sounds crazy. So please allow me to explain:

Over twenty years ago, the New York Times Sunday Business section published my serious personal essay about technology in the workplace. My column, entitled “When Executives Should Just Say No,” dealt with the downside of technological advances. I concluded it with these questions:

Does that the 7:00 p.m. message really merit an immediate response? Is keeping staff hooked to computers all night a sensible use of personnel? And perhaps most important: Am I using these machines? Or are they using me?

My piece attracted a fair amount of attention, including radio interviews, a Boston Globe interview, and a reprint request from Pushcart Press’s Bill Henderson for his anthology “Minutes of the Lead Pencil Club.”

So, what does this have to do with Ralph Nader? It seems that Nader, a fan of that anthology when it was first published, has recently re-read it. And he’s sent personal letters to its contributors, asking us to re-read our respective pieces and send him updated thoughts on the topic, for an article he’s working on.

Instead of a prose response, I decided to express my updated views via limerick. So here’s what I sent to Ralph Nader:

In a decades-old piece, I once warned
With a Luddite’s distrust, unadorned,
Of technology’s lure;
Folks were duped, I was sure.
Now I’m one of those people I scorned.

Limerick Ode To Information Overload

Monday, October 21st, 2013

Happy Information Overload Day! (October 20, 2015)

Limerick Ode To Information Overload (3-Verse Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Too much data is haunting my dreams–
Excess info and too many memes.
Overloaded with news,
My brain has the blues:
“I’m cluttered with tidbits,” it screams.

So what’s the solution pray tell
That will free me from info-stress hell?
Turn off ev’ry machine
And device? That sounds mean
And quite limiting. Not a good sell!

Is there anything else I can do?
I suppose I could hide in the loo.
But alas and alack,
That room has a stack
Of old weeklies — a factoid fondue.

***
Update: The first Friday of March is the National Day of Unplugging.

In-Box Overload (Limerick)

Wednesday, April 4th, 2012

In-Box Overload (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

My in-box is filled to the brim.
The sight of it’s making me grim.
And my virtual box
Is likewise a pox.
Mail has stamped out my zip and my vim.

(Prompted By One Single Impression’s “Inbox.”)

Related Post: Email Hell