Man in #000000 – heweb11

If you were lucky enough to be at The HighBall on October 25, you got to see some very special hewebbers pay tribute to Johnny Cash.

Check out these specially adapted lyrics from their epic performance:

“Colleagues Fired”
by Aaron Rester

Budget cuts are a burning thing
And they make the pink slips sing
Bound by a contract mire
I kind of wish I’d never been hired

CHORUS:
One by one, my colleagues got fired
They sized down, down, down
And no one else was hired
Now I work, work, work
O lord I’m tired
O lord I’m tired

Bosses think the web is cheap
No printing costs, so it’s me they keep
I hold my tongue, meek and mild
Oh, but HR went wild

CHORUS
One by one, my colleagues got fired
They sized down, down, down
And no one else was hired
Now I work, work, work
O lord I’m tired
O lord I’m tired

Budget cuts are a burning thing
And they make the pink slips sing
Bound by a contract mire
I kind of wish I’d never been hired

One by one, my colleagues got fired
They sized down, down, down
And no one else was hired

One by one, my colleagues got fired
They sized down, down, down
And no one else was hired

Well I quit!
Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

“Austin”
by Georgy Cohen

We registered in a fever, hotter than a Twitter trend
We’ve been talkin’ ’bout Austin, ever since #heweb10
I’m goin’ to Austin, I’m gonna learn some web,
Yeah, look out Austin, here comes higher ed

Well, go on down to Austin; go and spend your per diem
Go talk shop for a week, you big-talkin’ geek, make a bigger nerd of yourself,
You’re goin’ to Austin – hey, your iPad’s neat!
Honey, I’m gonna liveblog Austin.
See if I tweet.

When I check into that city, people gonna fear my Klout. (Hah!)
All them HiPPOs gonna make me, teach ’em what they don’t know ’bout,
I’m goin’ to Austin, gonna hack some code
Yeah, I’m goin’ to Austin.
Hey, who’s giving the keynote?

Yeah, they’ll love you down in Austin, and we’ll be singin’ on the High Ball stage
Barely gettin’ sleep ’cause the drinks are mighty cheap
But still down at breakfast by 8
You’re goin’ to Austin, you big-talkin’ nerd.
And I’ll be speakin’ in Austin, for a red stapler.

We registered in a fever, hotter than a Twitter trend
We’ve been talkin’ ’bout Austin, ever since #heweb10
I’m goin’ to Austin, I’m gonna drink some beer
Yeah, we’re goin’ to Austin, can’t expense that here.

“Get Tweetin'”
by Aaron Rester

Hey, get tweetin’ when you got some news
Come on, get tweetin’ when you got some news
Get that social media in your bones
Two taps on the mouse or your phone
Get tweetin’ when you got some news

A little web guru never gets low down
But he’s got the dirtiest job in town
Bendin’ low at the peoples’ feet
On the windy corner of the virtual street
Well, I asked him then to tell me the truth
How’d he stay on top of the news
He grinned as he raised his little head
Popped open that Tweetdeck and said

Get tweetin’ when you got some news
Come on, get tweetin’ when you got some news
A retweet or two makes you feel so fine
It’ll shake all the trouble from your worried mind
Get tweetin’ when you got some news

Hey, get tweetin’ when you got some news
Come on, get tweetin’ when you got some news
Get that social media in your bones
Two taps on the mouse or your phone
Get tweetin’ when you got some news

Well, I sat down to listen to that web guru
And I thought I might try tweetin’ too
@ replyin’ left and dm’in’ right
He was on Tweetdeck both day and night
He stopped once to wipe the sweat away
I said you’re a mighty nerdy boy to be-a workin’ that way
He said “I like it” with a big wide grin
Kept on a typin’ and he said again

Get tweetin’ when you got some news
Come on, get tweetin’ when you got some news
It don’t cost a dime, that’s the honest truth
Does a million dollars worth of good for you
Get tweetin’ when you got some news

 

One Piece at a Time
by Sven Aas

Well, I left Front Page back in ’99
And worked in Dreamweaver for my codin’ time
I was working on banners, hit counters, and guestbook hacks

Every day I’d watch that code roll by
And sometimes I’d hang my head and cry
‘Cause I always wanted my clean old HTML back

One day I devised myself a plan
That should be the envy of most any man
I’d sneak web standards in there wherever I can
Now gettin’ caught meant gettin’ fired
Because management wasn’t what you’d call inspired
But I’d fix up that old site even if I did get canned.

I’d update it one piece at a time
So it wouldn’t take all my time
And my boss won’t notice all his hateful tables dyin’
I’m gonna code this site in style
I’m gonna drive everybody wild
When my website’s got web standards underlyin’

So the very next day when I logged in
(With my Blue Beanie book by old Zeldman)
I beat on that site until my coffee cup filled with tears
Now I never considered my self a hacker,
Script kiddie, black hat, theief, or cracker
But that frameset made me look bad in front of my peers

The first day I added a character set
And the next a doctype but I wasn’t done yet
Then I put in a meta description for the crawler’s eyes
The little things I put in on my boss’s lunch break
Like closing tags and all them line breaks
But the big stuff we snuck in whenever we had to revise

Not up to now my plan went hunky-dorily
‘Til we tried to load up the site in IE
And that’s when we noticed that something was definitely wrong

The nav was written in HTML3
And the sidebar was coded in PHP
And the banner and footer were three hundred and twenty lines long

So we trimmed it down until it made sense
With beer and espresso and common sense
We had that webpage loadin’ just like a song
Now the typefaces they were quite a site
We had two on the left and one on the right
But when we moused over anything all the words were gone

The images looked kinda funny too
But we re-exported them and when we got through
Well, that’s when we noticed that the photos all were GIFs
About that time my eyes popped out
And for the very first time I had my doubts
But I opened up Fireworks and loaded the masters in.

Then I pulled up the styleguide to get the specs
But it was no use, they all were wrecks
I imagined my colleagues laughin’ the whole year ’round
But at the W3C they didn’t laugh
‘Cause trying to validate it took the whole staff
And when they got through it was the worst site they’d ever found

CHORUS
I updated it one piece at a time
So it wouldn’t take all my time
And my boss didn’t notice all his hateful tables dyin’
I’m gonna code this site in style
I’m gonna drive everybody wild
When my website’s got web standards underlyin’

(Spoken) Ugh! Yow, ERIC MEYER
This is the STANDARDS WONK
With the PYCHO-BILLY CSS NIGHTMARE Come on

Huh, this is the STANDARDS WONK
And negatory on the doctype of this here web-site ERIC MEYER
You might say I’m relying on quirks mode
I’m not sure why that’s necessary, but.
Huh? What standards did I use?

Well, it’s an HTML, DHTML, XHTML, non-validating dog of hell
It uses JS, CSS, and I confess I really didn’t do my job so well

 

Frames and Tables Blues
by Aaron Rester

I seen a purdy website
of our rival school,
It’s got semantic markup,
and a mobile version too,
I’m stuck in frames and tables,
And time keeps draggin’ on,
But this website keeps a-rollin’,
On down from 2000 and 1.

When I was just a baby,
My Mama told me, “No,
Always be a good boy,
Don’t ever play with code,”
But I took a job as webmaster,
Now I just want to die,
When I see that source code blowin’,
I hang my head and cry.

I bet there’s web folks workin’,
In a fancy CMS,
They’re probably drinkin’ coffee,
Not cleaning up this mess,
But I know I had it comin’,
I know I can’t be free,
But those websites keep a-changin’,
And that’s what tortures me.

Well, if they freed me from this prison,
If that semantic code was mine,
I bet I’d win some award,
From those guys at eduStyle,
Far from frames and tables,
That’s where I want to stay,
And I’d let that lovely CSS,
cascade my blues away.

 

“I Web Design”
by Aaron Rester

I keep a close watch on this site of mine
I keep twelve browser tabs open on the side
I move divs around one pixel at a time
But I don’t mind, I web design

I don’t want to see no more dropdown menus
Homepage real estate wars give me the blues
I’ll admit that I’m a fool for ease of use
But I don’t mind, I web design

As sure as text is dark and backgrounds light
I keep it legible both day and night
And user tests I’ve done proves that it’s right
And I don’t mind, I web design

I’ve got a way with HTML5
Semantic code is a love that I can’t hide
You can use my site even if you’re blind
And I don’t mind, I web design

I keep a close watch on this site of mine
I keep twelve browser tabs open on the side
I move divs around one pixel at a time
But I don’t mind, I web design

“I’ve Surfed Everywhere”
by Jeff Stevens

I was clickin’ my browser along the dusty Google search,
When along came Firefox with a new fangled tabbed perch.
“If you’re goin’ to the World Wide Web, Mack, with me you can ride.”
And so I climbed into the window and then I settled down inside.
He asked me if I’d seen a road with so much junk and spam.
And I said, “Listen, I’ve traveled every site listed by ICANN!”

I’ve surfed everywhere, man.
I’ve surfed everywhere, man.
Crossed the domains bare, man.
I’ve breathed the netgroups air, man.
Of travel I’ve had my share, man.
I’ve surfed everywhere.

I’ve been to:
Hulu, Facebook, Digg, Gowalla,
Techcrunch, Gawker, ebay, Half.com,
CNN, Craigslist, a LIst Apart, and 4chan on a dare,
Mashable, Google, Bing, and Foursquare,
Cute Overload and I can have Cheeburger,
Endgadget, BBC, and Flickr, I’m a killer.

[Chorus]

I’ve been to:
Alexa, cnet, Download, and PvP,
Blogger, Formspring, JiveJournal, XKCD,
Baidu, Orkut, Ask, Der Spiegel, Vimeo,
Paypal, Overstock, imdb, and yahoo,
Skype and Badoo and Pirate Bay but I don’t take,
Mapquest and ehow and flickr, for Pete’s sake.

[Chorus]

I’ve been to:
linkedin, weather, dailymotion, tinychat,
Chat Roulette, soku, mediafire, and bitnet,
zynga, twitpic, priceline, expedia, kayak,
chase, google plus, hotmail, filmsoundtracks,
Metacafe, flickr, wikimedia and its commons
fox sports and huffingtonpost, dahlin.

[Chorus]

I’ve been to:
Verizon, peeplo, brightkite, mozilla,
Yelp, geocities, pandora and kazaa
webmd, yfrog, microsoft, weeplaces and napster,
macy’s, shopping, expedia, travelocity, monster,
livingsocial, groupon, rueters and drudgerepor
and the automatic bruce lee fighting generator.

[Chorus]

Photos courtesy HighEdWeb, Flickr.