I just noticed that in my last post, I promised to post about the dumb parody ideas Joey and I performed at MarsCon. And wouldn’t you know, I also have a long-overdue recurring to-do-list item to write a blog post or something! So here’s my blog post or something, about the dumb parody ideas Joey and I performed at MarsCon.

The first song we sang was Fish Heads of the Night, a paraphrase of Fish Heads by Barnes & Barnes sung to the tune of Music of the Night from Phantom of the Opera. Joey accidentally stopped the backing track partway through, which messed us up for the rest of it, so instead of our performance of it at MarsCon, here’s a video of us singing it at home, on International Towel Day.

Lyrics:

Fish heads, fish heads, roly poly fish heads
Fish heads, fish heads, roly poly fish heads
In the morning laughing, in the evening floating.
Ask a fish head anything you want
they won't answer for they cannot talk.

Our next song was Rubber Duckin’ It, a parody of Donald Duckin’ It by Ross Childs, about rubber duck debugging. That’s when a programmer will explain the problem they’re trying to solve to a rubber duck (or, more likely, start writing out their question to post somewhere) and in the process of explaining it, come up with an answer themselves, without the duck having to give so much as a quack (or without the question being posted).

Lyrics:

Well, I’m working late, and I’ve had a long day
Got a lot on my plate, while working hard for my pay
But there’s no one to ask, when I feel like a noob
So I get to my task, when I’m alone in my cube

I start explaining my woes, Like I could get some reply
From someone smarter that me, or even just that one guy
But I keep dumbing down, so there could be no more doubt
And now I put it like that, I think I’ve figured it out!

(Chorus)
I’m Rubber Duckin’ it! yeah
I’m Rubber Duckin’ it! yeah
I’m Rubber Duckin’ it! yeah
And I'm talking to myself

Ross Childs was actually at the event, but was unfortunately in the hallway filming a TikTok while we performed.

Our final entry was Garbanzo Beans (a.k.a. Chick Peas), a parody of O Tannenbaum/O Christmas Tree about a legume with two names. This song pretty much wrote itself, or was already largely written on a can Joey was opening. Joey provided the garbanzo beans lines, and I provided the chick peas lines. Also, Joey, a seasoned a cappella singer, provided the harmonies while I concentrated very hard on sticking to the melody without being distracted by what Joey was doing.

Insane Ian really made this one by encouraging the crowd to sing along with the last line.

Lyrics:

Garbanzo beans, garbanzo beans
Some people call them chickpeas.
Garbanzo beans, garbanzo beans
Some people call them chickpeas.
Garbanzo beans, garbanzo beans
Garbanzo beans, garbanzo beans
Garbanzo beans, garbanzo beans
Some people call them chickpeas.

I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard the original song… in my music library I have a version of it called Trees are Green by The Cow Exchange, where all the lyrics are ‘O Christmas Tree’.

This one made it to the finals, but there was stiff competition, and we did not win the coveted golden spatula.

Here’s a playlist of all the dumb parodies we’ve sung within range of a camera over the years.

Coincidentally, while searching my YouTube uploads for these ones, I found a video in which Mary Robinette Kowal sings Rubber Ducky with her puppet named Garbanzo, which matched two of my searches.

After MarsCon, I went to JoCo Cruise, and it’s just as well they didn’t sing First of May on the cruise, because I usually aim to finish uploading all my videos from the cruise (at least up until that song) by the first of May, but this year, I had no chance. What with the cruise itself being later than usual, and more of my time taken up with working and commuting, I’m still only up ‘Til Tuesday. By which I mean, my latest upload so far is of Jim Boggia singing a ‘Til Tuesday song on the Tuesday of the cruise. You can see everything I’ve uploaded so far in this playlist.

After JoCo Cruise, I went to Deep Dish Swift, a pizza themed developer conference in Chicagoland. While there, I had not only some time to look into a crash in Seddit (my text-to-speech-focused Reddit reader for macOS and iOS), but also plenty of people around to help fix it. So I released a new version that fixes the crash, and also fixes an issue with iCloud sync.