An Ode to Tetris

Someone on my LJ Friends list recently posted about Adam and Joe, a pair of wonderful British nerds who used to have a low-budget show on Channel Four that was damned hilarious. They did cuddly toy versions of Trainspotting, Friends and Fight Club, amongst others. (You can check them out at the link above.) They also did a series about Tokyo, and as well as keeping British audiences up-to-date with Japanese inventions and stuff, they did things like composing songs. About football-- "Ball, ball, ball/footy, footy, footy/ball, ball, ball/woo-hoo" and, my personal favourite, Tetris.

Dear Tetris. You have kept me amused through airport queues and train journeys, helped me ignore other people and built the muscles in my hand. So here is the original Adam and Joe Tetris song, to be sung to the sinister Tetris tune you get when typing your username in when your score flashes up. No, really.

Sometimes when the world is tough
With unemployment, war and stuff
I'm sitting on the lav and staring
At the ceiling, I'm despairing
'Cos the future frightens me
Too much responsibility
I grab GameBoy nostalgically
And plug my Tetris in.

As soon as Tetris blocks cascade
My anxious thoughts begin to fade
My girlfriend left me recently
Now she's a distant memory
Because I've got a long thin block
Which very soon is going to dock
Beside a massive Tetris rock
And make it disappear

My friend Joe's a Tetris sceptic--
Says it makes you epileptic
But he doesn't understand
It builds the muscles in your hands
And it improves co-ordination
Puts you in a situation
Where you use imagination
To stack loads of odd-shaped blocks
Baaaah!