VLBI Idiot
Yesterday was the annual "summer" barbecue at ASTRON; this being the Netherlands though, you can imagine the weather was more reminiscent of, well, anything but summer. This year the crowd were entertained (I hope that's the right word) by MEGASTRON, a band made up of students and employees of both ASTRON and JIVE, including me (but, before you ask, the name was not my idea and I had no say in the matter!). The five of us had been playing together for about two months, working on cover versions of sixteen songs altogether, but there was an issue with one song in particular: we planned to do Green Day's American Idiot, but none of us is American so the lyrics seemed a bit odd. So... out came my pen. By popular demand, and with sincere apologies to Green Day, here is the version we sang:
Don't wanna be a VLBI idiot
Observations stored on old media
And can you hear the sound of a pulsar?
The sub-luminal tick tock phenomena
Chorus: Welcome to a new observation
All across the European Network
My fringes seem to be okay
Publication dreams of tomorrow
Telescopes, the sources will follow
With referees we'll argue!
Well maybe I'm an all-round astronomer
I'm not a part of a radio agenda
Now everybody do the funky quasar
And sing along in the age ofLOFARALMA
Chorus
Don't wanna be a VLBI idiot
Observations stored on old media
Information in the correlator
I'll flag my RFI later
Chorus
And, if you really want a laugh, you can see the video (recorded by our director) on youtube. There was a static camera recording the whole gig, a recording of the sound from the mixing desk, and I don't know how many other cameras in the room, but we haven't looked at any of it yet... part of me doesn't really want to!
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