Presenting ‘Cascade at the Bat’: A Bad Intel CPU Poem

By Joel Hruska

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I wrote this poem — “poem” — around the time Intel launched Cascade Lake back in 2019. I held off publishing back then because I didn’t want to leave people thinking we’d reviewed a CPU in truly bad poetry instead of my typical second-rate prose. I also didn’t want it to come off as mean-spirited. I set it aside and forgot I wrote it, only to rediscover it again this week.

“Cascade at the Bat” is a parody of “Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic, Sung in the Year 1888.” The primary difference between “Cascade” and “ Casey” is that the latter is a beloved and well-known piece of comedic poetry, while the former is… unlikely to achieve this worthy station. Some of the feedback I received when I shared my magnum dopus with friends is reprinted verbatim below:

Words From Readers Describing “Cascade at the Bat”

“A gem worthy of McGonagall.” (This is the antipode of a compliment).

“It’s definitely a thing you spent time making. We have but a finite time on this planet, and this is how you chose to spend some of yours. I respect that, even if I don’t understand it.”