But first… did you know that GoDaddy.com is hiring? I’ve been working for this company for 2 years, and I *love* it. Truly. I can honestly say it’s the best place I’ve ever worked. If you’re looking for a challenging job and a great work environment, go take a look at some of the open positions at GoDaddy.com/Jobs. [/shameless plug]

And now… the winner of the 32GB iPod Touch, generously donated by GoDaddy.com for this silly little contest, is… Steve Jones! Steve’s rap, DBA’s Delight, is set to the tune of ‘Rapper’s Delight’ by The Sugarhill Gang and has so many SQL features dropped it’s almost educational. Almost.

THANK YOU to everyone who submitted a rap! Hopefully you had as much fun writing them as we had reading them. I’ll be following up in the next few days with a full listing of all SQL raps, once I figure out how to organize it! If you’ve posted it to your blog, please leave me a comment with the URL. And if for some reason, you don’t want me to post your submission, that’s okay too, just let me know.

Oh, what’s that? You want to see Steve’s winning entry NOW? Oh, if you insist…

“DBA Delight” by Steve Jones
(This is set to the tune of “Rapper’s Delight” by The Sugarhill Gang. If you’re not familiar with the song, go to Playlist.com and search for it; it really adds to the whole experience!)

Now what you hear is not a parse
I’m rapping to the code
’cause me, my tweeps, and the devs
are gonna try to gen a load.
See I am the D-B-A
and I’d like to say hello
to the devs, the PMs, and the boss
that make me want to explode

Have you ever went over a friend’s shop to work
and the code just ain’t no good?
The cursors are slow, the procedures long
and a box you wouldn’t patch if you could!
So he asks what to do, to speed things up
and you sit stunned for a sec
The boss wants to help, a little consult
for some work without a spec.
Then you say, that’s it, I got to leave this place,
Don’t care what these people think
I’m just asking for trouble without benefits
and a database on the blink
So you bust out the door, hit the road
go back to your own job
check your server, see green lights
stop that head before it throbs
you text your friend two weeks later
to see how he has been
He says sorry about that job
but DBA, we’re still friends.

With 1-in-10 odds, this may be the best chance you ever have at winning something!

loriedwards: @sqlfool Much love for your sql rap. Does this make you an MC DBA?

AndyLeonard: Green tea all over my laptop monitor – this is hilarious @sqlfool !

Jimmy May: OMG!!! I am howling!!! All y’all have soitenly gotten me beat. So to speak…

If you haven’t read Ward’s excellent response to my poor excuse for a rap, you can find it on his blog. Ward beat me soundly (I definitely “hit a nuke with rubber bands!”), but in my defense, I did not know he was an accomplished singer and song writer! The most musical talent I have is beating Guitar Hero on the Hard difficulty mode. Hey, it’s impressive if you’re me.

But what I’ve been surprised to find, aside from Ward’s musical genius, is how many *other* DBA’s are inclined to spin a little rhyme:

SQLChicken: @sqlfool you know w/ who u be messin?Take your broke ass rhymes and learn this lesson.I’ll purge u like bad data,so step off and see u lata!

mike_walsh: @sqlfool – @sqltwit thinks he’s a master of prose but the emperors got no clothes. Webcam? What a sham… #sqlrapsaga

jeffrush: @sqlfool @sqltwit @andyleonard you are all crazy like an orange / rhyming isn’t hard at… DOH!

Clearly, we need to give these folks an avenue to vent their repressed rhythms; the last thing we need is more maniacal DBA’s running around. So here’s my chance to save the world here’s your chance to show off your rap skillz. I am officially throwing down the proverbial gauntlet to the ENTIRE WORLD the SQL Server and .NET community to submit your own SQL RAP.

Why should you participate? Well, for street cred, of course! Oh, you want something more? How about a shiny new iPod Touch?

Now that I have your attention, here’s the rules:

• Your rap has to be original, but may parody existing songs.
• Your rap has to relate to SQL Server in some form; the geekier, the better. Bonus points for working SQL Server 2008 features or SQL bloggers into the song.
• You only need to submit the lyrics to your song. Bonus points for video and/or audio accompaniments.

Meet your judges:

Brent Ozar – a SQL Server expert by trade and a smart-ass at heart, Brent will be judging your rap on its overall entertainment value.

Ward Pond – a SQL Server guru by day, songwriter by night, Ward will be judging your rap’s overall “musical flow”… whatever that means.

Michelle Ufford – she’s already proved she has no ability to rap, but it’s her contest, so she gets to be a judge. She’ll be judging your song on its je ne sais quoi… literally.

Realistically, we may not get that many submissions, so this may be the best odds you ever have at winning something. Plus, I hear Brent is pretty easy to bribe.

Send your raps to me at michelle @ sqlfool dot com.  The deadline for submissions is 8pm CST on Monday, 18 May 2009. I’ll post the entries and the winners around a week after that, depending on how busy I am.

So what are you waiting for? Go throw on some Snoop and/or a Kimberly Tripp webcast and get rappin’!