Tag: Collegian

By Jeffrey Carl

So this is it.  It’s all over.  My last column.  I’m not kidding.

I’m graduating,  I’m looking for a job.  I’m engaged.  I’m starting to get gray hair.

So, what have we learned?  I’m not sure.  The last two years of my college career were pretty much defined within what I wrote here.  Let’s go back and examine some actual excerpts of what I wrote and see if I learned anything:

Jeff Carl’s Greatest Hits

• Editor’s Note: Yeah.  Sure.  Whatever.

• Of course, I meant “really bites ass” in the strict biblical sense.

• The only conclusion I can come to is that the radio station should be filled in with cement immediately and all of the DJs should be burned at the stake.

• Sorority Life: This revolves primarily around Rush retreats (see HAHAHA above) and scrambling for formal dates.  Sorority formals, as previously mentioned, are just like bar mitzvahs, but with sex in the elevators.

• The law school should be razed to the ground and the earth sown with salt.

• Girls do not actually have – as was previously believed – long, spiny wings or small vestigial tails.

• Research was found to cause cancer in laboratory rats.

• Campbell: No.  You are on crack.  What I was talking about was the primal need for a figure of supreme evil, which would ride around in a little electric cart.

• Q: Are you really as grumpy and bitter in real life as you sound in your columns?

A: Yes.  

• Siskel: Roger, when my people come from the stars to enslave this puny planet, you will serve as food for the Giant Slave Worms of Kodos.  So I give Evil a “Thumbs Up.”

• 7. Thou shalt not toast cheese in the Holy Dining Hall toasters, for the cheese drippeth much and is disgusting, sayeth the Lord.⁷

• You can get a fantastic buzz if you drink after giving blood.

• INTERVARSITY CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP RUSH:

Day 1: Meet Your Maker cookout, 4:30 p.m.

Day 2: Fish and Loaves picnic, 2:00 p.m.

Day 3: I-Found-the-Lord-and-Lost-my-Talent: Christian Rock Night, 7:00 p.m.*

Day 4: Bids extended by the Angel of Death

• a)Replace current Collegian staff with clever trained seals

• The tombstones served to illustrate ROTC’s recruitment slogan, “We kill more students before our 8:15 classes than most people kill all day.”

• Q: Who is Dr. Staff?  And why is he listed as teaching so many courses at registration time?

• ENGLISH MAJOR APTITUDE TEST:

Y  N  3. I like “unemployment.”

• Well, the “grad school” thing sounds okay, because you could stay and see Dave Matthews every Wednesday night for an additional two or three years.  But there’s always the chance that he’ll get big and move away.

• I just quit smoking.

• April 19: The fifth and final “Pray for Revival” campaign ends in disaster as the dead come alive again and walk the earth as zombies preying on the living.  Former Chancellor Boatwright is seen in the library, eating Lexis/Nexis terminals.

• Sep. 7: As a publicity stunt, the members of campus band “9 Divine” kill themselves onstage.

• CORRECTIONS: Last week’s column may have perhaps been a little misleading.  Okay, I lied like the dog I am.  Deal with it. 

• The next morning, rushees are given an envelope which contains either engraved fancy official bid(s) or an engraved fancy notice of their new official status as losers and the phone number for CAPS, in case they decide to kill themselves.

• This is my last column.

• Ancient History

1. When Lucy and Ethel got the job at the chocolate factory, they got in trouble because

a. it’s just kooky how things work out like that   b. Ethel was distributing Communist propaganda on her lunch break   c. Lucy was stoned off her ass

• Must change UR Alma Mater to “We Will Rock You”

• This is really my last column.

• As we did not receive a response within 24 hours (I checked my machine), we are now in a life-and-death struggle with the tyrannical Canadian Empire.

• “Greetings, you, Senator.  I am the Arch-villain ‘Frogface.’”

• male cheerleaders: n. Sissy boys.

• Student government presidents should be used for doorstops or paperweights

• All those “cities” that are supposed to be there are actually just one farm house with this guy named “Gary” or “Indianapolis” sitting on the front porch and shucking corn with his one good tooth.  I’m not kidding.

• A: Nein!  We are certainly not using giant mind-controlled squid™ to develop newer and more virulent Pier Value Meals™5!  

• num-chuks (nim’ chek): 1.n. A terrifying Japanese weapon of death 2.n. A terrifying American columnist of Fiat Currency.

• “The Surgeon General has determined that if you’re going to smoke these, you can kiss your ass goodbye right now”

Well, I guess I didn’t learn much.

Yes, I did.  I got to be a class clown and try to make everybody laugh.  Sometimes it worked.  Sometimes it didn’t.  But it was always fun to try.

If you read my columns, thank you.  If you read my columns and didn’t try to sue me, thank you even more.  If you were one of those who wrote to me or just said, “good job,” then you were the reason I did this.  Thanks.

To every one of the funny people I got to work with – even Shepard and Caputo – thanks.

This newspaper has been a big part of my life here.  I’m sorry to go.  But maybe we’ll all meet once more, somewhere down the road.  You’ll see me again.

This is my last bow.  It was all worth it.

Why?  Because we here at The Collegian prided ourselves on being responsive to our readers.

By Jeffrey Carl

We here at The Collegian pride ourselves on being responsive to our readers. If you are one of the lucky customers who have purchased The Collegian “Books on Tape” series, then let me also say that we are responsive to our listeners. Editor’s Note: Please note that the “Books on Tape” edition carries the full text of this article as well as three bonus tracks, two of which are unreleased: “My Life as a Squirrel” and “Stairway to Heaven (extended live version).”

The point being that we are constantly besieged by requests from readers. Many say, “You go to Hell.” But many others also request that we print things which are of great value to the community and of general interest. These are thrown away.

But recently we have received numerous requests for a guide to what is probably my major area of expertise in life: manners. And your wish is our command, if you staple $20 to it. Today’s episode is part nine of a forthcoming series of mine called “Etiquette Betrayed.”

Etiquette Betrayed IX: Manners and the Arts

When attending arts events at the University of Richmond, there are a few simple rules to observe that will make your experience, and those of other arts patrons, more enjoyable. Unfortunately, most of these rules are not funny and therefore will be disregarded. Here is a quick-and-easy guide to the remainder of them:

When at Art Shows:
• It is rude to ask the artist what sort of drugs he or she was using at the time the work was created.
• Loudly announcing, “This is crap!” or “This is the artistic equivalent of 9 Divine!” will not be appreciated.
• If you can see somewhere that the artist messed up, feel free to take a crayon and correct it for them.
• At pottery exhibits, do not repeatedly ask to see the world-famous earthenware bong collection.
• If looking at a particularly dreadful abstract painting, run over to the nearest gallery employee and demand, “Where did you get these pictures of my mother?”
• It is generally in bad taste to vomit on the artwork. Vomiting on the artists is, however, acceptable.

When at Music Recitals:
• Holding up one’s lighter during sad parts is not generally acceptable.
• Nor is requesting “Freebird!” repeatedly.
• If the music is too quiet, you may play along on a kazoo to help others in the audience hear the tune.
• No one will be impressed if you tell the Shanghai Quartet, “You guys just haven’t been the same since David Lee Roth left.”
• If an opera or hymn is being sung in a foreign language, be helpful and invent English lyrics and sing them so the audience will know what is going on. Be sure to include in the lyrics the phrases “licks me like a hamster” and “I’m your cool cool monkey of love.”
• Although perfectly acceptable at Dead shows, “passing the peace pipe” at Mozart concertos is frowned upon.
• If one of the musicians impolitely begs you for heroin or vomits on you, it is probably just the drummer. Do not be offended, as this is one of their native customs. Feel free to vomit back.

When at Plays:
• Gesticulating with one’s arms and yelling wildly, “WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP” is generally unacceptable, unless it is called for in the program notes.
• Equally unacceptable are “The Chop” and “The Wave.”
• Comments like “Cats was much better than this” are not generally appreciated.
• If there hasn’t been a car chase in the first five minutes, you can just get up and leave.
• If the play is boring, feel free to stand up, wave your arms spastically and yell “FIRE!” to add that fun, free-for-all element of full-bore-linear-panic-in-a-crowd-situation that puts spice into life.
• Unless you are sitting in the balcony, vomiting on the actors may prove difficult.

Dying for a chance to put these new-found mannerisms into practice, aren’t you? Playing Thursday night through Sunday afternoon in the Camp Theater is the famous comedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which one reviewer called “Just like being trampled to death by an army of dwarves, but less fun.” It stars a veritable horde of past and present Collegian columnists – Paul Caputo, Chris Wright, Brian C. Jones, Branden Waugh, Randy Baker and – who would have guessed? – me – which should tell you one thing right away: “Christ almighty, this isn’t gonna be even remotely amusing.” The word is out: it’s “Roop-tastic!” Jeffrey Lyons of “Sneak Previews” said, “It’s the feel-good musical comedy of the ‘90s, except that there is no music and it isn’t funny.” Quite frankly, if you miss it, you’ll be a sad, bitter, lonely failure for the rest of your life! Special guarantee: if you can tell which was Rosencrantz and which was Guildenstern by the end of the play, you don’t get your money back! Act now! And mind your manners.

By Jeffrey Carl

We here at The Collegian pride ourselves on being responsive to our readers.  Yes, both of them.

Each week, we receive figuratively hundreds of letters asking, “Oh please please please give the world a glimpse of the column-manufacturing process The Collegian uses!”  Well, this process is a heavily-guarded state secret, much like McDonald’s secret sauce (Thousand Island dressing) or the secret KA greeting (Sign: “The fat man is doing his laundry.”  Countersign: “Yeah, whatever.  Go away.”), and under normal circumstances anyone who found out would be killed by the élite Collegian Death Squad (assistant copy editors).  

But, hell, it’s my last week as Opinion Editor (Poppy Seed dressing),  and I’m feeling a little bitcrazy.  It’s time the cat came out of the bag, as it were.

The first recorded column was written by Socrates in 447 B.C.  It said, “The Greek system sucks,” which did not make him a popular man in Athens at the time.  History tells us that the ancient Egyptians also wrote hieroglyphic columns, which all seem to have been about scarabs, eyes and weird wiggly “Prince”-looking shapes.  Mesopotamians of the Bronze Age and Chaldeans of the Tupperware Age are both reported to have written numerous “humor” (Hidden Valley Ranch dressing) columns but were hindered by the low circulation of newspapers and the fact that everybody was still going to be illiterate for another 2000 years.

Columns experienced great popularity in the early Byzantine Empire, but were nearly crushed in the West after Pope John Paul George Ringo IV declared them to be “heretical as well as just plain irritating.”  Thousands of unrepentant columnists were tortured, burned at the stake or beaten up by male cheerleaders.

But all was not lost: under the enlightened spirit of the Reformation and the High Renaissance, columnists once again became hunted like the dogs they were, and burned almost continuously.  This continued until the Industrial Revolution (Zesty Italian dressing), when cheaper forms of fuel than “columnist-burning” were discovered.

But where – or who – or, really, why – do these columns actually come from?  Who are the valiant men and women who strive each week to bring much-needed entertainment to you, the reader, and the other guy?  Well, truth be told, they’re all illegal migrant workers.

Each week, hundreds of columns are harvested in the fields of Colombia by Juan Valdez, his faithful burro “Meximelt” and the rest of his literary cartel.  From there, they are processed, packed in shipping grease (Hollandaise sauce) and smuggled into the United States, disguised as a shipment of “Pet Rocks.”  From there they are sold on the streets, with “pushers” selling Dave Barry columns for as little as five dollars for a one-paragraph “hit.”  Some states have enacted laws providing a minimum jail term of 20 years for anyone distributing Mike Royko columns to minors.  Possession of “Freedom Betrayed” will get you the death penalty in Malaysia.

Ha ha ha hee hee.  Just kidding.  Nope, all of our columns are home-grown right here in the good old U.S. of A., except mine, which are flown in from “World Evil Headquarters” (light chicken gravy) in France.

Each columnist has a different “creative” process for writing.  None of these are interesting or probably even comprehensible, and, frankly, I really just don’t want to know.  

The point is that each columnist produces 750-850 “words” (Vaseline and grapefruit) which thereupon undergo a magical process that eventually ends with you, the reader, throwing the paper away after reading the “That’s What You Think” section.

Every week, each columnist reports to the Collegian office and presents his or her column before the scarlet-clad throne of the Opinion Editor in a formal ceremony.  If it is amusing, well-written and intelligent it is discarded immediately, and the Opinion Editor will order his royal guards to flog the columnist and occasionally mildly behead him or her.  All other columns are immediately rushed into print.

After columns have been submitted, the Opinion Editor will consecrate the writing by praying to the ancient Algerian God of Columns, “Crapola.”  This process used to involve a time-consuming ritual of human sacrifice and burnt offerings, but now can be done electronically by sending E-mail to [email protected].  After that, all of the columns are entered into The Collegian’s giant mainframe Commodore 64 computer.  From this stagnant pool of information, the individual columns are processed, translated into Pig Latin, encoded so that the Germans and Japanese can’t read them and run through a cheese grater.  This reduces the columns to fragments of about three letters each, which are picked up off the floor and are pasted on the page in no particular order by the Opinion Editor (I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter™).  Believe you me, they make a lot more sense that way.

So that’s how it all works.  Now the next editor will have to figure it all out.  And believe you me, I’m pretty happy to be done with this job.  Four more columns to go.  Yep, no way I’ll miss it.  I’m not kidding.

By Jeffrey Carl

Editor’s Note: I’m back.

We here at The Collegian pride ourselves on being responsive to our readers. We also pride ourselves on the fact that we are all ex-members of “Menudo.” We are even more prideful that most of us have never been on a David Hasselhoff Pay-Per-View special. What we do not, however, pride ourselves on is our occasionally tense relationship with the University community. How do we know people don’t like us? When the “Letters to the Editor” written in flaming dog-doo that simply say “Collegian must die ha ha” begin adding up, you just get that feeling.

Furthermore, people sometimes get so irate that they threaten direct action, like beating us up to prove that athletes aren’t big dumb guys after all, or even sending vague death threats with absolutely dreadful grammar. And sometimes, somebody says that he or she is going to sue us.

I do not react well to lawsuits. They make me break out. I’m not going to tell you where. They make me grouchy, irritable and they give me that “not so fresh” feeling. As far as I’m concerned, lawsuits can lick me. So, normally I do everything I can to stay away from possible lawsuits, like degrading, humiliating and insulting everyone I can think of in the newspaper.

So you can imagine my surprise when, a few weeks ago, Iget a message that Ihave been threatened with legal action. And by a fellow columnist, no less. I don’t feel free to betray his identity here, but it was Mike Nimchek. So, anyway, I was informed that he was considering suing me for libel, in regards to scandalous remarks that Imade about him in the midst of a “retirement” column about how nobody has a sense of humor anymore. I imagine possibly that Mike, being helpful and seeing that perhaps not everybody got the point, felt he should be kind enough to illustrate it graphically by threatening me with the possibility of legal action.

This is a dumb move.

Never try to sue me. Why? Because I’m a struggling young college student! Ihave no money! Never sue poor people! If you win, what are you going to get? My soul? My collection of “Squeegees of All Nations?” My three-foot-tall laundry pile/biology experiment? I don’t even have pledges anymore to barter or sell. In fact, if you took me for everything Ihave, considering my current Visa bill, you’d probably lose money. So, basically, “Duh.”

Furthermore, lawsuits (the state sport of Pennsylvania) are such a horribly uncreative way of exacting revenge. If you want to get back at somebody, you certainly don’t want to do it in some way that involves lots of paperwork and Judge Wapner. Consider perhaps the following:

• Pour superglue in their locks
• Using the awesome power of the Death Star, destroy their home planet of Alderaan
• Staple stuff to their foreheads
• Call upon Papa Legba to destroy their loa in the spirit world, or call upon Vito the Fish to destroy their car in the real world
• Blackmail! Blackmail!
• Get everyone to start calling them “Spanky” or something equally embarrassing-sounding
• Kill everyone in their family
• Whenever they approach you, maintain a sullen silence, then when they leave the room, stick your tongue out at them
• Casually invite them to stand underneath a 16-ton weight suspended by a pulley, then drop it on them
• Stage an elaborate set-up brutal triple murder and frame them for it, watch as they are convicted and given consecutive life sentences, and then start sending their cellmate “Huggy Bear” love letters, supposedly from their new roomie
• Trick them into opening the box which they think holds the remote control for detonating the nuclear missile speeding towards the San Andreas fault, but which in reality contains pure Kryptonite, which will kill them
• Make a “peace offering” of brownies made with Ex-Lax
• Casually invite them to stand in front of a particle accelerator, then annihilate them in a 10-billion-degree burst of proton/antiproton collisions
• Clean their dishes, but spit on them
• As soon as you get out of prison, shadow them everywhere, hang on to the bottom of their car when they try to drive away, climb on to their boat, and then sing the entire score of “The H.M.S. Pinafore” by Gilbert and Sullivan to them
• Replace their computer’s processor chips with “Chips Ahoy”
• Vomit on them, or
• Write a snide column about revenge methods. The ball is in your court. Next time you consider suing someone, try doing something a little more creative. Or better yet, get a sense of humor and a life.

Good night and God bless.









By Jeffrey Carl

Editor’s note: This guy is just a columnist.  He doesn’t reflect the opinions of the editors.  He’s just some jerk we found in the gutter and chained to a Macintosh and we don’t like him anyway and he smells bad and … hey … wait a second. I’ve been writing these “Editor’s notes” for close to two years now and I just realized … I am the editor of this section.  Uh … screw all that other stuff I said before.  This “Jeff Carl” person is obviously a damn fine American and it is the firm opinion of the editor that you should bow three times a day, face Apartment 302 and worship him, plus send all your money.  Good night and God bless.

We here at The Collegian pride ourselves on being responsive to our readers.  Yeah, my ass we do.  Anyway.  

I  hereby quit.

I’m sick of all this crapola [Spanish for “9 Divine”].  This is my final column.

But why,  you ask?

In my brief, three-year career in journalism, Ihave been threatened with a lawsuit, been threatened with having “the living s–t” beaten out of me by people I called “sissy boys” [see last week], received stern letters from my professors about using bad words, been damn-near disowned by my fraternity, shot at (okay, so that didn’t actually have as much to do with being a “journalist” as being a “trespasser”), received hate mail from the Westmoreland County librarian, gotten fan mail from the Callao County Medium Security Correctional Facility and been called everything from “a poop-brain” to “a poop-head.”

Being a columnist isn’t all kibbles and bits, you know.  Comedy is a serious business.  Do you realize how difficult it is to fill 800 words with stupid cracks at 9 Divine whilst overusing the term “a mild cheese sauce?”  

Frankly, it’s really not worth it.  I’ve worked for The Collegian for three years now, and what has it even given me?  Pain!  Anguish!  Hangnails … Leg cramps … Dogs piddle on me …   “Chicks” for some reason just don’t “dig” me …  They pay me in stupid worthless beads and shiny bottlecaps just because I listened to Nimchek’s advice and insisted in getting all my pay in “fiat currency” … Chick-Fil-A still refuses to give any sort of “Columnist Discount,” although most liquor stores do … and I still haven’t been named “WCGASenator of the Month.”

Ergo [Latin for “therefore”], I’m giving this crappy [Latin for “like crap”] racket up.  Maybe I’ll do something that people respect more, like clubbing baby seals or mugging blind nuns.

Once upon a time I thought that plenty of people here lacked a sense of humor.  Well, I believe I’ve spent the last two years proving it.

In that time, I’ve systematically attempted to cheese off everybody there is to cheese – if you haven’t been offended, don’t worry, it was a clerical error, please send in your name and I’ll offend you personally – and you know what?  Some people actually didn’t think that my abusing them and dragging their name through the mud was funny.  

But, you may ask, aren’t there any benefits to being a Collegian columnist?

No.

But, admittedly, you do get to complain about things.  You also have the ability to irritate people on a campus-wide scale, instead of just those in close proximity to you.  In fact, you can inspire people you’ve never even met before to hate you.

Also, Collegian columnists have lucrative endorsement deals with Charter Westbrook hospital (“Depressed?  Can’t stop crying?  Still writing 800 words about ‘9 Divine’ and ‘a mild cheese sauce?’  Get help.”)

Maybe it would just be easier – certainly more lucrative – for all of the columnists here to give up writing and use their new-found fame to market their own products:

• Paul Caputo’s “It’s All Greek to Me” souvlaki and gyros restaurant.  All the food is bitter.

• The Scott Shepard Keg-erator: icy cold, inhuman, mechanical and usually full of alcohol.

• Mike Nimchek’s “Sanskrit Translations of ‘Atlas Shrugged’ anthology” : obscure, well-nigh-impossible to read and completely paraphrased from Ayn Rand.

• The Brian C. Jones Safety Handgun: lots of bullets and no points.

• And the Jeffrey D. R. S. Carl Automatic Monkey Shucker:  It’s just … strange.

The point of all this being that I’ve had it.  “But what you said wasn’t true,” people will say.

Excuses, excuses.  If a frog had wings, it wouldn’t bump its ass hopping.

Of course it isn’t true.  It’s a joke. Jokes are not real.  Do I really think RCSGA senators should be used as firewood?  No.  Do I really suggest an InterVarsity ChristianFellowship “Rush event” with a “Fish and Loaves Picnic?”  No.  Am Ian eight-foot-tall marsupial with small vestigial wings and a thick German accent?  Well, kind of.  No!  I make fun of myself more than I make fun of anyone else.  Having a sense of humor is not that important.  Having a sense of humor about yourself is.  You have no right to laugh at anyone else if you can’t laugh at yourself.

I tried to point out how silly it was to take some things seriously (popularity, envy, sorority Rush, scurvy, the Black Plague) by making them seem as silly as possible.  I tried to make everybody laugh, regardless of who got their feelings hurt or how tasteless it might have been.  I took no prisoners and butchered every sacred cow and served it up as “cole slaw” at The Pier, assuming everyone else would laugh at their own foolishness as easily as I did.  I was wrong.

And now I really don’t care enough to keep at it.  Truth be told, there’s plenty of other things to do with my free time, most of which don’t involve smelling the asbestos and film developer in The Collegian’s office (proven probably not to always necessarily cause cancer in some laboratory pledges) and none of which involve getting fan mail from prison.

I could take up bungee jumping … learn ritual suicide techniques (for the next time I’m in Indiana) … be a roadie for the 1995 Monsters of Rock tour with Van Halen and Timbuk3 … stay home and watch every hour of the O.J. Simpson trial coverage on E! anchored by Kathleen Sullivan, a fashion consultant and  a blob of grayish mold shaped like Walter Cronkite …  or just run around campus screaming “Yahtzee!” at the top of my lungs.  The possibilities are endless.

And I won’t miss it at all.

By Jeffrey Carl

Editor’s note: We don’t really know where this came from.  We got a call from the Science Center one day asking if we still had a “human newspaper” here, and then we heard lots of shouting and giggling in German.  Then this showed up.  The point being: there are some questions that you just don’t want to know the answer to.

We here in the Science Center pride ourselves on being responsive to our readers, ha ha.  This new feature in your newspaper, read by many humans not suspecting its true nature as propaganda for the planet Frothgar, but I digress, this new feature will allow you, the reader, to send in burning – or shall we say, “Oxidizing?” ha ha ha – questions about science and nature, not realizing of course that our secret Gottwald building experiments will destroy this puny planet and enslave the universe by using a mild cheese sauce to break the warp barrier, ha ha never mind you didn’t read that last part and let’s get to the first letter anyway.

Many people believe that science teachers like myself are strange because they wander around with slide rules and polyester slacks and tell jokes about proton decay.  Ha ha this is funny because all we science people in Gottwald laboratories are completely normal and there is nothing wrong and there is nothing for humans to fear and there are certainly not Zondorg death squadrons hovering above your planet’s atmosphere at this moment anyway.

Let us read the first science question sent in to us by humans who will soon be roasting in the depths of the Sarlacc Pit like all others who resist us ha ha ha just kidding I meant the first reader question.

Q: Where does Nerf™ come from?

A: Nerf™ grows in the hills of Colombia where it is harvested by Juan Valdez© and his trusty burro, Pepe.  Nerf is not actually “planted,” but seems to grow in a field around this glowing green meteorite which fell to earth during the sixties.  Señor Valdez must be careful to not let his children play in the Nerf fields™ after sundown or the Nerf plants will eat them.  Nerf1, in its raw form, is a stimulant 200 times more powerful than cocaine, but for some reason is merely processed into small children’s toys and Pier specials.  But it is certainly not being experimented with in the basement of the Gottwald building as a source of mind-control rays for giant squid.  No, that is not happening at all and I think it is funny ha-ha that you even mention it.  Next question?

Q: What is the funniest science joke you know?

A: It starts, “What if

(x2y √90210 + PBJ2 (footnote) ≈ xÿ/5Ø – ∞)”

and ends, “so the Scotsman said, ‘No it’s not a bagpipe, but don’t stop playing.’”  

That joke is very funny ha-ha and all we scientists think it is very amusing, for you see we do have senses of humor and find very much to be what you humans call “ha-ha,” which proves very thank you much that we are not secretly robots programmed to suck out human brains.  Ha ha.  Next?

Q: How do computers work?

A: Research indicates that there are thousands of tiny, tiny monkeys (called “semiconductors” because they wear railroad conductor outfits and they are very, very tiny) which live in the boxes  called “computers.”  Each time a key is pressed on a keyboard, a tiny, tiny electric shock is delivered to the monkeys and they become agitated and do work, so don’t ever drop your computer because the monkeys would get out and after all those electric shocks, they are very, very bitter.  These monkeys have all been trained to add and subtract and play “Tetris” and so they turn the gears and levers inside the “computer” to make it work.  Here in Gottwald Laboratories3, in a secret room in the basement which says on the door “Do not enter – Pier Specials inside,” we are working on a special new computer4 used exclusively to compute GPAs with five special, totally insane  monkeys called “Pentiums.”  

Q: What other exciting new technologies are  being invented and perfected in Gottwald Laboratories each night as we sleep and are totally unaware of?

A: Nein!  Nothing!  We have no plans to clone Hitler’s left foot and use it to dominate this puny planet, and we are certainly not using giant mind-controlled squid™ to develop newer and more virulent Pier Value Meals™5!  Ha ha and we are just kidding anyways.

Q: Could you explain the relationship between quantum mechanics6 and neutrino behavior, in 25 words or less?

A: No.

An entirely unsuitable explanation can be found in S. Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time,” which only takes about two hours to read.  A more complete explanation can be found in Hawking’s “A Long, Drawn-Out, Excruciatingly Dull History of Time,” which moves as slow as time itself and takes over 12 billion years to read.

Q: You don’t sound like a scientist.  You sound like Jeff Carl after three fifths of cheap bourbon7.

A: Let me assure you ha ha very funny what you just said that it has no basis in truth and I have never even met this “Oberstführer von Karl” person and I don’t like him anyway, plus Iunderstand that he is not funny and he is the result of secret Nazi genetic experiments anyway.  

By the way of course we are not conducting any experiments of that kind here, especially not developing hordes of telekinetic badgers who will cause havoc and plague or bringing Keith Richards back to life.  Ha ha it has been very good talking with you and please do not go into any of the locked doors in the basement of the Science Center.  Auf wiedersiehn! 

^Footnotes:

1 Nerf is a registered trademark of Wham-O® Corp., which is, if you think about it, even stupider-sounding than “Nerf.”

2 This equation was originally proved by Dr. Bunsen Honeydew of Muppet Labs™ and his assistant Beaker.  Then it was proven that they themselves were in fact Muppets and so you probably shouldn’t take anything they  say too seriously.

3 Herb J. Ibid, “Blitzkrieg Fahrvergnügen,” p. 66

4 Ibid., p. 66

5 Soylent Green is made from people.

6 These are people who repair the time machine from “Quantum Leap.”  For more information on this show, see the USA Network or your average lame Paul Caputo column.

7 Usually “Wild Turkey” or “Old Crow” but sometimes as cheap as “Old Kentucky Dog Sweat” or “Ripple.”

By Jeffrey Carl

We here at The Collegian pride ourselves on being responsive to our readers. So don’t be thinkin’ we aren’t, man, ’cause if you did, well … you’d pretty much just be wrong then.

Ahem. So in the interest of all those zany youngsters out there looking for some entertainment on campus who can’t find it by hitting the sauce like the rest of us, we publish here an exhaustive and completely irresponsible guide to campus entertainment (excluding of course the aforementioned white man’s fire water) for the rest of the year.

The Collegian Compendium of Campus Weekend Entertainment (Excluding of course the Demon Rum)

KARAOKE! KARAOKE!:
The Campus Activities Board provides you with numerous ways to escape the clutches of the sinful bottle for this and every weekend through the year. And, like the old song goes, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of Lazer Karaoke!” Sway to the beat and get down with your bad self while your fellow students humiliate themselves by being too drunk to read the words to the song and then calmly vomiting on everyone in the first two rows.

CAB is also featuring hip new movies every weekend, including “Speed,” “Ishtar” and the Christmas classic “Hot Buttered Elves.”

OOH LÁ LA … FOREIGN MOVIES:
While some critics point out that it is almost impossible to sit through a foreign film without a few drops of “Dutch Courage” beforehand, Boatwright Library continues to provide these little cultural experiences ostensibly for those not drinking “The Devil’s Hair Tonic.”

Highlights from this year’s offerings include Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Huis Clos,” Jean-Paul Murat’s “Le Grande Fromage” and Jean-Claude van Damme’s “Buckets of Blood Pouring Out of People’s Heads.”

LOCAL MUSIC SCENE:
Contrary to popular myth, people don’t go downtown to bars to drink sweet, sweet booze. Instead, most are there to see and hear the smells of the booming Richmond music scene. Numerous groovy bands make the rounds downtown and are easy to catch: Fighting Gravity (formerly Boy-O-Boy), Schnitzel (formerly Supertramp), Spanking Monkeys, Sluts at Warp Factor Six and The Jello Turbines. One of the most popular bands, Agents of Good Roots, has recently broken up and reformed as two splinter groups: Travel Agents and Agents of Good Roop.

THEATRICS:
Our campus Weird Theatre People Dept. has served up a menu of piping-hot creamy bowlfuls of delicious, nutrient-rich entertainment for this year. This weekend, in fact, brings “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” with music by Stephen Sondheim. It is the story of a wily Roman slave, Pseudolus, who must unite two lovers, fool a Roman Captain, insure domestic tranquility, prove Fermat’s Theorem of isoceles equilibrium, pass a federal balanced-budget amendment, foil the creepy old man in the glowing ghost suit who is trying to scare everybody away from the amusement park so he can buy the land real cheap, convince Mr. Roper that he is gay so he can stay with Janet and Chrissie – and even remember his lines.

Pseudolus is probably my favorite character in the piece. A role of enormous variety and nuance, and played by an actor of such … let me put it this way … whoever that guy is, he’s one zany bastard.

Second semester provides another theatrical coup de grace (French for “cut the grass”) with “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” by Tom “The Brain” Stoppard, former manager of WWF champion “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan, who wrote the Broadway classic “Grease.”

Interestingly enough, “Rosencrantz” is set to feature – no foolin’ – a small gaggle of noted Collegian columnists and writers, past and present. The cast includes Rosencrantz (Branden Waugh), Guildenstern (the other title character), Paul Caputo (Scorpio), Brian C. Jones (B.C. 54? – 6 A.D.), Randy Baker (the part of “Randy” is played by the clarinet) and even Jason Roop (Chaotic/Neutral Magic User, +20 HP).
Be sure to catch the theater on the small screen in “the vile gangster Quonset the Hutt” theater located behind the Physical Plant building, in the dumpster.
Q-Hut productions slated for this year include “All in the Timing” by David Ives, “Grease™” by “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and the first part of the acclaimed “Angels in Bikinis” trilogy, “Baywatch Approaches.” Tailgates are recommended before student plays.

So don’t miss out on the action. And remember – if you’ve had even half as much fun reading this as I have had writing it, I’ve had twice as much fun as you.

By Jeffrey Carl

We here at The Collegian pride ourselves on being responsive to our readers.  Unfortunately, we also think we’re funny, which pretty much cancels out any chance we just had of doing something useful.  Besides, I have the flu and I’m in a bad mood, but I’ll try to suck it up and get on with this column.  So I guess it’s time to open that fruity-licious mailbag and pull out some piping-hot, hearty chunk-style letters.

Remember: all these letters are real, because if we made them up, it wouldn’t be funny.

Q: My apartment-mate keeps running around in only Spider-Man underoos, eating dirt and claiming to see this “Mr. Snuffallupagus” that none of the rest of us can see.  What should I do?

Oh, okay, okay.  That one was made up.  But the rest are really real.  I’m not kidding.  Back to the mailbag…

Q: Does anybody actually understand girls?

A: No. 

In fact, it is well-established that even actual real-life girls don’t understand girls.  In a recent survey, over 65 percent of girls that were asked, “Like, what’s up with chicks, you know?” responded with either “Huh?” or “I dunno.”

Indeed, my own research into the subject has been somewhat hindered by the fact that whenever I ask a girl out, they don’t actually respond, but rather drop to the floor, laughing hysterically and occasionally wetting themselves.  This has made further research difficult.

However, medical science has made enormous advances in the past 20 years and some important discoveries have been made.  Scientists have only recently discovered that:

• Girls have not been found to cause cancer in laboratory rats.

• Girls are much less likely to include “ESPN 2” as one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

• One-third of guys were rated as “really messy;” the other 75 percent were declared “just totally disgusting slobs.”

• Girls do not actually have – as was previously believed – long, spiny wings or small vestigial tails.

• Research was found to cause cancer in laboratory rats.

What is the final conclusion that we may draw from this?  Well, the conclusion I drew is that instead of facing an entire lifetime of rejection and ignominious failure being turned down by girls, I could just forget the whole thing and go to the vet’s and get “fixed” for about what I would have otherwise spent on one formal date.  Next question?

Q: Are you really as grumpy and bitter in real life as you sound in your columns?

A: Yes.  

It’s not because I hate anybody in specific, I just hate people in general.  It’s not that I hate you, I hate your whole family and your little dog, too, Dorothy.  If any of you are freshmen men and you happen to meet someone during Rush (I won’t say where because I promised never to mention KA again in the newspaper) wearing a tie who seems to be mumbling Shakespeare and biting people who try to talk to him, it’s me.

The technical term for my sort of attitude is “curmudgeonly.”  Most people just refer to it as, “boy is that guy an ass” or something similar.

Did you notice how this turned from an innocuous little “fake questions” column into a rambling tirade about how cranky I am?  Well, tough noogies, Pretzel Boy.  I’m grumpy and I have the flu and I have no compunctions about trying to make everybody else feel as rotten as me.

Where was I?  Let’s see … my life … parade of shame and wasted lives … biting freshmen … the vet’s office  … Biosphere II … small dogs dipped in crunchy batter and lightly fried … oh, yeah.  I have the flu.

Influenza (or Influential Snifflus Vomitorium) is a virus carried by mosquitoes that live in the deserts of Morocco.  It can only be cured by a series of extremely painful shots and is sometimes known to cause death, paralysis and minor stomach discomfort.  

Consequently, I am forced to be miserable and skip classes when I otherwise would have been skipping classes and doing something fun.  It is just no fun to skip classes when you have really have an excuse.  Half the fun of skipping classes is inventing lame excuses like:

• “I had to go to the Dagobah system to seek the Jedi Master Yoda who would teach me the ways of the Force.”

• “I was playing racquetball with the Pope.”

• “I was dead on Wednesday, but I’m all better now.”

• “But I was here last class.  You didn’t see me?  Then it means … my invisibility serum works!  It works!  HA HA HA HA HA They said I was mad!  Mad, I tell you!  But I’ll show them all now!  HA HA HA HA”                                                        and so on and such forth, the point still being that I’m sick and cranky and I hate everybody.  

Next question?

Q: Who do I call if I have problems registering?

A: Oh, and another thing.  On top of all that, my mom got behind sending checks to everybody to get them to hang out with me, so all my “friends” stopped talking to me until their November checks clear.  So I’m completely miserable and I’ll probably die of pneumonia and halitosis and stuff and nobody likes me and I’ll have to take my mom to our next formal and I hate everybody.  

So why doesn’t everybody cheer me up?  Huh?  Well?  Why don’t we have a special holiday just like Christmas, except everybody just gives presents to me?  When am I going to be named WCGA Senator of the Month?  Since when did the world stop revolving around me?  

(Sigh.)

So what have we learned?

a) Don’t write newspaper columns when you’re sick.

b) Don’t stick a fork in an electrical socket.

c) Stop, drop, and roll.

d) If you ever run into me when I’m sick and I am this cranky to you, you have the right to slap me.

by Jeffrey Carl

We here at The Collegian pride ourselves on being responsive to our readers.  Blah blah blah blah blah.  There has been great controversy in these pages lately over Greek life, the IFC, the BBC, Rush rules, Rush is okay but they haven’t had a good album in years, etc.  That is why we have seen fit to address the issue of the campus social Greek system once and for all.  Or my name ain’t Nathan Arizona.

THE OVER-THE-CLIFFNOTES OFFICIAL GUIDE TO THE GREEK SYSTEM™

• General rules: Many gross overgeneralizations about the Greek system tend to be made by foolish people who lump others into silly categories: that certain sororities are all like such and so forth, but this is just a load of hooey.  The only down-to-earth, realistic generalization that actually applies to everybody is that all Greeks drink too much beer and all independents are losers.

• Men’s Rush: Fraternity Rush is an unparallelled chance for young men to meet each other, discuss intellectual concerns of the day, and vomit on each other repeatedly.  It consists of three main segments:

a. get liquored up at pre-party

b. drive drunk to lodge for stupid theme night (usually “El Soft Taco Supreme Fiesta” night or “Breaking Stuff is Cool” night); avoid vomiting on rushees 

c. drag more rushees back to post-party; avoid them vomiting on you

• Bid Extension: Fraternities extend bids to rushees after deciding through a complex, scientific process that includes infrared scanners, mainframe computers, throwing Lawn  Jarts at rushees’ pictures and lots of “Crazy Horse” malt liquor.  A chapter as a whole will vote on each individual rushee; if a member feels particularly strongly about any rushee who was denied a bid, he may challenge this and play a game of chess with Death for the rushee’s soul.

The next morning, rushees are given an envelope which contains either engraved fancy official bid(s) or an engraved fancy notice of their official status now as losers and the phone number for CAPS, in case they decide to kill themselves.  Oh well.

• Pledging: Why should I spoil the surprise?

• Fraternity Life: Fraternity life may seem to be all wine and roses and chitlins and gravy, but there are numerous problems that fraternities frequently face.  Sometimes there are simply not enough community service projects to fill up the members’ charitable spare time.  Sometimes, young women will attend lodge social gatherings in a previously intoxicated state and make lewd  suggestions of physical gratification inappropriate for a young gentleman’s tender ears.  Sometimes it turns out that Brian C. Jones is in your fraternity.  Any of these situations can be difficult to deal with at times.

• Women’s Rush: HA HA HA HA hee hee hee HO HO HA HA HA HA HA hee hee HA HA HA HA

• Sorority Life: This revolves primarily around Rush retreats (see HA HA HA above) and scrambling for formal dates.  Sorority formals, as previously mentioned, are just like bar mitzvahs but with sex in the elevators.

• The Greek Review: This was a study commissioned several years ago to divine the true nature of the Greek system on campus.  It took five years to complete because only one of the panel members had a clue and they had to spend most of their time sharing it back and forth.  The panel members were split over the final review:

“I loved it.  It was much better than ‘Cats.’”

“It crashed and burned and tore a gaping hole in the earth.”

“Great fun … entertaining … Robert Downey, Jr., has never been better.”

“It bit my ass.”

• The IFC (Interfraternity Council): Many people mistakenly believe that the IFC is a rather bumbling collection of incompetent administrators making pointless rules for a system that they really have little control over.  This could not be further from the truth. The IFC is actually a tightly-knit secret organization with bold plans for world domination, beginning with secretly buying up stock in the left side of the D-Hall until they control 51 percent, then closing it to independents so that they all starve to death, thereby assuring Greek domination of the University.  I’m not kidding.

• The Panhellenic Council (or “Pan-Hell”): See IFC above, add some of HA HA HA

Benefits and disadvantages to the Greek system:

Advantages:

• Improves gas mileage

• Gives fresher, mintier breath

• Spending money on dues prevents you from engaging in some more frivolous use of money

• If Apocalypse comes and Angel of Death is an old fraternity brother of yours and sees the letters or crest on your door, you are spared

• Can tell Vietnam-like stories that begin, “When I was a pledge…”

• Is often quite fun

Disadvantages:

• Now with 33 percent less frosting

• Dreadful problem of having too much beer to drink

• James O. Bryant may be your roommate

• Door decs may pose fire hazard

• Is sometimes quite not fun

Please keep your cards and letters coming to:

OVER-THE-CLIFFNOTES

P.O. Box 666

Battle Creek, MI 867-5309

And beware Greeks bearing columns.