>>> Text-Heavy
By staff writer E.E. Southerby
Volume 63 – January 11, 2004
Now Playing: “Start Over” by Abandoned Pools
Hello, gang. The semester is now in full swing, and so is Text-Heavy. I'm not sure exactly how a newsletter can get into full-swing, or if there was a point where it was only at partial swing, but there you go. I don't know if making fun of vague sports clichés actually constitutes as 'comedy,' so I'll just cut this introduction short and skip right to the hilarious bits. Here's what happened:
-When you finally arrive at the airport after a five hour flight that somehow turned into an eight hour flight, and you're standing around the baggage carousel while men in white suits offer you flyers and asking if you've recognized Jesus Christ as your savior, the worst words you can possibly hear are: "We lost your luggage." Not even Jesus can save you now.
-See, here's the thing: All my worldly possessions were in that bag the airline lost. My entire wardrobe now consists of a pair of dirty, torn jeans and the sweater I wore on the plane. I've been wearing the same underwear for four days now. I should be on one of those infomercials with Sally Struthers. "For only $400 a day, you can feed, clothe and educate this poor upper-middle-class 1st World child. Show you care."
-It snowed in Victoria, which never happens. It was only a few inches, but because this never happens the whole city went into a panicked state of emergency. Cars were crashing into each other left and right, because nobody had ice scrapers. On the news they're showing these little kids sledding down these sad little hills with patches of grass poking through a quarter inch of snow. They shut down all the schools, so there was nothing to do but take out the old sled. Here's my question: How come nobody has an ice scraper but everyone seems to have a sled? I'm not sure I agree with these priorities.
-Another thing this city lacks, it turns out, are snowplows. To clear the roads and walkways, they had to use tractors, wheat threshers, whatever they could find. All across campus, the pathways and stairs are covered with treacherous snow and ice. But strangely, the wheelchair ramps have been shoveled clean. Not to sound insensitive, but between people in wheelchairs and people not in wheelchairs, who ought to be more concerned about falling on ice and breaking their legs? Priorities, people!
-Quote of the Moment: My friend James, on the unusual weather: "This snow is great! I hope it doesn't melt anytime soon." Listen, I flew 5000 miles and surrendered my luggage to the evil airline so I could get away from this arctic snow. I say let it melt.
-If you never left the house, and got all of your information about the outside world from 'The Jerry Springer Show', you'd probably think that 95% of the women in this world were lesbian or bisexual. And that would be pretty awesome.
-Now that we have the internet, how can the Home Shopping Channel still exist? Are there really people who buy collectible plates because the saw them on TV? I've never met anyone who's ever bought anything from the Home Shopping Channel, or even anyone who admits to ever WATCHING the Home Shopping Channel, but someone must be. Then again, that's pretty much the way I feel about the Food Network, the Discovery Channel and MTV.
-You know what I like? Bars that enforce a dress code. Like wearing a suit and tie while you're throwing up in the bathroom and trying to grope random girls is going to make the place classy. And how come bouncers never have to respect the dress code? Is it too much to ask that they wear a tie while they're throwing me down the stairs?
-Why do they call it a wet t-shirt "contest"? It's not exactly quantifiable, as legitimate contests should be. It's not a contest of who's t-shirt is the wettest. Even if it was, the winner should then be the person WETTING the shirt, not the one wearing it. All she did was stand there. And what do you win in a wet t-shirt contest, anyway? If it's a contest, you have to win something besides the adoration of drooling horny boys with too much pent-up sexual frustration. You don't win any dignity, that's for sure.
-And, finally, you can learn a lot about a person based on where they sit on the first day of class. If they sit at the front, it means they're keeners and they'll probably be the ones who ask annoying questions throughout the semester. If they sit in the back of the room, it means they're probably on some varsity sports team and they're only taking the class because they have to. Expect those guys to make lots of paper airplanes and armpit farts. Some guys will just try to sit close to the hottest girl in the class, in the hopes of getting lucky. Me, I've been sitting off in the corner, as far away from everyone as possible. Not because I'm an antisocial hermit (although I am) but because I've been wearing the same clothes for a weak and I'm starting to get ripe.