>Greetings Networkia. Well, it’s fall again, which means a couple three weeks’ extra time to ogle the uncovered limbs and torsos of the gender of your choice before the goose down and Goretex conceal them from view once more. The hot girls are having a few last hurrahs before they embark for hot girl camp, and the patio at Sally’s has a couple of spots as yet unbesmirched by vomited MGD and chicken wings.

Of course, nothing much ever changes for us. WE ARE NETWORK! We are a distributed cyber-entity with nodes all over campus. We see all, we know all, we insult all. For those of you sniveling, homesick freshmen who are reading this after barely stumbling out of Middlebrook or Territorial in time to make it to your 8 a.m. class, welcome! We’re going to be your only friend this semester (well, us and our pal Crossword, that is). You’ll turn to us each morning while you’re trying to avoid looking like the clueless ex-high school student you still are, hoping for some kind of affirmation of your pathetic, craven existence. But you won’t find it. We only affirm the existence of upperclassmen. To all the rest of you nattering nabobs of negativity, make sure to inform us of the wickedness of drivers/bus drivers/bikers/pedestrians/in-line skaters, complain about the jerk in the front row who always has his hand up, decry the idiocy of jocks/fratboys/political types/Wisconsinites and call our attention to the uselessness of the University bureaucracy. We are your humor column of last resort. And unlike that other humor outlet, recently arrived on these shores, we come out daily and we’re locally produced.

From The Census,

Welcome back Network, good to … well whatever the appropriate salutation for a brain in a jar is. I’m excited to be here at the good O’ll U of M as it’s my last semester and I’d like nothing more than the be able to stop paying 15% increases every year. Net: So, you’re a sophomore? We digress, as a good student I went to the Football game Saturday night. Some to see the game, but mostly to see the freshman get arrested and hauled out of the dome for intoxication. Net: Freshmen? Intoxicated? You shock us, sir! I was not disappointed. The Gophers did win. Net: And how could they not? Apparently, their opponents were some kind of wayward youth-league soccer team from Spain. Most of those guys probably had their pads on backwards. And it was barely half way through the first quarter when the first freshman, fell. A sleep in the row behind me she just didn’t want to get up. So, yeah to the gophers for winning, and yeah to freshman who can’t hold your liquor, both amuse me. Net: What’s this about freshmen who can’t hold your liquor? We always make it a point to have the freshmen hold our liquor. That way, if one gets busted, it’s no great loss. One last other thing, you would think that the Gophers could cough up a scholarship to some freshman so that the starting QB doesn’t have to hold the ball for the kicker, this is the Big 10 after all. Net: The Big Ten’s not what it used to be, is it? Now that they’re requiring the players to fly coach for recruiting junkets, there’s just no way to get the best talent. A lot of the defensive linemen can’t even wedge themselves into a coach-class seat. They have to be shoehorned in by a baggage handler, and then they can’t get out in time, and they just keep flying back and forth across the country. Well, Network, I know you don’t like the out likes, so just imagine a drunk freshman at a football game. I’m there. Net: We’re out like Randy Kelly.