IT’S MY BIRTHDAY TOO, YEAH
From Pissed-Off Pisces: As I was reading my copy of the Daily a couple days ago, I became informed Net: A natural side effect of reading a newspaper; it’s OK, you’ll get over it of the upcoming 150th birthday of our beloved University. You see, it was on Feb. 25, 1851 that our forefathers founded this institution of higher learning, giving us the opportunity to devote a minimum of seven years of our lives in pursuit of a degree. Net: You did it in seven? Lucky … However, I soon became troubled with this newfound knowledge, for I realized that it was on this same date 127 years later that I came kicking and screaming out of my mother’s womb.
Yes, that’s right, the University and I share the same birthday. Net: And according to the zodiac, you’re both creative and altruistic, but whiny, wishy washy and wimpy. Makes sense. Why do I find this troubling? Net: Whiny, wishy washy and wimpy? I think you would be troubled too if while everyone was out celebrating the University’s “sesquicentennial,” your own birthday (in this case my 23-tennial) was completely forgotten by all.
And this will most certainly happen to me. After all, the article in the Daily clearly indicated that a year-long celebration will take place in 2000, which will no doubt culminate on the night of Feb. 24, 2001 with a huge party on the Mall. And there, a giant ball will be dropped at midnight, at which point drunken students and faculty alike will exclaim “Happy Sesquicentennial!” (which will most certainly be mispronounced). And where does that leave me the next day? Net: Cold, alone, naked; splayed out on Northrop Mall with a University Police vagrancy ticket shoved in your mouth? Alone on my birthday, all my friends too hung over from the night before to care. Therefore, I challenge all of you out there who were born on Feb. 25 to write to Network and we’ll plan our own damn party — you’ll come, right Net? Net: Hey, we’ll go anywhere where we’re invited. Any other parties out there you’d like us to attend? Please?
WHY, TOO — ‘KAY?
From RunTimeError: Sing Network! Net: HALLELUJAH! Tell us of the University, Net: A bastion of debauchery! about heartbreak Net: 30-27 and the loss of God, Net: Where did we put Him? but today, the world must know of the great evil I have found. Net: GASP! Now we’re interested! I just finished an internship at a pacemaker company, and it turns out that less than 5 percent of all pacemakers (those little things that keep your heart pumping when you get old) are Y2K compliant. Yeah, that’s right, millions of people worldwide are just going to drop dead at the stroke of midnight Jan. 1, and no one is doing anything about it. Net: No, don’t you see? As the clocks in said pacemakers roll over to 00, the tiny machines will think it’s 1900 — in effect, making the Geritol generation feel 100 years younger! It’ll be like “Cocoon” all over again! Yeah, well in light of this corporate HMO greed and indifference, I’ll tell y’all Net: Good! Keep it up, y’all now that I’m going to be the first one to go out burning and looting when the riots start next January. Net: Now this we can foresee. Doesn’t it just make you giddy? It’ll be a New Year’s Eve party you could tell your grandkids about, and I can hardly wait. Net: Hysteria! Paranoia! Reckless, irresponsible cogitation! Now y’all’re cookin’!
MEAT ME AT THE BAR
From Ishtar: Network, Net: Yes? I’m starting to get tired of being nagged about some of my socially unpopular habits, Net: We heard Bill Gates doesn’t bathe regularly namely, refusing to drink alcohol and abstaining from eating meat. I do not like alcohol, I don’t like being drunk and I don’t like eating meat. Net: You don’t … by any chance (ahem) … wear an electric blue Columbia jacket, do you? The nagging by my peers has been going on for years, and instead of respecting or even ignoring my decisions, they become offended and sometimes angry when I politely turn away their offers; so I would just like to say to them and to others like them: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GET OVER IT, YOU’RE BEGINNING TO DRIVE ME MAD!!! Net: Ever think about finding a peer group that doesn’t drink or eat meat? That is, before you are driven mad? Listen carefully, alcoholic carnivores: Your days appear to be numbered. Beware.
TENNIS THE MENACE
Net: Confidential to RT: Sorry, buddy, but we went and lost your e-mail address. Silly us. The good news is, some fellow Network readers sure would like to bat the fuzzy green ball around with you — so much so they wrote us — even the pretty face that you picked out of the teeming Rec Center crowd. Hell, the poor guy was so anxious to get in touch with you that he showed up at our secret hallowed offices. We cowered and hid. So write us again; hopefully, we can make a Love/Love connection.
From Gentle Ben: I was reading the Network section of the Daily. The description in “Tennis Everyone” was describing me. I would like to answer this message; I really want to play tennis also. Please send me this person’s e-mail address. Net: We shall.
From Deuce: I am an avid reader of your section. You posted a column from RT about playing tennis. Well, I am one of the seemingly few Arthur Ashes on campus, and I am replying. Could you give me RT‘s e-mail address?
I sure would like to play tennis, too. Or have RT e-mail me. Whatever. Thank you. Net: A tennis threesome? Hmmm … let us know if you, uh … found a match.
