RUB YOU THE WRONG WAY
From Karebearington: I wanted to let you know that there seems to be a scam artist targeting University students, offering them cheaper massages than Boynton can provide. Net: Yeah, and they also offer free “bowm-chicka bowm bowm” music, and then one thing leads to another … The funny thing is they didn’t tell me their name, how much it would be or where they were located. Net: West Bank men’s bathrooms, we’re told. And the man had an accent as well (not that it would make him any less suspicious if he didn’t). Actually, it’s not hard to believe something like this is happening; it’s just unsettling when they target you.
OH WHERE, OH WHERE HAS MY TERM PAPER GONE
From Lost: Network, you’re my last and only hope. Net: What about Aquaman? He’s good. I was working on the top floor of the stacks in Walter Library, finished up and promptly lost my brain. Net: It’s the big, quivering cheese-curd-looking mass at your feet. However, even more importantly, I think I left behind some file folders with some rather important data for a paper. Please, please help me. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Net: No problem. Our advice: get a new brain and start over.
NOT TO DIVA
From Yngwie: All right, this obsession with Rollerdiva has got to end. It’s pathetic. Network is not much higher than the Internet on the scale of believable mediums. Net: We find your lack of faith disturbing. Actually, we find lots of things about you disturbing, Yng. For all we know, Rollerdiva could be a 300-pound CSOM student who is presently laughing so hard that his whiskey-stained sharkskin suit is jiggling like so much Jell-O. Who has seen this person? After all, the alleged “puking” incident at Hardee’s was untrue; what else? Net: The alleged “moon mission.” You heard it here first. You people could be falling prey to a sinister plot by (King T, the squirrels, CSCL majors, etc). What can you believe here? How are the women out there supposed to know that I am a 5’11” gorgeous Bohemian who can say “I love you” in a dozen languages? I might be a midget with an ulcer. What is true, what is not; can the vaunted Network enlighten the masses? Or might even our beloved Network be in with the Dark Side? Net: Heh heh heh … no.
A SHEL OF HIS FORMER SELF
From Peewee: The brutal binging of recent nights on my part is an attempt to drown out my pain and anguish over the recent loss of one of the greatest poets of our time: Shel Silverstein. Net: Rest his soul; we shall miss his barefooted, bald-headed guitar-strumming silly self. Truly a master of the absurd. Sadly, the genius behind, “Where the Sidewalk Ends,” and, “A Light in the Attic,” died on Monday of a heart attack, and the ol’ Peester has not been the same since (granted it has only been a day and a half — give me a break; I’m prone to be melodramatic). My earliest appreciation of literature came from his poems and is a direct result of my love for reading and writing. I am an English major Net: Really? We couldn’t tell today in no small part because of him. This is a sad week for all people whom Net: No really … we couldn’t tell his work has affected, and if you haven’t read him yet, I highly recommend you go find one of his books. Net: Except “The Giving Tree.” It’s too sad to take. You will be the better for it. Now, if you will excuse me, this damn frat boy has some reading to do.
“Sarah Synthia Sylvia Stout, would not take the garbage out… (sniff)”
GET IT RIGHT, K?
From Madcow: Hello, Network … I would first like to say you are as sweet to digest as the coveted sugarbear cereal I eat every morning Net: Wow. High praise … onward to my comments about the ketamine (note the correct spelling) letters you’ve been receiving … ketamine isn’t an animal tranquilizer, RollerDiva and Psycho; it is anesthetic used to sedate animals Net: In effect, “tranquilizing” them? before surgeries such as spading and nudering Net: You have a nude ring? Cool! Can we borrow it? … it is also used during some human surgeries because it doesn’t depress a normal heartbeat … I’ve seen people on “Special K” a lot, and I must say they are the most idiotic-looking junkies around, next to “Friends” addicts, that is Net: Clap-clap-clap-clap! … sheesh … K seems euphoric because it is speculated to release the same chemicals as a near-death experience … so next time you want a buzz, jump off the Washington Avenue Bridge and try to swim upstream to St. Anthony Falls … that would be the rush you’re looking for … and by the way, I think RollerDiva is actually not the hipster she claims to be … my source says she can’t tell the difference between K and corn flakes.
AND NOW …
Net: Some gloomy, unadulterated Phlegm of Discontent musings for your pleasure and amusement. Try not to get sad.
From Phlegm of Discontent: I love the smell of dead worms in the morning. It was a chilly morning, and the rain was like the static on my television. I was busy scraping the bugs, birds and deer off my car. Acid rain really doesn’t have the cleaning power you’d expect. The clouds hung low and sullen, promising several more days of this crap. Rainy days always put me in a pensive mood, and I was pondering my status as öber-geek. I asked myself, should I quit the world of mesons and baryons and binary operators and HII regions and integrals and become a traveling roadie for Johnny and the Buttplugs, or should I stick with it and continue my plans for world domination through advanced genetic engineering coupled with weapons of ultra-destruction? The former would entail dropping out of college and bulking up by about 100 pounds. The latter would require me to stay here another six months and deal with the tree-huggers, animal rights activists, preachers, squirrels, frats, pedestrians, constant attacks by those who would usurp my role as öber-geek and future ruler of the world and tutoring students in the mysterious arts of integration and calculating the expectation value of a hydrogen potential. Of course, I chose the latter after a couple seconds of soul-searching. Once again, I have a purpose.