Demotagging

Red arrow - approximate location of Scavenger Hunt.
This room is also the location of the latter half of In which I realize far too late...

In which I realize far too late that I have chosen the wrong university to attend

Man, it's amazing the kind of halftime show you can pull off when you don't have only ten poorly-funded band members trying to share the field with 412 vapid cheerleaders.

There are certain high schools around here that could possibly learn a lot from this, but then again, who needs silly things like funding for the arts, when you can have hundreds of teenage girls in miniskirts kicking their legs? It's not like the people demanding all the funding for the cheerleaders are just a bunch of perverted old men who like looking up the skirts of underage girls, nosiree! I'm sure they only go to Jitty Joe's for the ice cream, too.

Meanwhile at 'Da U, they have replaced all of the bench seats in the second floor cafeteria of the Guster center with new ones.

Approximately one month before said cafeteria closes.

For good.

As in, "the building is being demolished."

As if it wasn't bad enough that they had just spent a small fortune renovating said building two years ago.

(Maybe they're just upset that I found Yuki?)

Her last fan

Leaving breakfast at the Guster Student Center today, I saw an old man walking up the Commons carrying two trash bags, and wearing a Hillary Duff T-shirt.

Just another day in Scranton.

Scavenger Hunt

468: Abstract portrait of Yuki Nagato in a hipster outfit with donkey ears: Check.

Unsustainability

Just when you think that the University of Scranton has finally hit the absolute bottom of the barrel...

Riiiiiiiiiicola!

... they decide to build a 30 million dollar ski lodge. Not only that, but they decide that, gosh, it would be just swell to eliminate two parking lots in order to erect said ski lodge.

Let me just elaborate on why this is a terrible idea: As a part time student, I've spent almost too many years attending the University. I've had to deal with many years of never being able to find a convenient place to park, or even any place to park, on campus. On most days, if you didn't arrive on campus by 9:00 AM, you were usually relegated to parking in the Poly Hi lot, which is on the far far far far far end of campus and involves a walk of at least a half mile (a full mile, if your class was in Hyland) in order to get to your class. This was especially great for those of us who were on tight schedules and couldn't actually make it to campus until about five minutes before the class started.

There were semesters where I have been frequently late for classes because I was driving around looking for a place to park. On many occassions, I have ended up having to skip classes entirely because there was simply nowhere to park in the area. Other times, I've resorted to parking illegally on the street or in the Steamtown Mall lot, and prayed to God that I didn't get towed, while wondering exactly why I plunked down $100 (now $200) on what is essentially a useless bumper sticker.

After several years of this garbage, the University finally got its act together and put some new parking lots in along Mulberry St. and Madison Ave. For the last couple of years, parking hasn't been much of a problem at the University. Now, if you arrive after 9 AM, you're merely relegated to parking on the top floor of the parking garage, which is still a lot better than being stuck in Poly Hi or taking your chances with the Scranton Parking Authority.

But nevermind the fact the commuter students can now make their classes, we have the more urgent problem that the spoiled rich kids from Long Island have to walk around for a minute to find a place to eat! Oh noes! So now, the University is going to eliminate both the Weinberg and Gunster lots in order to make room for a new $30 million ski lodg... err... student center.

Nevermind that this now means we commuters will be going back to the days of having to quit our jobs (which we need, because we don't have filthy rich parents to leech from), because we have to get to campus by 8 AM in order to have any hope of making our classes. Nevermind that they could have built an additional parking garage on Mulberry first, in order to prevent another parking crisis. Nevermind that there are a lot of other buildings on campus that need major renovations, including St. Thomas and Loyola halls. Don't even get me started on that hole in the ceiling of the WUSR main studio, through which you can see daylight. I'm sure the FCC will be thrilled if they saw what a crappy roof we have over thousands of dollars of sensitive broadcasting equipment. And yes, we did have a ceiling tile fall during a broadcast. Nevermind all this, because what we really, desperately need, more than anything else, is a fireplace lounge!

This pretty much reinforces an attitude that is very often implied by the University of Scranton: if you are not from Long Island, you are not welcome here. The University has consistently made it clear, through its actions, as well as its unresponsiveness to the needs of commuting students, that the only way for area students to have anything less than a frustrating experience at the University of Scranton is to pay top dollar for a dorm room that's only 10 miles from their house. This new "student" center happens to be the most flagrant declaration of contempt for commuting students yet. The more I look at these plans, the more I think that I'll be finishing my education at Marywood.

Looking back, I probably should have done that to begin with.

Viagra for Christmas Trees

Is this the best they could do?

Sustainability In Action!

Dead trees for everyone!

Mearii-saaaaaaaaaaaaan!

So now if you ever run into a Japanese woman who is attempting suicide, you'll know exactly what to say to her!
(From my Japanese workbook)

And now, a brief look at some of the various "What the crap?" moments in my Japanese textbook:

First up, we have the image above. This is from an exercise in the workbook, where you have to listen to the CD and decide what would be the most appropriate thing for the guy to say. First of all, if I were to encounter somebody about to jump off a building, I wouldn't know what to say in English. Do you even say anything? Or do you just sneak up from behind and pull them away from the ledge? Why didn't my grade school grammar classes include training on how to handle suicide attempts? Is suicide really such a big problem in Japan that this needs to be in a first-level textbook? Most importantly, why did she take her shoes off first? None of this is explained in any way.

Then, as if that wasn't enough, the third chapter of the book:

Holy "low opinion of people who want to learn your language", Batman!

That's right. The third chapter, before you even get to the all-important "asking for directions", is dating! It's almost as if they were saying, "Alright, we know that 99% of you are probably fat, smelly, anime-watching geeks who are only taking this class as part of a futile attempt to score a Japanese chick, so let's cut the crap and get right to the chase." Is this how the Japanese see us?

I'm beginning to think that it is. A few years ago, there was a Japanese family shopping at the local Circuit City. Every time an American came within 20 feet of them, the father would corral his wife and children off to another, more isolated aisle. Of course, there were a lot of Americans in the store, as it happens to be in, well, America. So he kept retreating his family further and further back into the store, until they were all huddled up in the back corner by the stereos, not moving. I have no idea how he managed to find enough of a clearing to get them into the store to begin with. But I digress...

Then, as if that wasn't enough, there was a listening exercise for this chapter that involved a guy asking an American girl out for coffee (gotta reverse the roles so it doesn't look too suspicious, you know), and getting shot down repeatedly. I mean, if you ask somebody out, and they tell you, really slowly, "Uhh... I have to... go home!", you wouldn't exactly need a degree from Sally Struthers to figure out that she means, "Go pound sand, you cretin!". Not this guy, though. No, he just keeps on trying! And trying! And trying some more! Eventually, the girl says goodbye really quickly and runs away, leaving the poor sod shouting, "Mearii-san! Mearii-saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!" I'm sure that the voice actor responsible for this had to have recieved an award of some sort for his performance. It's like the ending of Citizen Kane, only better!

Anyway, I'm sure that at this rate, I'm going to get at least six more blog posts out of this thing before next semester is over. In the meantime, I need to put together a presentation on some aspect of Japanese culture. I'm doing one on baseball, although I'm probalby going to be focusing on the Hanshin Tigers, because, well, they're the Hanshin Tigers, dammit! (Curse them for making me into a fan!) I'm secretly hoping that the instructor is a Yomiuri fan, just because it would make for some really amusing looks. It'll be fun!

And now, as promised last time, and just in time for the holiday season, here they are:

Of Blasphemy and William Campbell

So I was down in the diner^H^H^H^H lounge in the basement of the student center (or, as I call it, "That place you go when the Pro Deo Room is full") today, and somebody had a talk show featuring Paul McCartney on one of the TVs there. Suddenly, a shot was fired that was heard around the world. That's right, somebody comitted the heinous act of saying that Sir Paul "wasn't that good". This, of course, infuriated a bystander, who apparently didn't get the memo and spent the next half hour railing on about how great and immaculate McCartney is. The kicker was when she claimed that "Paul McCartney is the only reason why anybdody listens to the Beatles!".

I Feel sorry for this generation.

Tomorrow: What's the deal with my Japanese textbook? Also, Canada's top Ukrainian-Canadian recording artists, Mickey and Bunny! Be there!

Fweeeeeeeeeee!

Well, that was quite possibly the single most funnest semester that I've had ever! It was, in fact, so great that I haven't even had the energy to write anything about it until now. That's how wonderful it was. Tremendous! Fabulous! Spectacular even! Please hold on while I go over here and shoot myself.

*BLAM!*

Okay, that aside, let me just sum up my entire spring semester in one word: "Whuh?". That's pretty much how it went. I ended up stuck with an instructor who graded her course pretty much entirely on a single project, that had to be accompanied by many, many "short" pieces which were then changed to 5-page papers at the last minute. Did I forget to mention that she gave us absolutely no clue whatsoever as to what these papers were supposed to be about? Nope, no explanation at all. She just gave us a vague title for each paper and we had to guess from there what she meant by it. Also, I never got a single one of them back, so I never even knew whether or not I was writing these things correctly. This, of course, kept me from ever being able to do any decent work on my actual project, which ended up being a steaming pile of crap. Despite all this, I managed to get by with a B. I don't know how, since I don't think I handed in several of the things on her list, but again, I can't be sure, since that list seemed to change with every class. Yes, folks, this is why I'm only going to school part-time. If I had to deal with four or five of these people at once, I probably would have shot myself by now. Or at least died of sleep depravation.

Anyway, now that that's over, I can finally turn my attention to that horrendous pile of DVD's and CD's that I've been gathering over the past several months but haven't had time to watch/listen to. At least in theory, anyway. So far, it doesn't seem to be working out that well.

"Carrot Top's Last Stand"
(Image taken from amusing.org)

Latest Update from Retail Hell

So last week, a woman waddled on over to the electronics department and racked up an order of over $500. When she got to my register, she proceded to pay this down with gift cards until it was under the limit at which I would have had to automatically call for a check approval. She then handed me the most blatantly obvious counterfeit check that I have ever seen in my life. I mean, this thing was just horrible. It was like she wasn't even trying. There were no security features whatsoever, most of the numbers were missing, the box for the dollar amount was just a very tiny line, and to top it all off, the whole thing had that "inkjet printer running low on ink" blur to it.

So I call the supervisor over, show her the check, she tries not to burst into laughter in front of the "customer". When she informs the worthless crook that we're not going to take her check, she, as expected, starts throwing a fit. So she calls somebody from the accounting office over to look at the check. At this point, the woman realizes that the gig is up, and tries to get her gift cards back and hightail it out of there. She eventually made off with a $250 item on the gift cards, which we later found out were purchased only minutes earlier. That's right, three of our illustrious front-register cashiers actually accepted those pathetically bad fake checks.

I really need to find a job where I won't be associated with these people.

Sakura Kinomoto and a small contingent of Mokonas are confronted on their travels by the nefarious Sw!ms footsoldier.

And now, a play-by-play recap of CLAMP No Kiseki Volume 1

• Cover: Good Lord, this has to be the single pinkest thing that I have ever had the courage to walk into a store and buy. Somehow, I don't think their target audience for this is 25-year-old ponytailed dorks. Just a hunch there. I also bought an Atom & His Package CD along with this, so if you can picture the contrast of those two sitting on the register counter together, you can imagine that I'm probably on every mental health watch list in America right now.
• Page 1: You know, one of these days the Blue's Clues people are going to send a platoon of lawyers into Tsubaki Nekoi's place and banish her off to wherever it is they exiled Steve to. Although it would be fun if Nickelodeon replaced Blue with Ioryogi for an episode or two. You just know those kids are gonna have problems.
  
  Also, Mokona is drawn with a very serene appearance here, which is probably a boon for all those people who believe the "Mokona Is Dead" rumors, but I'm still not buying it. And yes, I have listened to Raison D'être backwards. Several times. I don't hear it. Besides, I don't think William Campbell would be that great of a manga artist, anyway.
• Pages 2-3: I am thoroughly convinced that there was never, at any time, tea spilled on this illustration, and that CLAMP wrote this just to trick their fans into poring over it for hours in a vain attempt to locate the stain. Well, I, for one, won't fall for it!
  
  Okay, okay, I fell for it. DAMN YOU, CLAMP! DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN YOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUU!!!
• Page 4: I wish I had a bathroom that looked like that. Although it leaves me wondering what the rest of the fixtures would look like. Would the toilet have wings, too? Because it would be kind of weird doing one's business while sitting on a physical manifestation of a screensaver from the waning days of the After Dark era.
• Page 5: So in case you haven't guessed yet, this volume happens to be entirely about Cardcaptor Sakura, which is a bit strange. It's sort of like making a Beatles retrospective, and starting it off with an in-depth look at Sgt. Pepper's. Sure, it's probably more well-known than the earlier stuff, but it pretty much kills all sense of context when they arrange it like this.
• Page 6: I do not, however, wish I had an outfit that looked like that. Poor Li looks as though he had a run-in with an irreputable lederhosen dealer. Granted, he's practically guaranteed not to have a "wardrobe malfunction" with all those straps, but I don't think that's really a concern of his.
  
  Also, I never would have pegged Sakura as a Grateful Dead fan. But there you go. I'll be willing to accept this so long as we never see Watanuki in posession of a Phish T-shirt.
• Page 7: And by "atypical", they mean that CCS actually doesn't consist primarily of long, drawn-out transformation sequences and gratuitious upskirt shots. It's amazing the level of quality that you can achieve when you leave those out.
• Pages 8-13 And now, for those of you tuning in late, a recap of Cardcaptor Sakura, complete with all of your favorite moments!
  • The awakening of Sakura's powers!
  • The appearance of Syaoran!
  • Rika and Terada: Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot?
  • Sakura is kidnapped by the Empire!
  • Syaoran finds out that Darth Vader is his father!
  • Tomoyo is frozen in carbonite and taken prisoner by Boba Fett!
  • Ewoks! Ewoks! Ewoks!
• Pages 14-15: I am astonished that the character pages contain no mention whatsoever of those two girls in the top panel of the eleventh page of chapter 10. This is clearly a glaring omission, and I will be demanding a refund.
  
  ...
  
  Yeah, yeah. I know it's a dumb joke. But I just spent a half hour scouring through my copies of CCS trying to find some suitable nameless extras (there aren't that many, amazingly), and I'll be damned if I let that time go to waste.
• Page 16: Ah, it's good to see a reminder of what a great company Piffle Princess was before they were acquired by an American big-box retailer a few years ago. Now there are always fat people blocking the aisles in smelly motorized carts, the register lines are about three hours long, you need to take out an extra life insurance policy just to venture into the parking lot, and don't even think of entering an angel you bought there into a tournament, unless you want to be laughed clear out of Tokyo when it inexplicably falls apart right in the middle of fall-in. It's a crying shame, really.
• Page 17: The essay manages to do a perfect job of describing what appears to be a favorite CLAMP storytelling strategy: Lull the readers into thinking that it's just a mindless fluff story, and then when they're least expecting it, sneak up behind them and whack them across the head with a very large cinderblock. It's like a top-40 station that suddently cuts into an entire Captain Beefheart album accompanied by an old, scratchy LP of Tuvan throat singers played at 45. Jarring at first, but way more addictive than it should be. Miyuki-chan In Wonderland is actually listed as a controlled substance in many European countries because of this effect.
• Pages 18-19: This outfit is a lot better than the strap polka motif, although I probably would have gone with an off-whie sport coat and a grey shirt with those pants. Then again, everybody knows that striped pants are a violation of the Geneva convention, anyway, so it's all a moot point.
• Pages 20-21: So here we have a look at all of the original Japanese cover art for pretty much every CCS-related thing that ever existed in Japan, most of which we never even got to see because we're stuck having to get these things through &#@%ing Tokyopop. And now that I've seen the original DVD artwork, I'm just a bit peeved about that, too. But only a little bit. It could be worse. We could still be stuck with nothing but the dub.
• Pages 22-23: Something I noticed in all these illustrations is that they're all covered in these little white dots, as though they've been lightly sprinkled with bleach or white-out or whatnot. I'm waiting to see how long it takes until Pete starts using a technique like this with his photos. He'll probably work it in somewhere between "burning the negative" and "soaking the print in Kool-Aid and letting it sit under a rock in the neighbor's backyard for six weeks".
• Pages 24-25: Yoshiki Tanaka is a man who has a fedora, and knows how to wear it. 'Nuff said.
• Pages 26-31: See, this is what I meant by that cinderblock comment earlier. Just when you thought you were reading a nice, sane retrospective: *WHAM!* Six pages of fighting cat-fairy-things. You will now be left wondering where the hell that came from for several weeks. That, I think, is the sadistic beauty of Kiseki thus far. You pick this up, thinking that you might finally get some answers as to where some of these f**ked up ideas came from, and not only do you not get any of these answers, but you end up being left even more confused than you were before!
  
  Poor Kakyo. She's so misunderstood. *sniff*
• And finally, the chess pieces: I'm kind of torn over this. On one hand, there's the coolness factor of having a full CLAMP chess set. On the other hand, everybody knows that it can't be a true novelty chess set unless it's made out of pewter at the Franklin Mint. Not only are these things made in China, but they've also committed the blasphemous act of making them out of plastic! And not even the good kind of plastic, either! I'm talking the really weak, bendy stuff here. Where's the fun in it if you can't throw a pawn at your opponent in an angry rage and leave a nice Mokona-shaped bruise on his/her forehead for the next several weeks? Feh! Feh, I say!

Anyway, that's it for this edition. Be sure to tune in next time, when we'll have with us special guest Roger Moltewicz. We don't know who he is yet, but we're sure it will be interesting. Goodnight, everybody!

Relive the magic of Cardcaptor Will

Wow, that's a really impressive increase there.

And now, yet another random sign posted on every available vertical surface on the University of Scranton campus:

At one point, there was an entire rainforest in the form of these flyers occupying the St. Thomas Hall stairwell.

Wow, 98%, that's a pretty big number. But wait, according to that text on the bottom, the increase in hits occured during the week of January 31 through February 5, during which the site recieved 97.8% more hits than in the previous week (January 23-30). Let's take a look at the University's academic calendar, shall we?

Source: http://matrix.scranton.edu/academics/ac_academic_calendar.shtml

"Housing opens for returning students at noon - January 30"...

Gee, you don't think that the 98% increase was due to the fact that there was nobody on campus last week, do you?

*Boiiiiiiiiing again!*

Missing the Point Entirely

The University of Scranton's crack team of "Students who pretend to care about issues in the hope that people will think that they really aren't just a bunch of shallow twits who are concerned only with their own image" has apparently noticed that many major clothing manufacturers are running inhumane sweatshops in China. Nevermind that every other person on the face of the Earth has known about this for at least 10 years, now we have a bunch of college students from Scranton on the case! Oooooh, I'm sure the CEO's at Nike et al. are really quaking in their Italian wingtips right now! Especially with intimidating protest ideas such as this:



Of course, you could always just

NOT BUY THEIR MERCHANDISE!

*Boing!*

We get letters

And now, I'm going to answer some of the feedback I've gotten from people just like you over the last 3 years. Actually, I'm going to answer most of it. It's pretty hard not to, since only 8 people ever bothered to send anything. In fact, the feedback file contains more "script test" entries from myself than it does actual feedback. Sad, really. Anyway, on to the first message, from "meow.":

meow.

meow. meow meow meow. meow meow, meow meow meow? meow, meow meow. *sigh*

I'll let University of Scranton President Fr. Joseph McShane, S.J. handle this one. Fr. McShane?


Thank you, Fr. McShane. Our next letter comes from jerry. He writes:

It was great to see the Casey still stands; they've only had nearly 20 years to figure out what to do with it!

I attended the University of Scranton in 1984 and hoped to be able to see the inside of that buidling before it fell. Unfortunately, the city did not find the need to preserve it the way they did with the Scranton Dry Good building, which was empty but fully heated the last time I saw it.

I got this one back in 2000, when the Hotel Casey was indeed still standing. Unfortunately, it was demolished earlier this year to make way for a large hole in the ground:



Right now, they're in the process of building a brand new hotel and conference center across the street from the former site of the Casey. I don't know why. Who the hell would want to have a conference in Scranton, anyway? I'd say something about how the loss of the Casey is a very bad thing for the city, but Peter Hocking already handled that topic in the June 4 entry of his weblog thingamiwhoozit (No longer online. If you wanted to see it, too bad.). As for the Scranton Dry Good building, I think Scranton Prep bought it and is planning to tear that down, too. That might be another building I'm thinking of, though.

By the way, if you're interested in what the inside of the Hotel Casey looked like, you can check out this site, which contains many illegally-obtained photos. Trespassing: W00t! This has been a message from the National Trespassing Bureau.

(Oct 29, 2001 update: Unfortunately, this site appears to have vanished from the face of the Internet. If anybody knows of a new location or even has the pictures from it sitting on their harddrive someplace, please let me know. For those of you who are still wondering what the Casey looked like inside before it was torn down: take what's left of the Titanic, remove most of the water, and replace the fish with pigeons. For those of you who are wondering about what the Casey looked like inside after it was torn down: you *really* need to get out more.)

Our next letter, from Erica:

Um, I realize that I am a big loser for actually writing and the fact that I am from Scranton, PA; but I was looking at your ScrantonCam and the picture that is supposedly taken from the 6th floor of the Casey Hotel had some, I believe they were, Cacti? Now, as many people realize, Scranton is in the North Eastern section of the US where I really dont think that there are any cacti. I just thought I would tell you. Yes, you can rant and rave all you want because some chick from Scranton corrected your site but I am really friggen bored and this took about 10 minutes of my pathetically anal life to complete so thankyou for filling my life with wonderfful things to complain about. Okay...I am going now.

You... Nah, it's too easy. Next!

The UK's very own raziele chimes in with the following:

wot s this site about please send me death threats so I can send them around

Okay, so this person apparently found my feedback page while doing a search for "death threats". I don't know why, but for some reason I find the thought of somebody saying that with an English accent absolutely hilarious. Then again, I live in Scranton. You almost have to be easily amused in this town. Anybody who lives here will know exactly what I'm talking about. Well, anybody who isn't named Erica, anyway.

So that's it for the feedback. I'd answer more, but that would mean that I'd have to get more first. So send something. Please. And Be sure to tune in next time, when I'll don a skimpy Sailormoon costume and juggle morningstars with my nose while singing Oops, I Did It Again. Or maybe not...

"Hi, do you have $100?"

Yes, some girl actually asked me this the other day. I don't know what she expected; I'm a college student, I'm just as broke as she is. And what little money I did have, I had already spent on food and cartoons. So obviously, I didn't have $100 on me at the time. Okay, so then she asks me if I have $50. The answer is still no.

"Do you have any money at all?"

"Uhh... I think I have a quarter here somewhere..."

I did end up giving her a quarter, actually. And I'm sure it was for a good cause. Assuming, of course, that a drug dealer from New Jersey qualifies as a "good cause". But this brings up a good point: as I type this, there are literally millions of broke college students across America who are jonesing for their daily dose of pot/crack/Dayquil/whatever. In addition to asking random people on the street for large sums of money, they have resorted to such things as smoking University landscaping and sniffing public restroom toilets in an attempt to get a cheap high. These kids desperately need our support, folks. That's why I'm proud to announce the Stoners Across America Telethon 2001!

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, we're hoping to raise enough money in the next three days to keep collegiate potheads all over the country stoned out of their gourds for the remainder of the school year! So call now, or else we'll bring Jerry Lewis out here. You don't want to see him again, do you? Especially now that that the MDA telethon just ended. You won't believe how totally smashed he gets after...

*Loud crash heard in background*

Dammit, Jerry, get out of that golf cart!

Jerry Lewis: You'll never walk aloooooooooone, nice LAAAAAAAAAADIEEEEEEE! *VROOOOOOOOOOMSKREEEEEEEEEEEECRASH!*

You really don't want to see this, folks. So donate something; you've been warned...

(718) 387-6962

Incidentally, "Hi, do you have $100?" tops "Hi, would you like a story?" as the worst pickup line I've ever heard. It's too bad that I never actually think to say that to them when it happens. Oh well...

Question for the Digital Ages

Why is it that scanners absolutely, positively never work? Really? Every single time I've ever needed to scan something, I can't find a single one that works. They manage to throw error messages up the wazoo, completely lock up the system, fill the room with smoke, destroy major cities in Japan, even sing Fine Young Cannibals songs, but I have yet to actually see one successfully scan anything. Why is this? Is this some kind of evil scheme created by scanner manufacturers to drive everybody else insane so that they can take over the world and make us their slaves? Is this part of some MPAA "anti-piracy" scheme to prevent us from taking a photo of each individual frame in a movie, scanning them in, re-animating them, and sending the movies out over the Internet? ...

uhh... yeah. Anyway, I was planning to have something semi-entertaining up here, but obviously, that plan kind of fell through, so instead, please enjoy this picture of University of Scranton president Fr. Joseph McShane, S.J, singing the Meow Mix jingle:

Interview with a University of Scranton Student

Good evening, and welcome to Views Across America(TM Patent Pending), the show where we discuss current affairs with ordinary people just like you. I'm Edwin L. McGinty, and tonight, we have with us Mr. Nick Foogmaroon, a college Student from the University of Scranton in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Good evening, Nick.

Nick: Yo, yo, yo! Whut up, homeslice? Shout out to all my peeps back at Redington! WHOOOOOOO!

E: Uhh... yeah. Anyway, tonight we'll be discussing the ongoing tension in the Middle East. Nick, what are your thoughts on the conflict between Israel and Palestine?

N: Yo, Israel? You damn right I's real! Yo, check 'dis out, me an' Lou, we's got drunk and rolled peoples' trash cans an' sh*t down 'da hill inta traffic. You shoulda seen all 'dem cars tryin' to miss 'em. Damn, 'dat was some cool sh*t.

E: Ooooo-kay. Well, what did you think of all the recent bombings?

N: Yo, did you's see 'dat one video, where all's da people was dancin' and sh*t, and 'da floor caves in, and they's all screamin' an' sh*t? Me and Lou's was watchin' 'dat sh*t all weekend. 'Dat wus some funny sh*t.

E: Actually, that was just a structural failure, not a bo...

N: Yo, where's 'da beer?

E: Excuse me?

N: Yo, I's t'aught there's supposed to be beer at 'dese tv 'tings?

E: Uh, no, we don't have beer, sorry.

N: Yo, 'dis place sucks! I's goin' back to 'da crawl. C-ya! *Storms out of studio

E: Uhhh... okay. That's all the time we have for this week. Tune in next week, when we'll be discussing President Bush's energy plan with an Amish farmer. For Views Across America(TM Patent Pending), this is Edwin L. McGinty. Thank you, and goodnight.