From jgoldie @ sccs.swarthmore.edu Wed Sep 29 00:57:38 2004 Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 00:54:30 -0400 (EDT) From: Jillian G. Waldman Reply-To: presidents @ swil.org To: SWILnews Subject: SWILNews #4: The Case of the Missing Presidents ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Apologies to the fun list for the premature delivery. 1 am is amusing. ~ Venti ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Week in Preview: 5:30 pm Thursday 9/30, SF Discussion Table, Upper Sharples: Doctors - Strangelove, Seuss, etc. Friday, 10/1: PTERODACTYL HUNT Kohlberg Courtyard and the surrounding countryside 6:30 pm: Monster orientation (there's still time to sign up!) 7:00 pm: Hunter orientation 7:00 pm Saturday 10/2, Wink and Brownies, ML ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Meeting in Review: Arthur is Pornography. Sam Jenkins is Ruler of the Queen's Navee. Sam Jenkins, Chris White, and Finlay Logan are sentient. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SWIL was called to disorder by Detectives Tall and Venti. The rabble was pathetic with an apple-hammer. "Oh, horrors!" Tall cried. "Where's Grande?" "He's off being Jewish," Venti replied. "That's a suspicious story," Tall replied. "Maybe something terrible has happened! We must solve this mystery." "I've got a lead," said a mysterious stranger. "Go see Doctor Strangelove at the SFDT Cafe, and maybe he'll be able to help you out." "The SFDT Cafe? What's that?" "They've got a theme every week; this time, they've invited the world's most famous doctors." But before they could make it to the SFDT Cafe, they made a trip to the theater, where "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" was playing. [Are those Chris' pants or your pants? -Alex] [I don't know; what do they look like? -Meredith] [Your pants -Alex] During the movie, it was revealed that Tall had had a wild affair with the director, but he'd dumped her for some classy dame, and she threatened to destroy him and his movie [This is largely unembellished -Meredith] So the detectives investigated some other leads; they found a multitude of foam swords in ML, as well as a man making shields. They could not determine the purpose of the swords, until a trio of people dressed in red cloaks showed up. "These are ours," one of them said. "We're holding a Pterodactyl Hunt this Friday, and we need as many foam swords as we can get. Also, monsters. So sign up to be an orc!" It seemed the cloaked man was telling the truth, so the detectives moved on to other leads, but not before giving the cloaked man a hug; someone, however, groped Tall. [Why would she complain about that? -Alex] [She has issues with everything -v] [There will be massive censoring -v] [That's OK, Andrew; We'll get our own rival SWIL News, with blackjack, and hookers. Actually, forget the SWIL News -Alex] [What do you mean, she has issues with everything?! - t] [Actually, forget the blackjack, too. -Alex] Then a blonde bombshell appeared, with a smoking gun. "Post Prop, you big lug, or I'll be forced to wrap my hands around something...fragile." [*Girlish shriek* -Alex] [*Girlish giggle* -v] [Girlish hands -Meredith] [*Hyperventilate* -Jackie] She whirled her gun around her finger, then posed dramatically. "If you want a big tip, get to the Rose Garden Sunday at 10, and you'll find some people who know some stuff. But be careful; some of them aren't exactly right in the century, and they're not afraid to...stick you with something." Escaping this femme fatale, the detectives stumbled back to the theater, where Marie, the stoolie, was waiting. "Don't go in!" she said, "I'll do what needs to be done." So she put the movie in the projector, and everything seemed peaceful... Too peaceful [We call her the SWIL Movie Monkey -Meredith] The detectives then found a secret passage that led them all over campus. They found themselves on roofs, strange gardens, and a room full all of pillows. After much hiking, they finally returned to ML safely. [Actually, I think we might have lost some people -Meredith] [Lost...or murdered? -Alex, if he had been in the room] And then there was much confusion; Tall fled the room, and upon questioning Noda, we realized that he was really Mai in disguise! When she returned, it was revealed they were actually twin sisters, and they hugged, delighted to be reunited. [*Sputter* -v] [Well, we *did* vote him to be Mai, but then she came back, so what were we supposed to think? -Meredith] Then they stumbled upon an argument; the Freshman and the Upperclassmen, two rival gangs with a bitter hatred for each other, each wanted to have a different Saturday Night SWIL. With some careful negotiation, the detectives were able to forge a compromise: Saturday Night SWIL would be Wink AND Brownies. Then Venti revealed some shocking news. We didn't have much time left; the world was going to end on October 17! The Hedonist club may have a party then, although it may conflict with the massive birthday party the Upperclassmen are planning. There was a scream as a shout rang out: "Submit to BEM!" Someone else retaliated with another shout, this one more deadly: "Nominate books, you stupid, illiterate people!" The coroner examined the bodies, and shook his head. "I wouldn't worry about these bodies until after the Hunt..." [Oh, I forgot the eyebrows! -v] Now that we were finished examining the evidence, it was time to interview the suspects. First, Christopher Underwood White. Proof: He said he was as sentient as the rest of us. He stated a number of unrelated points, including: No one in the room was in fact sentient. We claimed we were worthwhile people, as per the statement: "No matter what you say or do to me, I am still a worthwhile person." However, none of us were sick, and therefore, not in Worth. As we were not in Worth, we were worthless! Also, while we may have claimed 'I am not a number, I am a free man!', most of those in the room HAD a number, and were therefore not free men. [Most of this proof is bullshit -Meredith] [I think someone used this point before -v] The freshmen mostly didn't have numbers, but as everyone knows, freshmen are stupid. [Noo...we LIKE the freshmen -v] [But how will they ever grow beyond their stupidity if no one ever tells them about it? -Meredith] [Kill them all! -Jackie] However, Arthur had a contention with Chris' contention that we were numbers. "We are not numbers just because we HAVE numbers," he said. "I have a lot of pornography; does this MAKE me pornography?" Yes, by an overwhelming majority. Raoul, a philosopher had logic on his side, and as he says 'the Baby Jesus weeps', he also has the Baby Jesus on his side [Not for long! *punt* -Alex, if he had been in the room] [You make a very good Alex -Alex] [Noooooooooooo!!!!! -Baby Jesus] He then claimed we all disappeared in a puff of logic. QED. However, SWIL cannot disappear in a puff of logic, as we do not subscribe to it. [We really should; I hear it has some great articles -Meredith] [*smack* -v] Mendez killed Arthur with an apple-hammer [Wait...Mendez hit an upperclassman! -Meredith] [He hit an upperclassman! -v] [Woot! That's two of them! -Meredith] Then Arthur made the point that Adult Jesus outweighed Baby Jesus...by nearly 200 pounds [This should have been the point at which he was slain with the apple-hammer -Meredith] However, adult Jesus walked on water, and was therefore light. [And what the hell does the gilt mirror have to do with anything? -Meredith] [It has something to do with Jesus. -v] [Jesus loves watching himself? -Meredith] [Jesus loves *watching* himself? - Alex, if he had been in the room] [And evidently, sentient people are cheap -Meredith] [I think that's just a way of saying they're easy. -Alex] [Do I have to type a response to that? -v] [But I'm the one doing all the typing! - Meredith] Arthur argued that: Chris used words to prove we were worthless. However, no matter what he says or does to us, we are still worthwhile people. Thus, he needed to prove us to be worthless in mime. [Mime! Mime! Mime! Mime! -rabble] [Don't you mean ' ', ' ', ' ', ' '? -Meredith] [Madonna in a box. Mark in a bra. Wants to get Mark in a bra. Wants to kill pornography. - Venti's notes] So we voted Chris sentient because he wanted to see Mark in a bra, and no one outside of SWIL has ever expressed a desire to see Mark in a bra. So, after Chris reluctantly revealed his sordid past with Grande, we moved onto the next suspect: Samuel Matthew Jenkins [That's a sucky middle name -Meredith] [We had a proof, but Venti lost it -Meredith] [When Venti finds it, it will be at: http://yaddayaddayaddaswil.../SWILnewsslash/Fall04/][aitch tee tee pee colon / slash? -Alex] http://www.swil.org/SWILnews/Fall04/SamProofSlash.png [I hate you all -Jillian/Chris (As opposed to Jackie/Chris, or Chris/Chris -Meredith] [MReh?! -v] Jackie enjoined him to unjoin SWIL so she could get her damn purity point. We had to get the opinion of the imaginary Jackie, so we rotated her 90 degrees so she was imaginary. People who couldn't do math demanded her be rotated the other way to make her the negative imaginary Jackie. Jamison said if Sam had a British accent, he would follow him anywhere. [So would I -Alex] [As would I, but that's beside the point. -Meredith] [On second thought, it is the point -Meredith] We were concerned that the imaginary Jackie would get the purity point, so we voted to damn her. Then we voted to make Sam speak in a British accent. Then we voted that he had to sing Gilbert and Sullivan. So he sang "When I Was a Lad", from HMS Pinafore. The rabble joined in on the chorus. [It was the most frightening I've ever seen -Meredith] [Note that I'm gloating about my purity point - Jackie] [Oh. We have *plans* for that... *evil cackle* - Meredith] [Arthur gave Jackie the key to his room. This isn't relevant to anything, but it made her scream. -Meredith] So we voted Sam sentient because he was ruler of the Queen's Navee. And then we voted him Ruler of the Queen's Navee. This has nothing to do with rum, sodomy, and the lash. [Sure, he doesn't -Meredith] [What do you mean? Isn't that why we voted for him? -Alex] [I have to say it really negates my desire to join the Queen's Navee... -Meredith] And then the next suspect appeared, a red-headed knockout who hung out with the wrong type of people. [Unitarians? -Meredith] [Mormons? -Alex, if he weren't talking on the phone] [No, I think it's Objectivists. -"v"] [Dum dum dum dum dum... -Alex, again, if he weren't busy] Finlay Winter Logan [Wait a minute...I have a suspicion she's Canadian... -Meredith] Sentience is defined as having feelings, taking in stimuli, and responding to them. All things are divided into three categories: humans, computers/robots, and rocks. Rocks don't respond to stimuli. Computers may in fact be sentient, as shown by Loki and the malevolent forces such as Nick's computer. [Robots may also be sentient, as shown by Blake -Meredith] She wants to know what separates her from a robot. She says that consciousness implies free will. [Wait. Scratch that. Reverse that. -Gene Wilder] Ability to focus, [illegible]. Anyway, Finlay did the irrational thing by not studying for a test [Hoop-a-doop doo -Jamison], and by never writing papers. Robots cannot be irrational. Arthur kicked her to see if she was a rock. Finlay walked to the door and back to prove she could act. But Arthur claimed she both terminated and repeated, so she was rational. [We're almost done with Finlay -v] [But we've barely gotten started! -Meredith] But she claimed she had used an objectivist argument to prove sentience and was therefore irrational. [But you're there to take care of his emotional and physical needs! -Meredith] [Jackie is groping Venti in the hallway; it makes me wonder why they won't let me put the *really* good stuff in here. -Meredith] Mendez said something about fanfic. It was disregarded, although we did note the spirit of Lauren lived on in Mendez. [Aaah! Why? -Alex] Arthur talked about the Dao of Pooh. Pooh either is or isn't sentient. He may be Daoist. "Finlay the Pooh. Finlay the Spec." After these comments, she expressed a desire to beat Arthur's head in with apple-hammers. She then hit him. [You see? TWO freshmen. A-ha-ha-ha... -Meredith] We voted Finlay sentient because she wanted to beat Arthur. All other dither is irrelevant, except the fact that Arthur's heckling privileges were revoked. The saucy blond reappeared, and gave this cryptic comment: 'SWIL Meeting is like Wink.' Then there was a lottery. Eliza, the Torpedo, took us all for a ride. She won the X-Men video, cleverly avoiding the mystery bowl, which was...the OTHER X-Men Video! [I still think Finlay needs to get that; she probably doesn't have many animations of her father -Meredith] [You know, I should do something to you... -v] Then a hooded man appeared, expressing a desire to do fun things. Because no one knew what he was talking about, he was left all alone. Many people were slain in the dagger-fights in ML. [This is breaking down; what happened after the dagger-fights? -Meredith] [SEX! -Alex] Tall then claimed that she couldn't have bumped off Grande, as she had papers. Stifler's alibi had something to do with rugby; apparently, he couldn't kill anyone while playing it. So, whodunit? Attendence List of Mark in a Chain-mail Bikini with a Sword (and enjoying it!) [Does anyone have a digital camera? Because I have Photoshop -Alex] Was it: Meredith "I'm really confused, and not just about the plot." Conforti Brown [in the Hunt with a Wizard's staff]? Sarah "The ink is nontoxic. I can eat it."[But does it taste like bacon? -Jackie] Hartman [in the blue bus with Grandpa Smurf's golden pants]? JC "Hungry ghost of SWIL" Ravage [in Jonathan's room with the frosh]? [Illegible scribble] "You will be !!OvAr!!ii" Jamison [in the woods with a nurturing hug]? [*struggle* -Jackie] Scott "Burrito Boy" Storm [In the Fortress of Solitude with the Kryptonite]? Leah "mmm...chainmail" Handel [in LANG with the grand piano]? Blair "I like 'Bedknobs and Broomsticks' no matter what Mai, SWILPresident, says." Reaser [In the bedroom with the broomstick]? Adam "I am teh winnar!!1!eleventy-one1!!1"[Groan -v] Oleksa [In North Campus with his shiny, shiny claws]? Joe "Yarrr!!" Grimm [In North Dakota with a voter registration form]? Samuel "Who un-moved my anti-cheese?" Jenkins [on the ship with the lash]? Rebekah "alliteration" Rosenfeld [In the breakfast room with the toaster]? [Noo! The toaster is for Greg! -v] James "Cardboard Tube Samurai" Mendez Hodes [In ML attic with the spirit of Lauren]? Marie "Extremely Abbreviated" C-d [CS Pun! -Meredith] [Segmentation Fault -g] [Wait, isn't he missing? -Meredith] [In Mertz with the Sunlab]? Qian "canary? I didn't see any canary" Qian [In the physics common room with the incest web]? Mary "I am wearing ludicrously comfy socks" Wootters [In Parrish with a Who]? George "Lord of the forces of pink" Dahl [Good lord! -Meredith] [In a candy factory with the champion of the world]? George "I am not the same as the Other" Dahl [In the cloning vat with the Space Pope]? Eliza "Pirate Captain Obvious" Blair [In my room with the wooden sword]? [I'm not going to touch the subtext of that statement with a 10-foot pole -Meredith] [A 10-foot what? -Jackie] Jackie "Jackie" Jackie "Jackie Werner" Werner "Werner" Werner [I hate you -Meredith/Chris] [Does she quack? -Alex] [at the Haverford duck pond with the waffle iron]? [I'm not waffling ducks! -Jackie] [But it says not to put anything other than batter in the waffle irons! -g] [Especially not that! -Alex] Gold coin "Ana's proxy" that Eliza found in her pocket [In Johnny Depp's pants with a cannon]? Christopher "Giant apple-hammers are a bad idea" Jager [In Catan with a sheep]? Oliver "Bring on the popcorn, bring on the soda" White [In Mark's bra with Professor Easy's sword]? Emmanuelle "I'll think of something eventually" Wambach [On the theater grid with some Hydrox]? Mike "History's Greatest Monster" Karcher [In Madagascar with a Hyrax]? Nora "Do I dare/disturb the universe?" Nussbaum [In Castle SWIL with an imaginary number]? Dan "reduced-row echelon form" Klothe [In Nupont Courtyard with a can of whipped cream? jere7my "sidelong glances are my bread and butter." tho?rpe [In Greylock with Jim's pants]? Susan "Having odd dreams" Ivanova [In the Looking-Glass World with a couch]? James "CRVXIS" Mendez Hodes [In the 1920's with a carving of Cthulhu]? Marie "No longer abbreviated" Cosgrove-Davies [In the Death Star with a Websters Unabridged English Dictionary]? Alfred "Trust the Corps" Bester [In Hell with a flaming sword]? Geroge "Oil Tycoon W/Credit Card" D'Hal [In Texas with an oil drill]? Finlay "<3" [In the right frame of mind, that's the sickest thing I've ever seen -Meredith] Logan [In the refrigerator with cold pizza]? Kit "that 'prince' symbol" LaTouche [In the radiator with a were-Jillian]? Arthur "Apple-stained talking pornography" Chu [In a beaver with a lightsaber]? Jillian "Never again!" Waldman [In the Bamboo Grove with a small tree]? Mark "MIA" Handler [in a chainmail bikini with a sword]? Mai "Evil Sorcerous Temptress" Pucik [in the quad with a wireless network]? Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion, where we tell you exactly WHO killed Mark Handler? Was it the stunning blond with a thing for sharp, pointy things? Or the perverse old man with a thing for nubile young downy soft English school boys? Or was it someone entirely different that we haven't mentioned in a deliberate attempt to make it impossible to solve this mystery? And do you even care? Probably not! V and Meredith, going about 5 km/h, and slowing down. -- Andrew C. Brown, Esq. 'The Man of a Thousand Titles' SWILScribe of Appending Doom Fifth Librarian of the Apocalypse Venti's Familiar Official SWIL Gofer Meredith Toast Satan "Getting *that* much fun out of life ought to be illegal."