A Middle School Girl’s Idea of What the Rest of Life is Like

October 1, 2010

APPLYING FOR A JOB
Interviewer: Very nice, and your master’s degree was from Wesleyan as well?
Middle School Girl: Yes, sir.
Interviewer: Hmm, I think I’m missing the part of your resume where you list who asked you to the 7th grade dance.
Middle School Girl: I… didn’t go to the 7th grade dance.
Interviewer: I see. Well, we’ll keep your name on file, thanks for coming in.
Middle School Girl: …
Interviewer: Naturally, we’ll be telling all this to your elementary school friends who moved away; it’s standard procedure.

AT THE DOCTOR’S OFFICE
Doctor: Mrs. Finneker, Mr. Finneker, I don’t know how to tell you this exactly, but… we found out why you haven’t been able to conceive. Jennifer, you have a rare uterine disorder—
Shrieking Tween Girls: OH MY GOD JENNY HASN’T HAD HER PERIOD YET CAN YOU BELIEVE IT.

RUNNING FOR RE-ELECTION
Reporter: Congresswoman, I’m Dan Hayes of CBS News. Question: Why should the voters send you back to Washington for a third term?
Middle School Girl: I raised the child tax credit, secured funding to build the causeway, protected the marshlands from developers interested in–
Reporter: What do you say to the breaking news that Stephanie DeMarco will run against you, and that she’s more popular than you?
Middle School Girl: Is she still dating the captain of the lacrosse team?
Reporter: Uh huh.
Middle School: Oh my god I’m going to lose.

BLOOD DONATION
Nurse: Thank you for agreeing to save a life today. We just need to ask you a few routine questions. Have you ever used intravenous drugs?
Middle School Girl: No.
Nurse: Have you ever engaged in unprotected sex for money?
Middle School Girl: No I haven’t.
Nurse: Have you ever eaten lunch alone in the bathroom in 7th grade?
Middle School Girl: [Cries]
Nurse: Sorry, you should… you should probably go.

GOING TO COLLEGE
Middle School Girl: Wow, college is nothing like middle school!
College Student: That’s right. Here, no one is popular because they’re pretty or have nice clothes. We like people who are smart and shy.
Middle School Girl: This place is perfect!
College Student: Oh wait, you know how to kiss a boy, right?
Middle School Girl: Well, um…
College Student: Never mind.

Volume 20- Issue 2

A Guide to College Drinking

October 1, 2010

feature, Lena Brooks

Many people drink in college, but few are true connoisseurs. Lucky for you, however, the entire staff of the Heuristic Squelch belongs to the alcoholic elité. Allow us to break down a few of the finer points of collegiate beverages.

Underage Scarcity Lager

Production Company: 7-11 Clerk Who Doesn’t Card
First Impression: Tastes like ohhh my god I’m so drunk right now?
Dominant Flavor: What is this? It’s sooo good! It’s Pabst? …oh.
Aftertaste: The hobo who bought it for you
Notable Ingredients: Room temperature

Pretentious Sophomore’s Gin & Tonic

Production Company: Second Years Who Named Their House After a Lesser Known Belle & Sebastian Song
First Impression: Sweet pretensions
Dominant Flavor: Fancy, fancy, ooh la la!
Aftertaste: Bitterness that no one comes to their dinner parties
Notable Ingredients: Plastic bottle gin poured into a thrifted decanter and then poured into a red cup

Grecian Jungle Juice

Production Company: Sigma Kappa Something Something
First Impression: Jolly Ranchers!
Dominant Flavor: Malty Popov
Aftertaste: Amnesia
Notable Ingredients: A little bit of this, a little bit of that, bro.

Co-op Bucket

Production Company: Cloyne Court Hotel and Casino
First Impression: Neon
Dominant Flavor: Notes of currant, smoke, and oh god what is that
Aftertaste: The paint that the bucket used to hold
Notable Ingredients: Marijuana. Somehow.

Drink That You Paid For

Production Company: A Bar
First Impression: A taste like the tendrils of a warm September breeze
Dominant Flavor: Heirloom, hydroponic barley distilled to ecstatic perfection
Aftertaste: Poorness
Notable Ingredients: Dollar bills

Alcoholic Young Person’s Vodka Waterbottle

Production Company: Doug In The Back Of Your Discussion Section
First Impression: Sudden inspiration to speak up in class
Dominant Flavor: Plastic toxins
Aftertaste: Shame
Notable Ingredients: Senioritis

Volume 20- Issue 2

Rescued Chilean Miners Can Finally Return to Poverty

October 1, 2010

Graham Riley, newsflash

This weekend, after ten weeks trapped underground, 33 Chilean miners were finally brought back to the surface, and to the crushing destitution of being a Chilean miner.

“It was the longest vacation of my adult life,” said Victor Gómez, one of the freshly impoverished miners, “but I guess all good things must come to an end.”

The miners once again have to worry about affording food, which the government had provided in the wrecked mine. Other luxuries, like vitamins and contact with the outside world, will also be missed.

“They installed a fiber optic feed, so we could actually see our families in the daytime,” said Alfonso Juarez, who until then had never seen his youngest son awake.

Many of the miners claim that the collapsed shaft was more spacious than the tenement houses where they live with their dependent families.

“And we didn’t even have to pay rent,” added Juarez.

25 of the miners could not be reached for comment, as they were working eighteen-hour shifts to make up for the two months they had spent underground.

The San Esteban mining company released a statement this week, saying it was happy to provide the miners a respite from their nightmarish lives. Said CEO Alejandro Bohn, “The miners’ gratitude, along with a binding contract forbidding litigation, was reward enough.”

Volume 20- Issue 2

Existential Teen Comedies

October 1, 2010

feature, Woodrow Currie

American Pie presents: No Exit

Three high school seniors made a pledge to lose their virginity before the end of their senior year. The only problem? The boys are locked in a hotel room that will be their private hell for all eternity. In order to fulfill their pledge they’re going to need to find a way to score while being driven mad by each other’s company, in a tragic psychological sausage fest of their own design. And wait till you see what happens when room service brings in a pie! This summer, three teens will learn that Hell is other penises.

Starring Jason Biggs, Sean William Scott, and Sir Ian McKellen as “Boner.”

Dude, where’s my God?

After a night of too much partying, Jesse and Chester wake up to find that they have accidentally killed God. Now it’s up to a couple of average stoners to retrace their drunken steps to the foundation of human values in the absence of a set religious establishment. Can they save the world from certain nihilism and find out where their sweet new tattoos came from? Watch hilarity ensue as the pot-tastic duo searches for the Continuum-trans-Übermensch, the one being that can usher in the new order and teach Jesse and Chester about the true, foundational value of the Will to Party.

Starring Ashton Kutcher and Sean William Scott as the unfortunate middle stage between animal and overman.

Franz Kafka’s Sixteen Candles

As Samantha Baker awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, she found herself transformed in her bed into a gigantic cockroach. To make matters worse, with her sister’s wedding just around the corner, all of her family has forgotten her sixteenth birthday! Will Samatha come to terms with the absurdity of her position? Will she realize that she, in her own special way, represents the human condition itself? Will she be able to convince the coolest guy in school that monstrous vermin can be pretty slammin’ too? No.

Starring Molly Ringwald as the vermin and Anthony Michael Hall as the geeky insect-fetishist that loves her.

Bill and Ted: Waiting for Rufus

TED: Bill, with this time machine we will be able to write a most triumphant report.
BILL: Yes Ted, but we have to wait for Rufus to come before we can go anywhere.
TED: Oh yeah, excellent!
(BILL and TED furiously AIR GUITAR before STANDING and QUIETLY WAITING)
TED: But Bill, if we do not start our project we will flunk most heinously and my dad will totally send me to military school.
BILL: While this is true, we will get it done as soon as Rufus gets here, and it will be a most bodacious report indeed.
TED: Most excellent mi amigo!
(BILL and TED once more AIR GUITAR before STANDING QUIETLY. Suddenly, with a flash of lightning, another PHONE BOOTH arrives carrying FUTURE BILL and TED)
FUTURE BILL: Greetings, past selves!
TED: Oh, most excellent! It’s us from the future again!
BILL: Future us, did Rufus tell you when he would come?
FUTURE TED: We don’t know yet, past us. Rufus told us to come back and wait here next to the phone booth with you past us guys.
BILL: Oh, well then, let us wait.
(FUTURE BILL and TED AIR GUITAR to each other while BILL and TED STAND QUIETLY. The AUDIENCE waits desperately for something to FUCKING HAPPEN)
TED: I’m going to military school aren’t I?

Volume 20- Issue 2

Future Battles

October 1, 2010

feature, Rebecca Power

Now, for the first time on DVD, The History Channel is proud to present FUTURE BATTLES: A Military History of THE FUTURE. Get a glimpse of the greatest triumphs and cruelest defeats the world will ever know as FUTURE BATTLES takes you inside the most pivotal military moments of the 21st century and beyond! With gripping preenactments, commentary by today’s foremost strategists and gypsy seers, and behind-the-hypothetical-scenes footage, FUTURE BATTLES: Season 1 is guaranteed to prove that history really does repeat itself. It just keeps getting better guns.

Now available in HD. Welcome to the future of history.

Episode 1

3476: The Robot Civil War

Learn the true story behind the clash between man and metal-man that proved to the world over that all men are smelted equal. This heart-wrenching episode includes:

The world’s most influential historians, tacticians, and auto mechanics discussing the conflict that tore this country apart and fused the pieces together into one giant mecha-country.
Awesome battle sequences created with CGI animation and some metal stuff they made last season on Mythbusters.
Interviews with Reconstruction scholars on what it might be like to reconstruct scores and scores of robots.
Mournful violin music.

Episode 2

2307: Charge of the Laser Brigade

Known less for the attacking army’s use of the lasergun than for the defending army’s use of the mirrorshield. See the brilliant defensive maneuver that reflects both the future course of warfare and a volley of deadly lasers! Watch the action as laser-battle comes to a deadly stalemate when both sides continue to build larger and more reflective mirrors.

Episode 3

2458: 376th Crusade

Follow a band of loosely-affiliated religious fundamentalists as they battle their way across the Holy Land to recover the remaining Christian artifacts not yet obliterated by the sands of time and the first 375 Crusades.

Episode 4

2017: D-Day of the Dead

The decisive turning point in your roommates’ fight over whether or not zombies can survive underwater, but only the beginning of humanity’s fight against millions upon millions of amphibious zombies! While an accurate death toll for either contingent is impossible due to high civilian mortality rates and the tendency of casualties to switch sides, we guarantee you’ll be getting a sneak peak at one of the deadliest confrontations in human history. You won’t see devastation like this again until next season, when FUTURE BATTLES presents 2117: The Hundred Years Later War.

Episode 5

219986: The Animal Insurrection

The animals have learned to talk—and they demand self-governance! Armed with an intellect born out of two hundred millennia of natural selection and slapdash nuclear waste disposal, billions of furry, adorable soldiers will lay down their lives for the sovereignty of the Animal Kingdom. Spoiler warning: this is one fight mankind might not win!

Episode 6

17776: The American War For Independence Day

After the amoeba-beasts of Arcturus 5 impose a mandatory blood-tax on spiceworm tea, it’s time for a heroic band of patriots to rise up and unite! Armed only with courage, the dream of independence, and a massive arsenal of photon torpedoes, the Great-Grandsons of Liberty will inspire you with their daring stand against the unicellular oppressors. From the Revolution’s humble beginnings at the Boston Cytoplasm Party to Washington Clone 347’s famous order of “don’t fire until you can see the whites of their flagella,” this two-hour season finale will make you proud to be an American.

Volume 20- Issue 2

Berkeley Scientists Successfully Synthesize Nothing

October 1, 2010

Matthew Iannone, newsflash

In a press conference last Tuesday, scientists from the Yu-Kavinsky Research Group at UC Berkeley announced that they have successfully created nothing. The research lasted six years and required several million dollars of university funds.

“This is a major breakthrough for the scientific community,” said project chair Igor Kavinsky. “Einstein predicted that nothing can move faster than the speed of light. Finally, we can test his theory.”

The fusion of nothing has been deemed the most important breakthrough since last year’s discovery of an utterly useless element that exists for a thousandth of a second.

“At first there was a lot of frustration,” said researcher Charles Modesto. “We tried combining many different particles, but we were always left with one thing or another. However, we never forgot how important these non-findings would be to a handful of obscure scientists around the world. We’re proud to have spent our glory years on nothing.”

Some concerns have been raised over the legitimacy of the reported nothing.
“I refuse to believe these scientists truly achieved nothing,” said Stanford physicist Larry Johnson.

“Their methodology simply wasn’t rigorous enough. As you can see from the academic papers, keynote speeches, and research fellowships that emerged from it, this project has to have produced something.”

“No, really. Nothing,” replied Kavinsky.

Volume 20- Issue 2

Statue of Liberty Aggressively Remodeled to Reflect Modern American Values

October 1, 2010

Alan Carrillo, newsflash

WASHINGTON–The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill late last Tuesday that provides 1.3 million dollars towards a renovation of the Statue of Liberty. Reconstruction will center around replacing the iconic tablet held in the statue’s left hand with a huge middle finger directed at all nations east of the Atlantic.

The bill was introduced by freshman Congressman Samuel Whittemore, who explained that the change would better reflect recent American policy in the Middle East. Whittemore also cited recent American policy in Asia, recent American policy in Africa, recent American policy in Latin America, recent American policy in Europe, and recent American policy in parts of Antarctica.

“The world needs to realize that we know it hates us. And ya know what? We could give a rat’s ass,” Whittemore said.

Critics have charged that the change might appear hostile to immigrants. Responding to the allegations, President Obama said, “My father was an immigrant, and he told me that the Statue of Liberty symbolizes what it means to be American. And today, being an American means telling everyone else to go fuck themselves.”

Volume 20- Issue 1