Whitman College Pioneer - Spring 2009 Issue 09 Humor Section

25April 16, 2009 HUMOR WhitmAn College PiOneeR

A generally-boisterous weekly beirut function was momentarily stalled last Friday by what some are terming “a to-tal buzzkill.” Garrulous conversation came to a halt as one attendee fiddled with the iTunes playlist, resulting in an uncomfortable silence broken only by the shifting of sneakers on the gummy hardwood floor.

“Hey,” one student said, clearing his throat loudly, “do you know that in a

group there’s a collective silence like, once every seven minutes?”

“I think that’s just something people say to fill the space,” another quickly added, a look of desperation on her face as her forced laughter faded.

Much to everyone’s relief, the music started up again soon after.

Awkward silence at party quarterlife posthumously sued by Kurt VonnegutInsiders have confirmed that a recent intellectual property lawsuit was filed against Whitman’s stu-dent literary journal quarterlife by famed Amer-ican novelist and social satirist Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007). The issue of contention seems to be quarterlife’s choice of the phrase “So it goes” for the theme of its thirteenth issue, to be published in May 2009. Vonnegut, who coined and used the three-word refrain extensively throughout his seminal 1969 novel Slaughterhouse-Five, is now demanding royalties for its use.

“I have no problem with people using my words as part of daily conversation. In fact, it’s sort of flattering,” said Vonnegut through a spirit medium. “But as a person who made my living through my creativity, I have to draw the line somewhere between imitation and exploitation. I used ‘So it goes’ one hundred sixteen times in that book, so I find it hard to imagine that quar-terlife thought they could just slip this one by.”

A spokesperson for the student staff at quarter-life had a different view of the matter. “Honestly, I don’t mean to dance on a grave or anything, but it’s ridiculous to try to exercise copyright on vernacular. Besides, we don’t even have a budget besides what ASWC gives us, so I don’t

know what sort of royalties he’s expecting to get.”

As the court date draws nearer, quarterlife employees seem content to wait and trust that things will work out in their favor. “So it goes,” said one, as an additional ghostly litigation ma-terialized from the ether.

RUsH liMbaUgH’s waRnings fall On deaf eaRs:

“The Obama puppy is clearly a TerrOrisT sleeper agenT infil-TraTing Our highesTlevels Of gOvern-menT! isn’T anybOdy lisTening? hellO?”

26 27WhitmAn College PiOneeR HUMOR April 16, 2009

nO MORe VaRsiTY sKi TeaMs! It’s all downhill from here

How much money is the ski team hiding from us?

Unnoticed signs that the ski team’s relationship with Athletic Director Dean Snider was deteriorating: * When Snider planned a surprise can-dle-lit budget meeting, and the Ski Team got home late from skiing, AGAIN, it didn’t even ask why all the good silver-ware was out. * Snider left out a copy of Cosmo in the ski team locker room with the page open to a quiz called “How to know if Your Man is Spending Too Much on Skiing to Reasonably Fit Into the Budget of a Small College”

* When the Ski Team left a generous tip for a waitress, Snider rolled his eyes, then vehemently denied that he was upset about anything, even though he didn’t say another word until they left Applebees. * Snider dreamily mentioned how “impressed” he was with Bode Miller’s fiscal responsibility

* When Snider and the Ski Team went to see Iron Man, he stared at the team for, like, a full minute during the part where Tony Stark goes over budget * When the Ski Team came home from shopping, Snider asked if HE could bor-row money for ski poles for once, but then said, “Just kidding, just kidding,” and went back to reading The Lovely Bones. * When Snider asked the ski team to try on a budget from a few years ago, the one he really used to like. When the ski team responded that it had gotten too big, Snyder raised his eyebrows and muttered something about how the ski team at his last school could probably still fit into that budget.

Real Value of Ski Team: $15 k for each of the four teams

Potential Value

during this last year, aswC was forced to turn its focus inward and make cuts within its administration. Here are a few things aswC decided it could do without:

by Bailey Arend, Alex Kerr, Warren McDermott, and Finn Straley

Value on eBay of Warren McDermott’s highly-oxygenated blood if sold at • about 12 dollars per pint: $30,000

Nobody really knows how many pints are in the human body, but look at him. Dude has hella pints.

Money to be made by intentionally losing to the easily-bribed Vassar: • $10,000The value of friendship: $700• Retail value of Anti-Global-Warming-Machine that has thus far prevented • global snow melt: $2,000

To show approval during meet-• ings, ASWC will begin knocking on tables instead of “making it rain” hundred dollar bills into a pit of fire

Champagne hot tub donated to lo-• cal charity

Team-building trip to Atlantis • probably canceled

Elliott Okantey to sell pet griffin, • in exchange for smaller griffin

Pool full of sharks downgraded to • pool full of piranhas

ASWC now to serve Franzia at • meetings, instead of Montrachet 1978

The ski team has managed to prove two things since it was an-nounced that Whitman’s number one team is being cut. 1) They are NOT the most expensive team per athlete. The data that implied they were didn’t count coaches salaries. 2) They were never given a warning or a chance to try and save the school money - they had no idea.Whatever, you cash-guzzling snow-fiends, we did some research. Here comes a blizzard of facts: COLD AND HARD!