More Hoya Ed Board LOLz

Friday, February 27, 2009

http://blog.georgetownvoice.com/2009/02/27/one-of-these-things-is-exactly-like-the-other-hoya-misprint-in-friday-edition

And thus our beloved Ed Board continues its silence on the biggest news of the year.

I understand, though. We printed our print issue with Silver Communications last year, and our shipment somehow ended up at somebody's house on 36th St. Luckily somebody at the house knew what the Heckler was and correctly guessed that 2,000 issues of the Heckler were not meant only for him.

Lamb-Breen and Dagher-Ibrahim Emerge with Huge Boost in Name ID

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Well, it looks as if what it looked like was going to happen with the GUSA election happened. The disqualified tickets are back on the ballot. And boy, they sure have the momentum going for them! Who can name another ticket in the race now? It's all Lamb-Breen and Dagher-Ibrahim, Dagher-Ibrahim and Lamb-Breen. There's no oxygen left in this race for the tickets who weren't disqualified.

One of these two tickets would certainly win, but Nick "19 Years In The Making" Troiano's hilarious decision to re-instate instant-runoff voting was enacted for next year's election. Now that we have a regular ol' plurality election here for this year (or is this one a Cajun-style runoff? who knows), their high profile won't matter as much, but I think all the attention will still probably bring one of them the victory. That is, if the Hoya Ed Board doesn't strike again with its annual pick, although I have a hard time seeing how anyone but the Ed Board would like their pick this year.

I think the key to this race, though, will be who gets disqualified next. Will it be Lamb-Breen? I think so. They seem like the favorites, and they know that the attention of another disqualification, this time without some of it being diverted to a second ticket, would probably seal a win for them. I'm guessing the weaker Dagher-Ibrahim will hang back and hope that Lamb-Breen's second disqualification won't be overturned, because even a second disqualification for Dagher-Ibrahim may not be enough to raise their name ID to winning level. But who knows? It's anyone's race. After seeing these two tickets get all the attention, tickets who were too shy to get disqualified last time might do it this time. Maybe every ticket but Dagher-Ibrahim will get themselves disqualified. Who knows?

However it plays out, the important thing to remember that it is your duty as a student to vote in this election, which is more important than national elections, because it takes all of us working together to keep this charade going. Do it for the douchebags who want to be Bill Clinton.

On a side note, has anyone been following the Hoya's coverage of this? They've had all the developments from the past week slopped together in one article that is getting extremely long and incoherent. It's great. And check out the comments, which now stand at over 50. One guy alleges that friend of the Heckler Will Dreher is a member the leader of a secret society called the Wolf's Head Union, which the poster says is in an eternal struggle with the (Second? Sixth? Sexless?) Stewards and of which I've never heard. Can that crazy guy comment here on what this wolf taxidermists' guild is? Are they these guys who capture wolves and make them sit on boxes of motor oil? Because wolves hate that.

Just look at that wolf howl. Wolves fucking hate fossil fuels. Or maybe the other Stewards finally just gave in and rename themselves. Who knows? Who cares? Well, yeah, obviously me.

Finally, can we please tack a superfluous keg ban referendum onto this ballot? That was so much fun.

GUSA Election Problems Come Early this Year!

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Play this as you read this post. I MEAN IT.



Wow, how long has it been since we had election disqualifications? Twistah? That was like three years ago! Anyway, the happy news came late Monday night that two tickets were disqualified for illegal flyering! Yay! Usually we have to wait until after the election for issues to flare up that question the legitimacy of the election, but here we are, on election eve, getting to open our presents early. Does this mean we get to have additional problems with the election after students vote today too? A boy can only hope!

Really, though, I have to thank the Election Commission. I wasn't sure it was worth it for me to take Lamb and Dagher posters and stealthily put them up in Darnall, ICC, Village B, and Leo's in the dark of night, but the Election Commission showed us that dreams do come true, and now I have blog material.

I am sure the Hoya Ed Board will back up this decision. "On the national political scene, putting campaign posters in places where they aren't allowed does not disqualify a candidate; in student goverment, however, we believe such rules are necessary so that nobody sees a campaign sign within 500 feet of a tray of chicken fingers because, as science tells us, those people will invariably vote for the names on that sign. The smell of chicken fingers is just to strong for us to perform our democratic duty."

Unfortunately, the Hoya website seems to have exploded in the wake of this GUSA news:


So I will have to wait until they can compose themselves.

EDIT: Well, the site is back up, but there's nothing from the Ed Board. I guess they're pretty backed up over there, because the two editorials this week are about stuff that was news a couple weeks ago. AND SO WE WAIT.

New Issue Feb '09

Hey, look at that. It's a new issue of the Heckler. I'm not sure how it got here, but be nice to it. It tried.

Hoya Ed Board Endorses Sophomore MSB John McCain Dadaists for GUSA

Friday, February 20, 2009

Last year's Hoya Ed Board struck the correct note in their GUSA endorsement:

GUSA is a joke. A tragically, hilariously, hyperbolically, theatrically side-splitting joke. A joke whose punch line we will never fully understand.

Correct. But this year's Ed Board is not going to give up the enormous power they have to pick a GUSA president so easily:

About a year ago, the editorial board of The Hoya (then differently composed) offered an answer of its own — not much.

OOOH! BURN! BURN! ED BOARD FIGHT! ED BOARD FIGHT!

Then differently composed. BAM! Take that, old Ed Board! You want to go, old Ed Board?! Huh? You think you can just call GUSA a joke and undermine the goose bumps we get interviewing GUSA candidates and arbitrarily picking a pair of them?!

Vitamin Water drinking contest.
ICC 116.
6:45 P.M.
Monday night if you guys don't have a midterm to study for or anything.
OLD ED BOARD, YOU'RE GOING DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!

As much as I love the hilarious intrigue of a Hoya Ed Board fight (hold my North Face fleece, Marissa, it's time last year's Ed Board meets Mr. Old Pocketknife My Grandfather Gave Me), we have to move on to the endorsement:

Calen Angert (MSB ’11) and Jason Kluger (MSB ’11).

Okay, despite this Ed Board TRYING TO DENY THE GLORIOUS CLASS OF 2010 A GUSA PRESIDENCY OF ITS OWN, there is admittedly one good part of their platform:

They also aim to enliven extracurricular life on campus by asking the GUSA Senate to devote half of the $60,000 GUSA budget to a “Georgetown Fund,” which would enable student groups to host events that SAC couldn’t or wouldn’t fund.

Hey, maybe then we could have Heckler parties besides that one earlier this year that quickly became too crowded and everything, but actually, this funding thing will never fucking happen.

But let's move on to the real reason the Ed Board picked them (depsite, of course, the MSB and FUCKING SOPHOMORES TRYING TO KEEP 2010 FROM A GUSA PREZ biases):

Both men know student government well. Angert has served in the GUSA Senate and as secretary of student life in the GUSA Executive Cabinet ... Kluger has served in the Executive Cabinet as director of advertising, and has helped to organize successful events like “May the Best Man Win” (a panel discussion and subsequent presidential debate watch) and an Energia lecture.

I don't think these positions seem very impressive, and I don't remember that election thing happening. Or what the hell an "Energia lecture" even is. Neither of them turn up anything in searches of the archives of my Georgetown e-mails for the past year, so I call bullshit. But anyway, you were talking about experience?

Angert and Kluger’s experience in student government will prove valuable if they are elected. On the national political scene, outsiders are often welcome; in student government, however, we believe that experienced leaders with the skills necessary to meet achievable goals are ideal.

YES! They just basically said that Obama was okay to become the leader of the free world with little experience because, you know, the ability to handle the U.S. presidency pales in comparison to the skills needed to run GUSA. What?!

And the editorial ends:

They are ready to lead, and we endorse their candidacy.

Ready to lead... Ready to lead... Where have I heard that one?



Oh right.

McCain-Palin-Angert-Kluger '09. COUNTRY FIRST.

Ed Board, please go back to writing syllabi for wine-tasting classes.


Also, on a side note, look at their abomination of a campaign video:



Classic MSB creativity! (Our MSB readers, uh, you're cool, though. Really. Just don't go making a collegey homepage web-portal thing.)

Now, it's pretty unoriginal for you to just change around the words of that viral Lonely Island dick-in-a-box video to suit your GUSA campaign, but the winning campaign two years ago weren't comedy writers, and they were at least able to kind of sing their own song without it sounding like a cross between an Alban Berg opera and a bad American Idol audition. But it's very, very unorginial, though highly business-minded, to try to do the same thing with the most recent polymorphously perverse Lonely Island video, which seemed like it just became sort of viral because media outlets assumed it had to be another dick-in-a-box thing, and they would have to report on it one way or another.

Angert has even used this ripped-off idea as evidence that he is not a Pat Dowd Manchurian Candidate (McCain!).

The best part of this video, though, is this comment underneath it:

darktrinity1911 (1 day ago)
This video sucks. Poor audio quality, poor candidates dancing like douches.

And the candidates', shall we say, douchey reply:

calenandjason (1 day ago)
haha you're right darktrinity we will do a much better job representing the student body than we could ever do dancing

haha ed board you're right ready to lead country first haha haha haha haha haha haha haha haha haha haha haha haha haha haha haha


NEW HECKLER ISSUE SOMETIME MONDAY. I PROMISE. PROBABLY.

And then the Stupid-College-Homepage-Thing Controversy Goes Too Far

Thursday, February 12, 2009

This admittedly ridiculously long rant I wrote last week upset some people in the comments and our inbox, but I thought I had heard the last of these failure-bound college-homepage-peddlers until this evening, when I returned from class to find this banner hanging between the first- and second-floor windows of my apartment:


Hey look, it's somehow yet another stupid college homepage thing, this time set up by Campus Corner Connection, Inc., whose website, at first glance, adorably manages to look like one of those search-engine infested abandoned URL-address placeholders. "For the People, By the People..."

Wait, what does that ellipsis mean? Oh right, the mysterious terror of their unauthorized banners appearing on the outer walls of your apartment. By the people.

I have to say though, this doomed college homepage thing looks a little better than the others. Look, pretty animated GIFs! Links to your two favorite newspapers, The Hoya and The Georgetown Independent! A forum where you can chat with the people who run Hoya Connection and their various aliases! Promotional pens, calendars, magnets and t-shirts with images that also appear to be from a URL placeholder site and which may or may not be free!

Now, I am flattered that this Brand Ambassador or "marketing intern" must have decided that the attention I've given to these stupid things were worth bothering me by putting up a banner on my and my roommates' apartment without our permission, but this marketing stunt made me angry.

Next time, please make your marketing even more extreme by doing the ultimate desecration-to-a-Village-A-apartment stunt, throwing a brick through our window. At least then I'd achieve my dream of being in a Public Safety Alert.

Thursday Thoughts


— The ridiculousness of this situation on all sides has already been well detailed in the comments on that article and elsewhere, so I only have one question: Other than a complete lack of specific interests and thirst for power arising out of the indignation of having a poor social life, what makes one want to become a SAC leader? I guess maybe we'll find out if there's ever a school shooting here.

— In related news, the Heckler failed to receive SAC funding for the seventh straight year. Not that we asked or anything, but, you know, they seem to have a propensity for odd decisions, and we weren't counting it out, never mind the fact that writing satire about Georgetown administrators or anyone else on campus is against their bylaws, meaning our two previous attempts in years past to become a SAC organization were denied.

Today's Public Safety Alert has to go down in history as having the WORST response to being caught in or at the end of somebody's bed in these reports. If you're not going to give us a hilarious line, at least wear a weird Halloween costume. Reading this report was a complete waste of my time.

— Finally, reading this interview, it's sad to realize that this year will probably be the last that GUSA presidential candidates talk about overturning the alcohol policies implemented before the beginning of last year's academic year. As the Class of 2010 moves off campus next year and will be able to legally go to bars, memories of what Georgetown was like before the policies took effect will probably be forgotten forever. Though there were partial reforms earlier this year, the social scene at Georgetown just hasn't been the same. And just as the Block Party thing before it (which is lamented often on HoyaTalk; it was an epic festival of drinking awesome enough to apparently kill someone), these policies will soon become permanent and the next major administration step towards eradicating student drinking will be on the horizon. Ho-hum.

— Also, Jim O'Donnell reads your blog? I'm so jealous. I'm not a muddle-througher kind of person either, Dr. O'Donnell!

Watch this Stupid YouTube Thing I Made

Monday, February 09, 2009

I rounded up some weird Georgetown-related YouTube videos, but none of them were good enough to post on their own. So, like the kids these days, I made a crappy MASH-UP.



Haha! I just wasted two minutes and thirty seconds of your life.

In order:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U6zhrdxvvI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izmFPszBOwY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5QJm6W6O8s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5dxSa9VpGU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONxkk5CibKA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkPt3tKh4XU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krROe10um0Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4lFZVC5Utg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFpK6kR4sII
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-dTsjjONB4


This one, though, is actually worth watching:



Look for a new issue of the Heckler next Monday. On the Internet.

Please Fucking Stop It With Your Entreprenurial Collegey Websites

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

I really didn't want to write another post about The Hoya, but I feel it's my duty. I'm the only one who seems to care about their independence and their journalistic integrity. And guess what, fuckers? I took Intro to Journalism (ENGL 481-01) last semester and somehow got an A in it without doing half the assignments, so I know everything about how journalism should be practiced.

Our issue today: this article. It's just depressing.

I really can't take these students and their endeavors to try to become the next Mark (FAIL EDIT:) Zuckerberg. I try. I really do. I actually know some of these people and have to interact with them at parties and such and I try very hard not to make jokes about their websites. But c'mon, look at this website The Hoya thinks is a newsworthy event:


Uggh.

Uggh.

Would somebody actually make this their homepage? I assume even its creators don't use it. Imagine opening your laptop in class and someone seeing that as your homepage.

I'm required now to make a list of things wrong with this situation.


1. The proliferation of this bullshit

Okay, you want to wring some money out of the Internet. Look, many of us want to make websites that succeed. But why this kind of website? Why always this bullshit? Maybe somehow one of these pieces of shit thrown at some HTML will actually stick. But I always know it won't. And you must, deep down, know it won't. But you wanting to become a millionaire means I have to hear about this bullshit all the time and read your job offers for "marketing interns" (an abomination somehow worse than the shilling "brand ambassadors" that let a corporation come between them and their friends), who are revealed in this article to be a couple of sophomores.

Let this bizarre Hoyapedia article be a lesson to you: it's a Corp programmer, crying, because nobody will use his amazing Web 2.0 app thing. It is your future if you try to launch one of these bullshit websites.

But at least Hoyapedia and the Corp's other failing venture, HoyaTrade (one of its only listings is, sadly, for Hoyapedia), have some original thought. I swear to God that I have seen this same fucking college student homepage idea three times before at Georgetown. At least one is iHoyaSaxa, and there's another one below. It's not working, folks, because it's a really, really bad idea. Never mind that HoyaTrade and Hoyapedia show that students aren't interested in these kinds of student-culture websites, but the idea of making money off being a dedicated homepage is an idea that reached its prime in, what, 2001? Maybe even last century? Are people out there really searching far and wide for a new fucking homepage that has their favorite links on it? Especially college students? Do me a favor and think about this for five seconds before you plop down money on a new homepage venture.


2. The Hoya enables these people

You know, you don't have to publish this. I realize these people send you e-mails asking you to cover their exciting new Web ventures, but I have a secret: they send those to us too. Yes, they actually write us and ask us to write satire about this crap. And they even sometimes offer money. (For the record, this group never did either, nor would we ever think about doing something like that without vomiting.)

I have to believe there are more important or at least interesting things going on at this school besides these bullshit Web ventures. I just know, deep in my heart, that these things must happen at Georgetown, even if they are never covered by The Hoya, as hard as that is to believe.

We don't need an article on Hoyapedia. Or HoyaTrade. Or College Life DC. Or Debatus. Or any of the other student Web ventures The Hoya has written about that I can't remember off the top of my head.

So why do they do it? Well, one reason apparent by this article, at least, is that somebody involved used to do stuff for The Hoya, and The Hoya is also featured prominently on the CampusLIVE page for Georgetown.

I have a solution: give us a year-end roundup of all the new student Web ventures that have failed in the past year. It'll give us a much more truthful look at these things than the regurgitated press releases The Hoya usually spits out.


3. The Hoya posted almost this exact same article almost exactly two years ago

Here it is: February 6, 2007; the brilliantly named MyKollege.com.

And here is MyKollege.com is in all its glory today.

Now someone at this week's news meeting must have been around back then. So what happened? Did they see the idea for this article and simply forget about the last one? Or, much worse, did they recognize it, yet decide that it should go in The Hoya because the last one went in the paper? I'm assuming the latter. Are college newspapers supposed to print the same stories in cycles, like Nickelodeon Magazine but with even more recycled ideas, or are they supposed to present the happenings of what is in reality a dynamic community?

The irony at this point is too painful, but I have to compare the opening line of this week's article:

It is a common dilemma for the Georgetown student: navigating one Web site for checking your mail, another Web site for posting your homework, and yet another for receiving your grades. However, thanks to the creators of CampusLIVE, a company that has given students the ability to create customized homepages, Hoyas have to look no further for links to all of their educational and social needs.

to the one from two years ago:

For anyone who’s ever had trouble keeping track of all the Web sites they browse, three Georgetown seniors may have just solved your problem.

Is this why you're writing these articles, The Hoya? The thing is, I don't think this "common dilemna" or "problem" really exists, because the homepage thing two years ago, you know, failed. Maybe the author of the new article could have at least mentioned that failure, or if she didn't know about it, am I the only person at Georgetown able to use the search function on their website?

I will make a bet. If CampusLIVE becomes at all a success on campus within the next year, I will quit Georgetown. And if not, I get to have The Hoya.

 
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