Blog | The Georgetown Heckler

This Shit Has Moved

2009-10-03T05:22:00.002-04:00

We've said goodbye to Blogger. The new blog site is here: http://www.georgetownheckler.com/blog

New Issue Sept '09

2009-10-03T05:15:00.002-04:00

It's up. Along with the new site. Drop us a line if you have any trouble with this site. Hopefully we've made the correct blood sacrifices and such to the correct WordPress gods.

Leo's Employee Cumpolsary-Appreciation Week

2009-09-25T12:57:00.004-04:00

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this weird felt propaganda wall. Sorry, I just came from Russian Foreign Policy. Anyway, the first Heckler issue of the year is going to be up early next week. And we will have a redesigned, hopefully more functional website. I apologize that it will go up right away without interruption, and we will not have to take our site down for four months like The Hoya.

The Hoya Racism Watch, Making Fun of the Disabled Edition

2009-09-18T02:54:00.006-04:00

Things have been going strong for The Hoya the past couple weeks in the racism department. But in its soul, something has died. Todd Olson doesn't get it! The Hoya is a RAUNCHY, IN-YOUR-FACE, UN-PC comedy gift to the world. And if you won't let them make fun of black people, THEY'RE JUST GONNA HAVE TO TAKE THEIR JOKES TO ANOTHER HISTORICALLY DISADVANTAGED GROUP. It's called attitude, and The Hoya has it in spades, unless by spades you mean black staff members.

This week: the disabled! The Ed Board writes a bland editorial in favor of that wheelchair guy suing Mr. Smith's for allowing him to be a fire hazard and then not. "Big deal." OH YEAH? Well, you just have to look a little harder, my friend! The title of this story? "Standing With Taylor: Solidarity Counts." Get it? They can't stand with the guy in the wheelchair because, by definition, he cannot stand. SATIRE.

Uggggggggh. Seriously, they had to have realized what they did, right? That has to the most inane title for the piece they could come up with. Nobody writes a headline that poorly unless they're trying to make a joke. Uggggggggh.

While we're at it, does anyone know this kid? I will withhold vitriol because I've really maybe only said a word to him once or twice, but everyone I know who knows him thinks he's, well, whatever polite word for douche bag exists that I can insert here. And, "I thought he was supposed to graduate last year, isn't he like 25 by now?" Small sample size, so who knows, he may not be a d-word, whatever. Anyway, the interesting thing is, if you go to his website, it's pretty much a chronicle of what happens when you're a rich, well-connected disabled kid.

"LEMON!!!!!"

(See what I did there? I could write for The Hoya!)

Before you leave the site, make sure to donate to his trust fund. Don't look at me like that! It's a special needs trust fund. Special needs people need more than one trust fund. That's why they call it special needs.

Thankfully, we've learned from this Hoya article that this guy "has not ruled out pursuing a monetary settlement." God speed!

And remember, if there's anything you learn from this courageous individual, it's that the Hamptons are a very dangerous place. You could jump into a sandbar and come up suing a landbar.

EDIT 9/20: Reader Will Sommer notes that since publishing this article on Friday, The Hoya has changed the title of the article on their site to "Solidarity Counts," though Will notes "the URL is still standing with Taylor."

EDIT 9/22: And now they have moved the article to a new URL. It's true, anonymous commenter, the printed version of the article was entitled "Standing Behind Taylor." But that's still pointing out he can't stand, no?

Letters to University Administrators: Blue Cup Redux

2009-09-16T22:06:00.003-04:00

As always, if the administrator responds, we will post it.

Josetta:

Let's skip with the pleasantries. A year ago, when the nation was gathering together to celebrate Patriot Day, I sent you a letter about blue cups, blah blah blah. Things didn't go well last year for the Georgetown University Soft Drink Society (GUSDS). Once again we were turned down for SAC funding, and when you didn't return my letters about the blue cups, the board began to see me as a weak leader, and a rebel group led by Paul tried to wrest control, in violation of the GUSDS Constitution, the accepted stance of the National Collegiate Soft Drinkers Association, and the good will of soft-drink lovers across the nation's capital. I was able to keep my position, expel Paul, and force the other insurgents to drive up to his house in Connecticut and hang a white sheet stained with grape juice in the big oak tree in front of his family's porch.

I am stronger than ever before.

Obviously, you felt some degree of fear in responding to me last year, but please remember that, despite my power as president, I am just a student like anyone else. I noticed that the blue cups quietly returned, and in turn, you have been allowed to keep your job as Beverage Director up to this point.

However, we again have a problem. Every time this year I eat lunch in the "Down Under" section of Leo's (more commonly known among students as "Leo's Australia") at your restaurant called The Diner, which is to say every day I eat lunch, I have yet to see the blue cups. This is an abomination.

And at this point, I'm about ready to call it racism. Just kidding. You assumed I was a black person because I always eat in The Diner when in fact I just like eating unhealthy food and want to be near it at all times. Shame on you. Stop reading The Hoya.

Just bring back the blue cups, no questions asked, and my group will forget the whole thing happened. I assume you like your position as Food and Beverage Manager and would like to continue to manage providing food and beverages to your children. We hope for the same.

Yours again,

Jack Stuef
President
Georgetown University Soft Drink Society

The Hoya Racism Watch, Day 1

2009-09-03T01:27:00.003-04:00

I have counted on a few things being constant during my stint at Georgetown: John Thomson III is the basketball coach, chicken fingers are served at Leo's on Thursday, and The Hoya is protested for doing and publishing things a lot of students find racist. Now, I haven't always been able to keep my life stabilized on the assumption that I will see chicken fingers on Thursday, but the other two seem pretty solid. So this blog will be on watch all year following The Hoya as it attempts to restrain itself from inevitably publishing the issue that will spur this year's anti-Hoya-racism protests to break out. Thankfully the Media Board suspended The Hoya's bid for independence this year, because the Media Board has proven to nurture the kind of journalism from The Hoya the past couple years that results in really nice, full anti-racism protests.

So far, after the first day of classes, The Hoya has officially not been protested yet. Tuesday's issue, the first of the year, is very careful not to make jokes about "good old vanilla-chocolate swirl interracial fucking." In fact, they were so careful not to make Jessie Sapp seem light-skinned, they darkened a picture so much that he and much of his surroundings are nearly impossible to make out.

A good start, but how long can the passive-aggressive protest-avoidance be sustained?

And We're Back

2009-09-03T00:43:00.003-04:00

It feels dusty around here. Not because we haven't posted anything in awhile. It's Blogger. It just feels so... 2004? Is that even a year? I am not sure that is even a year that exists it was so long ago. We should probably be beaming HD-tweets into your Heckler-branded content reception devices, not hanging around here. I mean, once in awhile, every four months or so, The Hoya will try to launch itself into the blogosphere, and you just feel uncool typing out thousands of words about college homepage websites. Does the blogosphere even exist anymore? Spell check is telling me that is not a word. I can't be sure.

This blog will be attempted again, though. I can't promise much, but it will be attempted.

There is also a goal to put an issue out towards the end of the month. You can read that too.

Also, I was heartened to see the lower section of Gaston Hall filled up today for a lecture fund event with comedy writer David Javerbaum. Granted, the event was not called "A Noted Comedy Writer Discusses His Craft." It was called "Behind the Scenes of 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.'" And it was freshmen's first opportunity to see a non-NSO speaker in Gaston. But perhaps it is a sign that somewhere on campus, in some dark crevice of social anxiety and Easy Mac, there exists students who have some vague ambition to try their hand, or maybe even hands, at humor writing.

Come visit our table at SAC Fair on Sunday from 12-4 PM (or, if you want, for just a minute or two during that time span) to sign up for our online paper thing and the various advertisers to whom we will sell your e-mail address. We'll be in Red Square with the other misshapen, pale, non-university-funded student groups. Who knows, maybe we'll even pass out free GUGS burgers we've taken from the GUGS grills across from us!

Heckler Summer Blog '09! Or not.

2009-06-16T07:11:00.005-04:00

Remember when we strained to bring you a blog last summer and then in the two semesters after that? That was fun. But it's not happening this summer, we're pretty sure.

Not that we really blogged about anything last summer. It was mostly just Jack Stuef writing boring updates of his writing fellowship and copy-and-pasting rejected Onion headlines. If you want to read more about his boring life and the occasional rejected Onion headline he deems fit for the world, follow him on Twitter. In an incredible accomplishment not befitting a scarcely published, constantly on the brink of death, narrowly focused college humor magazine, another of us, just-graduated Heckler editor Jon Rapoport, got this summer's writing fellow job at The Onion. He's probably not going to be writing a diary of his magic Onion journey on here, but we just wanted to brag. Seriously, there are much more established, better run, and university-supported humor mags out there. We should not be the one producing the best writers.

Our DeGioia Twitter account from our last issue continued on for less than a month, got some nice press, and then was shut down after the school complained to Twitter. Sorry.

If you want, you can take a look through our archives. A lot of the links don't work anymore, so we have obviously won our wars with The Hoya and stupid-college-homepage things! We haven't heard back with the ever-Googling-on-the-job Heather A. Maginnis, but we have taken over her immaculate Google results. Blue cups finally returned to Leo's. And John Q Pierce remains at large, though we've won his Google results as well. There you go, closure.

In closing, the federal government apparently considers both the Heckler and The Hoya (I KNOW!) real campus newspapers.

Now go buy our sandwich. And e-mail us if you have any desire to write for us next year. We're having a lot of turnover of writers, and well, hopefully, with your help, this thing won't die out before it sees the new decade.

NEW ISSUE APRIL '09

2009-04-23T13:20:00.006-04:00

We're going to do a THIRD issue this year! Look for it ~~early next week~~ ~~this Thursdayish~~ DEFINITELY WEDNESDAY 5/6 AT THE LASTEST right here on the Internet.

Also, if anyone has any disgusting remarks about children to share, put them in the comments. I actually don't have enough time on my hands to come up with these, so I need your help to reach the necessary college humor magazine disgusting-remarks-about-children quota for this month. Thanks.

UPDATE: It's up.

Obama Requests J.T. DeGioia Mess Around With His Daughters

2009-04-15T19:35:00.008-04:00

Photo taken from Georgetown University's Flickr account without permission.

The transcript:

SPEAKER: PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

OBAMA: Thank you so much. Please, everybody be seated.

Well, to President DeGioia, thank you so much for the gracious introduction, and thanks for bringing your family, including J.T. Appreciate you.

(LAUGHTER AT OBAMA PRETENDING TO APPRECIATE DEGIOIA)

The -- we're going to invite him over to hang out with the girls.

(LAUGHTER)

He's a pretty good-looking young man.

Eww. Eww. Eww. Eww. What does that mean, and why would he want DeGioia's son to do that to his daughters? I mean, it's kind of gross that DeGioia even has a son. Some people probably even question if he is the father...

Wait, where have I seen that hair before?

AHHHHHH! THERE IT IS! OBAMA IS SECRETLY LINKED TO BLAGOJEVICH! AHHHHHH! AND HE WANTS BLAGO'S SECRET SON TO SPAWN WITH HIS DAUGHTERS AND CONTINUE THE DYNASTY! Eww.

Anyway, I stopped watching the video at this point:

To Georgetown University students, it is great to see you.

(LONG, RAPTUROUS, BOASTFUL APPLAUSE)

Calm the fuck down, people. Your biggest cheer during the speech should not be for yourselves. Uggh, Georgetown.

Georgetown Waitlist

2009-04-10T18:16:00.003-04:00

People searching for that term on Google has led to an explosion of visits to this blog, via this post.

Look kids, the Heckler is here to help. Just give me your information, I'll go over to the admissions office to argue your case, and they will be sure to not let you in.

Now scram. You'll love it at Tufts.

Also, can the person who googled "provost georgetown beanie baby" shoot me an e-mail? I really, really want one of those.

MyNostradamus

2009-04-07T03:28:00.002-04:00

I generally dislike MyAccess (can't they at least put up the old-style Schedule of Classes if they're going to put up the old-style Course Catalog?), but it can see what your schedule will look like up to THE END OF TIME:

In the City of God there will be a great thunder, Two brothers torn apart by Chaos,
while the fortress endures, the great leader will succumb.
The third big war will begin when you decide to take ARTP-080, Public Speaking.

The Hoya Gets Theirs

2009-04-06T18:51:00.006-04:00

NOTE: There is no humor in the following rant. Move along.

This blog's annoying need (on my part, and probably yours) to call The Hoya on their endless bullshit and lapse of duty as our "newspaper of record" can perhaps finally come to an end. They fucked up big time.

On Wednesday I first tried to write this post, but it's really hard for us to respond to The Hoya's April Fools' issue. First, one of our writers was asked to write most of the thing for them in 2006, and The Hoya couldn't manage to find a place between making in-jokes about themselves on their masthead to at all acknowledge him. Second, their crude "jokes" have been hypocritically allowed to be printed once a year despite us being denied the permission to become an official student organization in part because we wouldn't be allowed to write any strong satire. Third, the issue is a clear embarrassment to The Hoya and is demeaning to Georgetown and the art of humor in general.

This issue has for years been a reflection of The Hoya's bizarre but previously concealed views about what they have covered for the past year and their contempt for certain groups and people on campus, but somehow the issue has always come and passed without widespread outrage (especially easy last year, as they released the issue weeks late when people were starting to study for finals).

The Hoya generally defends the April Fools' issue, as many have this year, as a "joke" that everyone should "chill out" about. Satire, however, is more than just a joke. Whether The Hoya realizes it or not, it has a point, and if you're going to write it, you have to be ready to defend that point, because it's yours. I think they put together what they thought were jokes without realizing, in these articles, the latent racist and insensitive assumptions and ideas that made them funny to them.

We shouldn't be surprised that these notions exist in the writers of The Hoya. I've seen it a lot in certain members of the Long Island-New Jersey triangle, the great mass of the student body that to a high degree defines what Georgetown is at the present. I would hazard a guess that some of it comes from of their parents and a lot of it from a general isolation from people who are different from them. This is not to say that all students from that area are like this, or that all students with such racial notions are from that area, but I think that these notions are out there in the student culture, and that culture is largely defined by them.

It doesn't surprise me at all that The Hoya wrote these articles because we've received so many submissions to the Heckler that I've found to be not only unfunny, but also racist. One particularly baffling article that we like to pass around amongst ourselves was about Tiger Woods being arrested for rape. The reason he won so many trophies, the article alleged, was not golf skills, but raping people. On at least two occasions, I've had to rewrite an article I thought had a good premise but seemed racist or homophobic in how it was carried out.

Another striking thing about this April Fools' issue, one that relates to charges of racism, is The Hoya's obsession with vigilante justice. It's something I've also noticed in the culture here. I don't know if it's fueled by superhero movies, Catholic ideas about justice and punishment for straying from a code of acceptable practices, or a suburban fear of outsiders and the need to purge them. But it is a rampant belief, displayed in the comments here and here and elsewhere over my three years on campus.

And in this same vein, it has surfaced that some in GUSA are trying to find a way to get The Hoya punished for what they did.

As much as I detest what The Hoya did, that may be even more distressing than latent racism bursting onto its pages. The Hoya's freedom of speech may have been used hatefully, but we cannot let our selves or the powers that be get in the habit of punishing people for this type or any type of speech, save the extreme cases of slander and libel.

And hopefully, journalists will learn to stay out of humor. It's a bad idea.

NOTE: We're lazy, but we are planning a new issue of the Heckler in the next few weeks. One that, as always, we can stand by, and one that hopefully has real jokes.

Hoya Ed Board Endorsement Overcomes Lamb-Breen's Disqualification Momentum

2009-03-05T22:52:00.003-05:00

So this happened. It was remarkably close given the traditional model of GUSA elections: The Hoya endorses a ticket, and students who vote, i.e. freshmen, sign off on The Hoya's choice. The last time The Hoya's endorsed ticket did not gone on to win the election was back in Bush's first term of office. And that only happened because the ticket that narrowly won had fines (something they had back then?) that exceeded the $75 limit on campaign spending and had the balls to put flyers refuting the Hoya endorsement inside of each copy of The Hoya, but their disqualification was overturned months after the election. Current seniors have never seen an election in which the Hoya-endorsed ticket did not win, and neither did the class graduating before them.

We may all think the Hoya Ed Board made a strange decision this year on their endorsement, but we have to remember it's our duty to vote how they say to vote, no matter how bad a choice it may seem. So Georgetown, enjoy your new GUSA executives:

You deserve them.

More Hoya Ed Board LOLz

2009-02-27T19:51:00.003-05:00

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

2009-02-26T02:46:00.005-05:00

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!

2009-02-24T04:24:00.008-05:00

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

2009-02-24T01:46:00.003-05:00

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

2009-02-20T01:53:00.009-05:00

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

2009-02-12T21:04:00.009-05:00

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

2009-02-12T19:39:00.002-05:00

— 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

2009-02-09T23:49:00.005-05:00

Please Fucking Stop It With Your Entreprenurial Collegey Websites

2009-02-03T01:52:00.005-05:00

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.

Photographic Evidence of the Rebirth of The Hoya

2009-01-28T18:24:00.004-05:00

Gen. Zach Rabiroff of the People's Liberation Army of China and children, teens, and college-student minister Rev. Jack Stuef of the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California were on hand to officiate the ceremonies on Monday.

Gen. Rabiroff led us off with a reading of the Last Post on the wall of the Save The Hoya Facebook group:

Jack Carlson wrote
at 5:41pm on January 26th, 2008

Right so it was a "well-known Georgetown yell" long before the newspaper... the part about the "decade after" is just when the athletic teams took on the name. But "Hoya Saxas" have been associated with the university much longer than the paper - which the group description mixes up.

That always makes me tear up.

Next was the Moment of Silence:

Some people, those who were not too afraid that they would be arrested by that DPS officer in the middle of the photo for taking part in the revolution, had already showed up. More would come when they heard the booming righteousness of Rev. Stuef's Sermon of Hope that followed. It retold the history of The Hoya since it had been placed in shackles by God in the Garden of Eden and ended with a message of renewal inspired by the revelations of Monday, a reading of the Wine-Tasting Editorial Heard Round the World, and the the Baptism of Hope:

Everyone in the crowd took a copy of The Hoya and ripped it to shreds. Then, in the tradition of John the Baptist, the shredded newspapers were dunked in the Holy Georgetown Student Brita Filter Water, symbolizing the destruction of the old chains binding The Hoya and its rebirth as a free institution. The wet shreds were then wrapped in an American flag, and the people chanted "U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" before the flag was dropped and stomped on to again symbolize the destruction of the old chains. Then the People departed to get back to their guerrilla warfare.

REMINDER: A Moment of Silence for the Free the Hoya Movement

2009-01-26T16:21:00.001-05:00

5:41 PM, today, Red Square.

Reader E-mailbag

2009-01-25T21:22:00.002-05:00

From time to time, we get e-mails from you the reader thinking this is one of those Internet things with which you can interact and be a part. It is not. You are here to listen to what we have to say, not have a conversation with us. It is a lecture, not a seminar. A Bush presidency, not an Obama presidency. A person standing on top of a roof yelling things at passerby, not you walking by and trying to talk with a friend while avoiding eye contact with me up there on the roof.

Nevertheless, the feverish popularity of this blog (Technorati says we're the 2,523,334th most popular!) and of the Heckler in general (we got listed on this high school English teacher's homepage!) has meant there are a number of people that have trouble understanding that.

Here then are the winner and loser from the past week or so in e-mails.

WINNER

Reader Kent Strader sent us this photo, asking us if it looks like Leo's:

Yes, Kent it does. And it is. And it is a perfect metaphor for Georgetown. It appears someone noticed his golf cart starting to catch on fire, then quickly fled the scene so he wouldn't have to be held responsible. Then somebody else did the bare-minimum requirement of bringing a fire extinguisher to the scene, but she left it about six feet away from the golf cart without actually trying to put out the fire. Then other people were walking and saw it but decided to shift direction away from it so they also couldn't be held responsible.

Read this 2004 Hoya story if you want to destroy that metaphor. And while you're at it, all of the search results for "golf cart" there are pretty good.

Also, Kent and everyone, you shouldn't be reading CollegeHumor. We don't allow our readers to get their comedy anywhere else but this barely-updated media empire.

LOSER

Cretin Justin Riel complained that this story from last year was "Gawdawful." (I was going to use a [sic] there, but I realized that Justin must be a Valley Girl.) "I understand that you're trying to go for offensive humor, but Darfornification just isn't funny. Worst of all it's just offensive," Justin writes. That's sort of a poorly put together thought, but thanks for taking the time to let us know you didn't like a thing that we had on our website last year, Justin.

He goes on: "It fails miserably unless your goal was to make G-town look bad, then good job." Well, that actually is one of our main goals (this is a satire publication about Georgetown, Justin), but I get the point. You're three years out of college and still using your university e-mail address and reading student publications; you're the ultimate vision of a successful person, and so you care obsessively about the image of the name of the school on your resume.

With remorse I must tell you I cannot access Justin's Facebook profile, so we cannot laugh at the stuff on there. Gawddarnnit.

I'd also like to name as an honorable mention in this category the e-mail entitled "Get the longest schlong in two months." Two months?! I expect the male-enhancement pills I buy from spam messages to work much faster than that.

Hoya Ed Board Assasinates Austrian Leader, Orders Georgetown To Give Them Course Credit For Spitting Wine Into Buckets

2009-01-23T01:32:00.006-05:00

A lot of history has happened the last few days. So it is only fitting that the lead editorial in The Hoya today asks—no—DEMANDS that Georgetown offer a course in wine tasting!

How long have we suffered without a wine-tasting class?! It is barbaric! Thank God The Hoya can see how its ongoing, blood-soaked, guerrilla revolution is hurting the people. "I don't care about whether or not The Hoya gets to keep its name, I just want to know the right wine to pair with a veal pâté," the constantly-being-raped, malnourished single-mothers cry out in agony on M Street. Well, guess what, proletariat? The Hoya is looking out for you. And they didn't even put "www.SaveTheHoya.com" on their "BEAT 'CUSE" signs this year, even though that is the most important battle in saving their newspaper. They just care so fucking much for you huddled, not-in-a-three-credit-wine-tasting-course masses. Why? Because they are the masses. They are the people. And the people ache for a wine-tasting course even more than they do for The Hoya to not be listed as a student group on the Georgetown website.

Meanwhile, the revolution lives on. Until they forget to renew that domain name.

NOTE: The Heckler will be in Red Square on Monday at 5:41 pm to hold a moment of silence for the one-year anniversary of the most recent comment on the Save The Hoya Facebook group wall.

ALSO NOTE: The university's central intelligence agency has picked up chatter that there may be a new issue of the Heckler in a few weeks.

Georgetown University Hospital Goes On YouTube

2009-01-15T21:29:00.005-05:00

Hey look, that hospital our administration failed to be able to run is not only doing well, but has signed up for YouTube! Let's see what they have to offer!

Oh, it's fourteen videos of some guy talking about kidney, pancreas, and liver transplants. Great...

It looks like this doctor showed up to get his school photo taken but only wanted to talk about how long it takes to get back to work after one of these transplants, and then he didn't pay extra to get his background changed to neon green because his parents hate him and want his pictures to look stupid. I've been there, doctor.

Here's one of the videos:

Waitlist Torture

2009-01-02T03:56:00.005-05:00

Still no response to my e-mail to John Q "Public" "Or Terrible 2002 Denzel Washington Movie" Pierce. I guess he wanted to ruin my break even more, because I find this:

I signed up for the waitlist for this class like a week ago thinking I would easily get into a class that had 50 fucking seats open, which, you will note, is ten more than the number of people already enrolled in the class. In the days since, however, more people have noticed this class has open seats and have been trickling in, and for the past 24 hours or so, the number has stood at exactly 50 people on the waitlist for an available 50 seats, making me extremely on edge.

I like to buy my books online before I get to campus because it costs less, and as soon as possible, as the prices go up as people in the class buy the cheapest copies online. So do I shell out $100 now, betting that I'll be one of the 50 of the 62 or so people that are on the waitlist that get in whenever our dashing registrar gets around to letting people in off the waitlist? I don't know. I'm sure he keeps track of my book purchases and will be sure to screw me over if I do.

I'm thinking of just giving in and telling him where my secret terrorist organization has hid our secret bomb. I don't think the jihad is worth the stress, and letting people know that this popular class (note the word "sports" in its title) has open seats on this blog probably means more than 50 people will be on the waitlist by tomorrow anyway.

You win this holy war, Mr Pierce.

Three Issues: Anti-Todd Olson E-Mail Rocks My Parents' Inbox

2008-12-18T19:47:00.007-05:00

1. My dad mentioned today that an impassioned e-mail from a Georgetown parent showed up on their ancient (dating to 1993) AOL account, which, I kid you not, is STUEF4FUN. Yep. Anyway, the Voice blog had a right-up and the text of the e-mail, but they didn't seem to know whether this was from Ivan Batishchev, a student, or his parent. Or maybe it was from someone pretending to Ivan Batischev, because apparently the author spelled his name incorrectly, according to the Georgetown directory and The Hoya, for whom the guy has been an alternatingly incomphenisble and dull cartoonist and, I think, some sort of editor. However, on his two Facebook accounts, the guy does spell it "Ivan Batishchev," with an extra "s" in there.

All of this is to say that I was playing on a wet Healy Lawn with a stolen box of frisbees from McDonough Arena at 4 am one night my freshman year during finals and I met a guy hanging around Lauinger who said his name was Ivan Batishchev. And he also said that he had just drank an entire bottle of NyQuil.

All of this is to say that I may have just drank an entire bottle of NyQuil myself that night and Ivan Batishchev is a figment of my imagination. And then I drank an entire bottle of NyQuil a couple years later and reprised the character in an angry e-mail to parents. And created one or two Facebook accounts for the character.

So we really don't know anything about the authorship here. But I'm going to guess it's either me or J.T. DeGioia.

2. I didn't know about these Todd Olson newsletters until I was searching around for photos of Todd Olson to use in the last issue, but they're pretty much exactly as you'd expect. For example, the person fulfilling work sanction hours by writing this Fall 2008 newsletter made the first paragraph almost exactly the same as the one from last year. The main difference is that performing arts had a "busy round" this year rather than the "inspiring round" they had last year. Also, "It is a time of summing up, and preparing for the joyful holidays ahead" now, not "It is a time of great energy and possibilities."

The most important thing, however, is that they used the same picture as last year. And in this picture it appears that Todd Olson has been Photoshopped into a picture of the ICC Galleria. Man, this picture made my holiday.

Nice.

3. If Ivan Batischev / Ivan Batishchev / his mom doesn't get in trouble for this e-mail, tell your parents they can look forward to my rebuttal to each of Todd Olson's e-mails from now on, along with poems I write under Jack DeGioia's name, cookie recipes, and crude Todd Olson Photoshop jobs:

I have always wanted to send an e-mail of some of my bullshit to gustud@georgetown.edu. Eventually, with this list of Georgetown parents, I hope to tell Sonia Jacobson she can authorize mass Georgetown e-mails on behalf of my cock because I don't need the provost's authorization any more!

Unless I was high on NyQuil and was the one who wrote this Ivan Batishchev e-mail. In that case, I need to stop being so preachy and learn how to write funnier e-mails when I drink bottles of NyQuil.

Letters to University Administrators: John Q Pierce

2008-12-09T04:35:00.005-05:00

After my worst semester in most regards, last week really fell into place for me. I had about ten things that could have gone terribly wrong before I left for the holiday on Friday afternoon, but none of them did. None. This was a semester in which everything went wrong for me, often in ways that would have seem contrived for a Vince Vaughn Christmas movie. But look, my crazy part-Maori professor actually liked my half-assed paper on Smash Palace. John Glavin actually liked my half-assed short film that was the opposite of what he asked it to be. Ray Danieli did me a solid on the "ten" work-sanction "hours" I "did" for him. And, somehow, I got all the classes for which I registered.

This is a travesty.

Thus, I turn my attention to University Registrar John Q Pierce. Who the hell does this guy think he is? He knows he's not supposed to give me the classes I want. He's supposed to give me the two classes I changed my mind about taking after submitting the pre-registration and not give me the classes I really wanted to take and ranked up near the top. This is the biannual tradition: I try really hard to try to guess which of the classes I want to take people will be interested in, but it doesn't even matter if I'm right because the registration computer finds a way to completely fuck up my schedule.

According to the directory listing for Pierce, the letter "Q" is his middle name. Not even a period; that's it. Who is he, Harry Truman? A secret agent? Well, this is the first result for a Google Image search:

So Q is a double agent now? Why has he betrayed James O'Donnell and Her Majesty (actually, the same person) to give me, Britain's enemy, a perfect, impossibly easy yet undeniably major-satisfying schedule? There's only one way to find out: Go straight to the top, to Q himself!

The following e-mail was sent to John Q Pierce. If he responds, I'll include it later.

Mr Pierce:

I have a major complaint about your registrarring. This upcoming semester, seemingly when I needed it most, I wound up with a perfect schedule. Everything that I wanted. Multiple classes that filled up quickly and now have people suffering on their waitlists, I got in.

I ask you: What is your angle, Mr Pierce?

I have always wound up with poor pre-registration results. I have always had to completely re-work my schedule with the classes that still had open space after pre-registration. I have tried to get the popular professors, the professors you are supposed to take in your given field before graduating from Georgetown, and I have always been stuck with some second-rate foreign import or inexperienced doctoral candidate. Mysterious, is it not, that you chose this semester to make everything perfect?

Mr Pierce, I managed to get the worst grades of my academic career this fall. I managed to have not one, but two, MacBooks of mine self-destruct, destroying precious notes needed for upcoming exams and academic papers and freelance writing that had not yet been handed in to their respective parties. And yet you decided to make things easy for me all of a sudden?

Starting to feel nervous, Mr Pierce?

Either you have a dark sense of humor, or you are working for the Russians. And if you do not tell me what the "Q" stands for, I will report you to the CIA.

Please remove me from all the classes I got into.

Jack Stuef

Also, let me note that there will not be another new issue of the Heckler before spring semester. Not that either of us cares.

Fun with Anagrams

2008-11-21T01:34:00.002-05:00

Heather Maginnis

A Methanes Hiring
A Methane Grins Hi
A Sheathing Miner
A Herniating Hems
A Nightmarish Nee
A Tarnishing Heme
Anemia Thresh Gin
Seaman Hire Thing
Shanghai Enter Mi
A Enema Nigh Shirt

Heather Maginnis Googles Self On Company Time

2008-11-20T19:41:00.005-05:00

Heather A. Maginnis, the Director of NSO who gave us so much publicity a year or so back, sent us an e-mail today:

Please remove my name from the letters section.

Heather

--
Heather A. Maginnis
Director of New Student Orientation
Assistant Director of Student Programs
Center for Student Programs
Georgetown University
316 Leavey Center
Washington, DC 20057

Direct: (202) 687-4505
Center: (202) 687-3704
Fax: (202) 687-8940
Email: ham23@georgetown.edu

We love getting e-mails from Heather! Her e-mail address is "ham."

This one's especially funny though because the e-mail was sent at 1:02 p.m., otherwise known as, I'm assuming, company time. And why was she googling herself? Did she send in an application for a new job? Is she vain? Or are administrators just required to waste a certain amount of the university's money every day? That last one, I'd bet.

Also, the fake letter we wrote was of her asking us to remove information from another fake letter we posted. This is now mind-boggling.

Now, usually I'd get mad about being asked to change names of public-ish figures like Ms. Maginnis, because using them is, you know, protected by the Constitution. However, it has allowed us to use an even better name, Heat Her Mag Innise, and the even even better extended version, Heat Her A., Mag Innise. Enjoy it, Ms. Maginnis! Good luck with the job search!

Note: Heather Maginnis will find this on Google next week when she is supposed to be making O.A. nametags, so her name will also soon be changed in this blog post to Heat Her A., Mag Innise.

Libelous Statements by WaPo

2008-11-17T21:41:00.007-05:00

Look, the Heckler was mentioned in The Washington Post:

...at the Georgetown Heckler, one of dozens of campus knockoffs the paper has spawned.

Hey, Wells Tower, if that is your real name: We're sick of the smear tactics you and The Washington Post are constantly using against the Heckler. We weren't "spawned" by The Onion. We were created at Georgetown by the hand of the almighty Catholic God in the image of His own personal humor publication. Playing a bit loose with the word "knockoff," eh?

And the correct style of our name is The Georgetown Heckler, not that abomination. That's just offensive, and The Washington Post of all people should be sensitive to that.

Also, Mr. Tower, I may have looked the other way when you stole that lemonade from that half coffee-shop, but don't look for me to be so nice the next time you come to cover Georgetown's Finest Humor Magazine.

2008-09 Heckler Hoya Basketball Preview, Part 2

2008-11-17T21:39:00.001-05:00

I was almost going to say, "It's going to be a long year!" But then I looked at the free throws. 72.7%! We are saved!

2008-09 Heckler Hoya Basketball Preview, Part 1

2008-11-11T14:07:00.006-05:00

Like every other campus publication of note at Georgetown, the Heckler is here to bring you our 212th-annual basketball season preview, only in blog post form. We have the analysis and insight you can't find anywhere else. First, let's look at our starting line-up this year:

Eric Cusimano
Georgetown's original male cheerleader is back for another season of Hoya hoops. Who is Eric Cusimano? You may notice him giving campus tours around in his cheerleading outfit, and you'd be right to think he's the perfect embodiment of Georgetown: When I was in Winston-Salem, NC for the second round of the 2007 NCAA Tournament, he mentioned to me, without prompt, that he wanted us to beat Boston College because he didn't get in when he applied there the year before. "I'm not sure I would admit that so freely," I said, "but how did you get into Georgetown and not Boston College?" "Maybe because my parents both went here," he answered. With two years of experience under his elastic belt, look for Cusimano to drop a few more girls, obnoxiously yell and beat his chest for no apparent reason more often, and be even more unaware of what's going on on the court this season.

Verizon Center Court Guy
That guy with the glasses and Georgetown windbreaker who runs the contests on the court during timeouts and half-time may have already killed himself, but if not, look for him to accidentally trip a couple of children during Dress Like a Hoya, ask a couple Jiffy Lube trivia questions that are not the ones displayed on the jumbotron, and secretly give Capitols tickets to a hot girl who chose the letter with no prize in it in StubHub Deal or No Deal.

Dance Contestants
Don't get distracted by the babies that are being forced to dance or the adorable toddlers that are dancing poorly. There are only four real contestants: alum with beer who looks like Eugene Mirman, two giant black guys who sit at the end of the courtside seats by the pep band, and Amadou Kilkenny-Diaw's little brother. The kid is the only one who's very good, so look at him to clean up this year, though he may win fewer contests because he's older and less of a novelty. The other three will win some contests, based on their charm alone.

Person in the Jack Suit
As the real mascot has only seemed to get better as he ages, the fake person-in-a-suit mascot has gotten worse. Last year, for some reason, there was a new head that looked like some sort of cat head. Worse, it seemed to change every game early in the year whether the old head or the new one would be worn. Also, the mascot was inexcusably short and reportedly once used pom-poms with the cheerleaders. From what I've seen at football games this year, the person isn't doing anything that offends the tradition of the mascot, except perhaps walking around with pumpkin pie filling staining it at one game; mostly, the mascot has just been boring.

Mountaineers
Go home!

Hoya on the Go!

2008-11-06T02:46:00.007-05:00

It seems like this Web-log has been doing a lot of coverage of The Hoya lately. And why not? When you're on the cutting edge of journalism, or are just the only campus publication people think they may have heard of somewhere once before, you're bound to get a lot of ink spilled about you! Or in this case, Web-ink. Or bink.

Up next from The Hoya's disorientating Mach-3 rush of cutting-edge news media technology is Hoya on the Go!, their new pod-'cast (they don't use an exclamation point, as far as I can tell, but they should [take note, Bailey!]). And like most sections of their website, this pod-'cast is secret. Well, maybe it's not as secret as their secret blogging, but as far as pod-'casts go, it's a pretty secret. Now let's review it!

Hoya on the Go! is not one of your "We're going to discuss something" or "I'm going to present you information" or "We're going to be at least entertaining" pod-'casts. No! This pod-'cast gives people what they really want: Pod-'cast-ers looking at a copy of The Hoya and reading it to them word for word. I mean, what is this, a state school? We're not going lower ourselves by reading some newspaper or internet article at Georgetown. We need people to read things to us. This pod-'cast solves that problem.

Two episodes are up so far, and I have to say, cutting the nice intro and outro music from the first episode was a bad call, Hoya. That's pretty much the only thing I listened to, and I've come to expect a lot more from random files hosted on leetmusic.com.

W.H.

2008-11-05T14:39:00.000-05:00

HAPPY BLACK NEW YEAR'S, EVERYBODY!

OCTOBER SURPRISE IN NOVEMBER: OBAMA KIDNAPPER TERRORIST

2008-11-04T00:52:00.004-05:00

In a terrifying revelation, shocking photos came out today proving that Barack Obama, known as Hussein the Curious Terrorist amongst friends, steals children with a wild glee in his eyes:

As Sean Hannity reported, Obama was also the prime suspect in the disappearance of sexy blond girl Natalie Holloway in Aruba in 2005, who partied so hard she literally died. Obama is reported to have carved a backwards "B" in her face for booyah! his catchphrase when he abducts children, which he shouts before leaping out of the bushes and dazzling them with his oratorical skills. We'll have more on the story as it unfolds. As usual, trust the Heckler for all your breaking election news coverage.

BREAKING NEWS: JOHN MCCAIN IMPLICATED IN DEATH OF JOHN MCCAIN'S POLITICAL CAREER

Pumpkin Dimolitsas

2008-10-31T16:32:00.005-04:00

As promised, I made a Spiros Dimolitsas pumpkin earlier today. Now, don't hassle me on the DeGioia one. I spent a lot more time on this one, and I had a chance to learn from the mistakes I made the first time.

By the way, have you ever read his biography? How did he get that job? He has nothing to do with academia, unless you count his five patents. Yeah, FIVE PATENTS FOR SUCKING BLOOD! I guess every Catholic school has to have one vampire on staff. Anyway, compare:

And there they are, your Georgetown administrator pumpkins!

I should really be studying or something.

Pumpkin DeGioia

2008-10-30T02:08:00.006-04:00

After stealing two pumpkins from GUSA (Thanks, Twistah! Or whoever's pretending to be Twister these days.), I set out to skip my obligations and create a Todd Olson pumpkin. That didn't seem to work, though. Perhaps he's too socially awkward to be a pumpkin. So I had to go with a classic:

Hey look, DeGioia's on campus! Compare:

Who should I do for the second pumpkin? In the spirit of the season, I'll probably do Vice President for Vampire Affairs Spiros Dimolitsas:

Yeah, Spiros.

This Blog Post Is Going On A Pumpkin

2008-10-29T17:24:00.003-04:00

Here's the deal: our job is to make fun of the stuff that goes on here. But we can't do that if nothing is going on here. What the hell happened to The Hoya? It used to be filled with stupid stuff administrators do, stupid stuff student groups do, and racism and homophobia and all that good stuff. But, besides lucking out with everyone getting noroed a few weeks back, there's been nothing.

The cover story for Tuesday was "Students From Swing States Favor Obama, UWire Study Reports." Really? You don't say. Not only does Obama have a big lead in national polls, but college students support him? How has the national press not covered this?

Then I see their cover photo:

Look, they just took a photo of that fucking pond by W-G'r. Wow. Apparently that's a major news event, that pond continuing to exist on campus. When I was a freshman they had gay people kissing on their front cover, just to get the crazy Catholics to flip out at them. Those were the days!

Now there's been barely any meaty news stuff coming out. What's the problem? Does The Hoya just totally suck at journalism now, or are the people around here too lazy and concerned with "classes" to beat up a gay kid or throw a brick through Max Sarinsky's window? How are we supposed to write our issues, much less this blog, if there's nothing going on?

And what about you, Stewards? You re-paint the Hoya Saxa sign? You relaunch the Academy, but make it boring? You haven't even promised to fund a Heckler issue this year before pulling out of your commitment after it's been printed? Give me a break. Show your dedication to Georgetown by at least stealing the Healy clock hands or kidnapping DeGioia or something. Seriously, you asked that weird Knights of Columbus kid who plays Super Smash Bros. every Saturday night in the Village C Alumni Lounge with his friends from high school to become one of you? C'mon.

Somebody do something before I have to do a parody post of that George III blog. Please. I don't want to acknowledge that thing. Or actually dig up stuff that's going on on campus myself.

Press Clubin'

2008-10-21T23:50:00.005-04:00

Sometimes God / the National Press Club will ask The Onion to send some people over to talk about their War For The White House coverage, and your Heckler editor will have to skip Midnight Madness. And the journalists, who are all losing their jobs, will try to be polite at first and then will really, really just want their questions on how this thing makes money and keeps hiring new people answered. And The Onion will eventually end that panel discussion and get drunk for free in the posh members-only Truman Lounge, home to presidents of the United States playing the piano, a bunch of owl sculptures, and a little old mustachioed bartender in a red vest. And whether or not your Heckler editor is 21, after awhile he will doublefist the half-drunk wine glasses of people he doesn't know:

And Joe Garden will ingest the cake of people he doesn't know:

And it will be the best night ever.

Oh yeah, I haven't been keeping blog readers up to date with what I've been writing in The Onion. I apologize. Assume I wrote everything you thought was funny, and this.

NEW ISSUE NEW ISSUE NEW ISSUE

2008-10-13T20:45:00.002-04:00

Look, we finally put up our first issue of the year. Hooray! Love it. Love us. Please.

Done watching that? Okay.

This video was originally conceived before norovirus BROKE OUT, and it was supposed to be shot in Leo's, basically making fun of everything inside there. But things changed and we couldn't shoot the stuff in Leo's, so we (me, Rapoport, Rabiroff) made up most of this video on the spot. Special thanks goes to John Thompson III for agreeing to walk by me as I was eating a bush. He improvised that giving me a dollar thing, which was really funny and inspired us as to how to finish the video. Special thanks also goes to AD Bernard Muir for standing there and allowing this, and special thanks does not go to Asst. Coach Robert Burke, who kept calling me Kevin Farley and mocking me.

SaxaSpeak: We are easily offended.

2008-10-11T18:56:00.002-04:00

SaxaSpeak thinks the title of an article in the Daily Pennsylvanian on our homecoming game (entitled "Hoyas best hope: More norovirus") is in poor taste. Huh? That's... true. As was proven today on the field. Is no one allowed to make fun of norovirus or our football team? I guess they will be very offended by our next issue.

Speaking of our next issue, it should be online Monday or Tuesday. Our next installment of Heckler Video will feature, among other things, a brilliant improvised performance by the greatest man to grace our campus. So look forward to that.

New Leo's Documentary Coming Out

2008-10-03T03:13:00.003-04:00

I just saw a preview for a new documentary coming out on the norovirus outbreak here:

.

My only criticism: I question the choice of Morgan Freeman to portray Todd Olson. Other than that, very accurate and well balanced.

Eat Your Heart Out, Large Hadron Collider

2008-10-02T12:16:00.003-04:00

Currently I am sitting in the "convenient" replacement for Leo's, Center Grill. And... there are no chicken fingers. None.

This begs the question: Is today still Chicken Finger Thursday, or did the universe skip a day and today is Friday? I have no idea. Perhaps chicken fingers just naturally form in the Leo's fryers whether the cafeteria is open or not. Perhaps the heath inspectors in Leo's had to make some chicken fingers there today so the universe wouldn't end.

I guess I'll find out when I go to class today if it's still Chicken Finger Thursday.

Take My President, Please

2008-09-29T21:53:00.004-04:00

Do it, Georgetown website!

During a Sept. 25 ceremony in New York, Georgetown President John J. DeGioia received an honorary Doctorate of Laws from Queen’s University, located in Northern Ireland, for his commitment and service to global education.

“In honoring him … Queen’s is recognizing an eminent and visionary educationalist who has played a pivotal role in enhancing the valuable links between our two institutions and between the United States and Northern Ireland,” said Queen’s President and Vice Chancellor Peter Gregson.

What is an "educationalist," another word for an embarrassing opportunist bureaucrat who happens to work in the field of education? And why the hell would anyone give DeGioia an honorary degree?

A Queen’s University delegation flew to New York last week in an attempt to forge new research and educational links between Northern Ireland and the United States.

Ahhhh, okay. They just want to get their hands on our school's resources. I was a little worried there someone was treating our president as a serious academic. Carry on, Ulstermen. According to a Wikipedia search for "Queen's University," you're not even the best school named that, but I'm sure you'll get there someday, probably without DeGioia's help, as you'll find out.

But please, please, please make him your new president.

Public Safety Alert: Metaphor in West Georgetown

2008-09-24T20:22:00.004-04:00

A homeowner reported to the Metropolitan Police Department at approximately 3:30 a.m. on Sunday, September 21, 2008 that a group of 12-15 white males and females broke into his home. Another resident of the home confronted the individuals and they left the premises. The homeowner discovered that a bronze bull's head sculpture worth $25,000 was missing. MPD reported this incident to DPS on Tuesday, September 23, 2008.

Folks, if you want to make a point about the state of Wall Street and our national economy, don't do it through Metro. That's a misuse of our city's resources.

The Hoya's Secret Blogging

2008-09-21T16:25:00.004-04:00

Our blog here reached 100 posts the other day, and in response, it seems, The Hoya has been forced to rethink its blog plans once again. Previously, they were sticking to writing secret blog posts that nobody could read, except for the two or three they would publish every semester. Currently, they have a secret election blog called "Hoya Gonna Vote For?" But now, they've realized their secret blogging is getting little attention. So they've created a Hoya version of SaxaSpeak! (Though, since yesterday, it has now become secret too. You can't get to it from the main link on the Hoya homepage, but you can from here.)

What is that you say? Those are the exact posts from the real SaxaSpeak except now they're coded to look a lot more unsightly? Well, yeah. That's how The Hoya does everything.

I'm sorry that you feel so threatened by this blog, Hoya, but the answer is not creating more and more blogs that you never actually post on. Keep doing it though; it's hilarious.

And to SaxaSpeak: doesn't this "partnership" mean you're actually inside "University censorship" now?

Rejected Drink Ideas

2008-09-19T17:19:00.003-04:00

I was in The Tombs the other night, bored out of my mind, staring at their inane drink list. As a general rule I refuse to drink cocktails with names that are neither witty (read: stupid puns) nor offensive and ended up drinking nothing the whole night and was wholly unable to convince any women to make the biggest mistake of their lives and sleep with me. I now present to you my own personal drink menu were I to open a bar:

The Naga-Saki Bomb – It burns all the way down into your future generations.

The Jewdriver – A drink you sip very slowly and neurotically while constantly complaining that it’s both poor in quality and lacking in quantity.

The Black Russian – I’ve never seen one, but he will be very drunk on Vodka and he will kick your fucking capitalist ass.

Kamikaze – Just as you bring the drink to your lips a Japanese man in a plane who will fly into your mouth and kill you. I know, I know it's a real drink, but have you ever been attacked by a Japanese man while drinking it? That's what I thought.

The Shirley Temple of Doom – A twist on the typical non-alocholic beverage. This one is made with Everclear and the blood of young virgins. The cherry, of course, is still included.

I'm also officially introducing The Official Georgetown Heckler Cocktail Contest. Send us your favorite drink titles (editor@georgetownheckler.com) OR if you work at the Tombs get one of these drinks on the menu and I'll give you $5.

Dried Up Semen

2008-09-19T14:43:00.005-04:00

(Our GUSA administration, moments before a coked-out jizzing)

In between congratulating themselves for reflecting on how racist they are, in today's issue of The Hoya, the ed board tells us that Juicy Campus is a "cancer," but "projects are already in the works to stop the spread of the Juicy infestation!" Hooray!

Though the ed board endorses a "boycott" of the website that is going to kill us all, it also applauds those who would like to censor it. Really?
I understand why Pat Dowd wants to block Juicy Campus from university Web connections. Just look at this. Now one might say, that's just some baseless name-calling that any adult with any degree of emotional stability and self confidence would get quickly let go. And you'd be right. So I guess them trying to ban us from seeing this information means it must be true.

That's right, folks: James Kelly uses poop for lube, he's an idiot transfer; he has a crooked, short, uncircumcised penis that smells like chicken tika masala and onion rings; he is a cokehead; and, of course, James Kelly's hair isn't gray, it's Pat Dowd's dried up semen. This may sound hard to believe, but apparently, it's all true.

I really, really hope Juicy Campus does not get blocked. Not because it's not a piece-of-shit stupid website, which it is. But 1) this is a Catholic school, and as soon as you open the door to blocking websites, freshmen are no longer going to be able to gather in the room of someone on their floor and watch a horse fuck a man to death. And 2) people around here really need to gain some skills for the real world, like being able to handle petty name-calling.

And as soon as we ask the administration to protect us from ourselves on the Internet, you're just opening the floodgates for these people to "protect us from ourselves" in other areas.

A little while back, I made a post about myself on Juicy Campus. The first reply was "LOVE THY NEIGHBOR," which is hilarious, of course, because I was loving my neighbor as myself, because I was talking about myself. The second reply was "agreed. dude is a total closet ass pirate." Now, I do not actually go around the small enclosed rooms of this university raping and pillaging our gays, but I decided to let it be.

Grow a pair, Georgetown. And use that pair to jizz on James Kelly's head, or, like I do, fuck every guy on campus as if it's your personal mission.

Shill! Shill! Shill!

2008-09-17T16:30:00.005-04:00

Hey look, it's a bunch of people you know shilling for U.S. News and World Report!

I was thinking we would win this with our next edition of Heckler Video, but look at 0:26. Yeaaaaaaah. The football team. Our football team is... yeah.

Via, umm, Saxa Speak? Apparently this blog has been around for over 200 years, but I had never heard of it. Thanks Will. Thill.

Let Loose the Dogs of Juicy Campus

2008-09-12T17:47:00.002-04:00

As you have heard from the ads on Facebook, in between telling you you're gay, Juicy Campus has come to Georgetown. And not a moment too soon, I say, for things were getting too civil around here.

Already this thing has provided a great wealth of information. Such as these nuggets:

Fucking lobsters on your pants
Motherfuckers walking around in their vineyard vines polos, some gay
sunglasses and a visor. Stick your pale pink shorts up your urethra and
piss blood you fucking bitches. Yeah.

Interests: Roofies, GUGS, Busch Light, investment banking. Georgetown 09-12-2008 Tags: polo,bros,gugs

"I mean, like, I went to Taft and all but like I'm a chill
kid. Like I'm chill. I'm down to smoke bowls, drink, whatever. I
rock these sailing pennants on my shorts because I like, love to
sail you know?"

Fuck your clown colored top siders. Rock that shit clean or not
at all.

And fuck a bowl, get Blunted.

"Yeah what's up dawg, yeah man, we got kegs in the
back, liquor in the living room, and fucking sluts
EVERYWHERE!" Maaan, you shoulda been here tuesd--
YO WHAT UP BEN! -- yeah, anyway, that's my boy Ben,
he's fucking chill. You should chill with him. Yeah, I
mean shit gets pretty crazy here, yo gimme a
pound."

You piece of shit, I hope you get hit by a fucking bus.
I'd kill you myself but I'm too busy fucking your girl
is the browneye.

Fritz Brogan
i have heard rumors that the movie "music and lyrics"
was based on his life

James Kelly
James Kelly's hair isn't gray, it's Pat Dowd's dried up semen

Yes! Unfortunately, I have no idea who most of the people discussed here are. I guess I'm running with the wrong crowd. So, in my ever-present spirit of shameless self-promotion, I had to add my own contribution to Juicy Campus.

Looking for the Needle

2008-09-12T16:23:00.002-04:00

Independence is around here somewhere, you just have to look hard enough.

Letters to University Administrators

2008-09-11T16:53:00.004-04:00

Read Struggling Air Force One To Begin Selling Passenger Tickets. I think this is like the third article I wrote for The Onion, but it was put into this issue, which is made up of extra articles written before the staff's week-long break last week.

Struggling for content and inspired by Robert Popper of Look Around You, perhaps the greatest television program ever, I came up with this potential blog-post generator: writing stupid e-mails to random Georgetown bureaucrats.

Last night I wrote to Josetta Moore, who, according to the Dining website, is Food and Beverage Director. She is obviously bad at her job, because she has yet to respond, but if she does, I will share it later. Here's the e-mail:

Ms. Moore:

Hello. My name is Jack Stuef and I am the President of the Georgetown University Soft Drink Society (GUSDS), a small group of friends on campus who get together to share with one other our love of soft drinks. We're not SAC-funded yet, but we're working on it.

Anyway, I'm sure, as Food and Beverage Director, you are quite aware of the selection of soft drinks at your cafeteria, or, as you are now, a collection of restaurants inside a former cafeteria. I have to commend you on them. From Coke to Diet Coke to Cherry Coke, and, if we're feeling a little crazy, Sprite, your establishment has some of the best Coke products in the business, and soft-drink aficionados such as ourselves are more than happy to drink at Leo's together quite often. Every once in awhile your syrup-to-water ratios are skewed so badly that we have to spit our drinks out, but that is a rare occurrence, and we are used to performing such an action whenever we take club trips out to soft-drink tastings.

Unfortunately, I am sorry to say, we now have some problems.

First, I have to say our club had high hopes for The Diner, the new restaurant that has leased space from you on the bottom level. However, the owners of this restaurant have failed to meet our expectations. They seem to have gotten the decor correct, but the soft-drink service is lacking severely. We assumed, for one, that these restauranteurs would install a classic soda fountain in their new restaurant, because this is a diner, and everybody on campus knows how much our club enjoys a good retro soft drink. They did not. I can understand this, perhaps, because the cost of a soda fountain can be prohibitive (we are currently fund-raising for one of our own). However, if you can't even get a fountain and a proper soda jerk, I at least expect table service. The other day, I asked a rather large woman with glasses who was wiping off our table if I could get a waitress over to our booth so we could order some root-beer floats, but she just laughed at me. This was very disconcerting.

Now these restauranteurs may have quashed our hopes for The Diner, but at least I can count on Leo's traditional high-quality, right? WRONG. Ms. Moore, where have the blue cups gone? Those cups were the cornerstone of our experience at your former dining-hall. Now, with all of these restaurants, not only do we still have to procure beverages ourselves, but you have taken away our blue cups too? This is shameful. I know this, just like the removal of trays, is not just a way for your corporation, ARAMARK, to greedily keep costs down, but then why have you done this to us? I assume this has something to do with your corporation's heroic attempts to help the environment, but I can't figure out how. Please enlighten us.

Now I know Leo's is very popular (practically every freshman and sophomore I know has a meal plan!), but we think there are a few problems. We don't want to have to use our meals at one of your competitors' campus dining halls, so we hope we can reach a resolution on these matters.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Jack Stuef
President
Georgetown University Soft Drink Society

Heckler Blog Classic 1

2008-09-09T00:26:00.004-04:00

Hey blog readers,

Listen, real sorry about not posting. I thought I would be better at this. Somehow I've gotten back to Georgetown and become less in touch with what's going on. In order to give you new content, now that it seems nobody else on staff wants to write this blog, I've decided to recycle some old content! Heckler Blog Classic has been born!

Here's the deal: last summer I worked for Bill Richardson's presidential campaign in Iowa, but they wouldn't let me blog. I had to delete the handful of posts I had written before I started the job. However, BR has an Al Gore-style depression beard now and I have no prospect of a sweet job in the VP's office (Biden!), so let's bring them back from the dead.

One warning: I just realized I have become a much, much better humor writer in a year, though I was somehow much, much better at Photoshop back then. Also, nobody will probably remember what this post is referring to. Figure it out, you have the Internet!

Look for a new issue of the Heckler towards the end of this month/beginning of next month. Probably just online. And I'll try to make fun of The Hoya tomorrow, promise.

Shamu Speaks Out (5/24/07)

Cross posted on The Huffington Post.

There has been a great deal of controversy lately over what I said on the May 17th episode of The View. Here's the transcript:

SHAMU: I just want to say something. 655,000 Iraqi civilians are dead. Who are the terrorists?
HASSELBECK: Who are the terrorists?
SHAMU: 655,000 Iraqis — I’m saying you have to look, we invaded –
HASSELBECK: Wait, who are you calling terrorists now? Americans?
SHAMU: I’m saying if you were in Iraq, and the other country, the United States, the richest in the world, invaded your country and killed 655,000 of your citizens, what would you call us?
HASSELBECK: Are we killing their citizens or are their people also killing their citizens?
SHAMU: We’re invading a sovereign nation, occupying a country against the U.N.

Now, this is more than Donald Trump calling me fat. I am not going to swim here and let people attack me. People are saying that I am calling the troops terrorists. As you can see, I did not say that at all. I support the troops. Any doubters out there obviously have not seen my show "Believe." Though it makes no sense in the show, at the beginning, I salute members of the armed forces that are in the audience. Every time. You cannot attack me on this. If I wasn't in my right mind I would bite off the limbs of my naysayers right now. But that is not who orcas are. We are not "killer" whales. I may be an opponent of this war, but I will always protest against it peacefully and always in respect of our brave troops in the field.

Republican warmongers are saying celebrities like myself are out of touch on the war issue. But I say, look at the polls people! America wants to get out of Iraq, and if what I say can help do that (and I know it does), I am willing to make a splash.

We Can Finally Confirm DeGioia Cannot Write His Own Name

2008-09-02T00:14:00.005-04:00

After a great deal of thinking, and after the astonishment of seeing at SAC Fair that not only does this blog have at least five readers, at least five readers came up and said they wanted it to continue, we have decided to do so. So I hope you can take the heat, Voice blog that writes about Georgetown in Latin.

The best news to come from our president in awhile: he just couldn't go get a pen and put in the effort to sign onto the Amethyst Initiative because, well:

“There are just more important issues of the day for me to be weighing in on at this point in time,” DeGioia said in an interview with THE HOYA on Wednesday. “We’re a nation at war, we’re having some real difficulties with our economy. There are just a range of issues on which I could offer my perspective and my engagement, and I just feel that right now my priorities have to be placed elsewhere.”

You have to admit, that's pretty creative of him.

It's tough to be DeGioia. People are constantly forcing him to develop plans to fix our economy and get us out of Iraq. If DeGioia wasn't in Baghdad shooting up insurgents, formulating ideas in Bernanke's office all day, or making the President's Office staff install flat-screen televisions in his house (ok, according to my source in there, that one's actually true), he would have time to deal with issues that might, you know, have something to do with students. I mean, he's not the president of some sort of school. He's the president of the war and the economy. A president of, if you will, the United States. These student publications that come into his office only want to talk about student issues, and they don't realize how he can't spend a few precious seconds to order someone to sign his name onto a document. If he wastes those seconds, it will be Armageddon. Not that I don't think he won't cause Armageddon eventually anyway.

I love how Todd Olson tells us what we already know to be the reason DeGioia's name won't be signed onto this. But isn't a little cliche by now for a balding, glasses-wearing, evil vice-president to control things behind the scenes and not let the president know why he's doing what he's doing?

But unlike the other guy, not only does Todd Olson sense the president is on his way out, he senses that he might be the one to replace him. I assume DeGioia will be here to perplex me for the rest of my time at Georgetown, but you heard it here first: a President Todd Olson in 2010. Hold your children close.

Of Course We Have a Sandwich Named After Us

2008-08-27T14:41:00.005-04:00

I received a tip this summer from Heckler writer H.A.F. that Epicurean and Co. offers a sandwich named "The Georgetown Heckler." I assumed he must have either been mistaken or the sandwich consists of dog shit smeared on a half-slice of potato bread.

I went over to the restaurant today after picking up an internet adapter from UIS, and, wow, they actually did name a sandwich after us. And even better, out of all these sandwiches named after Georgetown stuff, we are the only campus publication to have one named after us. Take that, Georgetown Federalist. You may steal our layout design, but you can never steal our sandwich. Unless, of course, the Heritage Foundation or Second Stewards buy the naming rights for you, which they probably will.

There we are on the board, sandwich number C9, as you can maybe see from this grainy cellphone photo. And surprisingly, we sound like we taste pretty good. Fresh mozzarella, plum tomato, pesto, mixed greens, and fresh basil on focaccia bread.

I didn't buy one, because it's pretty expensive (a higher dollar amount, actually, than the net worth of its namesake publication), but please get one and let us know what we taste like.

Now this sandwich begs the question: Why is this what they imagined the Heckler would be like in sandwich form? Here's my interpretation of what each part represents:

Fresh mozzarella: Wearing Your Collar Down Is For Poor People, the piece that has by far gotten us the most traffic; it became an internet meme a few years ago and helped establish us as one of the better college humor magazines
Plum tomato: Administrator humor, nice and juicy
Pesto: Dick jokes, which have come in throughout our history to help the publication survive in lean times
Mixed greens: The occasional Onion-style national news items that make Heckler writers feel like they're writing something more than 5 people understand
Fresh basil: Alcohol, crippling depression, and other strong factors that allow us to write what we do
Focaccia: Justin Droms, Heckler founder and former editor of Cracked, who keeps this all together

And all of it is fresh, just like our satire. Or at least the stuff is only a couple months old.

Megabus Hates CollegeHumor

2008-08-26T18:12:00.005-04:00

I was trying to follow a link to a Zach Galifianakis interview, and I got hit with this:

Site blocked? Adult Themes and Lingerie/bikini? Why didn't they mention the annoying fratty humor? Or the nudity? And look, they even sell ads to annoy you even more with these pages.

Worse still, when I was trying to find a Galifianakis video to link to, it told me YouTube was blocked for "Video Sharing, Adult Themes." C'mon, YouTube?

Apparently Megabus is a lot more conservative about adult themes and bikinis and "video sharing" than it is about bootleg movies.

At least the Onion website, home to naked Joe Garden and other adult themes, is not censored.

The Return of Megabus Blogging

2008-08-26T15:27:00.003-04:00

Just a half hour or so ago I wrapped up my fellowship at The Onion. I doubt I'll ever have such a good job again, but at least they're keeping me on as a contributing writer. That's right, guy sitting next to me reading this as I type (he just now turned away): I get to write jokes for beer and book money this year.

In a set of circumstances that can only be possible with Georgetown's Finest Humor Magazine, I got on the bus just moments ago to find my fellow Heckler editor Jon Rapoport, back from a year studying at Edinburgh and traveling the world, sitting on this very bus. If he can tear himself away from watching The Wire on his iPod—which is unlikely—I'll pass the laptop over for a double-team Heckler Megabus blogfest.

Back to Onion news, a few days back the Onion back-to-school issue went up online. You should check out the special features, for which I wrote a number of the jokes, and this news-in-brief item featuring a couple names you might recognize. Also, you may recognize the opinion headline as a bastardized joke about OAs from our new student guide.

I also wrote the SorCon article last week. It was my headline and article, and it's probably my favorite thing I wrote during the fellowship. Georgetown students are sure to enjoy it. Those hyper-ambitious douche bags.

Between The Wire and me having to write an Onion article before getting back to campus, I'm not sure there will be anymore Megabus blogging this time. But please enjoy this photo of Newark or some shit:

He did it again.

2008-08-25T13:35:00.004-04:00

DeGioia fucking did it again:

in [sic] the tradition of the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Georgetown President John J. DeGioia led new students in an exercise using colored dots to symbolize the world's population. Asking all 3,500 attendees to imagine they represent the 6.5 billion people in the world, DeGioia asked groups to stand based on stickers on their programs.

Seriously?! Write a new fucking speech! Holy shit. How many years in a row has he made this speech? 8?

Should we continuing running this piece I wrote last year until DeGioia gets forced out of office?

Oh wait, St. Ignatius used to stick colored dots on people's programs? Carry on.

Heaps and Heaps of Bailey

2008-08-22T19:40:00.004-04:00

Today the world saw a brand new issue of The Hoya.

Let's trash it!

First up, "GU Enhances Safety Measures." What is this story? Well, basically it's that exact email that was sent last night to students from Rocky DelMonaco and Todd Olson. Seriously, Victoria Fosdal uses the exact terms from the e-mail that would seem most controversial: "enhance safety," "community-based," "protective equipment," "batons." Did she not notice that all of these words have been spun? Distance your self from your source a little bit. "Protective equipment" sounds nice, but what it means is DPS officers hitting drunk students this year, and not with gymnastics "batons," but with nightsticks.

Here's a line from the e-mail: "officers... have also undergone comprehensive training in the proper care, use, and storage of this protective equipment." Here's a line from the article: "officers had to undergo extensive training to learn how to properly care, use and store the equipment."

“We want to minimize the ‘us against them’ mentality,” Van Slyke is quoted as saying. I guess using the main campus newspaper to deliver your spin on things is the first step in that.

How about the opinion page? The editorial board uses the opportunity to take shots at the last DPS director while only saying "Van Slyke comes to Georgetown from the University of Mississippi and University of Texas with an impressive résumé" (We Deserve a New Safety Era). Apparently they didn't read this or the Voice blog yesterday (not that anyone does). And in the other op-ed on the subject, somebody tells students that they need to do everything the administration tells them to do about security (To Improve Campus Safety, Students Must Support Administrative Efforts).

Besides the usual new-student stuff, there are a couple other things in here. One is news of the Leo's renovations being completed. The headline (Leo's Completes Vowed Renovations) doesn't fit the fact that they didn't complete all the renovations they said they would even after scaling them back prior to construction. I'll let that slide, though, because the real crime of this article is what the staff of Leo's named these things. "Leo’s Downunder," "Pasta Palate," "Green Lite," "Stir-up the World," and, Jesus Christ, "DELIfully Fresh" is almost certainly the worst set of puns in the history of the English language. As a comedy writer, it will be much harder to go there without throwing up now, even though the odds were already pretty good.

Finally, more alcohol policy bullshit (Most Alcohol Amendments Accepted)! Again I think the positive tone is a little off the mark considering what's been done. Buried in here is the mind-numbing fact that Todd Olson is still making alcohol-infraction punishments more serious if there's a beer pong table around, and also this:

Finally, Olson maintained the current container policy that limits students to no more than two empty containers in the residence at any time. When asked whether empty cans or handles of alcohol constituted a container, Olson responded that a container was defined as "any container that is not a keg."

You'd better not have a lot of cups, bowls, Nalgenes, pots, teakettles, water pitchers, jars, Tupperware, storage bins, or other containers around. A container that is not a keg is a "container" according to Olson, and you can only have two of those in your dorm room.

Placeholder Of Record, Round 2

2008-08-22T19:25:00.003-04:00

http://www.thehoya.com/news

Umm...

Happy Fucking Kent State Massacre 2

2008-08-21T21:10:00.010-04:00

Hot on the heels of that Public Safety Alert comes a message from Rocky DelMonaco, Todd Olson, and Jeff Van Slyke. Who are these people, freshmen ask? Well, from the looks of things, they're shaping up to be sort of like that Batman—Commissioner Gordon—Harvey Dent trinity, except evil. Perhaps someone will be the Joker and eventually force them to compromise their morals and do something good for the students? My money is on DelMonaco to crack first, even though his name is Rocky, and even though Olson does not seem like he would be, you know, brave, if things got heated.

So what do we have in this e-mail? Well, it looks like Van Slyke is looking to replace our lovable bumbling DPS officers with "highly-qualified" killing machines as his first project. I guess that's not so bad. I mean, DPS officers aren't armed, so... Oh, he's giving them all nightsticks and pepper spray? Well, some students will probably end up in the hospital, but it's not like he's giving them AK-47s so... Oh, yeah. That thing. Well.

It's looking to be a good year for Heckler satire, at least.

I guess it's not exactly an AK-47. The one Van Slyke wants to use on students is green!

Happy Fucking Halloween

2008-08-21T20:49:00.002-04:00

Hot damn, I love Public Safety Alerts. This new indecent exposure one is a real gem. But it's what is missing from this report that is really intriguing:

They pretend that this is an "unknown" white male, yet they have his exact license tag! I think it's obvious who this man is thanks to a little investigative reporting by the Voice today. Van Slyke may think he can just take off the hairpiece and get away with dangerous "security" tactics such as this, but we know better. This isn't Ole Miss.

Also missing from this report: how did the witnesses immediately react? Here is a man RAISING HIMSELF UP while DRIVING A MOVING VEHICLE AND THEN EXPOSING HIS GENITALS before putting them away and getting back down to drive quickly away. AND THEN HE DID IT AGAIN. And yet—there is no mention of these witnesses applauding him? No mention of them even throwing a tip his way? I mean, this should be in the Olympics!

Rejected Onion Headlines 8/18

2008-08-21T00:26:00.003-04:00

This week marks my second-to-last headline list and last full week at The Onion. As much as I look forward to returning to campus next week and enjoying the "Welcome Back, Jack" event everyone puts together for me each year, I will certainly miss coming in each Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 10 or 11 to the office. And if anyone on the planning committee is reading this, my bus does not leave until about 4 Tuesday, so you should probably push the festivities back.

Two more headlines to report: Oh, No! Dirt Bikes! and Tim Kaine's Children: Tim Kaine Could Be Vice President Of Lameness, Maybe. "Oh, No! Dirt Bikes!" was something that came out of my mouth when I was talking to myself one day. I wrote it down but wasn't quite sure if I was going to say it at the headline meeting because it may be the stupidest thing ever put to paper. One person on writing staff ardently backed that sentiment, but she was ultimately shot down. She is the one on the writing staff with ovaries.

Week Eleven
Failing in the first round (Monday 8/18):

Student Government In Turmoil Following Ropes Course
Area Mom Suddenly Canning Everything
Gorbachev Still Refusing To Tear Down Wall Around His Heart
Fourth Graders' School Newscast Struggles To Maintain Objectivity
Pretender To Throne Pretends To Like Working At Investment Bank
Pretender To Throne King Of The Douche Bags
OE: Is It Okay For Me To Come Out Of This Bunker I Went Into On 9/11?
Olympic Spirit Limits Russia To Just One War
Swarm Of Anti-Defamation Locusts Update Nation's Infrastructure
Iraqi Insurgents Finish Up Practice Round
MAG: Gruel, Rotten Meat Scraps, And Other Grim Recipes For Your Historically Mindful Labor Day Party

There were a couple other headlines that are being reworked.

Failing in the second round (Tuesday 8/19):

Pope Puts In For Promotion
OE: Take Care Of This Planet Hollywood; It's The Only One We’ve Got

That second one almost got in, but it was decided that Planet Hollywood is too much of a punchline itself, and a hacky one at that. I have to agree, though it's unfortunate that that's the only good pun on "planet" there I could think of. I did get in one news-in-brief headline and another op-ed headline. This week I wrote an op-ed article that was on the backlog.

I'm also going to share rejected War For The White House headlines I've written so far, in chronological order and spaced apart by week:

Obama Boosts Commander-In-Chief Credentials By Conquering Germany
McCain Criticizes Obama For Not Visiting Munich, Auschwitz, Neuschwanstein Castle While In Germany
Struggling For Media Coverage, McCain To Announce A New Running Mate Every Day For Next Month Or So
Despite Last-Second Rescue, Half Of Obama's Face Becomes Disfigured In Factory Explosion
McCain Calls For Campaign To Be Fought On 1984 Election Issues
Leaked Obama Short List Shows Obama Thinks Kucinich Is Really Short
Clinton, Dole, Perot Considering Running In One Last Presidential Election Together
Area Man Withdraws Name From Vice-Presidential Consideration
Maliki Admits He Only Said He Supported Obama's Iraq Plan Because He Thought Obama Was A Muslim
McCain Denounces Sports Illustrated, J-14, Us Weekly, Nintendo Power, Barely Legal, Bird Talk, Sports Illustrated For Kids For Rejecting His Op-Ed Pieces

McCain Plays Uno Card
Vietnam Torture Card Falls Out Of McCain’s Sleeve
Former ‘SNL’ Host John McCain Goes On Several Television Channels To Call Obama ‘Celebrity’
McCain, Obama Announce Plans To Give Americans Rebate Checks For Reasons To Be Decided Later
Following Reception In Germany, Obama Calls For U.S. Empire-Building To Shift To Europe

McCain Following Obama Around Hawaii Trying To Debate Him
McCain To Vacation In Panama Canal Zone
Obama Spends Week Courting Crucial Grandmother Endorsement
Obama Gets Into Serious Surfing Accident After Obama Children Find Ancient Tiki Idol
Media Admits John Edwards Had Affair
John Edwards Realizes He Had Affair After Seeing Media Coverage Of Olympics, Conflict In Georgia
[Candidate] Chooses The American People To Be His Vice President

Rest Of Debates To Be Held At Giant Evangelic Churches Too
Slot Left Open For Ghost Of Reagan To Speak At GOP Convention
Shape Shifter Bob Barr Turns Into Cat At Cat Fancy Forum
Mike Gravel Settles For Local Lions Club Presidency
Evangelicals 'Close' To Figuring Out How To Re-Elect Bush Again
McCain Just Hoping To Make Election Close Enough For Supreme Court To Decide
Joe Lieberman And Lindsey Graham Disappointed McCain Can't Make Their Ballroom Dance Competition
Joe Lieberman And Lindsey Graham Create Series Of Pro-McCain Mamma Mia! Fan Videos
Report: Obama Not The Father Of Edwards' Mistress' Baby

Drinkin' Age

2008-08-19T12:50:00.003-04:00

Lookie here, over 100 of the nation's cool college presidents have signed onto this thing (warning: terrible website) calling for the drinking age to be lowered back to 18. Wait, where's DeGioia? I guess Todd Olson must have been so excited to send it in he accidentally threw DeGioia's letter in the fire.

Maybe he didn't sign it because Syracuse and Duke did? I think we can finally find some common ground on this issue, though.

Predictably the CEO of MADD, which is apparently, and thinking about it, appropriately, a business, is mad at this initiative. "They're waving the white flag," he says. Is this a war? I don't understand. How could a bunch of blacked-out students win a war? That's awesome, I suppose. I guess I can't be drafted now, because I'm already fighting a war by getting drunk every weekend in a private residence.

While MADD's at it, why are they sitting around and not trying to raise the drinking age again? Isn't that their job? Why not shoot for 30? Or 35? I mean, it would technically save lives, even if it ruins our culture and businesses.

Also, that picture is ridiculous. I wonder how CNN views underage drinking.

Placeholder of Record

2008-08-14T22:39:00.004-04:00

I'm pretty sure the Vatican is going to force this down soon. That hug has gone on for months.

Rejected Onion Headlines 8/11

2008-08-14T22:25:00.003-04:00

I wasn't sure if I should even put these up because they're just terrible. I guess I had an off week in writing headlines. I just could never get into the groove of it last weekend.

Week Ten
Failing in the first round (Monday 8/11):

Tootsie Roll Bag Found In Junk Drawer Saves Woman’s Life
Animals Of The Forest Begin Preparations For Ramadan
Three Die Trying To Reach Annual Everest Climbers Summit
Bush Still Hanging Around Olympic Village
Child’s First Steps Into Grand Canyon
Motivational Speaker Slips In Message While Teaching Everyone The Moonwalk
Good Morning America Viewers Demand Robin Roberts Go Through Cancer Treatment Again
Scalia Loudly Eats Tortilla Chips During ACLU Lawyer’s Argument
OE: Despite What The Media Wants You To Think, Not All Penguins Wear Adorable Scarves
OE: Perhaps I’ve Been Listening To Too Much Ray Charles (by Vladimir Putin)
OE: My Inoffensive, Pro-Establishment Rapping Is Really Taking Me Places
MAG: Smash Mouth: Still “All Stars” In Their Own Way
MAG: How To Make Rachel Ray’s Favorite Ethnic-Food-Inspired Recipes
MAG: Installing A Pond In Your Back Yard In A Last-Ditch Effort To Make Yourself Happy

I apologize for you reading those. Usually I like all of the headlines I pitch, but these were just desperate. Looking back, especially 9 makes me cringe, and I wrote that one because I couldn't stop watching this video last Sunday. I actually kind of liked 2; that comes from this video. Apparently I couldn't come up with a Snow Miser / Heat Miser headline that wasn't a lame global warming joke.

Failing in the second round (Tuesday 8/12):

Second Graders Find Used Condo On Playground
OE: I Guess They’re Only Giving Rhodes Scholarships To Total Assholes
OE: Ask An Advertisement For A Cleft Lip Charity

No headlines got in this week. I wrote one news story.

Timor-Leste

2008-08-14T21:56:00.007-04:00

As my time at The Onion is in its final weeks, so nears the end of the Heckler summer blog. Will we continue into the school year? I'd like to, because there are always campus issues and news items I want us to satirize that can't make it into the regular paper. However, considering our track record, it is unlikely.

This week in The Onion I wrote the Jackie Chan op-ed that I pitched as a headline a couple weeks ago. I watched all of Chan's movies in junior high, and I think my love of him comes through between the fun being poked.

Here's a graf that got cut that may have just been funny to me because I took Chinese Religious Thought for my second theology course:

There is an old Chinese fable I always tell these kids. One day, a peasant came up to Confucius. “I am sick of wearing my black vestment,” the peasant said. “It has been a whole week since the emperor’s concubine died. Who made you the vestment boss?” This angered Confucius; however, Confucius backed down from fighting him. “I will let you wear whatever vestment you want from now on,” he said. The peasant was stunned. Confucius had never let anyone break one of his analects before. The peasant went happily back to his family and put on a red vestment. The next day, however, Confucius told the emperor that he had seen a peasant undermining the emperor’s authority by not wearing a black vestment. The emperor sent for the peasant and had him tortured and killed in front of his troops, giving them the pride and morale to defeat a rival army and win the emperor and his advisor Confucius all the land and riches of the region.

Also, we've officially started the new content I mentioned a few weeks back, web-only War For The White House news briefs. I will continue to be part of this project after I return to Georgetown. You can see our first item here. That's my headline, and the article was written by the (acting) editor-in-chief Joe Randazzo. He originally put my last name in there for the Georgetown professor, but I had him change it to Sam DeCanio, a professor I took last semester, who was fitting considering the satire of the article. Take him if you get a chance.

Let the Freshman Douche-Baggery Commence

2008-08-08T15:47:00.009-04:00

via Wonkette

Hot damn. Thank God this kid in a prom tuxedo, a "student of politics and history" according to the video description, is going to follow the tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr. by being a Republican and fetishizing tanks. (Yeah, if you didn't know, King was a Republican. You may have been confused by John F. Kennedy releasing him from prison, King voting for JFK and LBJ and denouncing Barry Goldwater, Republicans like Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms who didn't see quite eye-to-eye with King, and pretty much all civil rights activists and black people being Democrats.)

I assume Shawn Summers will follow King's example of violence and his own preference for war by joining the ROTC, right? According to his Facebook profile, he plays this fantasy online war game.

He also made a Facebook group for himself to help win this contest. He made sure to say his name in the group description "so you know it's me and not a hoax." Why would anyone think this video is a hoax, Shawn? You represent yourself so perfectly.

"A REPUCLICAN. YES, A REPUBLICAN. THIS IS HIS DESKTOP. THIS IS HIS VOTER REGISTRATION."

Who is Shawn Summers? Let's look at his Facebook photos!

I really hoped this one was a hoax. His YouTube name is "jedimaster51090," however.
At right, as a child...
Playing piccolo in his high school marching band....
In drama club...

Well, we can all see exactly what kind of Republican Shawn is, so it's kind of hard not to feel some compassion for him now.

Unfortunately, he won't win this contest. There's a 13-year-old misinformed geek who is already wearing a flag pin on the collar of his polo shirt. Sweet visuals!

Rejected Onion Headlines 8/4

2008-08-07T12:29:00.003-04:00

Today I turned 20. That hurts. But things are busy as ever for me at The Onion, with only a few more weeks left to go.

Week Nine
Failing in the first round (Monday 8/4):

Obese Teen’s Dream Of Finally Starring In School Play Quashed By Fatsuit Tevye Idea
Recently Divorced Man Returns To Bar To Find Self Only One Drinking Zima
Fourth-Grader Knowingly Asks Teacher What Swear Word In Reading Book Means
Tourists Disappointed To Find No Restaurant In Wall Hole
Studies: Magic Johnson AIDS Death Rate Remains At 0%
People’s Liberation Army Shoots Olympic Spirit Into Protesters
Next Mummy Movie Just Brendan Frasier Standing In Front Of A Green Screen For 70 Minutes
OE: I Also Did It Frank Sinatra’s Way (By Michael Bublé)
OE: If They Won’t Give You Roles Anymore, Sometimes You Just Have To Make Stuart Little 4 Yourself (By Geena Davis)
Beatles Parody Band Needs “Help!” With Their Medicare Prescription Drug Forms
Report: Foreclosure Rates Starting To Help Alleviate U.S. Ghost Overcrowding
MAG: We Sit Down With Kirk Cameron And The Angel Gabriel To Discuss Their Latest Book (pic of Kirk Cameron sitting next to empty chair)
MAG: Fun Summer Recipe Ideas That Will Momentarily Keep Your Mind Off Your Child’s Autism
MAG: The Winners Of Our “Win A Date With A Jonas Brother And His Parents” Contest
MAG: The All-Sudoku-Puzzle Issue

Failing in the second round (Tuesday 8/5):

Aria Sung By Crazed Opera Character After Murdering Her Husband Used To Class Up Audi Commercial
Bush Orders Deployment Of Afghanistan To Iraq
Website Designer To Go With Silhouette Of Crowd Waving Their Arms In The Air
MAG: What Your Children Would Have Looked Like If You Had Them With Patrick Dempsey Instead

One headline got in the paper this week as a full article, and I'm writing it. Another got in as an op-ed.

Num Num Num Num Num

2008-08-04T19:37:00.003-04:00

Community Celebrates Feast of St. Ignatius

I hope that Ignatius they ate tasted good!

We lions sure love that hickory-smoked flavor you can only get with the first Jesuit. That's the truth — NO LION!

Really though, Ignatius, if you didn't want people to think your flesh was delicious, you shouldn't have given all your lectures while lions were chewing on your limbs. You were bound to be depicted that way.

Bonus points to the lion on the right for eating his Ignatius upside down and holding on with just one hind leg. NICE FORM!

I will now be smitten by the Catholic Jesus for this. Sorry, Jesuits.

EDIT: Apparently that picture from Google is of another St. Ignatius, one who got himself eaten up by some lions in a coliseum, and not the Jesuit one. However, I'm still not convinced it's not the same guy. First, I'm pretty sure Catholics wouldn't make more than one guy named Ignatius a saint, no matter how good he is, because that would be too confusing for them. Second, wrestling lions in a giant stadium has been the official sport of Jesuits for centuries. Go to Multi-Sport Field at 4 AM on a Thursday and you'll see them. Considering there's no information on Ignatius of Loyola's death on Wikipedia, and I'm sure Dan Brown would back me up on this, I'm almost certain the whole thing's a cover-up. Ignatius of Loyola died wrestling a lion, but the Jesuits wanted to continue doing it, so they said that the body was of another guy named Ignatius and, panicking, canonized him a second time just in case. Also, I will burn in Catholic Satan's Hell doubly for this edit.

Utter Self-Neglect

2008-08-02T12:40:00.000-04:00

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/upcoming_date_only_thing_between

That's me. The headline and article were written by Matt Morrison, the other Onion writing fellow, based on his own sad life. I mean c'mon, you don't really think I'm a "Upcoming Date Only Thing Between Area Man, Utter Self-Neglect" guy, right? I can't even get a date.

I was able to keep that jar of peanut butter, by the way. Unlike this slob, I fold up pieces of bread and stick it in the jar and eat it instead of sticking a spoon in there. I don't own a spoon or fork, and there was only a knife in this apartment when I got here.

Now that this is up, I realize I really should have told the graphic editors to photoshop out the Georgetown stuff. The administration is totally going to see this photo of me in a shirt bearing the university's name, they're going to sue The Onion, and I'm going to be out of a job. Fuck.

Rejected Onion Headlines 7/28

2008-07-31T20:38:00.003-04:00

I seem to be busier than ever at The Onion. Between trying to come up with the regular headlines, coming up with headlines for our special issues, trying to write articles, trying to write jokes for daily content and headline and picture captions, working to help launch a new (or rather, seriously ramped up) section of the paper / website, and working on a pilot with Joe Garden for Adult Swim (well maybe, my relationship with a certain inanimate object in the writers' room is probably just a way to relieve the tedious parts of working here rather than the next Odd Couple), I can see that this sentence is too long. I need to stop writing run-on sentences. What? Anyway, I haven't worked this nearly this hard creatively before. Instead of coming up with one article idea a week or so for the Heckler, my joke abilities are being strained to churn out new material within days, hours, and sometimes even minutes. It's easy to see how this profession can wear on people. Instead of just saying a witty remark as it comes to me at a party now, I seem to over-analyze it and want to throw up (though that could be the alcohol). I begin to wonder if I will become as disillusioned with comedy as I did politics
last year. Probably not, but taking pity on myself like this and questioning my worth keep me going. I can't just accept that this is the peak of my life right here, writing for The Onion, and enjoy it. Though is assuming I'll never do anything bigger than this just more self pity? Eh, here folks, look at these funny funny funny funny funny funny funny funny funny funny headlines:

Week Eight
Failing in the first round (Monday 7/28):

Homeless Woman's Promotional Bag Not Doing Bank Of America Any Favors
New DNA Technology Clears 91-Year-Old Black Man Of Rape And Murder Of Amelia Earhart
Cambodia Sex Tourism Board Rolls Out New "Cambodia: The Next Vietnam" Ad Campaign
Lee Greenwood Hints At Another Terrorist Attack
Nelson Mandela Wondering Why He Hasn't Been Asked To Guest-Host Tyra Banks Show Again
PEZ Dispenser Collector Dispenses With Own Life
Area Man Turns Love Of Complaining Into Profession
Fed Rates Remain Steady As Bernanke Remains Steady On Couch
Boy Forced To Give Signature Not Sure Whether To Use Cursive Or Print
OE: If You Keep Trying To Turn This Candle Party Into A Party, I’m Going To Have To Ask You To Leave
MAG: How Long Will It Take This Injured Major League Pitcher To Make What You Will In A Lifetime?
Area Man Spends All Of His Time Reading Up On How To Be More Productive
Nabisco Scientists Complete Periodic Table Of Oreo Flavors

BACK TO SCHOOL ISSUE:

Naive Freshman Floor Unsure Why They Have To Set Rules For Vomiting In The Common Room
Professor Surprised History Of American Beer Pong Course So Popular
Secret Society Secretly Lame
South Korean Girl Living Next Door May Or Not Be Dead
Rich Kids Magically Gravitate Toward Each Other In First Week On Campus
Cell Phone Ring In Library Met With Deafening Sighs
MAG: Boat Shoes: Could They Be The New Crocs?
MAG: Fashion 2008: We Tell You Which Clothes To Steal From The Laundry Room

Failing in the second round (Tuesday 7/29 and Thrusday 7/31):

Man Wearing Spongebob Suit Can't Possibly Be Licensed To Do That

BACK TO SCHOOL ISSUE:

OE: Ask A Freshman At His First College Party
University President's Letter To New Students Obviously Written In 1996
Visiting Parent Takes Over Class Discussion
MAG: 10 Tips That Would Have Really Helped You Not Fuck Up Your SATs
MAG: How To Make Your Suicide The One Your Campus Will Be Buzzing About

So there you go. Through all that work, and endless discussion in meetings, I wound up with one op-ed headline in the regular issue and one op-ed one-liner in the back-to-school issue. This week the article I wrote was actually the op-ed I got into the regular issue. It's in the character of one of my childhood idols, and it was really fun to write. I just hope it's not too mean.

Check the Onion website Saturday or this week's print issue at stands now to see my fat face ruining the image of Georgetown alumni and this fine university.

Gay Shit

2008-07-26T23:46:00.007-04:00

How do you get past the hysterically image-conscious administration a pretty honest article about Georgetown's lackluster history of suppression of gay students and their rights? Make it extremely long and post it in the middle of summer.

Also in here:

Georgetown was a very social place for undergraduates on campus in the 1960s, says John LeBedda (C'68). Dances, parties, concerts and other events such as polo games on weekends represented the norm, he recalls.

"Unfortunately, all of these events were totally straight..."

U.S. Trades Alito To British Supreme Court In Six-Judge Deal

2008-07-25T18:54:00.003-04:00

This is a headline I pitched at the 6/16 meeting.

I of course didn't write the story. The Onion Radio News, once again, is masterful the work of Mr. Chris Karwowski.

Rejected Onion Headlines 7/21

2008-07-24T15:00:00.003-04:00

I have realized that blogging mostly about The Onion is pretty masturbatory. However, there are a few reasons I'm keeping this up:

I need blog material, and this is close at hand.
I don't have the time to comb through stuff I don't want to read to find interesting stories about Georgetown, and I'm not living there right now so they don't just come to me.
Everyone else seems too lazy to post on our blog.

Anyway, a long two-week vacation and special projects week have meant that it's been a while since the last installment of rejected headlines. This week, following an extra brainstorm session, I read 28 headlines instead of the usual 15.

Week Eight
Failing in the first round (Monday 7/21):

Dollar General's Troop Morale Low
Shark Attacks Sensationalist Media
Bush Finally Breaks Out Looney Tunes Ties
West Virginia ‘Doing All The Work’ To Keep Up Pen-Pal Relationship With Western Sahara
With No Other Options, Man Forced To Create Own Sudoku Puzzle
Bored Dubai To Build Next Skyscraper Out Of Poor Arabs
Greatest Generation Buys Greatest CD Set From Infomercial
Man Survives 14 Hours In Death Valley Without Internet
Following Controversial Comments, McCain Campaign Drops John McCain From Ticket
McDonald's Worried Olympic Sponsorship May Conflict With Its Nonconformist Image
OE: It Would Have Been A Crime If I Hadn't Stolen That Rubber Cement (by a third grader)
OE: It's In My Heart, I Just Open Up My Mouth And It Happens (by an amateur karaoke singer)
OE: Those Fajitas Better Come With Taco Bread And Salsa Sauce
P/CP: Point: My House, My Rules (by a mom), Counterpoint: You Don’t Own My Body (by the house)
MAG: If We Put These Pictures Of Obama And McCain Next To Each Other, Does It Look Like They’re Kissing?
MAG: We Imagine An Exclusive Interview With J.D. Salinger
MAG: 50 Great Ideas That Will Fail To Make It To The Market
MAG: “You Have To Laugh” And Lots Of Other Bullshit We Put In Steve Carell’s Mouth
MAG: Our Interview With Junot Díaz: Boring As Hell, And He Seems To Have No Information On What It’s Like To Work With Michael Cera
MAG: McCain Or Obama? We Help You Cast Your Inconsequential Vote For The One Who Conforms To Your Inane, Misinformed Worldview

Failing in the second round (Tuesday 7/22):

Area Grandfather, Baby Given Obsolete Palm Pilots
Conspiracy Theorists: Ted Kennedy Being Killed By More Than One Form Of Cancer
MAG: Hey There, Is That Picture A Metaphor For America’s Decreased World Power?
MAG: Hot New Band Vampire Weekend: From Riches To Further Riches

I got four headlines into the paper this week. Two are magazine covers. One is an op-ed one-liner, an item that will be accompanied by a picture and featured on the left-hand column of the front page of the paper and the bottom of the website (we call them "skyboxes"). The last is another skybox (a news one, not an op-ed), that I will be really excited to see in the paper. I'll just say that it's terribly morbid and is probably the best Onion headline I've written so far.

Point-Counterpoint

2008-07-23T19:10:00.003-04:00

Here's my epic laser tag point-counterpoint.

I wrote this in either my second or third week at The Onion. I had a little trouble at first coming up with the cornball tone of Will Gallant, but then I came across some of the message boards of adult enthusiasts and a review of some laser tag place in California by a dad. Oh boy.

The second part was tough too. I had to almost completely rewrite it on the second draft because it read like a play-by-play of Will's actions rather than a speech by this laser tag employee, and even in the second draft it wasn't quite up to par. I don't think the jokes hit as hard as in the first draft, but the piece is better overall for fitting in with this guy's voice.

Penis.

Man Given Points For Trying Increases Total Trying Points To 643,457

2008-07-21T11:00:00.002-04:00

My 1994 Saab 900, as a Ninja Turtle

Here's an article I wrote. Most of the sad, sad details were inspired by my own life.

Pitino Sends His Son to Georgetown to Kill Us, Jesus

2008-07-14T21:49:00.005-04:00

FUCK.

The only different new aspect, life without Ryan. My fourth son taking off for Georgetown University. Things won't be the same without my loyal sidekick.

How could this happen? How? Is the only thing the admissions committee knows about basketball which players they're supposed to let in? WE'RE TALKING ABOUT A MOLE HERE, PEOPLE. "Loyal sidekick"? C'mon. They blew it. They totally blew it. We're going down.

Didn't they immediatley realize when they saw this surely sleazy, sweaty, short kid show up at the admissions interview that he was going to destroy Georgetown?! Jesus Christ! R.I.P. Georgetown, 1789-2008. It was a good run. Until you let in a Pitino.

When Jack the Bulldog is found dead in a pool of blood at orientation, we will know it has begun.

Just look at this abomination.

Finally Some of My Onion Material Has Been Printed for You Fuckers

2008-07-09T22:30:00.002-04:00

Here you go.

That's what was selected in the headline meeting on June 9.

A few details are mine, but most of it was written by Todd Hanson, screenwriter of the now-disowned Onion Movie.

More Megabus Georgetown Blogging

2008-07-07T19:46:00.002-04:00

Yay! Another fun Public Safety Alert!

Damn, I missed these.

Like most of these bulletins, this one's a little strange. However, who wouldn't want to live in Vittles? I considered doing it before getting the Onion job, which came when I was just four days from taking my last final and couldn't seem to get a summer job.

I bet that was paradise until he got caught. It's understandable he chose Vittles over Snaxa, because all of their ice cream was melted for some reason the other day.

As for Charlie?

We all miss him, random Vittles intruder. We all do. But we have to move on.

Village A Construction

2008-07-07T18:56:00.004-04:00

What's going on with Village A? Walking by this weekend, all of the paths into the complex were blocked off like this. The only things I was able to see were a bunch of cherry pickers sitting around and a construction worker using one of them to polish a railing while he listened to his iPod. I did hear from a trusted friend that she found an empty keg on the site. So what's going on in Village A?

John Glavin needs Village A now for wherever his secret, arrogant plans are taking him
Patio doors are being removed on the rooftops so residents can no longer pump beer to the underage freshmen hordes on the rooftops from the safety of their own living rooms
Jim O'Donnell needs Village A now for wherever his secret, boring plans are taking him
Jack DeGioia is finally giving into that criticism he received for not living on campus by having Village A leveled and his house airlifted onto the site
Some multi-million dollar project is being undertaken on the rooftops by What's After Dark that is supposed to make drinking non-alcoholic beverages and awkward sober dancing fun
The rooftop apartments are undergoing renovations for their new residents, DPS officers, who found it took too much effort to get up there and keep watch of things otherwise
The Stewards are building giant neon keys that will hang above Village A and will perform a dubious service to the student body while in no way signifying who put them up there
Construction of a new business school building (nobody in the administration realized they had already started building a new MSB building)
A new virtual reality center is being built that will allow visiting parents to keep up the illusion that their children aren't drinking
New paint is being put on that will make stairs more slippery
A huge new statue is being constructed that parallels the one of Christ across the road in between Gervase and Ryan Hall, except this one is of Todd Olson and Jesus angrily beating a keg with baseball bats

Whatever the improvements are, the notorious apartments on Prospect, like the one I will be living in next year, do not seem to be getting them. Thanks again, Housing!

Here's Your Blogging About Georgetown, Fuckers

2008-07-07T18:27:00.004-04:00

Above: Heckler editor Jack Stuef on the scene as construction ends on the "S.S. Miller High Life" in Nevils. Conclusion: the new MSB building would have been built a lot faster if Georgetown used the labor of its drunken students. Also: the MSB building would have collapsed multiple times and have had to be rebuilt. Also: you can't see it, but the High Life bottle at the top of the ship is wearing a sombrero expertly woven out of a little plastic cup by occasional Heckler writer H.A.F.

This entry is being posted right now somewhere in Maryland on my way back to New York from spending the weekend in D.C. You should really try Megabus. It's as cheap as BoltBus, and it features nice, new buses; strong, high-speed, no-password wi-fi; and bootlegged new-release movies for your viewing pleasure.

The Diary Of That Gervase Sign

2008-07-01T18:18:00.003-04:00

July 1, 2008

Oh, my darling, oh, my darling
Oh, my darling Clementine
She is lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine.

Today will be my last entry.

I had a dream last night. I was sitting above the door to Gervase again. It was winter and icicles slowly melted on to me.

A student lumbered in. He was there to complete work sanction hours for an alcohol violation. I imagined him back at the party in Village C or New South or even LXR in the lands far. He was happy for once, escaping the bitter cold and stresses of a young life with a lukewarm Natty Light in a friend’s dorm room. Then someone came in and stole him from this solitary pleasure.

It was not unlike what they did to me.

I drifted into the nightmare again. There I was, just hanging there, enjoying a restful night. It had been a long day; I counted ten people that needed me to tell them where Gervase was. Sometimes in those days I questioned whether I even made a difference, but damn I loved that place. Then they came. Like a team of basketball players from Hell, they jumped and knocked me off my post. One put me in his bag and took me away. I try not to be so feminist about these things, but it really was a form of rape.

I awoke in a cold sweat and imagined for a split second that I smelt the sweet aroma of banana bread. Of freedom. But it quickly turned into the foul stench of death.

Long I have tried not to think about it. But today I face the truth: they have moved on. Sure, they may have put out a broadcast e-mail. They may have gone a few months, even a year, before replacing me. But now another sign is there in my stead, and they have forgotten about me. Maybe the new sign is just a piece of paper taped on the door, coldly telling passersby “GERVASE PROGRAMS.” Maybe worse, she looks just like me. Maybe the only reminder of my absence to the Gervase staff is when people ask if the new sign is me returned from the dead. I wish the new sign luck, but I hate her.

I sit here alone on this white townhouse wall. For two years, I have sat here suffering as a piece of irony in this wretched man’s bedroom. If only I could have told him how much I hate John Glavin too! But alas, I cannot speak his language. He graduated over a month ago, two years after quitting the Carroll Fellows. The bed was taken with him, the clothes, even the other posters. But now I sit here alone in a barren room, a sign on the wall no longer meaningful to a man who has moved on.

Rather than waiting another two months to meet my maker, I have decided to end it here. I was always too proud, or too cowardly, to face the bottom of a trash can. And so death must be dealt by my own hand.

If anyone ever reads this, tell the Honor Council I love him.

Rejected Onion Headlines 6/23

2008-06-29T20:21:00.003-04:00

As you may have been able to tell from our clip-show-style gay-issue this week, The Onion is now on summer vacation for two weeks. After that, it'll be a week of special projects. Good news: I get two weeks of paid vacation to myself in NYC. Bad news: no new headlines or article-writing for three weeks. Now let's get to the embarrassingly bad headlines!

Week Four
Failing in the first round (Monday 6/23):

Mugabe's Dog Certifies Another Election Victory OR Mugabe's Dog Drops Out Of Presidential Race
Bush Just Hanging Around Home This Summer After Failing To Get Internship At U.N.
Man Surprised To Come Across Black-People Version Of Favorite Commercial
McCain And Obama Locked In Harsh Battle Over Who Is More Civil
Man With Alzheimer’s Returned Home After Wandering Onto Space Station
Hot Cuban Band The Castro Brothers To Star In Own Cuba Disney Channel Movie (GROAN)
Wall Street Tumbles After Pretty Light Turns Off
OE: In My Day, You Had To Smoke Pot Uphill 15 Miles In The Snow Or Some Shit
OE: Istanbul Is Beautiful This Time Of History
OE: Point: I Want A Piece Of That Ass (by a 26-year-old pederast) / Counterpoint: I Want A Piece Of That Ass (by a 12-year-old cannibal)
MAG: How Often Does Your Pet Pray?

Failing in the second round (Tuesday 6/24):

America Suffers Through Record Box Office
Man Walking Onto Web Page Wants To Welcome You
OE: I Will Pollute This River If It's The Last Thing I Do

It was a slow week, funny-wise, just days before sweet summer hiatus. Thus, all four of my headlines in the second round went up for a vote to get in the issue. Three failed, and again this week one was picked by the great Chris Karwowski for a Radio News piece.

Articles written this week: I wrote a news story that will not go in this issue because of its similar subject matter to an Al Gore-related story, but it will appear eventually. To give you some perspective on the hiatus, the issue we put together this week will not go on newsstands until July 30.

DeGioia and O'Donnell Love Undergrads So Much They Plagiarize Themselves Again

2008-06-23T18:54:00.003-04:00

The 2008 Heckler Summer Blog blogs on. We apologize for not yet "bringing the heat" on such sexy Georgetown news as revisions to local zoning laws.

The above photo is real, by the way. That's the dining hall's namesake sporting a genuine popped collar at a Class of 1956 Georgetown reunion. If you look hard enough, you can find some good photos of administrators, like this one that has become our stock photo of Todd Olson:

We write a lot of Todd Olson stuff, by the way.

Anyway, we here at the Heckler, despite our incapacitating laziness, have considered doing another parody this summer like our 2007 New Student Guide that so infamously left me with a threat from the CSP and the university counsel. One thing we considered was doing a whole new new student guide, but I checked today and the 2008 guide seems to be almost exactly the same as the 2007 guide.

That's predictable, of course, as much of the information is still relevant. However, two "personal" messages from President DeGioia and Provost O'Donnell to new students have also remained the same.

The letter from O'Donnell, who is not a muddle througher kind of person, seems to have only substituted one mandatory reading assignment for another, and despite past experiences, he still finishes it with a straight face, saying, "This will be one afternoon in your Georgetown life, but I can assure you it will be a memorable and rewarding one." The letter from DeGioia is exactly the same as his one from last year except the fancy watermark now dates the letter at "May 2008." Both appear to be the same as they were in the student guide I got the summer before my freshman year.

Somewhere the Honor Code is smiling.

We maybe could parody other parts of this sacred guide the administration is forced to protect from the Heckler, but the most enjoyable part is making fun of administrators, and we can't really do anything if they don't care about the student body enough to write a new message or, say, a new convocation speech once in awhile to give us some material. I guarantee you, by the way, we can run this letter from the editor again this September.

So we ask you: is there a stupid university publication or other Georgetown thing you think is ripe for parody? Let us know in the comments.

Rejected Onion Headlines 6/16

2008-06-22T15:04:00.002-04:00

Week Three
Failing in the first round (Monday 6/16):

Irony Put Up For Sale On eBay
Bush Falls Out Of Oval Office Window After Leaning Out To Yell At Dog
Top Consultant Not Exactly Sure What Consulting Is
Christ Returns To CBS Lineup
Bankrupt City Manages To Dedicate Citronella Candle To War Veterans
Person Talking In Movie Theater Ruins Internet Bootleg
People Of The World Come Together For First Time In Scam Facebook Group
OP-ED: What The Hell Is Wrong With Coming To The Olive Garden To Re-enact A Scene From Lady And The Tramp With Your Dogs?
OP-ED: I Could Circumnavigate The Globe Too If I Wanted
MAG: The Love Guru's Mike Myers On Kantian Ethics
MAG: From Cute Little Boy To Communist: Is Elian Gonzalez America's Next Big Threat?

Yeah, not too great.

Failing in the second round (Tuesday 6/17):

Area Man No Longer Trusts His Cell Phone
Angel Food Cake Actually Devilish, Area Woman Reports
Killing Spree At T.J. Maxx Lightened Up By Phil Collins' ‘Sussudio’

The first one there was considered, but ultimately didn't get the votes. I did get one headline from this batch in as a Radio News item, so that should be around at some point.

Articles written this week: I wrote two news-in-brief items.

The Voice May Have Been Better This Year, But They Still Manage To Do Shit Like This

2008-06-19T00:58:00.004-04:00

The offending item.

Really? Really?

1. Find the only way dead guy related to Georgetown ... Google ... got it! GEORGETOWN IS IMPORTANT, IMPORTANT PEOPLE TALK ABOUT GEORGETOWN!

2. Okay, but how are the students important? These are the only people their age who had an affection for this guy. Got it, they eulogize the dead guy in their away messages and stuff like that.

3. “All that and more on Meet the Press. But for now…” OMG, that makes me cry. So poignant. This person should have been on NBC talking about dead guy, not his son.

4. How do I stretch to say that this is appropriate? Ummmm....
a. Dead guy lived at same time as internet existed.
b. Living at same time as something means you are that thing.
c. Therefore, dead guy is the internet and the eulogizing is appropriate.

At least they blog, though. Hoya! Heckler!!!

Rejected Onion Headlines, 6/2 and 6/9

2008-06-12T20:02:00.005-04:00

Like this new blog design? Me neither, really, and I designed it. But at least it's better than using that generic template.

After getting rejected for crappy jobs by the Washington Nationals and the housing department, Heckler editor Jack Stuef somehow scooped up a sweet gig as a summer writing fellow in Manhattan with America's favorite newspaper, The Onion. What's a summer writing fellowship? Basically it's like being any other Onion writer, except I get paid less, get hazed more, and am met with lower expectations.

I was thinking I would share my experiences this summer with you, our Turkish reader. (Thanks for sticking with the blog, Recep!)

First up: why not my share with you some of my failures? At The Onion, we start with the headlines first, and each week I'm expected to bring in 15 fresh ones. The following are the ones I presented the past two Mondays that failed:

Week One

Failing in the first round (Monday 6/2):

following focus group tests, reform party nominates computer generated penguin for president
esl lab more advanced, productive than chemistry lab
local newspaper under fire for being 12-year-old's propaganda machine
hipster polygamist decides marriage just not in the future for him, girlfriends
beanie baby investment fails to mature
supreme court rules, appellate court drools
local woman enters medical school just for excuse to wear scrubs
manhattan toddler still refusing to like sushi
misbehaving congressman forced to spend entire recess inside capitol

"Jack, those headlines are shitty." I hear you, but it was my first week! But also, you're right, and they're only going to go downhill from here. I did get 6 headlines voted to the second round, which is not too shabby for a new guy.

Failing in the second round (Tuesday 6/3):

buddha statue used to hold second roll of toilet paper
area man somehow winds up on foreign policy panel
promotional towels sewn together to form usable towel
local mom tries to make her food chipotle-flavored too
inspiring dyslexic terrorist makes it to top leadership of hezbollah
area man can't stop fantasizing about stopping would-be obama assasin

This week I didn't get anything into the paper, though the one about the dyslexic terrorist came really close. One lesson learned this week: capitalize your headlines, dipshit.

Articles written this week: I wrote one news-in-brief item. I'll make a post whenever an article I write finally goes up online (we work a few weeks ahead).

Week Two
Failing in the first round (Monday 6/9):

Man Confused By Sign From God To Steal Second
Woman On Street Won't Shut Up About Lost Child
Waitress Area Man's Assistant-Managing Muse
Goodyear Announces "Win A Minimum-Wage Factory Job At Goodyear" Sweepstakes
Theater Audience Distracted By Autistic Fiddler On The Roof
Giant Rubber Band Ball Under Fire For Breaking DVD Player
Elton John Begins Writing Hillary Clinton Version Of ‘Candle In The Wind’
Battle Of Gettysburg Comes Alive For Drunk Teens Visiting On School Trip
Papal Apartment Blasting "Lady In Red" On Repeat
Area Man Not Ruling Out Being Obama's Vice President

Only five headlines made it to the second round? I told you things were on the decline.

Failing in the second round (Tuesday 6/10):

Cocky Media Now Wants To Pick Vice-Presidential Candidates Too
OP-ED: Yes, I Did Say I Wanted Butter On Those Dippin' Dots
Street Named In Honor Of Dead Guy Re-named After New Dead Guy
Standing Too Close To Microwave Will Give You Cancer Or Something, Reports American Journal Of Moms

"Shit, Jack, where's the fifth one?" IN THE PAPER, BITCHES. That's right, I got an op-ed headline in there. Again, a link will come when it goes up.

Articles written this week: I wrote a point-counterpoint column.

So there's a little summary of my writing the past two weeks. Hope you like this feature, Recep.

Fuck It, Let's Summer Blog!

2008-06-12T20:01:00.003-04:00

We're gonna do it, I swear! ... NOW!

New Posts

2008-04-08T19:02:00.000-04:00

are coming soon as the Heckler has finished up its sixth year of hilarity.

The U.S. Army Counterinsurgency Field Manual

2007-08-24T12:35:00.000-04:00

Hello and welcome to the U.S. Army’s Counterinsurgency Field Manual. The purpose of this manual is to update army strategy in order to cope with the ever evolving and changing insurgency in present day Iraq. Winning the War on Terror is not going to be easy, and this manual has taken this into account. After heavy pensivity and thinkingness, as well as innumerable and valuable contributions from the best and brightest minds in the field of military strategy, we have developed a three stage strategy for counterinsurgency: 1) Winning the War 2) Winning the Peace and 3) Winnie the Pooh. We firmly believe that following these steps, victory will be virtually insured…assured. Shit, I always get those confused.

Stage 1: Winning the War
Losing is not an option. There are those who say we should cut and run, but we here at the Pentagon don’t run with scissors. Instead, we intend to use these very metaphorical scissors to puncture the proverbial veil of secrecy behind this insurgency. We are in a way, haircutters, but instead of cutting hair we shoot people and instead of blow drying hair we blow up houses. In every other way we are like haircutters. Except that many haircutters are of the homosexual persuasion and we have banned their kind in our elite fighting force of heterosexual masculine dominance (and women). I guess my point is, we need to kill the terrorists. And we’re going to use guns and a shitload of bombs. That is our new war strategy. Now, I know what some of you are thinking. But Mr. Pentagon isn’t that what you were doing before. Yes it is. More questions? Yeah, how is this adapting to the ever-evolving insurgency? It’s not, precisely because evolution isn’t real. The insurgency only looks like it’s evolving, but really it’s always looked this way because God created it to be this way.

Stage 2: Winning the Peace
A lot of folks in Washington try to simplify the war too much. A war is a complex thing. It’s like a cake. There are a lot of ingredients and when you fuck up, it’s ok, cause you can just throw it out and start over again. Shooting the insurgents dead isn’t the only way we must approach this war. The Army is no longer solely a well-oiled, disturbingly well-equipped, bloodthirsty government death squad; it’s also a political and social tool. Winning the Peace is about utilizing the softer side of the army, the “downy” side if you will. Greeting Iraqis with a smile and hand gesture is often enough to win over even the harshest of insurgents. And maybe give them some candy or something. Hell if I know.

Stage 3: Winnie the Pooh
This is a crucial element to our new counterinsurgency plan. Some of you may be old enough to remember our less politically correct “Winnie the Gook” campaign during Vietnam. Oh man, ol’ Charlie loved playing with those toys right up until the moment they detonated with the high explosives and napalm they were packed with. However, this time we will be dropping actual bears stuffed with stuffing I believe. Will it be explosive stuffing you ask? I like your style, but unfortunately some of the “officials” in Washington won’t allow that. But what the hell am I gonna do if a couple of rogue soldiers stuff their bears with homemade napalm using these readily accessible ingredients in the following proportions: 1 part Styrofoam, 2 parts gasoline. But I digress. Our objective here is to kill them with kindness. Kindness mixed with bullets and napalm. Also, one note, if you accidentally receive a shipment of “Whiny the Jew” bears, please discard them. This are an earlier prototype that was ultimately discarded.

Well, you’ve now learned everything you need to know about counterinsurgency strategy. This concludes the operations component of the field manual. Thanks for reading and remember, if it moves, it’s probably a terrorist so shoot.

If you liked this, you might also like:
The Vietnam War: Of Course We Won
Arabs: Why are they all terrorists?
Military Invasions For Dummies
The Bay of Pigs: Perfection in a Plan
Winnie the Pooh and the Heffalump
HALO

Holy Shit, We're Back

2007-08-24T12:32:00.000-04:00

Yes, after a very extended blogging vacation because of a sweet trip to Europe the staff won (the Voice bet us they would write at least one worthwhile article this past year) the blog is back. So sit tight, hold onto your nutsacks/respective genitalia, and prepare for a mind orgasm of hilarity.

Inside the Heckler Vault

2007-06-22T04:24:00.000-04:00

Here at Heckler Central, we take great pride in our absolute and unquestioned infallibility. Nevertheless, from time to time, an article submitted to our print issue finds itself revised or altered from its original state. This is the work of the Heckler's crack editorial team, whose members use draconian censorship as a means of disguising their shameful adult illiteracy.

What follows is the restored and digitally remastered version of our popular "Letters to the Heckler" column. Loyal readers will recall seeing it in our first print issue this year. Ha ha, seriously though, they won't recall seeing anything because they don't even exist. Holy Christ, I hate this job.

* * * *

Dear Heckler,
I loved your look at the new Democratic majority in Congress (“Donkeys Throw a Punch,” Jan. 2007). Those were some fascinating profiles! One question, though: are you absolutely sure Barney Frank cut the throat of that Malaysian hooker? I don’t remember hearing about that before.

Timothy Gleason
COL ’09

Barney knows what he did, Tim. This is between him and God now. Just remember: nobody runs forever, Mr. Frank. Nobody runs forever.

Dear Heckler,
I enjoyed your recent interview with Dakota Fanning immensely (“Our Biggest Fanning,” Dec. 2006), but I have to take issue with some of the techniques employed by your reporter. For example, although interviewers often try to “get a reaction” out of a celebrity, it was inappropriate to tell Dakota that her new puppy would “almost certainly die” unless she was nominated for an Oscar. Additionally, while I can sympathize with the writer’s frustration over Ms. Fanning’s seemingly boundless desire for more apple juice, calling the actress a “greedy little cunt” was probably out of line.

Laura McCallihan
SFS ’08

Are you kidding? That little bastard could pound juice boxes like they were cans of PBR. Why am I still arguing with you about this? God, this is just like my divorce.

Dear Heckler,
Hey guys. Great cover story on global warming last week (“Hot Enough For Ya?” Feb. 2007). I never realized how much of what we hear is just liberal “junk science”. The problem is, my friends keep telling me you’re wrong, and higher temperatures aren’t really caused by the muffled screams of Terri Schiavo. Some of them are even implying that I must be a phenomenal retard to believe this shit. Who should I trust?

Jeremy Rifkin
SFS ’07

Sorry to break this to you, Jeremy, but your friends are idiots. Believe what you want, but when your precious “scientist” friends at the New York Times launch their Beer Hall Putsch against America, don’t come crying to us for a brand new feeding tube.

Dear Heckler,
My girlfriend got me a subscription to your paper for Valentine’s Day. The first issue was funny, but there were Cheetos stains on a lot of the pages, and it looked like someone had drawn pornographic sketches all over the margins. Also, the whole issue smelled vaguely of cat urine. Are you guys doing something to my magazine?

Scott Tufnell
MSB ’10

It’s our policy at the Heckler to give each issue a personal touch. If that means engaging in marathon, six hour, Frito-Lay-fueled masturbation sessions to our own hand-drawn amateur smut, then that’s the sacrifice we’re willing to make. The cat piss thing we’re still looking into.

Dear Heckler,
Sometimes after I finish your magazine, I feel a deep sense of loathing for our modern secular culture, and a concern over the debasement of art by shallow proletarian pamphleteering. Why do you suppose this is?

Mitchell Sanders
COL ’09

You are reading the National Review. Please pay closer attention to your next newsstand purchase.

Dear Heckler,
What is wrong with you people? First it was the threatening letters, then the razor blades under my pillow, and now this thing about a dead Malaysian prostitute? I can’t even close my eyes anymore. Last night I saw one of your reporters hiding in my azalea bushes, and when I woke up there was horse blood on my carpet. My own mother won’t return my phone calls. Jesus, why are you doing this to me?

Barney Frank
Not Enrolled

Sorry, Mr. Frank, but it’s too late to apologize. Making enemies with the Heckler was your first mistake. Letting us see your ATM code was your second. Hold on tight, Mr. Frank. It’s going to be a wild ride.

Great Pick-up Lines

2007-06-19T00:01:00.000-04:00

Try this one on for size:

Baby, I'm like quicksand. The more you struggle, the harder it gets.

I've tried it three times and all three ended in me getting laid...with a rape indictment.

Alternate Histories

2007-06-13T03:10:00.000-04:00

Modern science informs us that today’s world is the result of thousands of years of so-called “history”. But what would life be like if humanity’s most pivotal moments had turned out differently?

Event: 480 B.C.: Spartans surrender at Battle of Thermopylae.
Result: Persians conquer Greece, wiping out the nascent arts of gyro preparation and anal sex. King Xerxes expands his empire to unknown realms, but cannot ease the aching loneliness in his heart. With help from a plucky palace orphan, he learns that true happiness must come from within. He announces this discovery in a heartwarming speech widely credited with teaching the world to love again.

Event: A.D. 33: Jesus escapes from the cross.
Result: Making a break from his bumbling Roman captors, the Son of Man reconvenes with his team of scrappy but loyal Apostles in downtown Nazareth. Realizing they have been set up, Jesus and his crew decide to turn the other fist on the biggest Roman of all: Tiberius “Big Papa” Caesar. Outside the Emperor’s apartment, James and Peter distract the local authorities, while Jesus crawls through a series of overhead ducts before dropping down on a shocked Tiberius in bed with his woman. “Render unto Caesar,” quips the Messiah just before delivering the fatal blow.

Event: A.D. 1492: Columbus turns back.
Result: Due to the explorer’s failure to overthrow prevailing scientific consensus, the Earth remains flat for an additional three centuries. Magellan expedition ends in horrifying (though highly predictable) tragedy. Native Americans are forced to waste time and energy spreading smallpox amongst themselves.

Event: A.D. 1865: Lincoln survives.
Result: Flush with the success of his recent Emancipation Proclamation, the thrill-seeking president spends the rest of his term engaging in ever wilder acts of public emancipation. He begins modestly, emancipating his dog Scooter from the corner of the White House sofa, but soon alarms the public with campaigns to emancipate children from their mothers, diabetics from their insulin, and women from their virginity. When a visibly wild-eyed Lincoln announces his plan for the nationwide emancipation of toilet paper from public restrooms, he is visited by the wise and plucky King Xerxes, who teaches him the important lesson that true friendship is God’s most precious gift. They hug as history ends on a freeze-frame.

Event: A.D. 1962: Mick Jagger turns down offer to join Rolling Stones.
Result: Hot rain falls up. Sea mammals begin to die in a baffling wave of extinction, while a strange virus leads to the elimination of all world religions. The Earth’s rotation is spontaneously reversed, causing Zombie Hitler to rise from his grave and conquer the Sudetenland. Beatles have #1 hit for 1965.

Event: A.D. 2006: Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff take each other’s lives in three-day New York shootout.
Result: World peace.

Hold Your Horses, They Finally Made a Barbaro Documentary

2007-06-09T13:19:00.000-04:00

Goddamnit! Why is this Barbaro shit still happening?? Last week HBO aired the first Barbaro documentary, entitled "Barbaro." For the love of god stop this shit. The first line of the New York Times review is: "Caution: Tears will flow." FALSE. Barbaro was a horse. He tripped, broke his leg, and was then executed because the family that owned him didn't want to pay for his upkeep any longer. Now, show me where the tragedy is. The real tragedy is that this documentary was made.

Now, let's just assume that the entire production cost for this documentary was about $100,000, which is a pretty conservative estimate, especially for an HBO documentary. After DVD sales and other commercial activity, let's assume that movie brings in another $100,000, which again I think is pretty conservative. That means the total amount of money involved in the film is about $200,000. Don't you think $200,000 could be spent more wisely than on a fucking horse? Now, think about this. According to the Doctors Without Borders website, for $50 you can buy crucial, life-saving vaccines for 50 people. That means that for the $200,000 spent on the Barbaro documentary, we could have given 200,000 people vaccines that they needed. Let's assume that even 1/4 of these people die, because they don't get these essential vaccines. That's 50,000 dead people. That blood is on Barbaro's hooves. But wait you say, Barbaro is dead, how could he have done this? Well, we have a name for people that are dead and yet still kill others: zombies. I've seen "Dawn of the Dead" so I say we take this whole Barbaro thing and shoot it in the fucking head and let it die once and for all. Amen.