Don't Get Abandonment Issues

Since all the other members of the class of 09 seem to be taking their leave, I guess I will too. Granted, the past year I've been more of a lurker and less of a writer, but that doesn't change the fact that there've been some fun times at this site. Still, it's time for us to leave this more student-oriented site to the students. If you want to hear more pointless ramblings, though, stop by KLYAM for some fun stuff.

A Visit from the Co-Founder

Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the site
Étudiants' laziness
Had reached its height.
Two news posts, then YouTube?
A mention of me?
Nothing on President
Bob Mugabe?

It's called newsmap, buddy.
I sent you the link.
Refer to it
So your website won't stink.
But slow days on this blog
Aren't anything new.
Tonight everybody
Has something to do.

But since I'm a nice guy
I came back tonight
To bring back some quality
To my old site.
No one in my basement
But me and some mouses
So I'll kill some time
By going to some houses.

Already had dinner,
Can't unwrap 'til twelve
So into your psyches
This poem will delve.
Acting like Santa,
Put in Chris's sock
The mic that Bill Hicks used
To suck Satan's cock.

As for my friend Fallon,
I went to his place
And dropped off a fancy new
Electric bass.
To reach Hurton's place
I traveled through fog
To drop off some leashes
That fit on a dog.

He's a dog sitter
So give him your cash.
I can't do it.
Dogs give me a rash.
I gave Ryan Suh
A new tennis racket
That surely would get him
Into the top bracket.

Did you know Liz
Has a dog named Bichon?
I gave her a scooper
For poop on the lawn,
The living room, bed,
Kitchen, yard, and basement...
Liz just wonders
Where her bass guitar went.

And as we all know,
Glen cannot get laid
So I gave my friend
An inflatable maid.
I went down his chimney
And sneezed from the dust.
Too bad for me
That this trip was a bust!

Glen had been sleeping,
But woke up, said, "Hey!
Completely forgot
A new song of the day!"

So he went to the hallway,
Noticed something queer.
Saw me, asked
"What the hell you doing here?"

"Just dropping a gift off,"
I said with a smile.
Then he says,
"You haven't posted for a while.
You need to come back, Ben!
The site has sucked wind
Ever since you went
And left it behind!"

"I can't come back, Glen.
That would be so lame.
I'm in college, 'Wakefield'
Is in the site's name!
I live there no longer.
The city's my home.
I can't keep on writing
For a high school tome."

Glen replied to me,
"Yet you have the gall
To come to my house
With a big blow-up doll."
And I said, "Come on man,
You guys don't need me."
"That's not what you said
Back in stanza three!"

"Okay, so I lie,
But it's friendly advice!
All so you won't make the
Same mistake twice.
I know you have ideas to
Make this site great!"
Then remembered 2.0
And said "Oh, wait."

Then I told Glen,
"Look on the bright side for once.
Your numbers are decent,
God knows you're no dunce.
You and the others
Can get what you want
And make '09 the year
Of the Étudiant!

There's plenty of talent.
It hasn't been harnessed.
Guns haven't been slung yet.
Swords haven't been varnished."
Maganzini told me
"You suck at rhyming!"
"Hey, give me credit for
Rhythmic timing!"

As I headed home, heard,
"Will you post again?"
And then replied, "Only
Every now and then.
Étudiant's yours now.
Update it with care."
And then I left his house
And messed up my hair.

So let us look forward
To 2009
And end this poem,
Which has been so asinine.
Hope you all have
A fun-filled Christmas night.
Happy holidays, y'all,
And visit my new site!

College Essays are Pointless

Section E: Essay
Please show us your soul. Limit 250 words.

Might as well be the case. seriously, what the hell is the point of these "show us who you are" essays? Isn't that what the interviews are for? Do people even read these fucking things?You want to know about my personality, huh? Want to know as much about me as you can? Bullshit. How many people are gonna write, "well, I do tend to be a dick sometimes...oh, and I hate gay people!"? Not to mention 90% of the important details of your life that can't be copy and pasted into a two inch long text box as part of an 18 page form that nobody's gonna fucking care about...unless you don't do it though, then you're screwed!

I'm getting a serious urge to send a steaming pile of shit with every form. You may think this is antagonistic- I disagree. Because I believe the remnants of my diet are going to tell a shitload more about me than any half-assed trite I can write on these stupid forms. Have a great day.

Oh, and sorry for the language. I'm a bit annoyed.

Actions, Consequences

When the Mormon church creates, funds and airs political ads that seek to take away the rights people already have, it loses its right to cry foul if someone points that out (“Gays target Mormons,” Dec. 3). What Jonah Goldberg fails to realize is that those “wealthy gay liberals” (and boundless others against Prop. 8) are still taxed, while the Mormon church is not. “Religious freedom of conscience” has nothing to do with interfering with politics; if the Mormon church wants to be involved in politics, it has to follow the rules.

- Matt Hurton, Wakefield

Source: Boston Herald

Yep, you read that right. Matt Hurton, an Étudiant writer, wrote a letter to the editor of the Boston Herald last week. His letter was published in today's issue.

Sites Worth A Visit: TVTropes.org

Personal note: I'm not sure if this will be a recurring thing: I just heart anagrams.

If you expect to see youtube on here anytime soon, don't hold your breath. There's no need to focus on sites everyone already visits. No, this will be for sites that aren't quite as well known, though definitely should be. This is SWAV-Sites Worth A Visit.

Let's start off the first addition of SWAV with a personal favorite: TVTropes.org. To give you a picture, think of Wikipedia... Now, instead of being about random shit no one cares about, imagine it is about every single solitary interesting facet of television, film, literature, internet culture, and all mediums in between. And now, most importantly, imagine it's actually interesting. That's TVTropes in a nutshell. Every page is a concise, tongue-in-cheek explanation of anything you need or want to know about common writer themes, ideas, plot twists, and more- or tropes, as they are lovingly (or not so much) called. Trust me, it may not seem like much, but it's Better Than it Sounds (a page title, by the way). If you visit, I can assure you you'll get at least moderately addicted to the "Random Page" button. Plus, the site is so large and the user base so friendly that you can never get tired of it. I'd have to give the site a 9.5/10, only because I've never seen the perfect website before.

To visit the site just go to www.tvtropes.org. The front page will give you more than enough of an explanation (probably far better than the one I gave you here)
This is open to all Étudiants, by the way. It'll be interesting to see everybody's interests.

Liberals Need to Stop

What's this? A person that admittedly leans left more often than not speaking against the actions of liberals? The only thing more unusual than this is the fact that I'm posting here again. I have to remember to thank Glen for keeping my name on, as I admit I haven't been the most regular visitor.

But I need to get back to the point here. Even though I'm leaning Obama...hell, if I leaned much more my knee-caps might break... I am starting to see some really disturbing stuff all around me. Whether it's in public, online, in television broadcasts, or whatever, there is an absolute lack of any objectivity or, well, thought process.

To give you an example: Say a Democratic senator who had been working with the government for twenty-five years after serving his country abroad for seven years ran for president. He has passed a respectable amount of respected laws and bills, and has a record of working along with the other party to meet compromises. And now picture the Republican candidate: A constitutional lawyer turned senator who, a good year and a half into his first term, begins planning his campaign for president. He has passed almost no laws, let alone voted on many, has had little to no impact on the political scene, and has one of the most conservative voting records in history on both social and economic policy. Not to mention he has a host of ill-conceived and downright stupid connections to people that he just happened to forget to mention to the public. And the people are fawning over him. No matter how much anyone attempts to expose his faults, it is either denied, ignored, or, ironically, attacked as irrelevant or racist. Oh, he's black by the way. Not that that should matter.

You might be saying to yourself...well, actually, you're probably already thinking to yourself if this applies to you, those are lies! Those don't apply to Obama! OFF WITH HIS HEAD!!! Wait, nevermind, that was the McCain rally crowd.

Well, the fact is, a lot of the things the McCain campaign says are falsehoods, and there are a strong number of redeeming qualities about Obama. However, that's not the way everyone seems to think about him. He is infallible.He cannot be attacked, because anything negative said about him is clearly wrong. There's no way McCain can be better than him, ever, so there's no reason to listen to criticism.

Come on people. You need to occasionally think about things. You need to use that thing in your skull that you keep relatively active during the school day (well, unless you're Maio, but he's not rabid either way so I'll let him have his nap). There's nothing wrong with supporting Obama as long as you BACK IT UP!!! Don't shut down anything and everything that could possibly take him off his pedestal. Because if you do, you're just following a mindset that could allow far more dangerous people to be put into positions of leadership with no experience and far more sinister plan's than the Illinois Senator has for this nation.

I mean Christ, people, that kind of thinking could get Palin elected!

Sharing My Taste in Music

I've told Glen about this guy so much that I thought it was time to share him with the rest of the Ètudiant. Ladies and Gentleman (who am I kidding, Lady and Gentlemen), Citizen Cope-Salvation:






The non-acoustic is on youtube, too, if you wanna look it up. He has a pretty decently sized collection of songs.

Money as Debt

I just thought this was a really interesting video that some of our readers, and even more so, most of our writers, would like to see. The rest of the videos are on youtube for those that wish to continue watching parts 2-5

Signs That the Apocalypse is Nigh

I know that Chris already had a quite humorous list up, but the difference here is that these things ACTUALLY HAPPENED. And instead of doing the whole list by myself, I'm going to make my own contribution and ask the rest of my fellow Ètudiants to put in their share.

1) Despite eight years of George Bush, a $9.6 trillion dollar deficit, a war started on false pretenses, a hurricane wiping out a famous city without the government batting an eye, loss of freedom through wiretapping and a redefinition of torture, it looks like the Democrats are so Godawful that they STILL can't come up with someone to beat a man with a voting record 95% similar to the presidents, more than anyone else.

2) A country actually successfully... err... actually bombed Russia (technically "South Ossetia"... whatever). WWIII here we come? No. NO ONE CARED.

3) I still haven't finished my summer assignments (GASP)

4) The Cubs and Tampa Bay currently have the best records in their respective leagues.

5) Large Hadron Collider...just... Large Hadron Collider

6) The U.S.'s biggest issue with the Chinese is currently that their athletes are too young (cough cough human rights cough cough)

All This Week in É

Got a friend named Glen
Strange to Boston men
Prays to God and catches cod
As fishes swarm again
His politics are bait
His victims just can't wait
To disagree and say that he
Is stiffer than a plate
But he just laughs and harnesses
The power of their hate
All this week in É
Athletes went to play
Swimming man got one more fan
And much more golden pay
All this week in É

See another star?
He's returned from afar
Walks so long to share his song
'Cause he don't have a car
Man who loves Pink Floyd
Left a mighty void
Even though a former foe
Said he must be destroyed
He used his punk rock spirit
With dissenters he toyed
All this week in É
War was here to stay
Do believe that death won't leave
Much to our dismay
All this week in É

Old friend plays the bass
Freshness in his face
Be impressed that he's obsessed,
His words, with this place
Man with perfect grades
Joins our escapades
Lit or math, don't know what path
He'll take when high school fades
Quite nice that we admins
Have such folk as aides
All this week in É
Battlefield's okay
Things improve, but we won't move
For many a day
All this week in É

Me, I'm almost done
Won't forget the fun
I have had, and I'm so glad
To know everyone
My time here must end
To it, others tend
And I must give them my trust
For I am a friend
Hope that I'll move upward
That I don't pretend
All this week in É
Readers yelled hooray
We broke news and sang the blues
Updates every day
All this week in É
Readers yelled hooray
We broke news and sang the blues
Updates every day
All this week in É

This Week in É: July 18-26, 2008

We've spent this week preparing for the big re-launch on September 1. É2.0 will take much more than six people to run, so we need all the help we can get. More details here.
Meanwhile, I've finally joined Glen and Chris in their video series, talking about a recent show and loudly covering favorite songs. We welcomed our promising new writer, Cameron Williams. Follow his lead and join the revolution!

Vanity Fair Spoofs the New Yorker

The jocks of the glossy magazine world have spoofed the nerds. Conde Nast's Vanity Fair has posted a mock cover showing Sen. John McCain dapping his wife Cindy, who cradles an armful of prescription drug bottles. A portrait of George W. Bush hangs in the background of their fictional "house." McCain is shown resting on a walker.

Wait, that's supposed to be a joke?

And that paragraph had way too many typos for a short news story.

This Week in É: July 10-17, 2008

Who had the best week here at the Étudiant? Perhaps it was Glen, who briefly saw Suzuki Smith on Saturday, leading me to create this tongue twister: "Someone saw Suzuki Smith Saturday." Say that five times fast. Chris and I can also brag of having gone to a great show this week. The big three of the Étudiant saw Palm, Abe Vigoda, High Places, and No Age on Monday, and will review the concert in an upcoming video!
Meanwhile, Fallon took a trip to the Union's most boring state, New Hampshire. Liz welcomed Rex Lam back from China in a video that defies description. Chris turned 18, I listened to some music, and Ryan Suh still hasn't posted since March. Come on, man.

Hiroshima II: The Reckoning

TOKYO (AP) — Thousands of Japanese rallied against the permanent basing of a nuclear-powered U.S. warship near Tokyo, saying a recent on board fire made it unsafe.
About 13,000 protesters gathered Sunday at a park near the port of Yokosuka, just south of the capital, where the USS George Washington aircraft carrier will be based, media reports and organizers said.
The George Washington — relieving the soon-to-be decommissioned USS Kitty Hawk — will be the first U.S. Navy nuclear-powered vessel to station permanently in Japan.
The ship's arrival was originally set for August under a Japan-U.S. security deal, but was delayed because of a fire aboard the vessel in May.
The George Washington's deployment had already triggered protests, and the fire escalated concerns many Japanese have about nuclear power.
Some 250 residents have filed a lawsuit seeking to block the aircraft carrier from basing in Japan.
People in Japan, the only country to suffer from atomic bombings, tend to be sensitive about the military use of nuclear technology. The U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 killed at least 200,000.
The U.S. Navy has said that the George Washington's fire, which left one sailor with minor burns and 23 others with heat stress, never threatened the safety of the ship's nuclear reactor.
However, some of the protesters questioned the safety of the vessel Sunday.
"The U.S. military has not fully disclosed the cause (of the fire)," said Masahiko Goto, a lawyer representing local residents, Kyodo News agency reported.
"Japan should not allow a deployment when serious safety concerns remain," Goto said.
The Kitty Hawk, which was commissioned in 1961, has been home-ported in Japan since 1998 as the only forward-deployed carrier in the U.S. Navy. It is the Navy's last conventionally powered aircraft carrier.

Oh sh...
NUKE WAR!!!

This Week in É: July 3-10, 2008

I've realized something: the other writers are slowly, but surely, taking over. Not that that's a bad thing - I'm out of here at the end of August anyway - in fact, it's led to another big week here. Glen posted his AP History essay on Prohibition, drawing the attention of The Prohibition Era author Suzanne Lieurance. A few days later, Glen posted the hilarious viral video, "I'm Voting Republican", prompting a comment from one of the video's stars, Jason J. Baker, A.K.A. Rev. David Madison.
Meanwhile, Chris and Glen talked about Chomksy and the Minutemen, Fallon took some photos, and we all put our music players on shuffle. As for me, I'm just trying to stay tuned to the latest news. The fun never ends...and stay tuned for the much-hyped revamp, which Glen and I have been working on, along with a talented designer named Ed Vo....

What We Listen To

Well, this can't POSSIBLY turn out well, seeing as I never, EVER clean out my iPod... in fact, my brother and sisters songs are on it, too. Whatever, lets just put it on shuffle and see the first 15 songs we get.

CRAP, I had it on alphabetical, not shuffle. Well, here's the shuffle:

1) Rolling Stones- Sympathy for the Devil
2) Queen (and David Bowie)- Under Pressure
3) U2- Vertigo
4) The Gorillaz- 19-2000
5) Brett Dennen- Ain't No Reason (Glen and I have had some good laughs over that one)
6) Bill Withers- Ain't No Sunshine
7) Fountains of Wayne- All Kinds of Time
8) Smash Mouth- All Star (I TOLD you this thing hasn't been cleaned out in a while)
9) 311- Amber
10) Team America: World Police- America, Fuck Yeah
11) Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers- American Girl (...I don't even know)
12) Da Vinci's Notebook- Another Irish Drinking Song
13) Leroy- Away
14) The Who- Baba O'Riley (NOT Teenage Wasteland!)
15) AC/DC- Back in Black

Well, there's my mediocre taste in music. You may now attack me.

Colbert Talks About Carlin

I love the tongue in cheek swearing at the end.

Alzheimer's Answer Looms

WASHINGTON - Harvard Medical School researchers have uncovered a new clue
to the cause of Alzheimer’s disease.
The brains of people with the
memory-robbing form of dementia are cluttered with a plaque made up of
beta-amyloid, a sticky protein.
But there long has been a question whether
this is a cause of the disease or a side effect.
Now, researchers have caused Alzheimer’s symptoms in rats by injecting them
with one particular form of beta-amyloid.
Those rats had impaired memory
function, especially for newly learned behaviors.
When the mouse brains were inspected, the density of brain cells was
reduced by 47 percent with the beta-amyloid seeming to affect synapses, the
connections between cells that are essential for communication between
them.
The research, for the first time, showed the effect of a particular
type of beta-amyloid in the brain, said Morrison-Bogorad.- Associated
Press

Huh? What? Who are you?

Aw, What a Cute Little....Leopard? Wait, What?

Neosho, Mo.- Biologists said a big black cat killed by a sheriff's deputy is a
leopard. Newton County Sheriff's Corp. Donn hall shot the animal when it charged at him on May 19. A woman had reported a cat was scratching at the door of her home near Neosho.- Boston Herald

How the HELL do you confuse a "cat scratching on your door" with a friggin leopard? They get up to three feet tall!

Oh, shi- CUT THE MIKE!!!

A student intending to make a speech criticizing school administrators at her
high school graduation was cut off in mid-sentence and told to leave the
ceremony.
Jennifer Chau, the salutatorian at Mainland Regional High School,
started to criticize school administration Thursday night for allegedly playing
favorites among students. She scrapped a text that was approved in advance by
the school.
"I know this is a community that values education," she said.
"That is why you need to know what is really going on behind the walls of
Mainland's administrat-"
At that point, Chau's microphone was cut off and
school principal Robert Blake told her she would have to leave.
Chau left to
chants of "Let her speak!" and "Finish!"
The Georgetown University-bound
senior had a dispute with the school over not receiving credit for an honors
class she took in her freshman year. She claims that was one reason she finished
second in her graduating class, behind a student whose mother is a member of the
board of education.
Blake defended his decision to end Chau's speech.
"The
student was regressing beyond what we worked with her on, and that's the end of
it," he said. "I've met with her on a number of occasions, and I'd be glad to
talk with her about her (complaints). This is certainly not the place. In this
venue, we are responsible for what is said out here. This is not somebody's
front yard."-Boston Herald

The most hilarious part about this story is that my mom thought I should care.