"Drink More Milk"
November 14, 2003
It's odd that I mention cookies in here. Cookies are OK, but I guess sometimes you need to exaggerate to make a point.
Milk is a wonderful thing. It strengthens your bones, won't rot your teeth (as fast as Mountain Dew, anyway), and promotes world peace. However, even the mighty moo juice has weaknesses: heat and substandard containment devices, also known as cardboard. This evil pair can curdle the strongest of whole milks, rendering them funky and, worse yet, chunky.
Smoky Hill students were rescued from this awful fate last year with the introduction of the milk vending machine in the cafeteria. Free from the tyranny of the squat boxes (Boxes? BOXES? Milk in a box is asinine), the milk now flows freely. For just $1.25, an ice-cold bottle of milk can be yours.
I love milk. I think it's the cat's meow. For me, the introduction of this high-tech new machine was a breath of fresh air. Since I don't care much for pop, my choices were water or these neon-colored bottles of water, sugar and electrolytes my friends called "PowerAde". Neither of these choices cut it when freshly baked cookies are in question. A situation like that calls for milk. Cookies combined with milk are an almost unstoppable force.
Lately, though, the new milk machine in the cafeteria has taunted me. A couple of weeks ago, I was taking a stroll through the halls when I felt the need for the milk of life. I headed to the cafeteria to get my fix, and was surprised to find a bottle caught in the machine, just waiting to fall down. Sadly, it was not a bottle of milk, but one of the lesser treasures - orange juice. Still, I'm not the type to pass up a free drink, so I tried to bump the wayward juice with my own milk purchase. It would not be that simple, however.
My milk was now caught behind the orange juice. Drat. My friend, Rory, another fan of the machine, had decided that a purchase of a milkshake was justified. Being positioned directly above the two trapped bottles, we figured the impact of the shake would loosen my trapped beverages. Unfortunately, it did not come to pass. Frustrated, Rory and I proceeded, in our infinite wisdom, to spend approximately $5 more in the machine, bottles piling up the whole time. Out of time and hard cash, we left the machine, dejected and thirsty.
Some time later, we decided to venture our luck again with the machine. Our love-hate relationship was still more love than hate at this point, so we were feeling optimistic. With no trapped bottles to entice us this time, we just decided to get our drinks and get out - as if it would ever be that simple. The machine took our money but refused to give us our selection, even when the desired beverage was in plain sight. After trying to purchase everything in the machine, we finally hit the money return lever.
We were surprised when we got back two shiny Susan B. Anthony dollars and not the two crisp dollar bills we had put in to begin with. Again we set off, drinkless and weighed down by coins.
So let this be a warning, students. The mik machine can bestow great fits to those it deems worthy. But do not get your hopes up too high, for the milk machine is unto a god in its domain. No human can hope to fathom the mysteries of its depths or its glorious riches.
"The only traffic solution"
February 13, 2004
This one was originally titled "The final traffic solution". That one didn't fly, for some reason...Also, I loved the word 'corollary'.
Traffic as Smoky Hill seems to grow worse with every teenager who earns his license. The lines just to reach the parking lot in the mornings seem to stretch on eternally, to the enjoyment of those who are looking for any excuse to miss a bit of school, but to the detriment of most everyone else. Luckily, I have found the perfect answer tot his dire problem, a quotient with no remainder, a square peg in a square hole.
The solution, of course, is to annex Laredo and raze it. Beautiful, no? Why this has never been attempted in the past is beyond my reasoning. It offers several advantages:
- Plenty of space for a new parking lot.
- Less stress on Laredo Street.
- Vast reduction in middle school students, affectionately known as "speed bumps."
Corollary: With the reduction in low-intelligence middle school students around the greater Smoky HIll area, more discriminating cultural institutions will give Aurora the high culture reputation it has been lacking.
The first two advantages are obvious: Laredo Middle School is a fairly large building, and making a parking lot out of it will allow for an easy tripling of the current parking lot size. This will eliminate parking crunches and the first-come, first-serve nature of the current parking pass system. The long distance from the spaces farthest from Smoky Hill could prove to be a vexing conundrum, to which I believe the most expedient solution can be summed up in one word: monorail.
Similarly, much of the traffic in the morning and after school is the result of the intersection of Laredo and Smoky Hill traffic. Eliminating Laredo traffic from that equation gives Smoky traffic the priority it deserves. Also, not having to look out for small children means that Lreado could be used for street racing from the hours of 8-2 for those of you with one or more periods off.
The third point is most immediately evident to those of you who already possess a driver's license. Everyone knows how annoying it is to have to wait on annoying, hesitant middle schoolers when trying to get out of the parking lot. They don't know when to walk, and the resulting indecision slows everyone down, a phenomenon we could do without. It's inevitable that these timid beings accidentally get a love tap from someone's H2 every now and then. However, this is something that should generally be avoided, as the resulting forms and incarceration are rarely worth the trouble.
The corollary to my third point is really the most exciting effect of this proposal. Everyone knows that tht areas surrounding Smoky HIll to the south are the domain of rich white kids and the aforementioned H2s. While this affluence is great for the local economy, the commercial areas in close proximity to Smoky Hill due not do much for property values - after all, who wants to live next to a Walmart. This is easily remedied, however. As the average IQ of the Smoky Hill area increases due [sic] to lower concentrations of middle school children, respectable cultural institutions will flock to the area, revitalizing southern Aurora or Centennial or whatever it's called. Museums on par with the Smithsonian and the Louvre are not hard to fathom with the new cultural construction boom.
Who will build all of this, you may ask? The middle school children, of course! Out of school and brainwashed of virtually all independent thinking due to years of institutionalized learning, these gangs of children will will make the perfect construction workers. They will learn valuable trade skills that are hard to come by in any other manner. Uniions are a possible problem, but they can be dealt with. Really, the advantages of this situation are numerous and downsides very minor. Modern safety equipment has lowered the average number of maimings per hour of construction to levels most everyone considers acceptable.
Clearly, there are no flaws to my plan as I have worked out every conceivable problem ahead of time. If you truly love Smoky Hill, you will join me in destroying Laredo to the ground to pave the way for a shining new future.
"Swami-Jeff: Predictions for the future"
March 26, 2004
This byline came with the position of "crazy editorial guy." That long name did hilarious things to the typesetting algorithm.
Among my other numerous and extraordinary abilities is a handy little trick I picked up from a man in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, Wales. He told me his secret shortly before being lynched for wizardry. You see, after many careful years of study, he had developed a workable mechanism of clairvoyance. He used it mainly to be on the weekly sheep races in his hometown, but this was eventually his downfall. His neighbors didn't take too kindly to his fixing of the weekly Llanfair Ovine Derby, and they let him know in a most brutal, if creative, manner. Since our glorious Union offers more protection for 'unusual' talents than the backwater hole that is the United Kingdom, I will put my power to use by making predictions that benefit humanity as a whole.
First off is the topic that has dominated world news for decades - the Middle East. IN a stunning move that shocks the world, the three major religions of the region unite to form a top-notch baseball team. Sick and tired of bumbling morons handing the Yankees their 90th straight championship, the Monotheists plan to finally give those good-for-nothing Yanks a run for the money that seems to ooze from their black, black veins. With Jesus batting clean-up, the new team's prospects look OK - certainly better than the rest of baseball.
In a victory that surprises very few, George W. Bush wins the U.S. Presidential race. Running on a platform of "Terrorism...baaaad," Bush sweeps key states such as Iowa and North Dakota, ensuring complete and total victories over the so-called "Pagen terrorists." His inaugural address condemns such morally reprehensible and publicly dangerous ideas such as homosexuality and evolution. In a never-before tried move, the president introduces and unilaterally passes legislation banning speech disparaging "to the President of any persons of power within His Great Administration." Most citizens are pleased when closed-circuit video camera are places in their homes. IN a poll to be conducted jointly by capitalist pillars Halliburton and Diebold, 97.2% of the respondents (+/- 3%) said that they were glad for the new safety precautions. One respondent will say, "We can't trust ourselves to think good thoughts. I know our government will guide us. Long live authority!"
The movie industry spends much of 2004 looking for something to fill the void left by the widely acclaimed film adaptations of The Lord of The Rings saga. The obvious choise for a summer blockbuster is Spider-Man 2, director Sam Raimi's follow up to his 2002 smash. Unfortunately, the movie is canned when Tobey Maguire is crushed under the terrible weight of his own wussiness. The movie industry still has high hopes for big-budget projects such as Son of the Mask and Garfield.
NASA receives a large budget boost thanks to Bush's Mars proposal. Plans are drawn up for a vehicle which runs on pure hope and the socks that go missing in dryers everywhere, able to attain escape velocity in only six loads of wash. Due to rounding erros when converting between international sock sizes, however, the mission flies off into the great unknown, never to be seen again. Few people care.
In personal news, I will stop writing stupid editorials with very little real content. Instead, I will pen the advice column. This seems like an obvious mood [sic], give my sympathetic and caring personality, morons.
There you have it. I didn't say the predictions would be good. I said I'd have them written in time for the deadline. If any of you think you're a better humor columnist than me, you're probably right.
"Senior Farewell"
May 18, 2005
This one was short and jammed in the bottom of the page. I was promoted from "crazy editorial guy" to "rambling derelict."
Well, I was planning on writing a long, expansive novella that offered deep philosophical insight, but it turns out these seven inches were all that was left in the budget. So, I guess I'll make this short and sweet. Smoky Hill was a great ride. I've made some truly great friends. I've also made some average ones. I've had some great teachers. I've had others that I can't really say anything about because four letter words are not appropriate for a school newspaper. School is a metaphor for life as a whole: Just like Smoky Hill is two stories tall, life also has its ups and downs. Most of my favorite classes were on the ground floor, though, which kind of messes with my metaphor. Regardless of which floor you find yourself on (including the bathroom floor), keep your head up because otherwise you'll drown on your own vomit. That, my friends, is a terribly embarrassing way to go.
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