The Muir Quarterly Volume 29 Issue 3

Professor Shows SubwaySurfers Gameplay Videos During Lecture

BY MADDIE SAMANIEGO Staff Writer

During this year’s winter class registration, stu dents rushed to fill those taught by Professor Ted Ious despite his previous low reg istration rates and high drop rates. This sudden change was brought about when Profes sor Ious started to broadcast videos of the popular mobile game Subway Surfers during lectures alongside his Power Point slides.

“I got the idea from my grandkids,” said Dr. Ious. “Whenever they stay over, they always watch these videos on, ah … what’s it called again? Tic-Tac! Anyways, I found that they were paying attention to these longer videos when they had this game behind it, and I figured that my students would have the same response.”

The videos to which Dr. Ious refers have taken hold of the “For You page” of many TikTok users — all with the similar format of a game of Subway Surfers playing while TikTokers read screenshots of typed stories, newspaper ar ticles, and, in one viral video, the entire State Constitution of Minnesota. While the ma jority of popular videos on the app are under a minute long, these videos range from three minutes to three hours, with the longer ones broken up into 10-minute chunks.

“I will admit, when I was researching, I ended up watching these videos for hours instead of going to my own lecture! And for my students, playing this game while I talk has worked won ders. They’re actually show ing up and paying attention!” noted Dr. Ious.

Students are “ecstatic” at this change in lecture style.

“I used to play Coolmath Games during my ‘History of Watching Paint Dry’ lec tures, but now I can’t help but pay attention!” stated student Abb Sent. Reten tion rates have risen in all of Dr. Ious’s classes, in cluding “Study of Buffering Videos,” “Hold Music 101,” and “Watching Water Boil: A Timeline.”

Some people have ex pressed reservations about this change, however. Par ents, guardians, grandpar ents, and others who are investing in their children’s education “don’t under stand the reasoning” be hind Dr. Ious’ decision. “I’m not paying an arm and a leg for my daughter to go here when her professors are just playing video games!

It’s absurd!” remarked one parent, who also stated that she plans on signing the change.org petition to keep video games out of univer sities altogether.

Professors across the country are voicing their support for Dr. Ted Ious. “Af ter the pandemic hit, all of us teachers were blindsided by the significant lack of at tention span that incoming and returning students had. Professor Ious, I owe you one,” stated a professor at UC Santa Barbara.

Education specialists speculate that by the end of this year, significantly more professors will be us ing this retention strategy. Some might even branch out to different back ground videos, including Minecraft parkour game play and soap cutting.

Climate Activist Throws Taco Bell Food

at Sun God, Students Rejoice

NEWS IN BRIEF

MASTERTICKET

Last week, millions of Swifties experienced “sev eral bear attacks” as they attempted to buy tickets for Taylor Swift’s upcoming tour, Eras. As a result of the fiasco, an antitrust probe has been opened on Ticket master. To get ahead of the potential litigation, Tick etmaster CEO Benjamin “Profits over People” Capa taliste announced he would be taking measures to en sure Ticketmaster would not hold a monopoly over the industry any longer.

“I was so shocked by the fact that Ticketmas ter had a monopoly over ticket sales and knew I had to do my part as an Ameri can,” said Capataliste. “So I

opened a brand new com pany, Masterticket, to en sure Ticketmaster would no longer be able to scam the public alone!”

After news of Master ticket’s launch, lovers of music rejoiced. “Finally, a way to support my fa vorite artists without be ing scammed by those assholes at Ticketmaster,” said self-proclaimed Tay lor Swift superfan Alecia Ribbons. “I wish I could meet the genius behind Masterticket and thank them so much for fight ing against those evil bastards over at Ticket master. I’m so glad com petition in the free mar ket has won again.”

STARBUCKS’ HOLIDAY CUPS COST EXTRA THIS YEAR

After years of Novem berly outrage about Star bucks’ holiday red cups, the coffee company has elected to make the con troversial cups an add-on to their drinks instead of the standard cup their beverages would be served in. When taking a cus tomer’s order, Starbucks baristas must now ask if they would like a holiday cup for an extra 79 cents.

Farhad von Trapp, a self-described “disgrun tled” employee at the Del Mar Starbucks on Cami nito Del Mar and 15th Street, stated, “I hate this.

I hate corporate making us ask people to spend

more money instead of just silently charging them. I have to listen to the anti-capitalist hip sters whine about infla tion and plastic waste, and I have to listen to the White Christian fanat ics yell at me about how the liberals are ruining Christmas. I don’t care. Don’t come here to get your stupid overroasted coffee or your stupid Frappuccino that’s 70% ice. I am obligated to ask if you want the stupid cup that some poor graphics intern designed for the year. I’m going to start asking if you actually want a drink in it too.”

BY MATTHEW WARE

This

Gould,

white

‘taco ’bout’ cli mate change,” Gould said to the two students who

NEW APPLE VARIETY DEVELOPED Red vicious

Leaked negotiations reveal that the UC Regents offered to raise gradu ate student stipends to $54,000 per year, but hid the fact that they would be paid in Dining Dollars, a currency only redeemable in UCSD dining halls. Un ion bargainers asked to be paid in Triton Cash instead of Dining Dollars, and UC rejected the proposal, claiming that UWAC’s de mand to be paid a living wage was part of a “Marx ist, social justice” agenda.

UWAC also asked for COLA, a yearly cost of liv ing adjustment, for worker salaries in order to keep up with rising costs due to inflation, but UC said that after buying Chancellor

Khosla a summer property on the moon, they could only afford to give the un ion free soda from CocaCola and sister companies.

HDH Director Phil Thir ich announced that Dining Dollars would now be ac cepted to pay for gradu ate student housing at the “low cost” of 100,000 Din ing Dollars per month for a room in a shared apart ment. When asked about how students are supposed to afford such high rent prices, Thirich sent the link to a UCSD-branded quad ruple bunk bed, saying that students can share a room to save money.

“People often greatly underestimate how much I will inconvenience myself to prove a point.”

—Elon Musk, Owner of Twitter

Distribution Sergeant

past Friday at noon, on the lawn between Mandeville Auditorium and Muir College, UC San Diego student Daniel Gould vandalized the iconic Sun God statue by throwing vari ous Taco Bell food items at

it as a means of “fighting climate change.” This stunt follows the trend of similar protests for climate action, such as last month’s defac ing of Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting with to mato soup in London.

a third-year Busi ness major with a minor in Spanish, was wearing a

shirt during the pro test which reportedly had “Yo Quiero Stop Climate Change” written on it in black Sharpie. Gould also gave a speech as he threw food at Sun God . “The time has come. We can wait no longer to

stopped to listen to him.

“What do you mean, it’s ‘nacho’ business? We are all human ‘beans’ and we have a duty to protect our planet.” Gould then pro ceeded to pull out a box of food items which he threw

Professor Ious is now allowing students to use Subway Surfers Coins to buy power-ups on exams.

PHOTO BY JULIA WONG

“Scientists have said we’ll be on a time Crunchwrap even if we act now,” explained Daniel Gould.

PHOTO BY AMIT ROTH

Butter Flavored Vape Creates New Disease, Movie Popcorn Lung

BY LIZ OVERTON Staff Writer

Last month, the popu lar e-cigarette and vape company Juul released a new addition to their line of flavored nicotine vapes. This one, primarily mar keted to children, is called Buttery Binky. In a press release, Juul’s co-founder James Monsees stated, “This new flavor is but tery AF, dawg. It goes down smooth and facilitates the ripping of fat cloudage, and it will certainly satisfy your infantile oral fixation.”

The release of Buttery Binky has garnered a sub stantial amount of media attention. The critically acclaimed Vape Aficiona do Magazine published a markedly positive review of the flavor, stating, “But tery Binky is hype. It marks Juul’s departure from the standard tactic of making sweet flavored vapes with the introduction of more sa vory flavors, effectively ex panding the palate of con sumers. We expect to see more exploration into the

realm of cuisine consumed by inhaling superheated nicotine vapor from a USBchargeable device — the premier gastronomic expe rience.” Another publica tion, Babies Blowing Clouds , released a statement which cited Buttery Binky as “the perfect pacifying flavor for reluctant naptimes,” and a “great alternative for those tired of only using flavors based on human milk.”

Not all reviews of Buttery Binky have been positive, however. Members of the medical community have expressed concern that the Buttery Binky could be caus ally related to an emerging disease referred to as Movie Popcorn Lung. “We think the extra buttery-smooth fla vor profile of Buttery Binky may be responsible for in creased lactose content in the mucus and lung-tissue samples of patients afflicted with the disease,” said medi cal researcher Dr. Domer, a specialist in vape tricks at Scripps Health. When asked to elaborate on the symptoms of the affliction,

Domer explained, “It’s just like regular popcorn lung, except Movie Popcorn Lung samples generally have a more salty, savory flavor, making them a great snack for those who like to eat dur ing movies.” Domer later declined to comment about allegations of cannibalism. Despite the potentially lethal effects of Movie Pop corn Lung, sales of Buttery Binky have been stead ily increasing, especially among consumers aged 3 to 17. When asked to explain his choice of Buttery Binky, Josh Blinker, seventh grad er at The Preuss School, told reporters, “If popcorn lung was actually real, then corporations wouldn’t sell the products which gave it to us.” Another student said, “at least Buttery Binky isn’t so sugary that it will rot my teeth.” A third stu dent expressed excitement for future vaping experi ences, stating, “I can’t wait ’till I’m 21 so I can try whis key flavor!”

While students may be pleased with Buttery Binky,

other consumer demographics are not so welcoming. “I think it’s irresponsible to make vapes with such unhealthy flavors. Butter has a lot of fat and cho lesterol! What are they gonna make next? Burger flavored vapes?” asked Monica Clouds, spokeswoman for the LA-based activist group Suburban Wom en Promoting Health (SWPH). Another SWPH member agreed with Clouds, stating, “Person ally, I would love more plantbased and vegan options for vape flavors, like kale or quinoa. I really think there’s a market for vapes among those who are concerned about their health and well-being.”

Unconfirmed reports suggest that, despite the current controversy, Juul flavor technicians are join ing with pharmaceutical companies to create fla vors infused with insulin or asthma medication, as well as joining with ce lebrity chefs like Gordon Ramsay to create more complex flavors like bleu cheese and foie gras. These flavors are predicted to make record profits.

at the Sun God statue, leav ing splotches of refried beans and nacho cheese on the statue’s wings. He then pulled out a soda cup and yelled, “We must ‘Baja Blast’ away our depend ency on fossil fuels!” before taking a sip from the straw, letting out an “ahhh,” then throwing it at the statue.

“These demands are not ‘Doritos Locos’ when we know that families will buy ‘chalupas’ to escape the in creasing floods. And worst of all, economies will crash and people will no longer be able to afford a Crunch wrap Supreme,” said Gould before wiping away a tear and chucking the rest of the items.

After finishing the speech, the two students cheered. “With everyday people already facing the ef fects of the climate crisis, I’m glad we had a good turnout,” said Gould as he was leav ing the area. “Otherwise my message would have been lost and the climate would have changed even more than it already has.”

“I wasn’t paying atten tion to anything that guy was saying,” said art major Brisa Tejeda, one of the students who witnessed Gould’s ac tions. “But I am pro-trashing ugly-as-hell art pieces that our school commissioned us ing student’s money. I hope that dude protests at What Hath God Wrought next.”

“I’m just happy that I got some free food,” remarked teaching assistant Cody Hanson, the other student who witnessed the event, while eating a quesarito. “And I kinda agree that the Stuart Collection sucks, but I think What Hath God Wrought would have been a more effective target. Seri ously, no one likes looking at a giant pole with flash ing lights unless someone’s dancing on it.”

Despite Tejeda and Han son’s support for Gould’s actions, Chancellor Khosla sent a campus-wide email condemning Gould’s behav ior after the demonstration ended. “Silly liberal terror ist thinks destroying my art commission will get me to abolish the Stuart Collec tion. If anything, it makes me want to commission even more beautiful art pieces. Expect a What Hath God Wrought II in the next four years.”

Since the email, many UCSD students have won dered whether Gould would stage another protest with a different piece of the Stuart Collection, with some stu dents forming an organization called the Tritons Against The Stuart Art Collection, or TAT SAC. As of Monday, the organ ization launched a Kickstarter campaign titled “Pulverize What Hath God Wrought,” which has already raised over $2,000 of its $5,000 goal.

Editorial Board

Happy birthday The MQ! I don’t like generic birthday cards, so let me recall some mildly funny inside jokes to fill the space. Remember when we first learned about the Human Milk Institute? That was so funny. Or when we accidentally invented German while trying to learn Swedish? I also really loved that time we put our creativity to use and contemplated the implications of a ball pit. I thought it was cool how telepathic we were this time around (it seems like microplastics and Leonardo DiCaprio are in the air this holiday season!). I think my favorite part was when we made a nice, cozy bowl of Quaker chastity oats. Anyway, we’re a year older, and perhaps even a year wiser. I love you.

— Sharon Roth, Editor-in-Chief

I think everybody knows what day it is or what day it was depending on when you are reading this. It’s our BIRTHDAY. On November 28, 1988, we were birthed into this world and forever changed it. We’re 34 years young. We’re not exactly sure what effect we’ve had, but it must’ve been some thing right? I know there is at least one IKEA ball pit in the greater Montana area that enjoyed our presence. Well anyways, we had this duper cool birthday party, and sadly you all couldn’t come, and our mom said that we could only invite 10 people anyway. The people we invited were: Farhad, Jacob, Madeline, James, Kaz, Sharon, Everett, Connor, Tag, and Matthew.

The MQ is proud to be a Muir College student organization. Printing funds for The MQ are generously provided by the Muir College Council.

“Is it salted or unsalted butter?” asked Monica Clouds. “I’m trying to watch my blood pressure.”

PHOTO BY CONNOR BETTERLY

Leaked Internal Twitter Memo States that Elon Musk “Has No Idea What He’s Doing”

BY JACOB KING AND EVERETT RIRIE Managing Editor and Content Editor

Recently, Elon Musk fi nalized his deal to ac quire Twitter for $44 billion. This deal has sad dled Twitter — a company already losing hundreds of millions of dollars every year — with $12.5 billion in loans. Musk took the reins of the company and declared that “making Twitter prof itable is easy. Profit is just revenue minus costs. So all we need to do is bring down costs, and bring up revenue. It can’t be that hard?”

Musk’s first plan to in crease revenue was to charge for verification, removing the previous qualification of being a “notable person.” Now, the only requirement is a fee of $8/month. An ad ditional feature of this new service is the replacement of half of all advertisements with “uber fresh and dank” memes hand-picked by Musk himself. The remaining

ads will exclusively endorse Tesla, Homescapes, and con servative political news sites meeting Twitter’s new stand ards for misinformation.

“I’m excited about this feature,” said @notarus sianbot. “Everything I say is real and true and the blue checkmark will finally convey that to all people who read my tweets.” Other users were similarly satis fied by the new verification system, putting their new found influence to use in a variety of ways — including successfully reducing the price of insulin to $0, im personating celebrities, and cyberbullying Elon Musk.

“I actually just don’t care at all,” said Musk. “I mean, I’ll suspend them, but it’s absolutely not because they made me cry while I was scrolling through Twitter on the toilet, because I didn’t.”

In response to Musk’s promises to restore “free speech” to Twitter, there has been an increase in hate speech and cries to unban controversial figures. This

HDH Recruits Gordon

claim was quickly walked back. “According to both The Coca-Cola Company and our moral code, we can’t allow hate speech on Twitter,” said Musk in an Apple Notes app screen shot shared on his Twitter.

“The first day, he sat all the programmers down and turned on Rick and Morty for two hours as we sat in a silence broken only by Elon’s occasional outbursts of laughter,” said an anon ymous Twitter employee.

“When the episodes were done, he looked at us and said, ‘That’s what I want you to do.’ We all asked what that meant and he just said ‘make it funny.’

No one asked for clarifica tion because we were all too stunned. What does he think engineers do?”

The anonymous employ ee went on to say that Musk’s threat to fire most of Twit ter’s employees came after their failure to finish this project on the tight deadline even after he pushed them to pull an “all-nighter” to get it done. “No, we weren’t

paid for the overtime,” said the whistleblower.

After one Twitter en gineer publicly corrected Musk’s claim that “Twit ter has too many lines of code; we need to reduce it to the original 140 lines, back when the website was good,” Musk fired the next 56 Twitter employees to in teract with him in any ca pacity. The day following this mass layoff, employees received an email request ing all Twitter employees to “affirm their undying loy alty to Twitter and promise never to show any degree of disrespect towards Chief Twit Elon Musk” by clicking a link, lest they be subject to termination in 24 hours.

Yesterday, the anonymous Twitter employee leaked an internal memo where top en gineers chastised Musk for his handling of the company. While the memo was posted online, it gained very little traction. “We didn’t need this memo leaked,” tweeted @tom foolerygoose. “Musk’s been posting this all online himself.”

Nightmares”

BY CONNOR BETTERLY Copy Commander

For years, students have rated their experience at the campus’ dining halls as “subpar.” To address the situation, this month HDH decided to bring in an expert — current sevenMichelin-star holder and four-Michelin-tire owner Gordon Ramsay, OBE.

Ramsay’s first objective was to try the food at Café Ventanas Grill. He ordered a Triton burger and curly fries, and got a drink with his order. He went over to the CocaCola Freestyle machine to fill it up. “Freestyle? Expensive as hell. For $2.50, it had better spit some bomb-arse bars.”

Turning to a nearby student employee, he inquired, “The ice cubes. Are they fresh or frozen? Frozen? Oh, God. Well, fuck me.”

Opting to dine-in, he sat at a table. Before long, one brave student employee brought his burger out to him in a pristine Triton2Go box. “Thank you, my darling,” said Ramsay. He took a bite

out of the burger. “The bun is dry, and the burger is sweat ing grease,” complained Ramsay. “Shocking. Let’s try some of the curly fries.” He lifted a fry up and placed it in his mouth. “Bland. The tex ture is soggy. Such a shame.”

Disappointed with his burger experience, Ramsay asked a student worker to “make [him] a simple salad,” shouting that “it’s not that bloody complicated!” Upon a visual examination, Ramsay said pointedly at the camera, “Hideous. It’s undercooked. It’s raw. And the presentation — ghastly.” He took a tenta tive bite … then spit it into a napkin. The speakers in the dining hall played an unfa vorable sound effect. “Dread ful,” said Ramsay. “They call that a salad? I call that a solid piece of garbage.”

It was finally time for Chef Ramsay to teach the student employees how to properly make some food. “Right. Okay, we’re going to be mak ing the most amazing, beauti ful burger. Let’s start by grill ing some onions. First, just

a touch of olive oil,” he said, as he emptied half of the bot tle in the pan. “Let it get re ally piping hot, and then just place those in like so. Go on, give it a try.” When the stu dent took over, his calm de meanor immediately “turned into a rage the likes of which the Devil himself never had seen before,” and the atmos phere was likened to “if they had a kitchen in Hell.”

When the dinner rush came, Ramsay and the stu dent workers were as pre pared as they could be, with Ramsay himself overseeing the kitchen’s preparation of all meals. But even Ramsay was quickly overwhelmed at how fast the orders were coming in. Students came up in droves, and Ramsay directed his crew to tell them, “We’re working on it!” One order of fish and chips stood out as an example of the crew’s heroic collabora tion. The basket was covered by a sheet of waxy paper, placed with the correct side up, and three pieces of ad equately battered tilapia.

Fries, hand-straightened at Ramsay’s direction, were placed alongside the fish. “Where’s the remoulade sauce!” cried Ramsay. An employee rushed up and placed a plastic container of it in the basket, saying, “Here chef!” “You donut!” yelled Ramsay. “That looks hideous, what is that shit!” Ramsay hand-poured the sauce over the battered fish himself, saving the dish. Ramsay continued, “Get a lemon wedge on there, you donkey.” “Yes chef, sorry chef!” she answered, and began to cry. Chef Ramsay expertly swung the tray be neath her eyes, catching the teardrops to season the fries, as she placed a lemon slice next to it and the dish was sent out. “Beautiful,” said Ramsay to himself, grabbing at the next ticket. “The flavor is going to be incredible.”

The kitchen was in chaos after that night, but Café Ventanas now has one Michelin star and is hungry for another. And the lines have never been longer.

Reports of events at Twitter headquarters were not officially confirmed, but were verified by an anonymous Twitter employee.

PHOTO BY JULIA WONG

“This chicken is so undercooked, it’s still crossing the road!” cried Ramsay.

Ramsay to Fix Their “Kitchen

PHOTO BY JULIA WONG

COMIC BY BITSY HSU

ITS Announces Hiring of Carrier Pigeons to Improve ResNet Speeds

BY MICAH GILBERT Staff Writer

In response to growing com plaints, UCSD’s Information Technology Services depart ment recently announced their new “Wi-Fly Initiative,” in which they will be hiring a squad of 10 carrier pigeons who will become responsible for a majority portion of the univer sity network’s bandwidth.

Last week, Chris Pe chicken, director of ITS and self-proclaimed “unquestion able technology wizard,” an nounced the program and provided information on what to expect, saying “it’s not the worst idea we’ve ever had.” According to Pechicken, “These pigeons will act as both an enhancement to the current network and as a layer of redundancy in the event of wildly unpreventable equip ment failures. Instead of un predictable computer equip ment that never does what you tell it to, these trained ani mals should have no down

time and behave nearly 100% of the time.” Approximately 80% of the existing network infrastructure will be disman tled because “these 10 pigeons are about seven times as fast as the existing university net work, and frankly, not getting rid of anything would make it just a bit too fast.” The carrier pigeons will be primarily fly ing between residential areas and the main ITS facility on campus. Of the team of 10, there will be one pigeon per college, with three reserved for “unexpected situations.” Each building will have a stu dent worker who will rapidly transcribe network traffic onto small slips of paper and hand them off to the pigeons. Appli cations for this position will be available on Handshake in the coming weeks, with a starting pay of $15.02 an hour.

When asked about po tential impacts to daily life on campus, Pechicken noted that “some changes may re quire time to get used to.” In

Scientists

order for the pigeons to have humane accommodations for their state-mandated hour of rest and recreation, Fallen Star will be turned into a birdhouse and filled with leftover bread products from dining hall trash cans.

Some aspects of student social life may also be impact ed. According to Pechicken, “gamers living on campus will no longer be able to blame unreliable ping times to justify why their sorry asses can’t get out of Bronze in Valorant.” Fur thermore, nightly skeet shoot ing off of the roof of Geisel will be suspended until fall quarter of 2023 while ITS tries out dif ferent methods of protecting the birds from students and each other. Those methods will include body armor, miniatur ized missile defense systems, and regularly injecting the birds with steroids.

Critics of the initiative cite statistics that show that carrier pigeons “drop one in 10 notes that they are tasked

with carrying.” James E. Th ernet, an outspoken critic of the plan, proposed an al ternative, encouraging the university to instead “con struct a network of tunnels beneath the university and have an army of rats carry the messages.” Thernet said that “not only would they be more reliable than pigeons, but the tunnels would allow the rats to provide connec tivity to the Ethernet ports in campus facilities — a feature that was lost several years ago.” In response, Pechicken stated, “Rats carry the risk of spreading viruses, both hu man and computer.”

As a demonstration of the pigeons’ ample band width, at the beginning of the spring quarter, every stu dent living on campus will be required to simultaneously join a Zoom information ses sion and download the quar ter’s textbooks from Libgen. Training for the pigeons is currently ongoing.

POINT Sleep Tight, Don’t Let the Bed Bugs Bite!

BY ICHA LOTT Sleep Therapist

Within a week of moving into my new home, it was evident to me that I had been saddled with a bed bug infestation. The horror!

The indecency! I simply could not bear the grief of stagger ing to the bathroom mirror for 8 a.m. therapy sessions, only to be greeted by dime-sized rashes littering the lengths of all my limbs! Blood streaked my cream leaf-pattern sheets. Sleep was no longer a moment of rest wherein I could be cradled in the serene arms of Mother Night, but a nefarious test of will. My life blood was being drained by creatures no larger than grains of rice. The Sisyphean effort to quell the itchiness only resulted in more bitter tears with the burning of Tiger Balm on my flesh. The indignity that I — a sleep therapist! — and millions of others suffer at their barbed, blood-sucking mouths!

But don’t worry. Don’t panic. All is well. The road ahead is long, but the end is in sight. There are tried and tested meth ods of bed bug removal, and I urge you who suffer as I have to

call an exterminator for guid ance. Remember: the earlier the better. As soon as you suspect something amiss, don’t delay, for their demonic mating prac tices increase their numbers tenfold. Fumigate them out of existence. Blast your clothing on high heat. It’s worth it. Sleep is a sacred universal right that must be protected. Bed bugs may not be a com mon experience, but it is a painful one, and I urge every one to be on their guard. For those who are struggling as I have: imagine yourself hav ing a full nine hours of bless ed sleep, and hold it in your mind’s eye. It’s there for you to take. You need only abolish these pests from the sanctuary of your bedsheets.

COUNTERPOINT

All Families Deserve to Be Fed

BY BORA BLUD

Mother of 437

Ifind myself in the throes of fiery indignance, enshrined in the golden crown of mother hood, both nurturer and warrior protectoress. I simply must pro test this campaign for the violent defenestration of my family, and billions of other families, via the chemically toxic steam that you so advocate.

Woman, what is with you? Have you no shame, no shred of decency? Where is your dignity! Your rationality! I see your pro fession is dedicated to helping the troubled. Should this not include us, the poor grain-sized insects with naught a penny to our name? For shame, that you should target our children, and our only means of living! We take mere thimblefuls of blood, and you proclaim us unworthy of access to the free soup kitch ens that are your veins. This is simply not to be borne.

I hope that the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future visit and impress upon you the error of your ways, for you are worse than Scrooge, who was merely stingy and did not come close to suggesting

bed bug exclusion from chari table food security, much less genocide. You, however, would have us starve and shrivel in the bleakest of winter nights, or expire in the torturous high-heat setting of a dryer. I, a mother of hundreds, will not be dismissed in such a man ner. As you bewail your piddly skincare routine and sensible rash treatment (you poor fool, Tiger Balm is not a sacred elixir for all ailments, knowledge that you would possess had you not the sense of a cantaloupe), I am busy building a legacy you will never understand.

Extermination, chemical treatment, hmph! Christmas spirit indeed!

BY FARHAD TARAPOREVALA Design Dungeon

On a brisk October night, a group of anthropologists in Iowa unearthed a collec tion of records hidden in the attic of an abandoned house. “When we first found the records, we were worried we wouldn’t be able to find a record player to listen to them,” said Professor Archibald McNumpty. “Luckily, three of my grad students are ‘hipsters,’ so we had our choice of players to listen from. As we listened to the music, we found a common theme across the songs: Thanksgiving.”

When listening to the redis covered music, McNumpty no ticed a name that kept appear ing at the start of songs: Jimothy Stravinskonskiwitch. “Jimothy would always announce his name before he started to sing,” said McNumpty. “We think it was because Jimothy did not want anyone to steal his mu sic and pass it off as their own. He was probably right to do so, ’cause I can’t even remember

who first sang ‘Rudolph, the

The music that McNump ty’s team rediscovered was released to the public two weeks before Thanksgiving. Immediately following the release, Stravinskonskiwitch’s song “Rocking Around the Carved Turkey” hit number one on the charts, with “Pota to Mash” rising to the number three spot.

However, not everyone ap proved of the messages con tained within Stravinskonski witch’s music. Several large protests were held across the country, calling for the ban ning of all Thanksgiving mu sic. “It’s corrupting our youth with its horrendous ideals,” said Amy Leanright. “Fill ing their minds with stupid thoughts like, ‘we all deserve happiness and equality,’ and, ‘money can’t buy happiness, but friendship can.’ These ridiculous thoughts are ruin ing the children. Mine asked why I was so excited for Black

Friday when I could be using my hard-earned millions to help the less fortunate. Guess who’s getting coal for Christ mas this year, the little twerp.”

McNumpty defended Stravinskonskiwitch’s work, touring the nation to raise support for the music, as well as the charity he set up in Stravinskonskiwitch’s honor. McNumpty also announced that all proceeds from Stravin skonskiwitch’s songs would go straight to the charity which he was running.

“I’m surprised so many people are against Jimothy’s beautiful message. My goal is to spread his message far and wide this holiday season, as we should all be more fo cused on giving than what we are on getting,” said Mc Numpty. “Instead of focusing on what presents you get this year, think about giving to the Jimothy Stravinskonskiwitch Foundation for Furthering the Dissemination of Jimothy Stravinskonskiwitch’s Beautiful

While some people dis liked Stravinskonskiwitch’s message, others disliked his music for displacing other holiday music. “Honestly, from September to Janu ary, there is only one type of music people should be lis tening to: Christmas music,” said singer Mariah Carey. “I’m so furious that anyone could think their lame holi day deserves music when Christmas is almost here. All I want for Christmas is Archibald McNumpty’s head on a silver platter.”

“My carrier pigeon isn’t helping at all. It built a ResNest in my dorm!” exclaimed one student.

PHOTO BY JAMES WOOLLEY

PHOTO BY JAMES WOOLLEY

Red-Nosed Reindeer.’”

Message and Enacting Jimothy Stravinskonskiwitch’s Dream of the Future for the Better ment of the World. We have already received over $2 mil lion in donations, with Jimo thy’s music raising $5 million on top of that. We are so close to being able to pay my salary of $10 million and really help some people after that, so don’t hesitate to reach into your wal lets and give, give, give!”

Netflix Responds to Criticism of Jeffrey Dahmer Series by Lengthening Show’s Title

BY JEANNIE KIM Web Editor

This September, Netf lix released Dahmer

Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story , which has become their ninth most popular English language television series of all time. The show has been widely criticized for exploiting a horrific tragedy and hu manizing a serial killer for profit. In response to the backlash, Netflix has an nounced that they will be modifying the title of the series to “more accurately reflect the true sentiments of the show.”

“ Dahmer Monster: The Sick and Twisted Story of Sick and Twisted Jeffrey Dahmer, A Disgusting Guy is a story about the vic tims,” said Ian Murphy, cocreator of the series. “I hate

Jeff. I don’t care about him. He was a horrible guy. Do I know what he did? No, I care about the damage he did to all those innocent people. Jeffrey might have been the guy whose perspective you follow through most of the show, but the protagonists of the show were always the victims. That’s why we dedi cated almost three whole episodes to them in the lat ter third of the show. They were the least popular epi sodes according to IMDb, but they were the most pop ular. To us.”

“Our show, Dahmer Monster: The Nauseating Story of Jeffrey “Monster” Dahmer, The Murderous Milwaukee Guy Whose Ac tions Were Evil is an explo ration of one of the darkest, least redeemable minds of Milwaukee, Ohio,” said co-

creator Ryan Brennan. “It’s a story about a human. But it’s also a story about a mon ster. A human, who was also a monster, who was also often shirtless in our show. But, y’know, the show is not sympathetic to that humanmonster … guy. I don’t agree with that critique. It’s more, like, empathetic, because, well, y’know, how many of us have killed a person?”

Brennan was interviewed separately from Murphy and has since been unreachable for further comment.

Backlash against Dah mer has remained strong. This stems from the fact that the showrunners purport edly did not get permission from the victims’ families to fictionalize their loved ones using their names, likenesses, and any other details the Dahmer writers

could find about them. To this, the showrunners have responded that they did, in fact, contact the families about the show, but did not get a single response back.

“Here’s the rundown. We made Dahmer Mon ster: The Frightening Tale of the Frightening Man, the Monster, the Dahmer Mon ster, the Jeffrey Monster, Ew! Yuck! We Hate Him! ” said Brennan. “And then we asked the families if all of this was cool with them or not. We sent them an email, one email, and no one responded! Not one family! So of course, since we already made the whole show and the Netflix execs were chomping at the bit to release it, we gave them the go-ahead. Those poor families really should have checked their spam folder.”

Scientist Evolves to Eat Microplastics, Becomes World’s First Human 3D Printer

BY JANICE PRICE Frequent Shopper

If one more person disre spects the internationallyrecognized holiday of Black Friday, I am going to lose it. The contempt when you dis miss this patriotic purchasing day as another consumerist scheme hurts the very fiber of my being. I understand writ ing off Christmas and Valen tine’s Day as the commercial ized riff-raff they are. Those so-called holidays give deals, sure, but only for useless crap! Why would I buy wrapping pa per to wrap things? I already know what’s inside. A “Be Mine” card? Yeah, I know the card is mine. I bought it!

Now Black Friday … she’s a different beast. It all started in 1621 in the prosperous econom ic heart of the world: the Plym outh colony. The Divine Econo mists’ Guild of Britain made the prophetic decision to move to this lucrative New World. In this guild were the Macy Queen, the Sears Tsar, the Kohligarch, and JC’s Top Penney. In their perfect democratic-capitalist wisdom, they established a shopping day for the people. It would take ef fect as soon as possible, which meant it was codified immedi ately after the celebrations of the footnote-of-a-holiday Thanks giving. This was the beginning.

The ancient people of 400 years ago were smarter than us today. Everyone knows that! Black Friday was instantly be loved. Free discounts with no downsides? The people lost it! Black Friday even appeared in the Constitution; it was writ ten there by George Washing ton himself! All was good. The people, the flowing blood of this patriotic economy, had freedom. But somewhere, sometime, evil subversives erased this glorious history for their nefarious purposes. The brainwashing went so deep, no reputable news source has yet published this real history!

If this article doesn’t make it to print, I am going to lose it.

Wake up! The truth is at your fingertips, or how ever else you’re reading this, and action now falls on you! When the great November holiday inevitably arrives, take up arms. With coupons in one hand and a bag in the other, storm those glass, automatically-opening gates. The stores? The organs. The consumers? The lifeblood. Black Friday itself? The cata lyst, the heart pumping and sustaining the great body, which is the economy of this most free nation. This is the vision of the old greats, the vision I realized when I learned about this on Face book, the vision the great Jeff Bezos had when creating the legendary Prime Day, and the vision you now have. I will spread this message ’till I die if it means I have a chance to single-handedly save Ameri can freedom. And I would be happy. If the light of capital ism goes out on my watch because of you, I am going to fucking lose it.

“Life

BY SHARON ROTH Editor-in-Chief

Last month, Dr. Gabriel Barbecue checked him self into the hospital after experiencing severe diges tive issues. He is the head of the Plastic Research Institute in Santa Monica (PRISM), a laboratory that studies the effects of plastic pollu tion. Dr. Barbecue was in the midst of conducting a study about how microplastic con sumption affects human be ings. He accomplished this by replacing his daily bowl of breakfast cereal with chunks of Lego bricks that were churned in a food processor.

While in the hospital, Dr. Barbecue coughed up a perfect replica of the Statue of Liberty. “I think all the plastic I was con suming accumulated in my stomach and became this little figurine,” said Bar becue. “This makes sense, because I’ve been plan ning my trip to New York, and I was craving a slice

of New York pizza, and my stomach knew that I was craving New York pizza, so it made something New York-y in my stomach.”

Doctors at St. Titania Hospital were puzzled by the results of Barbecue’s blood test. Although his medical records indicated that he had type AB blood, the test results instead re vealed that Barbecue had a new blood type. “They call it type P blood,” explained Barbecue. “Because the doctors found out my blood was 70% plastic by volume.”

Since his time at the hospital, Dr. Barbecue has coughed up several other plastic creations. After cre ating seven replicas of the RMS Titanic (“I just really love Leonardo DiCaprio in that movie”), Barbecue be gan experimenting with mi crofibers. “I can actually knit a full-length scarf in a day just from the microfibers found in my tap water,” re ported Barbecue. “Microfib

ers are everywhere in the en vironment — it’s wonderful. My goal is to get to a point where I can create an article of clothing just by thinking about it. My husband loves turtleneck sweaters, so I’d love to surprise him with one. A gift from the bottom of my heart — or, um, the bottom of my stomach.”

Following Barbecue’s astonishing experimental results, scientists at PRISM have been discussing plans to introduce more micro plastics into the environ ment. “If Gabe can 3D print a little statue of the Eiffel Tower every day, imagine what eight billion people could do,” said PRISM direc tor Oswald Mojo. He started the Exfoliating Plastic Initi ative that People Enjoy Now (EPIPEN), which funded the creation of a facial exfoliat ing wash formulated with even more microplastic beads. Although the exfoli ant is still not approved by the FDA, Mojo is confident

that it can get more micro plastics into the ocean and eventually into people’s di gestive systems.

“Just think about it like this: every time I bring a plastic container to the local recycling plant I get five cents. Just imagine how much money every one could make if they produced their own plas tic! This would give every American more money, which they could spend on more plastic products, which would fuel the econ omy and get more plas tic into the environment, which could then be di gested and the cycle could be continued,” said Mojo, “This initiative is like an EpiPen for the planet. We’re putting all those plastics in the seawater so that peo ple can recycle them. It’s actually going to save the world. Maybe we can even get sea turtles to join in — I hear they really like eating plastic straws.”

in plastic — it’s fantastic,” said Dr. Gabriel Barbecue.

PHOTO BY JAMES WOOLLEY

Netflix recently announced they would be partnering with Monster Energy to fund season two.

PHOTO BY AMIT ROTH

Mossy

UCSD Announces New “DILF”-Focused Research Center to Promote Equality

BY KATIE CAMPBELL Staff Writer

Following the reveal of the Human Milk Insti tute, UCSD announced the Human Observation to Deconstruct Attraction Dur ing DILF Years (HOTDAD DY) program, a research program targeted at the in tersection between human sexuality and fatherhood. HOTDADDY aims to study sexual attraction and de termine the psychological reasoning behind attraction to older men with children, known professionally as the “DILF phenomenon.”

Licensed psychologist Sigmoid Fruid explained the idea behind the DILF phe nomenon. “It’s a fascinating facet of human attraction, often defined by an indi vidual’s sexual attraction to fathers and middle-aged men,” Fruid said. “Most puz zlingly, many of these in dividuals are childless and uninterested in having chil dren. Some of my colleagues debate whether DILF inter est arises from the absence of a stable father figure ear lier in life, but I think it runs deeper. I believe that the

current ennui of the Western model of nuclear childhood has led to inescapable, yet widely shamed, attraction to DILFs across the United States. Such attraction is merely human nature in our current society.” Fruid’s client, who came in during the interview and asked to not be named for privacy reasons, disagreed with Fruid. “I don’t think it’s that complicated. I had a loving father growing up, and I’m into DILFs. They’re hot and dreamy and take responsi bility for their actions. Who doesn’t love that in a man?”

Researcher Simgod Friend, speaking from behind mul tiple masks to obscure his face, announced the forma tion of HOTDADDY by email less than 24 hours after the Human Milk Institute an nounced its partnership with Mother-Milk-Infant Center of Researcher Excellence (MOMI CORE). Friend said that the announcement coincided with “extreme demands” from students, staff, and the gen eral public. “The HOTDADDY program was already in pro gress when we announced the HMI partnership with MOMI

CORE,” Friend said. “Based on student response to MOMI CORE and the Human Milk In stitute, we’re hoping for a big turnout when we open official studies. I’m excited to hear in depth about how people are attracted to fathers and father figures everywhere.”

Chancellor Khosla also weighed in on HOTDADDY’s announcement. “We believe that understanding sexuality is an essential part of manip ulating our students into at tending events no one cares about by promising that at tractive men will be there. Wait, sorry, that wasn’t on the record,” Khosla said. “Let me try that again. Understand ing sexuality is an important aspect of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. We hope that all students, staff members, and the broader community will feel comfortable engag ing with both HOTDADDY and MOMI CORE going forward, so that the entire UCSD community can feel represented in our research.”

Students soon voiced their opinions on HOT DADDY. Third-year Ilek Bigmin expressed his ex citement about the new

research program. “I never thought I’d see the day UCSD would represent my sexual interests so perfect ly, even though they still ignore LGBTQIA+ student concerns,” Bigmin said. “On this topic alone, I feel seen for the first time!” However, another student, first-year Iminta Wemin, was consid erably more critical of the announcements. “MOMI CORE is focused on the mo lecular components of hu man milk, and HOTDADDY is focused on DILFs. I don’t want kids! Where’s the love for childless, mean women who would commit murder if it got them ahead? The love for women who own not one, but five knives?” Wemin then climbed atop a table in the middle of Price Center West with a hand made poster and shouted, “Down with MOMI CORE! Down with HOTDADDY! Up with KNIFEWIFE!”

Chancellor Khosla later clarified by email that UCSD is “an institution dedicated to serving our students” and reminded all students that “murder is not tolerated at UCSD, even by MILFs.”

LinkedIn Announces Short-Form Video Service

BY VARICELLA VACCINA “Organism”

I’m not doing this because it’s a viral trend! It’s not in fectious, my friends haven’t caught it, and no one is put ting me up to this. As much as you want to believe I con tracted a brain-eating amoe ba at Lake Mead or whatever, these choices are mine and mine alone to make. It’s not a phage: this is who I am.

I know it’s hard for you to believe that I have different opinions from you, but that makes me a fun guy with my own thoughts and opinions, not a fungal reservoir. I appre ciate everything you did for me growing up, but it’s time for me to cultivate my own Petri dish. I get to define my culture, form my own colony of people who I love and trust who will support me for who I am. And guess what? There’s nothing you can do about it! I deserve to break out of my cell and be free. And that’s how it should be!

TOP TEN

I know my spore-adic habits scare you, but I’m finding my cilia for the first time. You can’t always be there to hold my flagella. This journey of self-discovery is a unicellular organism which deserves my undivided at tention and none of your in tervention. I know you want to help. I know eukary-a lotic about me. I know you have life experience and you know better than me. You may have been the nucleus to the cell of my young life, but I can’t be your little girl forever. One day, we’ll no longer be symbi otic creatures. I won’t be an annoying parasite leeching off of you. I’ll thrive on my own because you gave me the chance to make mistakes and learn from them.

I am not a perfect clone of you, born of mitosis. I am a product of the primordial soup of which you were only one element. We’re differ ent species, and to share our habitat, I need to find my own niche. Let me pipette my own nutrient broth. Let me gel my own electropho resis. Let me develop my own immunological memo ry against the dangers of the world. I can be goth if I want. I can be a punk if I want. I can be as virulent as I like. You may believe I’m on the wrong path-ogen, and that might be true, but I will fig ure it out for myself.

BY CONNOR BETTERLY Copy Commander

Following trends in the industry and declining attention spans in the populace, the social me dia platform LinkedIn an nounced its own short-form video service this week, which will launch next month. Known as LinkedIn Intros, this service allows people to share portraitoriented videos to an audi ence outside of their normal sphere of connections.

“Networking with other professionals has always been difficult,” said LinkedIn CEO Dylan Dyslansky. “Intros will allow people the chance to put themselves out there. In fact, the Intros service is so important, we will make it the default page that anyone sees when logging in, and fo cus 110% of our engineering talent on making it the best experience possible.”

“Whenever I apply for a job, I always feel like I’m sending

my résumé out into the abyss,” said Gibb Jobs. “Let’s see if I have any luck getting in front of recruiters with this new ser vice!” He then went to make his initial Intro, but got distracted and started to comment on his friend’s post about a “new busi ness opportunity where I get to be my own boss” which ad vised viewers to “let me know if you too want to achieve finan cial freedom selling dreams!”

“I go through a lot of ré sumés,” said Reece Cruiter, who describes himself on his LinkedIn profile as the “Sen ior Assistant Regional Man ager of Excellence in Strategic Solutions Talent Sourcing, Acquisition, and Operations.”

Cruiter continued, saying, “Too many résumés, really. Whenever I get a new stack, I toss the top half in the recy cling; we only want applicants who are lucky. But now, the al gorithm will take care of that for me! I can’t wait to spend a bunch of time mindlessly looking at the Intros tagged with #lookingforwork.”

Self-described “LinkedIn fluencer” Devontre Prenuer was enthused at the an nouncement, saying, “Dude, this is my time to shine! I want to show people how to make passive income with digital tools. I’m self-employed, not unemployed. I strive for suc cess! Everything you learn in school is a lie. I can’t wait to post a short of me in front of this Lamborghini I rented telling people to ‘embrace the grind.’ All you need is a vi sion. What, that didn’t make you immediately want to, um, link in with me?”

“This idea is really, just, ingenuine. Er, I mean, in genious!” said LinkedIn poweruser and subscriber to LinkedIn Premium Harry Hazelnose. He immediate ly took to the platform to continue, commenting, “I can’t imagine how they had this unique idea. I’m also super grateful for the op portunities and experiences LinkedIn has given me. I’d like to thank everyone who

got me here, as well as all of the software engineers that developed this tool.”

Upon hearing of the In tros announcement, man ager Buzz Werdz said, “I was just saying that this sort of thing needed to become a core competency for Linked In. Well done pivoting to an agile solution that uses Big Data and Machine Learn ing. Intros is a game changer — this innovation will really disrupt the industry.” A con nection of his, Ving Mann, said, “This is so true. Please reach out — we should totally circle back on this when you have the bandwidth. Perhaps we could advance this using blockchain technology?”

“I’m so glad we get to share this new product with all of our valued users,” said a spokesperson for LinkedIn. “But we aren’t done innovat ing yet. All I can say is that if you like using LinkedIn in the real world, you’re going to love using it in the Metaverse.”

“This project has fathered many other studies,” said Simgod Friend.

PHOTO BY JAMES WOOLLEY

“It’s so easy to make short-form video content,” said Devontre Prenuer. “Personally, I squeeze it in between my 4:30 a.m. run and my 5 a.m. meditation.”

PHOTO BY JULIA WONG

Congress Announces a Bipartisan Skincare Line

BY ROMELLA SAGATELIAN Staff Writer

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Mi nority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that Congress will be releasing a bipartisan, sustainable, and lactose-free skincare line in the first episode of The Ellen Show ’s final season. The line is part of a unity initiative from Congress in light of the almost evenly split midterm election results. McConnell told Ellen DeGeneres, “Nan cy and I don’t have much in common except for our pas sion for making sure that our constituents can wake up every morning feeling Divine, United, Magnificent, and Beautiful.” “DUMB, for short,” Pelosi added. “With the current hyperpolarized political climate, we believe that consumerism is the only thing that can bring together all Americans from both sides of the aisle, so we’re excited to be putting DUMB products in T.J.Maxx stores all across America.”

Leonardo DiCaprio, DUMB’s celebrity spokes person, praised the brand’s sustainability initiatives in his recent Oscar acceptance speech. “What Congress has done with DUMB has really inspired me to take stock of my own life and think about the changes I can make to help California’s drought. That’s why right here, right now, I’m committing to only taking five-minute showers and to doing a rain dance every night before I go to sleep, and I encourage you all to do the same.”

DiCaprio also explained that once customers are finished with their DUMB products, they can recycle the packaging in a special ized facility located under the Denver International Airport for only $50. “That’s a small price to pay to save the planet,” said The Rev enant’ s star. For those far from Denver, he says that the safest and most ecofriendly way that consumers can discard their products is by throwing them directly

into the ocean. “I recently learned about these things called microplastics that can be harmful to the environ ment. Our products, though, are made entirely of macro plastics that are totally safe. When our containers are in the ocean, animals can see them and just swim away! Surely, no animal has ever been stupid enough to die because of a large piece of plastic.” When asked about whether the packaging is made out of recycled mate rials, DiCaprio’s representa tives declined to comment, citing poor cell service on their private jet.

Although DUMB was in tended to unite the country, reception has been mixed; some argue that Congress should have left skincare to the professionals. In a livestream, unlicensed “der matologist” Sara Vee said, “I don’t think you guys should trust Bernie Sanders with skincare advice. I mean, look at those wrinkles! I know he’s gotta be at least 30 years old, but some sun

screen or entry-level plastic surgery would really go a long way.”

Environmental activists have also said that the rec ommended disposal meth ods are not actually safe for the planet. Dr. Graham Sto mouls, a professor of envi ronmental chemistry at UC Berkeley, explained, “Plas tic is made out of danger ous chemicals like sodium and chloride that have no place in our oceans. This is a very slippery slope. Once we start dumping chemicals into the sea, what’s next? Hydrogen and oxygen in our drinking water?”

Across the pond, Great Britain has taken an exam ple from the U.S., as British officials have been looking to unite the country after Liz Truss’ brief tenure as Prime Minister of the U.K. An overwhelming major ity of the British Parliament voted to make orthodontic care free for all citizens, a move that has caused Rishi Sunak to be hailed as the “father of British dentistry.”

Student Explodes After Discovering They’re An Extra on The Truman Show

BY THEO ERICKSON Content Editor

Alarge commotion that “wasn’t a fire alarm for once” was reported by Sixth College residents ear lier this week when one stu dent “literally exploded” after being told that they were an extra on The Twoman Show: Truman Rebooted . One wit ness recalled that the stu dent, Maria Drew Carrie, “just blew up, like, disinte grated, like, dead, because of how angry they were. The smell was so horrible. Like, I don’t get why they had to make such a scene about it.”

One person involved in the altercation, Reddior Snot, assistant director for The Twoman Show , recalls similar events. “Maria real ized we were filming them, looked directly into the lens, and then walked really obvi ously out of the shot. Like, what? That’s so rude. We’re obviously shooting. And they didn’t even make their exit dramatic enough that fans on YouTube could make awk ward edits of them to the Wii Shop soundtrack,” Snot said. “So I told them to act natural, and then they started asking me like, ‘What? You’re mak ing The Truman Show in real life? What is wrong with you?’ Not Insta-genic at all. I don’t know why casting ever let them out in public.”

The star of The Twoman Show , Heddy Ann Shoul ders, stated that the alter cation escalated after that. “I came over and I was like, ‘Can you stop messing up

my stream? We’re live,’ and they were like ‘You’re will ingly letting strangers watch every second of your life?’ And I was like, ‘Have you ever used Snapchat? Any way, I’m the main character, so stop pulling focus.’”

One crew member, who wished to remain anony mous, said that this was when the signs of Carrie’s pending explosion became visible.

“She started fuming — liter ally, plumes of steam. They yelled something like, ‘I live here! I am not a part of the scenery for the photo of cam pus you send to your parents!

I am not a trained animal for the background of your Ins tagram reel!’ Then they start ed cursing all of us out with such ferocity that a bunch of students came out from their dorms to investigate, phones in hand. I think the reality of constant surveillance being enforced by people whom Maria had once believed to be members of her commu nity with whom she shared a mutual sense of respect — it kind of lit the fuse.”

In the aftermath, the au dio from The Twoman Show B-roll footage of Carrie’s verbose diatribe and ensu ing explosion was used as a sound for hundreds of Tik Toks. Users recorded them selves voguing to Carrie’s screams and subsequent splatter with the captions, “When the prof says the midterm will be in person,” “When it was laundry day but you got tagged in the photo,” and “Me and who?!”

“Wearing this skincare product makes me feel 40 years younger. I might even start voting Democrat again,” testified Senator McConnell.

PHOTO BY JULIA WONG

“What? It was time to BeReal,” said Snot.

PHOTO BY SHARON ROTH

BY MELINA CRUZ Staff Writer

On Thursday afternoon, the pedestrian versus cyclist debate experi enced renewed controversy after a SPIN scooter incident claimed the life of UC San Diego student Matteo Joseph. In the wake of this tragic in cident, the school’s student body split into two sides. One side deemed themselves the Freedom Walkers, pedestrian students who insist they can walk anywhere they please. The opposite side, dubbed the Corrective Cyclists, con sists of micromobility device users who insist the campus is rightfully theirs.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Mylee Rosas, self-proclaimed leader of the Freedom Walkers. “The $11,867.42 that I pay every quarter should let me walk wherever I want! If that place happens to be the bike lane, so be it! Cyclists have eyes; they should’ve seen Matteo coming from a mile away.”

The leader of the Cor rective Cyclists, Angelica Waters, stated that their true intention was not to antagonize pedestrians, but to simply get to class. “Mat teo was wearing two sets of headphones, texting on his phone, and zig-zagging in the bike lane. Of course he was going to be hit! We cy clists have places to be, and if he was in our territory, it’s as simple as that.” Wa ters added, “Besides, if cy clists aren’t strong enough to run down a fellow UCSD student, they deserve to get their U-lock cut and their bike stolen during their next lecture at Warren. Cy cling isn’t for the weak.”

Tamika Wilder, Joseph's roommate and friend, stated she was completely on the side of the Freedom Walkers. “You wanna know the truth? Matteo isn’t even dead,” Wilder revealed. “We just used some theater depart ment props and a whole lot of acting drama. He’s alive

and in hiding, but we needed some drastic measures to take back our walkways. And it’s working! In only a few short weeks, the cyclists will no longer be an issue.”

In response to the contro versy, the UCSD Transporta tion department has shut down all walkways where pedestrians and cyclists have the potential to meet.

“It’s a cooldown measure,” said Nathaniel Shepard, one of the department officers.

“It’s like making sure two wild animals can’t see each other. Once they stop con tact, the tensions will die down … in the meantime, if you use code MATTEO at the Campus Bike & Skate shop, you can get 10% off a helmet! Get that deal while you can.”

As pathways shut down around campus, students raised concerns about 10-minute walking com mutes now being extended to over hour-long walks. However, Shepard stated

that he is “not worried” about this development. “Those pathways mean nothing anyway. Do you know how we even created them to begin with? I gave my two-year-old daughter a map of UCSD and a crayon and let her draw paths wher ever she saw fit.”

The heated debate is expected to continue for another two weeks, or “un til finals kill the remaining determination” on both sides of students. Both sides continue to petition against each other on Library Walk as the current student body learns to navigate a newly reformed campus and its detour routes. As a final precautionary measure, SPIN ambassadors have removed all scooters from campus. They stated it was a way to quell the rivalry and ensure the students’ safety now that the scooters “have a taste for blood.”

Professor Branches Out to Streaming Professionally After Lecture Recordings Succeed

POINT Throwing Food on Paintings Is an Ineffectual Protest

BY IG NORE New York Times Opinion Writer

Ican’t believe people do this.

This publicity stunt does nothing to talk about climate change. You might as well strip naked in Times Square and shout about Greenpeace. How about you guys avoid damag ing priceless historic and ar tistic artifacts and works and instead maybe get involved in bringing about real change, like reposting those “1 like = plant 1 tree” things on your In stagram story.

And hey, I voted for Oba ma, so I’m an environmen talist too, but let’s just calm down the craziness over here. This whole “urgency” and “need to galvanize people to act” thing is a real turn off. Can’t you guys just try to make bold statements about the ways in which climate change will cause long-lasting harm to the Earth as a whole with out causing any discomfort to me? Look at previous suc cessful protest movements, like that MLK guy or Gandhi: none of them have ever actu ally challenged the status quo or forced people to look at un pleasant things.

There are so many other effective ways to bring about

change. For example, try vot ing with your wallet, instead of shouting at or blaming politi cians or other public officials. They’re people too. Just be cause they make decisions like not replacing lead water pipes or letting the local megacorporation dump chemicals into your water doesn’t mean they’re bad people. I mean, you environmentalists love solar and wind, and that stuff has chemicals in it too.

All in all, who’s really the unreasonable one here? Maybe you should actually do something effective, like leading a campaign to ban plastic straws in your town. If you’re really up to it, actu ally sign one of those CALP IRG petitions for plastic bags or something, I hear that re ally helps. The turtles will appreciate you.

COUNTERPOINT

It Makes the Paintings Taste Better

BY MANGER

UNEPEINTURE

Acrylic Aroma Enthusiast

Personally, I quite enjoy a healthy dash of Spam with a Monét. Combined with Monét’s artistic medium, oil on canvas, the artificial meat gives rise to a splendid con tradiction of natural beauty and artificial simulacrum. Of course, I would be remiss to ignore the beautiful irony of eating a Warhol alongside some of Monsieur Campbell’s exquisite tomato soup.

Some might say that this is barbaric, or it shows no re spect for the art form, but I vehemently protest these ig norant accusations. The de lectable qualities of paint are well known to all, especially its aroma. When combined with the subtle, woody taste of can vas, new culinary delights are born. When I first came upon this creation after huffing paint for several hours, I felt as if my eyes had finally been opened to a brave new world.

I encourage all of you read ers to try this for yourself. Perhaps start with something modern and chic, a simple dish of sunny side up eggs with some commissioned anime artwork. Or, for the more classical-minded, per haps a marble statue with a filet mignon, maybe even paired with a nice wine to pull the piece together. As you try more and more dishes, con sider the artistic qualities of the painting, and how to best pair those with your food of choice. Whatever you choose, bon appétit!

BY OLIVIA SCARBOROUGH Staff Writer

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many aspects of modern society to quickly adapt to life online.

Popular UC San Diego Pro fessor Edith Streem stated, “From work meetings to Netflix watch parties, tech nology has undoubtedly become even more impor tant in modern living. While this drastic and rapid shift expedited personal strug gles for many, for me, it was the game changer of my career.” Professor Streem, better known by her Twitch handle GAME_OR_DIE.phd, is listed on the 2023 edition of Forbes’ annual Up-AndComing Twitch Stream ers. Prior to her success on Twitch and YouTube Live, Professor Streem’s stream ing career began with her re corded lecture videos for her

remedial “Intro to Theoreti cal Quantum Neurocellular science for Non-STEM Ma jors” course. The transition from lecturing to streaming began with a “happy coin cidence:” Professor Streem, a self-described “lifelong gamer,” was discovered in a Fortnite lobby by a Twitch talent scout, Nolan Anushka — coincidentally, one of her former students. Anushka said he “recognized her voice and iconically versa tile use of obscenity while trash-talking in the lobby, and immediately private messaged her on Discord,” setting into motion the birth of an “internet star.”

Viewers of Professor Streem, self-proclaimed “phans,” say that Profes sor Streem’s “humor” and “gratuitous use of modern internet lingo” set her apart from other automated lec

ture recordings they have watched in place of going to in-person lectures. When asked about the origin of her unique fanbase name, Streem responded “Well, they did it themselves really. ‘Phan’ is just the word ‘fan’ but with a ‘ph’ instead of an ‘f,’ because — well, you know. I have a Ph.D.” Pro fessor Streem explained the intentionality behind this name, as it allows “phans” to identify each other dis creetly, so that “those who know, know, and those who don’t, don’t.”

Yulia Germana, a senior in Muir College majoring in Undeclared (Humanities/ Arts), shared that Professor Streem “really cares about her students. she totally gets that sometimes go ing to in-person class isn’t vibes. she slays tbh. Sent from my iPhone.”

Currently, the profes sor is doing a run of Resi dent Evil 8 , streaming every Monday, Wednes day, and Friday, with Sun day streams reserved for the winner of the weekly Twitter poll. This upcom ing Sunday, the game of the week is Valorant , but historical fan favorites in clude Grand Theft Auto , Minecraft , and Among Us , where she was once a spe cial guest on a collabora tive livestream with other famous creators such as Corpse Husband, Jacksep ticeye, and PewDiePie.

The professor plans to expand her online presence to TikTok within the com ing month, and "phans" are even speculating on the existence of an “OnlyDoc,” though Professor Streem has yet to comment on the validity of this rumor.

“My philosophy professor asked me what I would do when faced with the trolley problem,” said one SPIN user. “Today I found out.”

PHOTO BY JULIA WONG

PHOTO BY

UCSD to Sell Triton2Go Boxes as Christmas Presents for Future Biologists

BY FARHAD TARAPOREVALA AND CHRIS CHOUNG Design Dragon and Staff Writer

Last week, HDH an nounced that students would be able to acquire last-minute, homemade Christmas presents at an af fordable price. These pre sents would only cost five dollars and could conveni ently be picked up at any UCSD dining hall. A consult ant hired to help improve HDH, Hubert Jar, came up with the idea after a visit from Chancellor Pradeep Khosla. “Khosla wishes the best for his students and un derstands that many college students are in debt and un able to buy anything nice as Christmas presents. I imme diately set out to find an af fordable option that students could give their loved ones without seeming cheap.”

“I was struggling to find an appropriate gift that was within UCSD’s price guidelines when inspira

tion struck,” said Jar. “A manager at a dining hall was complaining about always finding mold and other bacteria inside the Triton2Go containers, and not having enough staff members to properly clean the boxes. I knew then what I had to do.”

HDH began selling the boxes of bacteria as part of their “Future Biologist Kit.” The kit came with two Petri dishes, as well as a lab man ual instructing recipients how to encourage the bacteria’s growth and observe them.

“Being a pre-med stu dent and Microbiology ma jor, I thought it’d just make the most sense to buy this to give to my little sister so she could be just like me and grow mold in the corner of her closet,” said fifth-year transfer student Sandra Boot. “When I first opened the box to see if it was any good, I was surprised to see lots of black mold, fungi, and mushrooms already

forming! Just shows how much HDH values the fu ture of biology by keeping them dirty to help us out with research.”

As a result of the immense demand for Future Biologist Kits, Jar took action to stop washing the Triton2Go boxes altogether. As a result, UC SD’s dining halls are busier than ever, with no clean box es in sight.

“I love that I don’t need to lie to the customers any more about washing these boxes,” said dining hall em ployee Cedrick Marg. “We’ve gotten rid of the dishroom shift altogether. It’s a great life, being so honest and free. Plus I have time to do other things now that my job isn’t consuming every spare minute of my exist ence. The other day I saw the sun for the first time in three months and cried.”

Although many students are purchasing this new ad dition to dining hall menus, not everybody is enthused

ALL I WANT FOR BRIEFMAS IS YOU

DONALD TRUMP RETURNS TO TWITTER, SAVES THE PLATFORM

susan bagel

When I dream, I dream of my grandmother’s fruit bread. Every winter, she made enough loaves to feed a small village, and we feasted on the rich, crumby, aromatic fruits of her la bor. There was always a pot of candied fruit on the stovetop, always a loaf of bread rising on the windowsill. The loaves were as big as my torso, and seven of my cousins had to work together to carry them to the table. To make the sea salt for her loaves, my grandmother spent hours boiling down sea water. She fed her bread starter on whey protein. Her stollen was like a warm hug for your esophagus.

The days are short, the nights are long, and Mr. Bagel is stay ing out later and later to finish an end-of-quarter project with his boss, Amanda. I felt myself withering in the dark house. I was searching my recipe books for a light to guide me when I recalled Grandmother’s stollen, warm as the in side of a room-temperature volcano. My desire carved a hole straight through me. I craved the comfort of freshly-baked bread, the joy of singing the clean-up song as Grandmother placed another loaf in the oven, made with love that you can taste in every bite.

I needed to find my way back to that bread. I needed to grasp on to that kind of joy again.

about the change. Many students have rallied to gether to ban Triton2Go boxes altogether, as they have caused serious issues with food and air quality within the dining halls.

“I think all Triton2Go boxes have got to go!” said freshman Oliver Wheat thins. “Every time I bring food home for dinner, I end up getting food poi soning. Sure, I’ve lost 50 pounds, but I was trying to bulk up for the harsh San Diego winters.”

In the weeks follow ing the initiation of this new program, students re ceived a message from HDH through the mobile order ing app. “Please remember to return your Triton2Go boxes to your nearest din ing hall in a timely manner,” said the message. “Supply of containers is limited, so it is important that you clean out any mold, fungi, and cultures of rare bacteria, be cause we won’t.”

“KHOSPLAYERS” TO STORM COMIC-CON

A research paper pub lished in the Journal of Poor Judgement and Indecision sparked hope in the scien tific community after claim ing that “it cannot get worse from here.” The principal in vestigator, Giuseppe DePres sion, said “We have reached rock bottom, and my brain cannot wrap my mind around things being worse than they currently are.”

DePression’s team of world-class scientists ran hundreds of simulations en visioning a situation in which things got worse. “Every time we ran a simulation our su percomputers caught on fire. Once our grant funding ran out, we concluded that this is the worst things could possibly be,” mused Anne Xia-Tee, the first author on the publication. “However, as a geologist, I feel specifi cally equipped to study rock bottom. So to people worried that it cannot get worse, fear not. I have reached rock bot tom, but I brought a shovel and I am ready to dig.”

Since releasing their findings, DePression and his colleagues have ramped up investigations about the ongoing situation. Current studies suggest that while it cannot get worse, it also can not get better.

Following Elon Musk’s ac quisition of Twitter, nearly all users have levied complaints against Musk’s policies. Many have gone so far as to leave the platform altogether, lead ing the remaining Twitter em ployees to urge Musk towards drastic action. Inspired by the users that remained, the majority being conservatives, Elon Musk tweeted: “The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated.”

Backlash exploded with people citing the many rea sons why Trump’s account was suspended in the first place. These sentiments were ignored by Musk, however, as they were not expressed on the Twitter platform. Donald Trump’s reinaugural tweet read: “Great to be back. Fan tastic job, elon. I plan to do great things, there are fantas tic things in our future!”

“The comments were, groundbreakingly for Twitter, completely positive,” said one user. “Whether it be because 84% of users have left by now or because critics were im mediately suspended.”

Since then, the Twitter ex perience has been reportedly “the best it’s been in years.” While the amount of users has substantially decreased, the platform has also elimi nated all arguments and controversies. For the cur rent users, it is a paradise for information exchange, but for everyone else, they still have Instagram.

With tickets secured, hundreds of UC San Diego students are frantically pre paring for San Diego ComicCon, one of the largest com ic conventions in the United States. But this event will be unique, as it will be the first to have attendees dressed up as Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla, from the newlyreleased movie K-People: Second Class , in which the Chancellor runs a university for non-mutants.

A group of Khosplayers gathered to help each other prepare their Khostumes. “I don’t know what drew me to him,” said one student.

“The mystery, I guess. Is he a hero? A villain? An antihero? Regardless, it must be exhausting.” Another student arranged plans for the big day. “Yeah, we’re all just going to take the trol ley down to the Convention Center. If you miss it, hop in the flying car and don’t get seen by Muggles!”

Students talked about their favorite moments from the old and new Khomics se ries alike. “Remember when he turned on the lights on that bridge over that free way? Or when he finished that ‘campaign like non oth er?’” inquired one student.

Another countered, “Yeah, that was cool, but I really liked when the Chancellor said, ‘I am the Senate,’ and then spun around really fast in front of a green screen.”

UC ON DAY SEVEN OF NOT UNDERSTANDING THE POINT OF A UNION

For the past week, a co alition of four unions rep resenting academic work ers across the UC system went on strike due to the university's unlawful bar gaining practices. Despite the union’s clear messag ing about the necessity of their demands, UC repre sentatives are struggling to figure out “where all the workers went.”

“I’m really not sure what is going on,” said UC representative Gilbert Godwin. “All these people who work for us are now not working and just mak ing a lot of noise. We pay them money, let them pay rent in the apartments we built and give them ac cess to a food pantry. What more do they want?”

“We’d never thought they’d go on strike,” said UC spokesperson U.N. Buster. “It just seemed like a nice club where all the workers were joining a community that sometimes asked us for better conditions. We would just say no and that would be that. I wish they would just do that instead of using their power to ac tually enact change.”

Last week, I’d purchased far more winter citrus than Mr. Bagel, my two little Bagels, and myself could eat. I began candying fruit.

The sharp scent of lemons. The dry, acid burn of orange juice on my fingers. I cradled each fruit in my palm as I carved away its skin with a paring knife, careful not to in clude the spongy pith. I dropped each piece into bubbling water. I boiled out the bitterness. I saw the ghost of happi ness in the steaming water.

Then I boiled the peels again in sugar water. Some call it simple syrup, but it is surprisingly complex. I spent hours in the kitchen, smelling these fruits, the sugar water con densing into thick nectar — but the citrus retained its fundamental flavor. I imagine a house built of bricks of oranges, sweet, sharp, orange stability; bursts of happiness in the foundation of my home.

Then I laid the peels out to dry for two days. For two nights, I could not sleep. The days are short and the nights are long.

Next, I made the dough. I’ve made bread dough count less times, but still, each loaf is a test of my will, and I forgot to study. I knead and muscle the dough into the counter, each movement an exertion and a prayer. It never gets easier. My grandmother could lift a hundred pounds at age ninety.

Then I chopped the candied fruit — hours of labor and chemical processes — into sticky, bite-sized pieces. I folded the morsels into the loaf, and my heart swelled as I left it to rise for another hour. Then I brushed it with butter and baked it for another hour. My temples throbbed with anticipation.

The smell as I pulled it from the oven was overwhelming. I cradled it in my arms. I tapped a sifter of powdered sugar gently across its back. Then I wrapped it in suffocating plastic wrap and abandoned it for two weeks. Like aging wine, the bread needed to find itself.

When Mr. Bagel’s mother came to visit, she asked what that thing on the counter was. I told her it was bread we couldn’t eat for two weeks. She left.

December loomed in my mind in a cloud of flour. I imagined the buttery, sweet slices, but over the long nights, the image crumbled and began falling through the cracks. I lost the forest for the trees and only realized when I had wandered too deep to ever escape, trapped in a hell of my own creation — long, cold winter nights.

Slow as syrup dripping through an hourglass, two weeks trickled by. I held the loaf in my arms again. The scent was not as sweet as I remembered. Already, I felt the warmth fad ing. The fruit bread, big as my torso as a child, was barely wider than my palm. Had I outgrown simple pleasures? Was the magic really gone? Or — keeping my pittance of hope alive — had I forgotten how to make it? Need I start the entire process over?

I quivered silently at the kitchen counter, gazing down at the shiny plastic covering the bread. I could not bring myself to unwrap it. What if it wasn’t the same? What if nothing would ever be the same? I shuddered as the present washed over me, as the wave crashed in the past. I could not walk back towards shore, nor walk into the surf. I could only let the water slam into me, over and over, grinding me down into silt.

Anyway, here’s the recipe:

1. Buy stollen at the store.

2. Throw it away.

3. Attempt to enjoy.

“When they said UCSD had a weird culture, this is not what I thought they meant,” said Wheatthins.

PHOTO BY ROMELLA SAGATELIAN

STUDY REVEALS THAT IT CAN’T GET WORSE

The MQ Redesigns the Food Pyramid

The food pyramid has been criticized for its confusing layout and its status as a product of corporate lobbying and government endorsement of struggling food sectors. Rest assured, our food pyramid has none of these problems. Read on for our true, completely-true, and nothing-but-true nutrition advice provided by nutritionists hired by our corporate sponsors.

Condiments, such as Heinz Kranch, NyQuil, and soju form a small but important part of a balanced diet. The squeeze bottles improve your grip strength, and condi ments provide vital lubrication for your esophagus.

Recently discovered to be an essential part of one’s diet are microplastics, which in clude everything from pizzas baked on plastic cutting boards to vegan faux-leather to Kraft Parmesan Cheese. Microplastics in crease brain plasticity and make your skin shiny, like fruit wax.

Technically non-perishable foods include candies such as chocolate-covered golf balls, everlasting gobstoppers, and pickle brine. Not only do these foods preserve your intestinal lining, they also dehydrate you so you can drink more water.

An important part of every diet, foods in the blue group include Smurfs, Viagra, and denim jeans. Blue is vital to your health, as it neutralizes the Red Dye 40 in your blood. And, since it doesn’t occur naturally, you need to eat artificial blue to supplement your diet.

The Nestlé food group includes products such as leaded water, bot tled air, and rat-flavored chocolate.

Buying Nestlé products supports corporations operating in countries where resources are being exploit ed. It gives children better working opportunities. Nestlé is the oasis of the food desert.

Examples of corn-based products include candy corn, corned beef, corn juice, corn dogs, cornflavored La Croix, and unsuspecting Cornell students. Corn should form the basis of your diet. It improves earsight and cleanses your body of sin.

Interview with a Corporate Nutritionist Nutrition Statistics

What advice do you have for preparing food?

Make sure to thoroughly clean all of your food before you eat it. Cot ton candy in particular is known for its high concentration of pesti cides, so be sure to wash it in warm water before consumption.

What are some easyways to avoid indigestion?

The leading cause of indigestion is insufficient chewing, especially with apples. If you are a novice with regards to chewing, the old adage of an apple a day is actually quite harmful advice. To supplement your chewing, you should swallow a few small rocks every day to break up the food in your stomach before it enters your intestines.

How should we proportion food for our meals?

A simple mnemonic for portion control is Condiments, Microplas tics, Blue, Technically Non-Perishable Foods, Nestlé, and CornBased Products (CMBTNPFNCBP), which you should include in your meals in proportion from least to most. If that is difficult to remember, use the 3:4:4:2:4:6 ratio for each group in the pyramid moving counter-clockwise from condiments.