The MQ Volume 28 Issue 3

THE MQ UC SAN DIEGO

December 1, 2021

“I love bald men. Just because you’ve lost your fuzz don’t mean you ain’t a peach” - Lauren Sánchez, Girlfriend of Jeff Bezos

Volume XXVIII Issue III

Your perfect last-minute gift wrap

Students Desperate for Chance at Black Friday Tuition Discount

IN THIS ISSUE 1,000 DEAD IN THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS

3

UCSD GETS RAILED BY BLUE LINE EXTENSION

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THE MQ GOES TO “THE RACES”

6,7

UCSD CREATES NEW “ALL HOLIDAY WEEK”

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CHEM MAJORS FEAST ON THANKSGIVING CHEMICALS

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NEWS IN BRIEF PHOTO BY SHARON ROTH

“You’re gonna get a deal on this knuckle sandwich,” yelled Sweeney.

BY MADELINE MOZAFARI

A

Staff Writer

s the holiday season approaches, Black Friday savings are at the forefront of many UCSD students’ minds. In front of Geisel Library, nearly 50 students could be seen camped along the library’s entryway; unmoving, covered in blankets, and muttering to themselves, “discounts, discounts, less tuition … ” One student, Jenny Fortescue, stated: “I’ve been out here for days. I’ve attended my remote classes, befriended the raccoons, and lost three toes. I only have my love for discounts to keep me warm.”

While UCSD admin has stated that there will be a contest inside the library for a tuition discount on Black Friday, they

have not confirmed exactly what this contest entails.

“I heard it was a mega game of hide-and-seek where if you find Khosla and bop him on the head, you get $1000 off, and if you bop any college’s provost on the head, it’s $500!” exclaimed a small voice from under a mound of blankets.

Another student amongst the campers, Robert Sweeney, claimed, “I heard a rumor that whoever catches the raccoon that’s been living in the library’s pipes and brings it back unharmed will get free tuition for a quarter! But my friend here has an even better idea.” Sweeney gestured to a frozen student, who broke into shards as he tapped their shoulder. Some students have expressed concern for their classmates camped by the library doors. “Do … do they

need a GoFundMe? Can we make some GoFundMes? It is so cold … they must be so cold,” whispered a student on their way to study for a Week 10 midterm.

Some have even called on UCSD admin to call off the contest as a result of the students’ misery. “It is barbaric,” said psychology professor Maria Lansing. “These poor children have been outside for so long just to join some contest they don’t even know the details of for a chance to pay a little less in tuition. Lord knows it won’t be much.” UCSD admin sent out a statement saying: “We had no idea the response this would bring about. We thought it would just be another Instagram post lost in the slurry of failed attempts

to get students to participate at this school. But hey, we’re incredibly happy to see students’ enthusiasm and commitment!”

Geisel librarians have sweetened the pot by raffling out heated blankets to the small group of students waiting in line. Students who want to compete in the raffle must balance atop the tallest branch of the silent tree for an entire minute while being harassed by HDH workers who want the students out of it. As the weather grows colder, and more and more students brave the cold for a shot at a discounted tuition, the whole school is on the edge of their seats to see what the contest will bring — and the fate of the students hoping to win it.

Local ASMR Artist Livestreams From the 8th Floor of Geisel During Finals Week

MOM, I WOULD LIKE A PIECE OF BREAD I am famished. Starving.

Excruciatingly hungry. I am but a six-year-old flower, wasting away. Indeed, my sweet little six-year-old stomach is emptier than it has ever been, despite the fact that I had a pizza with a surface area equal to that of my torso for dinner not but three hours ago.

It is bread that I require.

A slice of fluffy, chewy, plain, room-temperature bread, baked in a factory and lovingly packaged by underpaid workers. Oh, how I crave the glutenous release of a single slice of

bread, which is around 50% air! Au bon pain! Je ne suis pas français mais j’adore les baguettes.

O mother, have you seen the time? It is 10 p.m., far past my bedtime. Dearest mother, I beg of you, please bring me a piece of white bread. I have been eating all day, but now at this moment, close to dawn, I need sustenance more than ever before. Like darkness, I devour. Like darkness, I am void. Like darkness, I lack bread. Be the light, o’ mother, I implore you; bring me a piece of bread. I must feast.

LOCAL GNOMES OPEN RESTAURANT World-renowned sommelier Emille TurnpikeFlashdrive, who is a gnome, opened a restaurant with his wife Gretna F l a s h d r i v e - Tu r n p i k e , who is also a gnome. The pair plan to bring miniature French cuisine to upstate New York, where they currently reside.

The restaurant, opening early next year, has an open-concept layout that blends elements of being outside and inside. Turnpike-Flashdrive claims the natural setting helps customers feel at home, since they spend the majority of their workday out on front lawns.

In addition to blending natural elements, Le Petit Gnome will also be murder mystery themed.

The couple described the decor as “heavily inspired

by Sherlock Gnomes.”

Flashdrive-Turnpike and Turnpike-Flashdrive have managed to secure celebrity appearances for opening night, including several members of the gnome city council and famous linguist Gnome Chomsky.

Tu r n p i k e - F l a s h d r i v e shared a few items from the opening night menu.

He listed, “We’re going to have gnocchi, gnoodles, gnectarine pie, gneopolitan ice cream … ”

EVERYONE WENT TO BED WITHOUT FLOSSING TODAY “Surprisingly, my MATH 20C grade is more unsettling than asMARTA’s performance,” said O’Reilley.

BY CLAIRE MCNERNEY

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Staff Writer

he quietest floor of Geisel Library was disturbed last Tuesday by self-proclaimed “ASMR-tist,” Twitch streamer, and professional moaner, asMARTA.

Student witnesses report hearing her fingernails clacking, bubble wrap popping, and Cheeto chewing; all of which upset students attempting to study for their second round of midterms.

“Sure, we glared at her, but what were we going to do?”

NEW SUMMER TOY! Vat of acid

complained one math major “Shush her? That would be stooping to her level.” asMARTA, who has “as many followers as there are fans of UCSD housing,” whispered her statement into her pink Blue Yeti microphone: “I … ” She then exhaled deeply

PHOTO BY SHARON ROTH

before smacking her lips, which prompted another student to offer her a stick of gum. Marta’s “sensual” chewing and popping was a huge hit on her stream. The chat

See ASMR, page 2

NASA LAUNCHES CAT-BASED LUNAR MODULE Always lands on its feet

After months of research, a Stanford lab concluded that literally everyone went to sleep without flossing beforehand today. While the study has yet to be replicated, lead researcher Dr. Polly Greenwood is confident that this knowledge has groundbreaking implications for society as we know it. “Say goodbye to your individual identity,” said Dr. Greenwood.

“We’re all unflossed little lumps of clay now.”

Anecdotal evidence suggests the study’s effects have been profound.

“This woman in Costco came up to me today and said, ‘You didn’t floss be-

fore you went to bed today,’” reported Harriet Leonard, a local schoolteacher. “I started to walk faster, but then she said, ‘I didn’t either. And that’s okay.’ I broke down sobbing in the milk aisle.”

Other scientists are less sure of the implications of Greenwood’s conclusion that this is in fact part of a deeper rooted issue culminating in seasonal depression.

“It’s incredible. Greenwood robustly showed that everyone went to bed without flossing today, but I think that says more about our dental health than our mental health,” said Dr. Kathleen Yates.

See BRIEFS, page 11

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theMQ.org

December 1, 2021

UCSD Announces Transcripts and Diplomas to be Available Exclusively as NFTs

PHOTO BY MARIA DHILLA “I can’t believe how easy this crypto stuff is,” exclaimed one student, “I traded my diploma for a picture of a funny monkey and now I’m going to be rich!”

BY AARON SONIN

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Staff Writer

n Thursday, Chancellor Khosla announced that transcripts and degrees for UCSD students will be offered exclusively as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The new Crypto-Reinforced University Data system, or CRUD, will allow students to purchase copies of their transcripts and diplomas online for a flat fee of one KhoslaCoin.

The decision comes after the decision to move towards a cryptocurrency-based system for DIning Dollars, which sparked controversy among students after the crash of KhoslaCoin left many unable to afford food. Khosla announced that it aims to reduce friction for students in acquiring these important documents, stating, “Over are the days of losing your transcripts in the mail, having your diploma arrive folded in half, and needing to use the old ‘my dog ate my degree’ excuse. Now, getting a copy

of your diploma is as easy as going online and outbidding your fellow students.”

Khosla also touted the environmental benefits of the CRUD system, stating that the reduced paper waste from using all-digital copies of transcripts and diplomas will help UCSD reach its sustainability goals. “The environment has always been important to UCSD, which was a big factor in the decision to develop CRUD,” stated Khosla. When asked if the NFTbased system’s acronym had any correlation with UCSD’s wastewater COVID-19 detection system, the chancellor refused to comment.

While the CRUD program has yet to go into effect, it has already received a large amount of criticism from students. “I can’t believe UCSD has decided to jump the gun on this,” complained Bithany Coiner, a fourth-year student at Revelle. “I just hope that my KhoslaCoin holds its value until I can buy

my diploma — I can’t afford to get screwed over by another market crash like the last one.” Other students criticized Chancellor Khosla’s claims regarding the environmental benefits of CRUD, with many pointing out the environmental impacts of cryptocurrency. “So let me get this straight — instead of chopping down a couple trees, UCSD would rather spew literal tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere just so that students can get their transcripts? I’m not surprised at all, I always knew UCSD was in the pocket of big energy companies,” stated Johnny Greenthumb, a third-year environmental sciences student.

Although the NFT-based program has been heavily criticized, some students welcome the implementation of CRUD. “I used to stay awake at night, worrying that my degree would be a waste of money,” said Rob Smith, a second-year psychology stu-

dent. “But now that I know I can just auction my diploma off to the highest bidder if it all goes wrong, I’ve never slept better.” Other students feel the change is overdue, and are glad that the university has decided to switch.

“I’ve always been a big proponent of cryptocurrency,” stated computer science student D’elon Musc. “Finally, I’ll have a reason to start explaining NFTs to people even when they didn’t ask me to!”

The program is set to go into effect at the end of the current school year, requiring the class of 2022 to acquire their diplomas through CRUD. While it mainly focuses on official documents, the university plans to transition additional items to CRUD, such as school merchandise, parking passes, and housing contracts. The debut of CRUD will feature an NFT auction of the Sun God statue, with a starting bid of 400 KhoslaCoin.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1:

ASMR

erupted with joy for “Hubba Bubba Brad,” who continued to give her gum until the tape roll was empty. “I feel like I was really doing something for the community,” said Brad. “It’s finals week and we all need to relax, you know?” asMARTA then proceeded to fondle slime in front of her microphone until the Wi-Fi cut out, stopping her livestream. According to bystanders, asMARTA “clacked violently at her keyboard with a fervor previously only seen by students disconnected from their timed-tests” before hissing, “UCSD protected! I hhhhhate you, I will sssssspite you, I will dessssstroy you!”

After the Wi-Fi reconnected, asMARTA’s stream continued. Viewers reported a “soft moan” reverberating around the otherwise quiet room. This disturbed some nearby students and some viewers, who erupted in a stream of white thumbs down emojis. “I mean, sure. It’s hot,” said Lucas Jey. “But I have a huge econ project due tomorrow, and I would really like to finish it without worrying about whether I’m

— I mean if someone else is — you know — ” Anonymous student complaints led angry librarians to forcibly remove asMARTA from the floor, who resisted, “stomping her feet and scratching her nails along the ground while clicking aggressively with her tongue.” Eventually, librarians were able to force her into the elevator, but witnesses claim asMARTA “tapped her long nails against all the metal buttons, so students on the seventh, sixth, fifth, and fourth floors got a taste of what her livestream has to offer.”

In response to the controversial stream, asMARTA’s has shifted focus from abstract noises to motivational speaking. “You will succeed,” she whispered during one stream, while slurping from a water bottle. “You will succcccccceed.” Polly O’Reilley, a third-year Marshall student, said, “I really appreciated that. I was having a rough day, and her dulcet hissing really calmed me down. I think if she were allowed back into the eighth floor, it would be a more inviting study space.”

Articles Exclusively Online!

I’m the Gallon of Milk in Your Fridge You Have Not Touched Since Week 1 Hark! Welcometh Back to Mine ThouTube Channel TikTok Songs in Dining Halls Make Customers Prone to Involuntary Fits of Dancing UCSD to Launch New Subscription Based WiFi Service Point: My Life Isn’t So Bad Actually CounterPoint: I’m From a Different Dimension, You’re in the dark timeline

Find them at themq.org

Editorial Board Editor-in-Chief.............. ......Aniela Drumonde Managing Editor.........................Andrew Sitko Ass. Content Editor............Isabelle McKelvey Ass. Content Editor................Matthew Ware Design Editor.....................................Bri Arce Graphics Editor...........................Sharon Roth Graphics Editor............................Maria Dhilla

Social/Publicity Chair....................Jacob King Copy Overlord...........................Adian Valdez Web Editor........................................Jerry Wu Distribution Captain...............Kaz Nuckowski Installation Wizard..........................Jack Yang Self-Proclaimed Fun Aunt..........Natalia Nenn Muir Advisor.............................Mario Garibay

Staff Members

Most people talk, but we speak.

Tuesdays at 6 p.m. Mariposa Room.

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

In this, our third issue of the MQ, I’m feeling pretty optimistic. We’ve hit our stride, I think. We’ve crawled, then walked, and now we must run wild. You’re seeing an MQ never before witnessed, which makes sense: this IS a periodical.

We’re publishing WAY more online content pushing against the limitations of what a newspaper org is, and I couldn’t be happier with how many more jokes we’ve made, and also the sheer level of interaction we’ve been having in Production. On a personal note, some features that I’ve contributed have developed some…shall we say…lore. More on this as it inevitably develops. Enjoy.

Aniela Drumonde

Henry Ashcroft Mira Avaramuthan Ayushi Banerjee Connor Betterly Shantelle Brooks Yuri Bukhradze Emily Cronan Melina Cruz Rani Das Theo Erickson

Gabrielle Hart Tommy Jung Jeannie Kim Jina Lee Miranda May Claire McNerney Madeline Mozafari Chiara Ng John Overton Tomoka Ozaki

Bryce Pollack Sophie Pubb Mike Raucci-Crane Pranav Reddy Alex ReinschGoldstein Everett Ririe Pilan Scruggs Aaron Sonin Gage Tanzman

Farhad Taraporevala Mackenzy Tolliver Nicole Tsuyuki Robin Brewin Paige Johnson James Woolley Julia Wong Seiji Yang Millie You

Booster Club Thank you for attending the Oscorp Thanksgiving Dinner! We are very sorry about all of those who perished attempting to stab the genetically modified turkey to death. We will engrave the names of the fallen on the Oscorp Exosuit which we will sell to the US military. Those names are Jacob, Matthew, Isabelle, John, Kaz, Madeline, Aaron, Aniela, Adian, Andrew, Robin, Jack, and Theo.

December 1, 2021

theMQ.org

Newest Fast Fashion Trend Dead on Arrival

Page 3

EDITORIAL

1,000 Dead in the War on Christmas

BY XANDER GOLDMAN Proud American

I PHOTO BY CONNOR BETTERLY “I’ve just started walking around naked so everyone thinks I’m wearing the next big thing,” claimed Morales.

BY CHIARA NG

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Staff Writer

he Emergency Communication Center has received frantic calls reporting numerous casualties in the mailboxes of many students. The victims, according to the reports, include various sizes of graphic tees patterned with patches of every animal print known to mankind. “I thought it was camp,” cried Demi Morales, UCSD student and TikTok influencer with 3,000 followers. Morales had ordered the shirt, planning on showing it off in her upcoming $2,000 Shein haul video. “I ordered express shipping and everything.

How could this happen?”

San Diego county coro-

ners established the cause of death to be a TikTok video saying the shirt was “the ugliest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”

The video mocking the tee was released, and despite the delivery man’s best efforts to sprint to her home, the shirt was unable to be resuscitated, and met its demise.

Later that week, Morales and members of Tritons for Shein gathered to commemorate the death of the animal print tee and other clothing that died upon arrival. “We want to show respect for the people who worked so hard to make the dress,” said Toni Chen, president of Tritons for Shein, before tossing a tee into the bonfire. “This is a really beautiful representa-

tion of the fast fashion community, and at times like this, I think we really need to be there for each other.”

When asked about donation or the consequences of fast fashion on the environment, the club members looked at one another in silence before someone said, “Okay, and?” They then began making a TikTok of the bonfire, working hard to delete comments that critiqued their “overconsumption” and “disregard for fast-fashion’s unethical labor sources.” When asked about her thoughts on fashion companies outsourcing their labor from minors in impoverished countries, Chen insisted, “It’s not even that bad. I would love to make cute

clothes as a kid. They’re literally living the dream. I don’t know why everyone is making such a big deal out of it.”

Two hours into the ceremony, a member exclaimed, “Shit, we could’ve sold this on Depop.” The group collectively groaned at the missed opportunity to resell their clothing to middle schoolers.

However, they quickly moved on when a different member stumbled upon a new Shein haul with a “very cute” miniskirt. The members rushed onto the website, pulling out their credit cards as they ordered with Premium Express Shipping to prevent a repeat of history.

Ask Emily Queue

Dear Emily Queue, is it morally wrong to think that, in this capitalistic society, I am essentially buying my friend’s and family’s love through gift-giving? Or is that reductive?

Ah, I was wondering when the Philosophy majors would crawl out of the floorboards. Why do people like you have to ruin everything? How miserly do you have to be to try and rationalize not making any effort to care for your loved ones? Your massive ego aside, let’s drop the pretense like I’d drop your pretentious ass if you ever happend to fall into my line of sight. Just take a piece of paper and write a card, it’s not that hard. If you’re so anal about materialism, lead by example: sell your house, quit your job, and donate your 401k to charity.

Subsist on nothing but your smug attitude and sense of superiority. See how long you last.

Dear Emily Queue, is it okay to return a gift I don’t like?

Why would you throw away that which could be regifted? Live your girlboss life, build an empire on just bad Christmas gifts. We live in a capitalist society, as another question says, as the world we live in admits every day. Why not tweak the system in your favor? Why not churn out success from the failings of others?

Why not lie and steal and cheat to get your way? Literally, there are no consequences for this. Sell that tootight sweater. Upsell those LED

lights. Have someone sell their soul for a chance at buying a dog-eared copy of Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.

Do the math.

Dear Emily Queue, I was broken up with a few days ago, so I snuck into my ex’s apartment and hid rubber bands, distressed socks, and opened sardine cans everywhere. I’m assuming my ex was upset by the majority of my prank, but she has copyrighted the idea of distressed socks and is currently in negotiations with fashion brands to turn this concept into a lucrative clothing line. Should I come clean and tell her I was the one who broke into her apartment and ask for half the profit of the whole distressed sock thing? I feel like since I did plant the socks there I should get some credit, but I worry there are some legal ramifications for the breaking and entering stuff.

Well, breaking a few eggs, or a few hearts, is a necessary component of all endeavors: it opens the door to fruitful revenge quests. Break and enter again, break them. Hurt them like they hurt you. You deserve some rights to the concept of distressed socks for your distress. For the unmitigated pain of heartbreak, the lonely winter nights spent pining for the warm embrace of another’s affection.

For the wistful days spent crying inconsolably as you change your phone home screen from your six month anniversary selfie back to your perfectly positioned framing of a black and white picture of that flower you

saw on the side of the road — the only thing in this life that will never betray you. For the many tubs of ice cream over which you have lamented your sorrows, transforming your mint brownie fudge-a-rino tears into an ice cold revenge sundae. You deserve this.

Dear Emily Queue, my Christmases are always boring because my family members are too alike and agree on most things. What’s something controversial I can bring up to keep me from falling asleep at the table like last year?

Harmony is an illusion. All families have secrets, and it looks like you get to expose yours. Hire private investigators to prepare a dossier on each person to be distributed anonymously amongst your family, sit back, and let the dominoes fall. Unfortunately, that means your family has to find out about your signed memorabilia from the original Broadway run of Pippin!, but that’s a small price to pay for chaos. Now, fan the flame of newfound familial rage. This fire is very literal. As your family argue, position the Christmas ham on a stake surrounded by wood to burn as an effigy. Connect a wire to the effigy so that you can pull the ham from the rubble of your home, and as your family escapes their burning house, fish the now-cooked ham to safety. Like a phoenix from the ashes, the ham is reborn ready for your new family to consume. Bon appétit!

t’s no secret that life is getting tougher for conservative, Christian, patriotic Americans like me. Still, it’s a tough pill to swallow –– just like the benzodiazepines that my mother used to take every morning before driving me to school. As the Christmas season is almost upon us, the persecution has escalated to even more severe levels. In the last three weeks, the liberal, socialist War on Christmas has claimed more than 1,000 lives as tensions have escalated across the country. Hundreds of people have already lost their lives to cancel culture, Twitter pile-ons, air strikes, and Hallmark cards which say “Happy Holidays” instead of the godly “Merry Christmas” on them.

The scale of the persecution is just immense. The War on Christmas has been escalating in this country for some time, but even I was surprised to see how truly bloody this year has been. I am calling on President Biden to stop this liberal cancel culture immediately. I know he reads this paper, so he better listen to me!

The crimes perpetrated against God-fearing, conservative Americans during the War on Christmas will live in infamy for all time. But you won’t hear about them from the Liberal Media — the true, deplorable stories of these atrocities are only available from reputable sources. These sources include my Aunt Patricia’s Facebook group, which was originally formed to share a clickbait article called “How to Cure Debilitating Hemorrhoids with One Weird Trick.” The acts of barbarism against those of us who celebrate Christmas, perpetrated by the left-wing wokesters, are worth recounting here.

The newly-created FBI (Femboy Bureau of Investi-

gation) has conducted raids across the country, having been ordered by President Biden to seize all Christmas trees, wreaths, and wrapping paper. Biden signed an executive order last month making possession of eggnog a capital offense, and has ordered that Americans drink coronavirus vaccine juice instead. President Biden, who wishes to be referred to as His Grinchiness, has also devised a strategy to punish children who still celebrate Christmas in defiance of the federal government’s crackdown. Decoy mall Santas have been deployed across the country, who lure children to their laps and ask if they celebrate Christmas. If the child answers in the affirmative, they are packed into a box and disappeared into Hillary Clinton’s pizza parlor cannibal sex dungeon.

In addition to costing lives, the War on Christmas has also destroyed the lives of countless conservative Americans.

My cousin Lucile, the manager of a Hobby Lobby in Abilene, Kansas, sent me a message on MySpace describing the grim spectacle following liberal cancel culture’s attack on her business: “We sold these little placards that said ‘IN THIS HOUSE WE SAY MERRY CHRISTMAS,’ in the same section as the livelaugh-love posters. I guess that was what we did ‘wrong.’ At 4:00 p.m. yesterday, President Biden deployed a Predator drone strike against our store in retaliation for our Christian merchandise. There is nothing left. There is nothing left … ” Not even Republican lawmakers are safe from the violent left-wing crackdown.

“Antifa is outside my house,” Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) told me: “They say they want figgy pudding, and they won’t go until they get some. Oh my god.” Christians and conservatives are being persecuted in this country because of our sincere moral beliefs. The left is tyrannical and is obsessed with telling people what to do. “You can’t say Merry Christmas!”

What’s next — you’re going to tell me I have to bake gingerbread “womxn” instead of gingerbread men? What gives you the right to control my life?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go campaign for a complete ban on abortion.

TOP TEN

Suspects Who Ran Grandma Over 10. Antifa 9. Hypothermia 8. Mariah Carey on a Zamboni 7. Our stepdad Scott on ketamine 6. A moose with no prior criminal record 5. A foot soldier in the War on Christmas 4. Santa’s Secret Service 3. Early-onset dementia 2. Eggnog lobbyists 1. A reindeer?

Nothing to see here, just two airheads

THE MQ

Tuesdays, 6 p.m., Mariposa Room.

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theMQ.org

Hanukkah Cut to Seven Days Due to Oil Shortage

December 1, 2021

POINT

I Got Salmonella From UCSD Dining Halls

BY SAM O. NELLA Hungry Student

T

PHOTO BY SHARON ROTH “The oil lasting for eight days was no miracle,” said Zelda. “Back then, people didn’t live under Joe Biden’s gas prices.”

BY KAZ NUCKOWSKI & SHARON ROTH

Distribution Lieutenant & Graphics Editor

A

s the holiday season approaches, Jewish communities have been disproportionately impacted by nationwide oil shortages.

Many members of the La Jolla Jewish community have complained extensively about the impacts on their local businesses in anticipation of Chanukah, which one resident, Keren Moth, described as “the most fried-food-filled day of the year.” Moth elaborated in an interview, saying, “My uncle’s deli was destined to be filled sky-chai with fun foods starting November 29th this year! Pickled maccabeets, dreideli meats, hanu-candied treats, bagels, and most importantly, latkes.” Moth continued listing foods, with what many described as a

wistful look on her face.

The oil shortage also has implications for the holiday itself. According to a statement released by the La Jolla City Council, the holiday will be officially shortened to seven days. Legislators cited the oil crisis as a primary reason for shortening the holiday this year. Chana Zelda, one local grandmother, protested the change. “I can’t even make sufganiyot for all 613 of my great-grandchildren this year. Stop taking our holidays from us! You barely acknowledge Hanukkah, and sure, it’s a minor holiday, and sure, it’s mostly to give the kids presents. But that makes it even more insulting that you wish me Happy Chanukah on December 25th, three weeks after the Hanukkah is over. It’s a disgrace.”

The local Chabad rabbi, Matisyahu, and his five sons, Yehudah, Shimon, Yochanan,

Yonasan, and Elazar, railed against the oil shortage at their weekly Shabbat dinner.

“This Hanukkah, the government thinks they can stifle us because of a so-called lack of oil. What do those bureaucrats know? This government has more branches than a menorah!” Matisyahu and his family rallied the San Diegan Jewish community to use less oil in the hopes of restoring the last day of Chanukah. He said in an interview, “I never drive on Shabbat, so why drive at all? Walking everywhere conserves oil. Keep the liquid in the ground, Hanukkah is safe and sound!”

Maoz Tzur, the owner of the local deli, also kvetched to reporters about the change.

“You mean to tell me I have to cancel my plans for the eighth night? Do I buy a new menorah? What next, they destroy the Western Wall again?”

Tzur’s deli had to change their

menu once he got wind of the oil shortage. “I mean, we don’t have enough oil for latkes, so we had to start making littlekes instead. They’re exactly the same, just smaller and full of Jewish rage. Only $1.80, you want one?” said Tzur as he held out a plate to reporters, with a desperate look in his eyes. “Please support my business. I’m begging you.”

Some members of the Jewish community have decided to embrace this change to the holiday by incorporating the use of clean energy to “promote a green holiday.” Rabbi Matisyahu has introduced a new menorah with seven wind turbines and a large fan as the shamash, stating “This new invention will revolutionize the Chanukah industry. Who needs the miracle of lasting oil, when renewable energy lasts forever?”

World Renowned Chef Eats His Words

his is ridiculous. I pay God knows how much for housing (which is a small barn in Riverside County with free bus service to Seventh) and Dining Dollars, and what do I get?

A zero-expenses-paid trip to the hospital with salmonella!

Let me tell you what happened: It was a beautiful day during Week Seven, and I had just finished another class in Peterson where three students refused to wear masks.

I was very hungry, so I entered the line for Pines, which started all the way in Warren.

After skipping all of my classes while waiting, I finally got the chance to get my hands on the ambrosia of UCSD food: chicken tenders. I took a bite, and to my horror, I realized that they forgot the breading! In fact, the whole chicken tender was just a raw piece of chicken! And it

was $9.99! Well, my momma didn’t raise no quitter, so I just dunked it in atrocious amounts of watery mustard and kept on munching.

The next day I woke up with horrible stomach pains and I spent most of the day in the bathroom. I rushed to the nearest SHS clinic (a wooden shed that read “UCSD Tom’s Farm Veterinary Office”) and had that checked out. Turns out, these chicken tenders gave me salmonella! What is this? My parents pay good money for this, and this is all I get? I want answers!

COUNTERPOINT We Don’t Even Serve Salmon!

BY RON BENTO

HDH Spokesperson

I

t has come to our attention that some students are complaining about the food that is being served by dining halls.

Most reports are rather trivial, and don’t even deserve a response. Students finding rats in their french fries, or bowls of jambalaya becoming a homunculi and eating groups of students alive are minor inconveniences that are perfectly within health codes. However, this one caught our attention, and I want to address the concerns of Mr. Nella personally.

Dear Sam, you claim that you were “diagnosed with salmonella” from food that you bought at Pines. However, it is well known that no food items on the menu include salmon.

For the sake of the argument, let’s assume that the food you ordered (which, by the way, was clearly labeled ‘chicken tenders’) has salmon. While it is true that some food items in Pines state they contain “salmon,” it is actually a paste made from pink-colored sawdust sold under the “Sawmon” brand. This is very similar

to the sale of imitation crab meat, so unless there is a disease called sawmonella, I am not sure where you could get this flavor of food poisoning from. Perhaps, you went to a sushi restaurant somewhere near your dorm — perhaps an infamous restaurant called “Tom’s Farm Tokyo Cafe” that serves dishes from the fish caught in the local sewage canal. Perhaps this is the source of your “salmonella.”

Before trying to slander HDH or UCSD, you should probably do some of your own research and go back to BILD 3 where they will teach you all about salmon and sawmon.

Have a good day.

Articles Exclusively Online!

PHOTO BY ROBIN BREWIN

Tepids is reportedly in hot water over the comments he made.

BY ANIELA DRUMONDE

D

Editor-in-Chief

uncan Tepids, the “cream of the crop of rising chefs,” and “internet darling,” has recently been under fire for comments found in his Twitter page from 2014. Posted to his 24 followers at the time, Tepids asked, “What’s the deal with fondant? Shit tastes disgusting. Definitely the worst part of a cake, no question.” The tweet has since been deleted, but many have found Tepids’ thoughts hard to swallow.

“I feel so betrayed,” claimed Isolde Persimmon, who found the tweet. “How could he say such a thing?

Why is he, a chef, trying to dictate basic tenets in the baking community? Who does he think he is? You don’t have a construction worker trying to instruct a nuclear physicist.”

Since this discovery, sales have plummeted for Tepids’ book Paltry Poultry: How Not to Chicken Out on Basic Prep, and Tepids has been “chomping at the bit,” to maintain his internet clout and general fanbase. Posting a picture of the notes app on Twitter, Tepids stated: “I’ve never been starved for attention, but this kind of negative press has been really bad for my brand. I used to be heralded as the perfect guy that could do no wrong, but after this, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to look myself in the eye again. This all just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I’m so sorry, everyone.”

Persimmon, who ran the fan account @hesmybreadandbutter, recently announced the disbandment of her account, proclaiming, “Until this moment, I was

fully convinced that this man was faultless. Now, I can’t stomach the sight of his face.

I was Duncan’s number one fan. I’ve spent the last two years of my life chronicling his life. I bought all his books, both cooking and autobiographical. I’ve seen all of his interviews. At one point, I was even a client of his mom’s friend’s daughter’s psychiatry practice. We’re as close as two people can be, if one person doesn’t know the other exists.

But this? This doesn’t fit how I know him at all. Consider this man unforgiven.”

“It’s like his carefully constructed public persona fails to encapsulate the whole of his actual personality and decisions,” said Nina Vakas, another fan. “I imagined him to be different, and he should feel responsible for that. He chose to be in the

public eye, you know? Some people just bite off more than they can chew. Time isn’t real. Mistakes, whether they were made last month or 10 years ago, all hold the same weight.”

A couple of people have announced their support of Tepids. “Cancel cancel culture! Don’t be afraid to spice things up! I stand with you, man. First God-honoring politicians, then comedians, now this. The liberal left will never truly silence us!” tweeted one anonymous person. But it seems Tepids is immune to being buttered up. “I’m not affiliated with these people,” said Tepids.

“Please do not think I am at the same level as these freaks, I’m begging you.”

Injuries Sustained After Ice Rink’s New “No Skates Saturday” Deal Welcome To: “The Meta University Xperience” After 10th Rainstorm of the Month, Student Protest Group Calls for End to Rainfall Wall Street “Grows Tired” of Betting Against Working Class, Bets Against Lives In Resolution of Third Strike, 64 Degrees Employees Receive Conciliatory Turkey

Find them at themq.org

theMQ.org

December 1, 2021

Page 5

UCSD Gets Railed by Blue Line Extension

Statisticians Create New Phe-Nominal Scale for Extra Special Data Points

PHOTO BY MARIA DHILLA “Noferror’s rebuttal of my use of medians was valid, but some of the comments made by other statisticians were just plain mean,” said Stribution.

BY MARIA DHILLA

Graphics Editor n what was called “a significant breakthrough” by statisticians worldwide, Dr. Sam Pling and Dr. Didi Stribution have recently published a research paper in the Journal of Applied Statistics titled “Phenomenally Phe-nominal: A Diatribe on How to Make Data Points Feel Good About Themselves Even if They Are Not Significant.” It highlights their new methodology for classifying extremely special, worthy, and top-notch kinds of data: the phe-nominal scale.

Dr. Stribution elaborated further on the reasoning behind their research: “When a researcher finds out that their data is not statistically significant, it can be soul crushing,” wrote Stribution. “It really makes you feel 78% sure that 63.3% of the time 45% of your existence on 3.6% of this Earth is 99.9% meaningless.

Dr. Indie Pendent, my statistically significant other, told me that I’m going through a midlife crisis, however, I know that the field of statistics is truly responsible for my inevitable demise.

That’s why Sam and I decided it was time for a change.”

As explained in an interview with Dr. Pling, the nominal scale is one of four existing scales, and is used to assign events, objects, or other qualitative data into discrete, unordered categories. “For instance,” said Pling, “I once went to the doctor because I punched through the drywall after my research got rejected again, and there I filled out a form denoting my gender and blood type. Those are examples of nominal categories!

Does that ring a bell curve?

The phe-nominal scale, on the other hand, would create categories for ‘whatever data that the researcher deems important,’ which is usually all of it.”

However, other statisticians (sample size n = 128) like the renowned Dr. Margi Noferror, have brought up an average of 3.4 issues per sentence (σ= 24.1)

I PHOTO BY SHARON ROTH Khosla announced the opening of the trolley by reading out of Dr Seuss’ One Line, Two Line, Red Line, Blue Line.

BY CONNOR BETTERLY

O

Staff Writer

ver the course of its development, UCSD has continually sprawled out, never having much of a “grand entrance” like other universities. However, this is all set to change with the Pepper Canyon Amphitheater and Public Realm Project.

With the completion of the new extension, the Blue Line Trolley now connects campus by rail to UTC, with further connections to the east and south. “The first key component to the project is complete,” said a representative.

Students are hoping that this trolley can bring some sense of reliability to the transit system. “Dealing with the buses is so hard,” said one second-year. “Sometimes they even come prematurely, before I can so much as hop on them, and I have to take matters into my own hands to

get to my destination! It’ll be nice to have something that I can ride consistently.” However, San Diego transit veterans caution newer students against becoming too hopeful. Student resident Thomas Tanque remarked, “This seems promising, but — wait, are we going to have to use Pronto to get on this thing?

Oh, why couldn’t they have stuck with Compass Cloud?”

His comments derailed from there, despite attempts to get him back on track.

The administrators, who have no plans to ride the trolley after the initial photo-op, envision the new station as an improved “grand entrance” to the campus. “It’s all about the optics,” stated Chancellor Khosla. “I mean, remember when I put the sign above I-5 just because I could? This will be even more epic. Heck, we should put a UC San Diego sign on every railcar, or better

yet, every seat!” Students are also thrilled that the Blue Line extension constitutes as the 22nd installation to the renowned Stuart Art Collection.

“They’re gonna have, like, swings,” said one transfer student. “Maybe not as cool of a view as the secret swing over

by Birch, but hey, this is a fine addition to the collection!”

Another upcoming installment for the Stuart Art Collection is a path with quotations of prominent figures in the history of UCSD engraved into it. Bets are currently being placed on the figures to which UCSD will attribute the quotations. Some students are anticipating legendary lines from professors Marx and Gillespie. Others think the school will instead display more infamous passages, such as the ever-prestigious UCB community’s renowned PSA, the “thirty-fucking-two percent” kid, or quotes from

famed alumni that went into — “Um, acting.”

When asked how they decided on such an efficient allocation of capital, one spokesperson for the project stated, “Parking lots are just kinda lame to build.

We’d much rather pour our funding into making the campus more accessible to the public, and, like, a cool new outdoor amphitheater.

And of course, whatever we do looks amazing in light of the whole Munger situation over at UCSB anyway. While the trolley’s penetration through campus is a significant first step, as with all exciting new construction, both the Pepper Canyon Amphitheater and Public Realm Project are unlikely to be fully completed until the year after you graduate.”

Santa Claus Teams With Jeff Bezos, Can Finally “Watch Who’s Naughty and Who’s Nice”

within the paper. Dr. Noferror wrote a letter to the Journal of Applied Statistics, claiming that Dr. Pling and Dr. Stribution’s methodology for testing the phe-nominal scale was faulty.

“In the paper, my disreputable colleagues listed their confidence level for this new scale as 100%, which may sound great, but it’s actually 100% bad news,” wrote Noferror. “The field of statistics is confounding like that.”

Other researchers pointed out that, instead of rejecting the null hypothesis, the authors rejected the idea of having a null hypothesis altogether, writing “Null hypothesis? More like dull hypothesis.”

Cora Lation, a statistics graduate student, commented, “I know Dr. Pling is an advocate for alternative hypothesis testing, but this is just three standard deviations too far from the norm.” Another graduate student mentioned that “the paper says Cohen’s d was very large, but I don’t think they realized that d must be between 0 and 1; they gave some other measure of d instead.”

When asked to explain whether or not their research is correct, Pling and Stribution instead stated: “There may be a 1 in 1,072,469 chance that we encountered a Type 1 error, but it’s 2905.005 times more likely that critics are extrapolating beyond the scope of our research.” Dr. Pling and Dr. Stribution further responded to criticism, saying: “We don’t appreciate that the statistical community is basically telling us ‘your data is full of anomalies,’ and ‘you must be getting out, liars!’”

The Journal of Applied Statistics has released a statement about the burgeoning controversy, saying that “on average, the mean comments about this published work are not our preferred mode of handling the wide range of critical reviews. We hope that this sample of the wider population of statisticians will take ANOVA look at this paper to determine its significance.”

TOP TEN PHOTO BY MARIA DHILLA Due to a global resource shortage, Santa and Bezos are considering employing naughty kids in coal mines.

BY JACK YANG

Installation Wizard

T

his holiday season, former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has teamed up with North Pole CEO Santa Claus to optimize Santa’s “naughty-and-nice” list and distribution pipeline with data, drones, and delivery vans.

Claus, the executive behind the long-running tradition of distributing gifts to well-behaved children, welcomes the change and has high hopes for the future of Christmas: “Sure, the sleighand-reindeer image is a charming and nostalgic sight for many, but the truth is, I’ve needed help funding this enterprise for decades. CocaCola gave us a much needed stimulus, but you can only get so far on an informant network of Elves-on-the-Shelf and tattletales. Mr. Bezos has done me the service of mod-

ernizing this holiday for the 21st century. Now, with the naughty-and-nice algorithm, you can kiss the elves’ clerical errors goodbye. Based on kids’ internet browsing, purchases, and report card histories, we can finally decide at a glance who is objectively good, and send every child the gift they truly deserve.”

Claus paused for a moment.

“And,” he added, with his trademark jolly wink, “you know the Child Goodness Score is always right, because it’s done by a machine.”

Yet, not all is calm this silent night — many across the globe have decried the Amazon/North Pole deal as “unethical, disturbing, and bluntly dystopian.” Lorna Keol, a representative for Anti-Corporatocracy United, said in a press statement, “The extralegal presence of Amazon DoGooder© Units maintaining 24/7 surveil-

lance of the world’s children has concerned government agencies. Furthermore, the supposedly foolproof ‘Child Goodness Score’ algorithm has shown worrying biases toward children of specific races and income levels.”

According to Michelle Fuko, a middle-schooler at Horace P. Legmann’s Academy for Gifted Youth, the latest actions of Santa Claus “constitute the final transformation of a global surveillance society.” Having long tracked the movements and practices of Father Christmas from her Fisher-Price Office, Fuko projects that the worst is yet to come. “Nobody’s getting presents this year,” claimed Fuko. “What child on this planet can act good all the time? The whole point before was to hide our collective and inevitable faults the best we could: stashing our stolen candy, smiling for fam-

ily photos, and tabbing out of let’s play videos or coolmathgames.com when the teacher came around. But now, our keystrokes are logged and our childlike goofs are recorded. They know when we’re sleeping, for Christmas’ sake! Yes, maybe we can stay good enough to earn a Nerf rifle, but what’s the point if we can’t shoot our little brothers with it? It’s the dilemma that’s affecting playgrounds everywhere, and I fear one we may never solve.”

When asked for comment, Bezos cryptically hinted that the SANTOPTICON project is slated to go into “full effect” by next month, coinciding with the construction of the True North Pole, a surveillance and transmission tower of unprecedented size that’s sure to “teach the world the true meaning of Christmas.”

Cybernetic Enhancements We Put On Our Body

10. A blue tooth 9. A confident system 8. An iron gut for digesting Canyon Vista food 7. A titanium pinky toe so we never get hurt bumping into tables again 6. A siren that tells our professor we’re still listening when everyone is packing up their stuff early 5. An aluminium skull so the government can’t read our thoughts 4. A speaker that plays the Windows startup sound when we wake up 3. A third kidney so we can sell the other two 2. A semicolon 1. A moral compass

Page 6

The MQ Goes theMQ.org

December 1, 2021

You know how this goes: the horse races. The ol’ equine escapades your posey. You get the gist. Everyone knows there are three grea erotic tension between you and your rival as the horses you both be to the races. It consumes our souls. We dress, we bet, we bicker. The nature running around in circles as you wear a fancier outfit than y OUR HORSE

Interview Questions With the Horses What do you plan to do with prize money?

What does ketamine feel like?

Do you support the na? legalization of marijua How do you explain your presence on the flight n’s logs of Jeffrey Epstei private plane?

RIVAL'S HORSE

FIND THE TO ANSWERS IONS T S E U Q E S THE

Kickflip

How does it feel to know you just lost me my life’s savings? ​Can you hold this fo me? Oh no, you can’ r Oh look – you don’tt. even have thumbs, let alone hands.

Stupid horse.

Why the long face?

AND MORE AT THEMQ.O RG

Our Rival

“Sick Flip” Jones

There are many, for why we despi but here’s what

We wore the same outf race we ever The homoerotic ten manifests a Co-Star said we’re

to "The Races" December 1, 2021

theMQ.org

s. The mare-athon. The track and field for big dogs. The mosey for at aspects of horse racing — the costume, the horses, and the homoet on are neck and neck around the bend. We at the MQ love going ere is no feeling truly equal to seeing some sweaty pissing freaks of your sexy adversary. Truly, the pinnacle of human achievement.

What We’re Wearing

many reasons ise each other, t’s most likely:

fit to the first horse r went to nsion between us as spite e incompatible

OUR OUTFIT

’S AL V RI FIT T OU

Insults we say to our rival: “Your horse couldn’t pull a carriage if it was sliding down a mountain.”

“Are you sure you should be betting this much? I heard about your husband.

Such a shame he got laid off.”

“Are you okay? You look so tired.”

Page 7

WINNER

theMQ.org

Page 8

President Xi Jinping’s FamilyFriendly, Close-Up Magic TikTok Series Goes Viral

PHOTO BY SHARON ROTH After the new plan was enacted on the platform, tensions have reportedly risen between the BTS Army and the People’s Liberation Army.

BY MILLIE YOU Staff Writer

S

ince the advent of the internet, youth have always searched for new avenues to share content. Today’s platform is TikTok, and Chinese President Xi Jinping knows this well, not hesitating to turn to this new avenue to reach out to his fellow countrymen with a special focus on China’s younger generation. The leader has launched an ambitious program: an official TikTok account featuring him performing various magic tricks, predicated on “moral, family-friendly, and patriotic values that will enrich and educate the youth.”

“The president has always enjoyed dabbling in tricks to make people laugh, and he has decided to turn his magic hobby into great service for the future of the country,” read a CCP statement. “Stay tuned for the next video, titled ‘Pay Attention to Me and Not Your BTS Fan Club!’”

Each video features a running theme or moral, such as “Celebrity simping is BANNED unless it’s Winnie the Pooh,” “It’s only sexual assault if I acknowledge it, and I don’t,” “No, we do not have the gay or trans or any of the alphabet here in China,” and most recently, “Sissy men are ruining everything — think of the children!”

Xi’s series, though child and teenager-focused, is also aimed at popular public figures, encouraging them to “display political correctness, proper masculinity, and promote traditional culture.” The most lauded aspects of his videos, however, are the magic tricks themselves — particularly the disappearing ones.

“It’s so strange,” says amateur close-up magician Huai Dan, 17. “You’d think that disappearing tricks are basic and old, but he does them so well that it’s kind of unnatural. On real life people, no less. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool that he’s doing this, but it’s a little dis-

concerting. But I have nothing against him trending for closeup magic and all that. Just for the record, I love my country.”

To date, President Xi has already “magicked” several celebrity-endorsed products and Chinese megastars, including actress and director Zhao Wei, known internationally for playing the titular role in the 2009 film Mulan, out of existence. There has been no indication of any of these public figures or products returning from wherever they seemed to have disappeared to, an occurrence that has shaken some citizens. “HE CAN PRY MY K-POP MERCH FROM MY COLD, DEAD HANDS!!!” a now-deleted post on Weibo read. “No one told me simping made me an enemy of the state,” complained another.

“Permanent erasure from reality doesn’t bode well for many people, especially those whose means of expression rely on internet mediums or unconventional

celebrities the president doesn’t approve of,” says Sui Bian, professor of sociology at Ben Dan University. “His crusade to save the youth of China is admirable, and one must marvel at the surprising efficiency of closeup magic in carrying out government orders, but the effect this will have on the young and mainstream culture remains to be seen.”

The effects of this TikTok-driven cultural cleanup have the potential to be far-reaching, but whether or not it will take root in an internet-savvy generation remains nebulous.

“HE DISINTEGRATED THE ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN WEBSITE WITH A SNAP OF HIS FINGERS!!” wrote a Weibo user in a post with more than 800,000 likes.

“Someone pls tell me where the hell I’m supposed to read smutty gay fanfics now???”

Lucky Student to Receive Full Ride Scholarship After Participating In Series of Challenges

December 1, 2021

POINT

It’s Too Soon to Start Playing Christmas Music

BY DR. BOB A. O’RILEY

Chairman of the Committee for National Holiday Declaration

I

cannot believe you people with your Christmas music this early in the year. Every year I hear holiday music earlier than I did the previous year. The first time I heard Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You,” this year was JULY 5TH! Listen, I know the days are short, and it feels as close to Christmas weather as it gets here, but the holidays aren’t here yet. Please — I already have whiplash from the rapid passage of time.

You don’t understand the forces you’re meddling with.

Each holiday has its preordained domain of observance.

For Thanksgiving, the entire week surrounding the date.

For Christmas, a generous interval from December first through the 30th, allowing a brief one-day period on New Year’s Eve during which you may play “Auld Lang Syne.”

The celebratory periods exist in a delicate equilibrium, but in your hubris you’ve disrupted that. Like a child dropping pebbles into a still pond, your actions send ripples across the surface, sowing discord and chaos for the life below.

Furthermore, by observing the holiday season outside of its federally sanctioned pe-

riod, you breed anarchy and dissent. Your utter disregard for the legally designated holiday dates is an affront to the order of this nation and an insult to democracy itself.

You’d best consider the implications your unpatriotic actions have for the free world the next time you play your favorite Nat King Cole single, “The Christmas Song.”

Beyond the threat to democracy you impose, your reckless merriment brings imbalance to the multiverse itself. Every note of a Christmas song you play before December tugs at the invisible threads of reality though you know not where they lead, nor what you are unraveling. By celebrating the holiday season so soon after Thanksgiving, you risk causing a metaphysical holiday-space planar convergence event, the consequences of which could be the unraveling of reality itself!

COUNTERPOINT I Never Stopped

BY NOEL CHRISTOPHERSON

Christmas Light Bulb Replacer

Y

ou think it’s too early to Deck the Halls? Deck you!

Why should I wait for the Most Wonderful Time of the Year? There hasn’t been a Silent Night in my house since The First Noel! The season of hope never ends for me. When I sing “Last Christmas,” I’m lamenting the Christmas two years prior. I even have my own version of “The 12 Days of Christmas” with 353 new verses.

Whether it’s a Cold December Night or Christmas in July, I’m always wishing for a White Christmas. I sing “Mele Kalikimaka” when I daydream of Honolulu over the summer, not actually travelling to mitigate global warming. To my Spanish-speaking friends, I wish you all a Feliz Navidad. I’m perpetually prepared to bring Joy to the World anytime, anywhere, and that is a threat.

I never even have to Wish Christmas Would Never End because, for me, it doesn’t. I buy new trees twice monthly

so I can always be Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.

I’ve permanently installed LEDs throughout my house so I can spend every waking moment Underneath the Christmas Lights. Rudolph, Frosty, and Jesus are all permanent installments in my garden. I spend nearly $30,000 every year just on fake snow so my home is always a Winter Wonderland. It’s the perfect place to celebrate when Christmas Time Is Here, so I can safely say I’ll Be Home for Christmas.

Besides, it’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas –– almost time to begin celebrating anew. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town and I’ll be waiting. Want it or not, I Wish You a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

TOP TEN

Holiday Songs On The Radio PHOTO BY SHARON ROTH “During the game, we are legally allowed to murder our roommates” said Peepal, “Who can’t do the dishes now?”

BY FARHAD TARAPOREVALA

O

Staff Writer

n Friday, Akhil Peepal successfully outcompeted hundreds of his fellow students in a series of six challenges organized by Chancellor Pradeep Khosla to win a full ride scholarship for the rest of his time at UCSD. These challenges were livestreamed on Triton Gaming’s website thebluedanube.com for alumni to enjoy and place bets on winners and losers, with the university raising over $5 million in just one week. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure I was going to win at several points in the competition,” said an ecstatic Peepal, “but I just pulled up my bootstraps, kept moving forward, and never gave up. Here I am today: living proof that dreams

really do come true!”

The idea for the competition arose from when Khosla saw the Presidential Thanksgiving Turkey Pardon. “I was simply captivated by the wonderful idea I saw playing out on screen,” said Khosla. “So many turkeys — all competing for the chance to survive, and one person who gets to control who lives and who dies, playing the role of God — a role which suits me quite well, I think.”

The rules for the game were simple: Any student “lucky enough” to be offered a spot was allowed to enlist. If they lost a challenge, their tuition would be doubled and they would have to work unpaid for one year at Café Ventanas. “It was really a stroke of genius by Chan-

cellor Khosla,” said Ivan Temooney, an accountant for UCSD admin. “He was able to raise so much money in such a short amount of time, it really helped to offset the cost of constructing his new summer home.”

Students were subjected to six challenges over the course of a week. Students first had to outrace a bus from Sixth College to Geisel Library, after which they had to be one of the first 100 people to find a Polish edition of The Hunger Games hidden within the building. The next day, students had to survive a game of paintball at Camp Snoopy, and then place in the top 25 spots in a Kahoot game about Khosla. On the last day, contestants had to be one of the first five people to successfully

connect to school Wi-Fi. The winner was the first person to complete an obstacle course along Ridgewalk. “For me, the hardest challenge was definitely the Kahoot, as the questions were oddly specific,” said Peepal. “I honestly guessed on most of the questions. Like, how was I supposed to know Khosla’s favorite time of day was 11:59 p.m.?”

Others who took part in the challenge were not as lucky as Peepal, but remain optimistic for their next chance in the 2022 Raccoon Game.

“Sure, my parents are furious with me now,” said first-year Bill Turner, “but when I win the whole thing next year, it won’t even matter. People better watch out, because I have been seriously studying for the next Khosla Kahoot.”

10. You’re a Nice One, Mr. Frownch 9. Silent Knight (How Genghis Khan Conquered Asia) 8. No, I Don’t Hear What You Hear, You Have Tinnitus 7. It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like a Non-Denominational Holiday 6. I Saw the Mall Santa Pleasuring Himself Behind the Christmas Tree 5. Do “Those People” Know It’s Christmas?

By That One White Person 4. The Twelve Days of Community Service 3. Moshing Around the Christmas Tree 2. Feliz Navi Mom #Equality 1. Rudolph the Red and His Endless Fight Against Consumerism

theMQ.org

December 1, 2021

UCSD Creates New “All Holiday Week” for Convenience

PHOTO BY MARIA DHILLA “We gotta look on the bright side of this,” said Bitko. “That means there’s only one defined week of holiday music.”

BY ROBIN BREWIN Staff Writer

I

n an attempt to get students caught up with material post-COVID, UCSD has made the “difficult” decision to condense both Fall and Winter breaks into one week at the beginning of November, during which students are “forcefully required” to observe fall and winter holidays. According to UCSD fourth-year Lark Brothout, the new policy will make students “cede all knowledge of time and free will to our rightful oppressors: the makers of the academic calendar.”

In an interview last week, Khosla said, “The expectation is that students will have Halloween on Monday, Thanksgiving on Tuesday, Black Friday on Wednesday, Christmas on Thursday, and New Year’s on Friday. If students don’t celebrate one or more of these holidays, they are expected to attend school.

Students that are enjoying all

holidays throughout the week will be expected to catch up on the work they have missed.

We want to be fair to those who do not celebrate Holiday Week, while also condemning anyone who celebrates other, less White, less stereotypically-American holidays. We’re all about inclusivity here!”

While students are reluctant to adopt Holiday Week, local businesses have been embracing this change.

Though most San Diego residents are still doing holidays on their standard dates, UCSD students are getting their Halloween costumes, Thanksgiving foods, Black Friday shopping, Christmas gifts, and New Year’s alcohol all at once.

Even some non-students are catching on to what may become a popular way to celebrate the holidays.

Randy Reiker, owner of a local Whole Foods, stated, “UCSD’s got some real drive.

They managed to shove all the holidays that make my store

big money into a single week!

We’ve been selling out of stock daily, and I’ve had to wrangle down shipments from out of state just to handle the cash flow! Best part is, since US law doesn’t recognize this week as an official holiday, all the UCSD students working here have to miss their celebrations, can’t call out, and won’t get holiday pay! To top that off, they won’t be celebrating the holidays when they normally come, so I can fill their schedules throughout the year without trouble.”

“I think it kind of makes sense this way,” said Bandrew Bitko, UCSD student and significant other of Lark Brothout, “it’s just like everything else in adulthood: there’s a lot of pain endured and money lost for a few days of fun, which you can never truly appreciate because of your own mind and body being battered physically and mentally from all the numbness you’ve forced on yourself to survive the daily slog

through life. Then you’re just drained and depressed for months. I mean, that’s how holidays used to be anyways.

Now, it’s the same, but you can streamline your suffering — get it all over with in a faster, more capitalistic way.”

Holiday Week has triggered an influx of emails and phone calls from parents demanding the school revert to a more traditional break schedule. In response, UCSD admin established a Holiday Week Complaint Line Department, which can be reached by texting (909) 573-5407.

Some have claimed that the number is not at all connected to the HWCL Department, but is instead a Cat Facts text subscription. Reportedly, an automated messaging system sends feline-related informational texts, which has parents everywhere “clawing at the chance” to contact the school about this “cataclysmic catastrophe.”

Wastewater Detection Systems Find Baby in Sewers After 2018 Masturbation-in-Shower Epidemic

“You think I’m gonna support these children?” asked Khosla, “I don’t even support these students.”

BY ANDREW SITKO

O

Managing Editor

n November 17th at 5:36 p.m., UCSD Wastewater Detection’s automated system sent out an unusual email detailing the discovery of “a large number of small, unidentified creatures playing in the poo water.” Soon after the email was sent out, the campus went into uproar when the creatures were identified.

Wendy Graham, a student studying in MOM during the event, reported, “No one really cared about the emails, because A: no one reads them anyway, and B: no one reads them anyway. However, everyone stopped dead in their tracks when they heard a baby crying under the quad. I saw a couple guys wrench off a manhole cover with a SPIN scooter and drop down inside.

A crowd gathered around the hole, and 10 minutes later, the guys popped back out with a little baby in a towel. We were all so confused.”

The fire department ar-

rived on scene at 5:47 p.m. to check the infant’s vitals, all of which cleared screening despite the child being found “between piles of human feces.” A paternity test was run on the baby, and using UCSD’s Student Genome Library it was found that second-year Aiden Kim was the father. Kim was tracked down in his dorm and escorted away by campus police for “child endangerment.” Before the police car drove off, however, a massive tremor ripped through the Muir Quad.

“That’s when all hell broke loose,” said Graham. “The ground split up, and the babies started tumbling out. Babies of all ages — from newborn to three years old — began to wobble, bobble, crawl, shimmy, or get dragged out of the sinkhole the tremor had created. The worst part was when all the babies started reaching for our nipples and begging for milk.” According to mobile phone footage, the sewagecovered children moaned several infantile epithets, from “dada” to “gaaaaaaaah.” The

videos continued to show male students of all class standings fleeing as they were pursued by bands of children.

Kholsa released a press statement the same evening via Zoom webinar, in which he was seen gently bouncing a baby on a chest harness while issuing the following statement. “It has been brought to my attention that there is a baby boom happening in Muir.

My team has notified me that a large influx of semen that has steadily flowed out of the dormitories through showers, toilets, and kitchen sinks has clogged the piping system and exploded into the sewer lines.”

Khosla paused for a moment and turned to the child, musing “Hey hey little Pradeep Jr., look at the camera, look see!

Hello! Good job!” Khosla then turned back to the camera, continuing: “Anyway, we do not know how these babies were made, but we do know that if you masturbated into a drain while residing in the dorms from 2018-2020, your offspring is spilling out of that sinkhole. UCSD is committed

PHOTO BY JACK YANG to the safety and well-being of its students and their offspring who were created on campus.

Look, look at me! Can you smile? Say hiiiiiiiii baby!”

Students are currently clamoring for child support from the school as genetic tests suggest that the children have no mothers. One young, new father complained, “How the hell are we expected to raise children without mothers? Who’s supposed to cook, and clean, and take care of the baby while I go to Pike parties?” A lawyer from the newly created “Student-Fathers Fund” weighed in: “Since there’s no genetic evidence that any of these children have mothers, we’ve decided that it’s UCSD’s responsibility to either raise the children or pay child support.” UCSD has refused to budge, causing student-fathers to start picket lines circling around Price Center, pushing their children in strollers. Student leader Shivay Kaur led a chant with the student body: “UCSD! Cumply or die!” And “Don’t be a Scrooge, let us splooge!”

Page 9

Ask Emily Queue

Dear Emily Queue, Honestly, why do people ask you these questions?

What qualifications do you have to give this advice?

What qualifications do I have? Paul, I know this is you. Why don’t you ask yourself what qualifications you have to be asking that? Who the hell do you think you are? You think you can humiliate me? You think I won’t back down from a challenge? Well I got news for you: I have an entire arsenal of evil at my fingertips, and I will not hesitate to deploy all of it to wipe that miserable smirk off your face. You’re probably thinking to yourself: “Wow. I got that Emily Queue. She’s a cretin, a bumbling idiot, an absolute dimwitted imbecile.” Why are you being so mean? What have I done to you, other than the obvious? I’m sorry I got this job and you got fired, Paul.

I’m sorry you couldn’t find work in this industry and you think your wife’s going to leave you. But I’m not sorry for being good at my job. You’re better than this.

Dear Emily Queue, I made a deal with the devil and he says he wants my first born child. Do you think he’s moving too fast? Maybe I should introduce him to my family first.

Why are you getting cold feet?

Don’t be such a prude! Literally, where do you think we get the term “hotter than hell”? Get in the holiday spirit by getting into that holiday spirit! In this case, the spirit is a powerful being of sulfur and hatred. Don’t you want eternal fame and fortune? Or are you seriously willing to spend another cold, damp Christmas morning trying not to burn pancakes in front of your mother-in-law? FedEx that kid to hell, invite yourself along, and enjoy The Bahamas. Hell is The Bahamas.

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Page 10

New Study Reveals Why All the YouTubers You Liked as a Kid Are Now Anti-Vaxxers

December 1, 2021

UCSD Chem Majors Have a Thanksgiving Feast of Chemicals

PHOTO BY SHARON ROTH “Technically, everything we eat is made of chemicals but only some of it contains arsenic,” said Cee.

BY MIRA ARAVAMUTHAN

Staff Writer uring the Thanksgiving long weekend, many UCSD students elected to stay on campus. Due to the “desperate struggle” these students faced to find food amidst all the dining halls being closed during the break, entrepreneuring chemistry students decided to band together and cook a Thanksgiving feast in a lab in Urey Hall.

Diane Cee, a third-year chemistry major, explained, “I didn’t fly home because who’d want to get suckered out of $400 to pay for a flight ticket just to go home and make awkward small talk with family and do chores the entire time?

Also it is such a short break. I wouldn’t even call it a break, it's a long weekend. So me and my roommate just said ‘screw it,’ and broke into the lab.”

Her roommate, fellow chemistry major Todd Beau recounted, “So uh … I’ve been wanting to start a mac and cheese edibles business on campus because it's a combination of my favorite things.

I’m kind of thinking that I should switch my major ...

Anyway, we decided to try making it ourselves in the lab, because literally no one told us not to. My friend John — his real name’s Peanutbutter, but no one calls him that — and I decided to use this yellow powder we found in the lab that looked like Kraft mac and cheese powder, and we mixed that with some of this stuff that looked like elbow pasta, and we used a bunsen burner to cook it.”

“It was some Breaking Bad shit!” exclaimed Beau. “Then, we threw some of this dark green powder that kind of smelled like weed, and threw it in the pasta, and we cooked it! And then after that, we ate

D “I don't need a vaccine to protect me; I have diamond armor,” wrote @fathogjones on Twitter.

BY JACOB KING Soc/Pub Chair

A

s the number of vaccine mandates grows across the country, so has the amount of vaccine misinformation spread on the internet. One prominent group responsible for the relay of pseudoscience has been professional YouTubers. “A worrying amount of YouTubers I used to like have started posting anti-vax stuff on Twitter,” said Anna Hall, a 19-year-old college student. “I just want to go back to the good old days where I didn’t even know what my favorite YouTuber’s face looked like, much less their opinion on contentious political issues.”

The worrying trend was noticed by a group of researchers, who conducted a study on this phenomenon.

“A lot of these YouTubers who are spreading this misinformation either make content

focused on gaming or are gamers in general,” wrote Dr. Liz Ladumb, principal investigator of the research team. “Honestly, that should be enough of an explanation.

But sadly, just calling someone a gamer as an insult isn’t ‘a thorough enough scientific research method,’ so we had to go deeper.”

The now-published study goes on to explain that many of these YouTubers were likely radicalized due to the amount of extremist content in gaming-oriented spaces, “falling deeper down the rabbit hole until they fully adhere to farright conspiracies and rhetoric, like a frog slowly being boiled alive.” Matt Moronta, a fellow researcher, pointed out that, “The fact that lots of them gained a large amount of fame when they were fairly young didn’t help. And I honestly get it. When I was young, if my Facebook post got 10 likes, I wouldn’t shut up for a week.”

PHOTO BY CONNOR BETTERLY

The results of this study have become a divisive issue on social media. “These people have a very impressionable audience,” said @serialized_wombat on Twitter.

“All it takes is a little vaccine hesitancy from MinecraftBoy57 and lil’ ol’ Jimmy’s on a pipeline that ends in a Fox News interview about how the government lizards in charge of the secret world government are trying to silence him on Twitter.” On the flipside, some users take issue with the study, like @fathogjones who said it was “just another example of ‘Big Science' trying to silence those with different opinions. I applaud any YouTuber who decided to fight against cancel culture and join our movement.

I’m sure that in 50 years we’ll all be alive and well to tell all those vax-cucks exactly how stupid they were.”

Even some prominent YouTubers have comment-

ed on the issue. “Yeah, you should take the vaccine and shit,” said FaZe Greg, famous for being part of FaZe clan.

“All these people and their dumb little followers are idiots. They don’t actually know what’s good for you, don’t listen to them. They're just abusing their clout to spread bullshit that just helps them out. Anyway, my new crypto HorseCockCoin, drops this Saturday, that is going to be the coin that makes you rich.

Trust me, bro.”

All this controversy has led some to become disillusioned with influencers. “It’s impossible to like any internet celebrity these days,” said Brandon Carter. “If they’re not outing themselves as anti-vaxxers, someone’s leaking DMs showing that they're racists or sex offenders. I’m just going to go back to worshipping Hollywood celebrities, who are of course famously unproblematic.”

Developer Builds Houses That Come Pre-Haunted

the pasta, and the next thing I know I woke up in the ER next to John and Erica with tubes running out of our bodies! It was such a great time, and no one held a gun to my head for me to say that!”

Another student, Peanutbutter “John” Caynein said, “The ER part sucked, but I would definitely cook in a chemistry lab again! It was a great bonding experience and a great way to de-stress from the hard classes, begging professors for research, and contemplating if chemistry majors are inherently masochistic. It was nice to unwind with fellow chem majors and have other people understand the hardships we go through every day. It was so much fun!

My friend Diane later told me that I probably drank hand sanitizer, and that I shouldn’t say anything else or there’d be consequences, but I don’t think it was hand sanitizer!

Even if I did, I was just following Trump’s advice saying that all of us should drink disinfectant! We also smoked some of the leftover maybe-weed and put on some Tame Impala, and WOW everything looked like psychedelic rainbows! I was so happy! Even happier than when we started fracking at my home in LA, which caused us to end up living underground for three days!”

The story of these students was shared to the Chemistry Department, who applauded their creativity and comradery.

UCSD admin has announced that they are going to continue to close the dining halls for all breaks and long weekends that happen on campus. However, they are also going to continue to leave the labs open for students to use “in whatever way they want to” and encourage students to take advantage of this opportunity.

TOP TEN

New Sayings PHOTO BY MARIA DHILLA

“The previous tenants loved this house to death,” said Pierce.

BY MELINA CRUZ

W

Staff Writer

ith current housing market trends causing strife for prospective home-owners and forcing poor, desperate real estate agents to hike up prices, developer Chandler Pierce says he's found the perfect solution to the oversaturated market: pre-haunted homes.

The homes are intended to come with their own respective ghost or entity, with the sole intention of increasing property value and attraction.

"Ghosts in the house are unique, they're fresh, and they're exactly what the community needs for properties to stand out!" said Pierce.

"Nothing says high-value like an axe-wielding ghost who intends to deliver punishment for the home-owner's many, many horrible sins. Frankly, I think it's genius!"

Pierce says he intends to offer many options for pre-haunted homes, including floating women in long

white dresses, small Victorian children who sing lullabies at 3 a.m., and lots of undetermined dark entities that “like to stand in corners only visible in your peripheral vision and brutally murder any who try to figure out their identity.” To achieve as wide of a range as possible, Pierce has gathered a team of "ghost catchers" to bring entities into the homes. "Using a ouija board is so 2012,” said Pierce. “Ghost-catchers have state-of-the-art technology never seen in other countries.

We seek innovations for our company, and that means we bring in ghosts that are ethically-sourced and free-range from the local cemetery.”

One of Pierce's ghostcatchers, Pete Coleman, stated that workers actually "just have really big nets" and simply "have at it" in the cemeteries. "Does it work?” asked Coleman. “Can't say for sure, but whatever development Pierce is working on feels cursed enough. We'll play along, because we overheard

some things he was mumbling with a manic look in his eye, and I really don't need him turning to murders when catching ghosts doesn't work.

Plus, we gotta get paid, too.

The housing market is killer for black-collar workers like myself, just trying to survive."

These developments, when finished, are estimated to be worth an additional $400,000 on top of market price, and will require extensive background checks and applications. "Last thing we need is anyone who can't handle a little ghost activity trying to buy," said Pierce.

"What we want is a clueless ignorant family moving into their brand new home. They should be either intrigued by ghostly activity, or divide themselves into a believer slash skeptic dynamic, with a healthy dash of misogyny to really center everything.

If the family doesn’t have a dad destined to walk into the basement of spooky noises with no regard to his safety, directly ignoring his wife’s

concerns and the screams of his children at night, then we don't want it."

The local community, however, is less than enthused. Many are not concerned with the presence of ghosts, but rather their contributions to society. "So I'm supposed to just have a free-loader in my home? Is that how this works?" asked Bob Branden, a member of the San Diego community.

"My family plans to move in the next few years, but I'm not about to accept a random ghost who doesn't pay taxes! At the very least, the mysterious dark entity that likes to stand in the hall and flicker the lights better be prepared to babysit, or they’re getting evicted."

When approached about the possibility of "ghost evictions," Pierce says he has no plans to consider it, but may play around with the idea of enacting "ghost homeowner rights" in the next few years.

10. Where’s there’s a will, there’s a funeral 9. If you can’t join them, beat them 8. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it piss 7. He who lives in a drywall house should not throw punches 6. Put all your eggs in one basket or else you’ll be in the grocery store forever 5. Build a deck for a man, and he’ll use it for a day. Teach a man to a build a deck, and he will have a project for 30 years 4. Put off until tomorrow what you should have done yesterday 3. You can lead a gamer to soap, but you can’t make them shower 2. A watched dog never poops 1. If it ain’t broke, don’t break it Please bring this to your grave with you

THE MQ

Tuesdays, 6 p.m., Mariposa Room.

December 1, 2021

theMQ.org

Facebook Whistleblower Reveals the Internet is Still a Giant Cesspool

susan bagel

Page 11

It’s winter, and I wake up cold. It’s the weather, of course, that hollows my insides until my body feels like an empty coat. There’s nothing else. Nothing at all. It’s just that the sun sets so early. Night falls. My face falls when Mr. Bagel doesn’t come home at the end of the day. I don’t remember what I ate for breakfast. I don’t remember the last time someone made me breakfast. I don’t remember the last time someone held me. I roll over in the middle of the night and feel cold, heartless sheets. Mr. Bagel works so late.

I enter the grocery store in a daze. Somehow, I always “FaceBOOK? Kids these days won't even know what those things are,” complained one spokesperson.

BY PRANAV REDDY

A

Staff Writer

n ex-employee of Facebook has come forward with a set of leaked internal documents from the social media company. The contents of the documents range from mundane meetings to top-secret information about the nature of the site to revelations about the internet as a whole. In summary, the documents reveal that Facebook was aware of the quality of the content it presented to its audience, described in one email chain as “diarrhea in electronic form.” One Facebook executive described the site as “a giant cesspool revealing that perhaps humanity deserves extinction.”

The whistleblower stated that she felt that “people need to know that the internet is really the same hellhole it was before.” In a note included within the leak, the whistleblower stated, “Personally, I

was shocked to learn that the internet feeds into our deepest, darkest impulses and promotes hatred, violence, extremism, and a host of other social ills.” Facebook issued a statement in response, saying: “Yeah, the internet melts your frontal lobe. What are you gonna do about it?

Delete social media? Huh? Go ahead. We dare you to find meaning in your life when you don’t compare it to everyone else's. Yeah, that’s what we thought. Just sit there and scroll, idiot.” Additionally, Facebook announced that they expect no major changes to the structure of their website, app, company, practices, or “anything in general, really.”

One Facebook executive was quoted as saying, “We believe that despite the massive body of evidence that the internet will probably end democracy within our lifetimes. Our policy is that we have successfully infested the minds of every person with

the obsessive need to base their lifestyles and opinions off of a revolving door of selfproclaimed ‘hot take trendsetters’ who get replaced every 23 seconds. Hopefully we can expand from promoting insecurity in teens to giving them depression and a general detachment from reality soon.”

The leaks come at an inopportune time for Facebook, with their earnings report right around the corner.

Fortunately for Facebook, the content of the leaks proved to investors that everything is working as intended. A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs opined, “If the internet made everyone’s lives better through frequent use, what would the point be? At Goldman Sachs, we take pride in our ‘one step forward, two steps into the eternal lake of fire’ mentality.” The NASDAQ agreed, resulting in Facebook shares climbing 15% by closing.

The revelations also left

PHOTO BY JACK YANG

other internet giants completely unsurprised and unscathed. Google issued a press statement confirming the whistleblower’s conclusions and that they will continue to "harvest every last detail of your personal life for our profit. Go ahead and live one day without needing to look up something that doesn’t matter, like ‘who is Pete Davidson,’ or ‘bump on chest disease.’” Google shares rallied 12% due to investor confidence. Amazon was much more ambitious, declaring “We have expanded misery beyond just the internet. We are proud to announce that we have successfully turned our warehouses into actual cesspools. Like, literally, it’s just a pool of garbage with Whole Foods bags floating around.” Similarly to Google, investors took this as a sign that tech companies are largely on the right track, and the Amazon stock price jumped 13%.

end up here –– my empty parts crave excess. I put whatever I want in my basket. I feel the weight of my decisions gradually rise as time passes. Through the bright luminescence of lit windows, the cold air blows through naked trees. I, the empty coat, feel a sort of pity for these poor twisted things, forced to stay outside, alone. To be unable to escape the frozen glare, the apathy of winter, looking wistfully in on the glow of the season’s celebrations.

Days are so short. Nights are so long. Every day I wake up and reach for Mr. Bagel's tender, moisturized hand. But all I feel are cold sheets and bitter, crushing disappointment. The sun sets and the façade drops. I can’t keep pretending anymore.

I can’t go on, but I go on.

I finish shopping, suddenly tired.

“How are you?” the girl bagging my groceries asks.

She’s a small slip of a thing. I can’t bear to see the hope, the artless innocence –– ah, we were all that young once –– in her eyes. I look down. Her name tag says Emily.

Suddenly, memories I must forget have just forcefully

BRIEF ME UP, BUTTERCUP STRUGGLING GROCERY CHAIN ADDS BATTLE PASS TO GENERATE REVENUE Big Jim’s Local Grocery has been hit hard by the pandemic, and struggled to pick itself up while other chain groceries increased their profits. To combat this, Big Jim’s has announced that they are including a battle pass with each purchase over $10. Big Jim’s mascot, Teeny the Weeny, got on television and advertised, “Hey there porkers! Big Jim’s has included a battle pass! For just $10 you can unlock a bunch of rewards for just shopping at our stores!” The pass will include cosmetic items like different shopping cart decals for shopping carts, cartoonish noises that are made when pulling items off the shelf, and different skins for generic brands found around the store.

Teeny also revealed the leveling system for the pass: “You may be wondering how to level up in this pass to gain all these prizes! Well, all you need to do is buy more things from our store, submit customer reviews for our service, or ‘accidentally’ run over employees of the Vons across the street!” While the success of the plan hasn’t been fully realized yet, one happy customer reported it to be “better than Halo Infinite’s progression.”

SEVENTH COLLEGE MAN WAITING FOR BROKEN ELEVATOR SCALES ELEVATOR SHAFT On November 22 at 1:38 a.m., an anonymous resident of Seventh College Tower West called campus police after hearing grunting noises coming from the elevators. When the officers arrived on the scene, they found Errol Burg, a resident, between the third and fourth floors attempting to climb the elevator shaft.

Burg was arrested on the grounds of breaking, entering, and drug possession.

Burg insists that he only did it because the elevator was broken. The elevator had been shut down for six days after other residents had kicked the doors until they stopped working.

Burg claims he was “high as a kite,” and thought he could float up the shaft.

“Like Bernoulli,” said Burg.

“I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for the Triton-2-Go box full of leftover chicken tenders I found in the shaft weighing me down.” Burg has been suspended and awaits his private court hearing on December seventeenth.

Seventh College Administrators have issued a statement insisting that they will “address the rampant elevator incidents as soon as Seventh students learn to conduct themselves like adults.

So never.”

pushed themselves at the forefront of my mind. “How

LOCAL QUEER COUPLE SUN GOD WEEPS DURSPEEDRUN MARRIAGE ING FINALS WEEK ANY PERCENT Nonbinary lesbian couple Anne B. Goye and Robynn Drew have set a new record for modern queer marriages, managing to tie the knot via sequence breaking. “I’ve been trying to find someone for so long,” said Anne.

“I've gone to coffee shops, the local Whole Foods, the Whole Foods in Topeka, the Whole Foods in Kansas City, and the Whole Foods my exgirlfriend runs in Lawrence, but I haven’t found anything meaningful in any of those places. But then I had a revelation while speedrunning Uprising on Halo 2 … ” Tactics typically reserved for the virtual world had yet to be utilized in reality until Anne’s romantic experiment.

“I figured I could skip all of the awkward glances and trying to figure out if ‘I like your hair’ is flirting or not by clipping through the bathroom at the gay bar, but I ended up zipping all the way to the wedding. Suddenly I had an already-filled marriage license in my inventory and a beautiful partner I could see myself falling in love with once we could have a single conversation.” Though it came as a surprise to both Anne and Robynn, the two agreed that their marriage was the best choice they never made. Unfortunately for the couple, the two accidentally wrongwarped to the divorce split, though this made for an impressive World Record.

Early this morning, second-year Jeremy Beremy was walking to an 8 a.m. class and reported seeing a trickle of tears flowing from the Sun God statue’s eyes. “I thought it was strange that Sun God would start crying, but then I remembered it was Week 10, so everything made sense,” said Beremy.

Some other students, however, theorize that the nearly 30-foot statue is crying because he is lonely. “I mean, he’s been fenced off all quarter, and no one has used him for good luck on midterms. This may be a statue, but everyone needs to feel the warmth of human touch or affection,” said third-year student Shelley Brach.

In response to Sun God’s apparent tears, students have broken the construction barrier to lay offerings at the statue’s base, like failed midterms, MMW papers, and stolen chemicals from the chemistry labs. A few brave students also climbed the base to give Sun God a much-needed hug. The statue, many claimed, seemed to be looking better, “but that could perhaps be because it stopped raining,” added Brach, before pausing, and saying, “Huh.”

are you?” the girl bagging my groceries asks. I used to have someone –– someone who cared enough to ask how I was doing.

I make myself look at her. I try to lie, but I turn away from her knowing, kind gaze, clutching desperately at the icing she has forgotten to bag. Careless, as all young girls learn not to be. I put the icing next to my husband’s favorite brand of kale. He’s started working out again, taking up jogging in the mornings with his boss, Amanda. I roll over in the middle of the night and feel cold, heartless sheets. I have grown used to the cold of my bed. I realize, quite suddenly, arm still outstretched to accept my 10 dollars and 59 cents change, that I have grown used to a lack of warmth.

I walk to my car. I drive home. I make a fresh batch of gingerbread cookies.

I frost them with my kids. “I’m going to give the daddy cookie a big smile!” says my son. I can’t remember the last time my husband smiled at me. Days turn into weeks. I am making gingerbread cookies with my daughter. “The mommy cookie broke,” she sighs in disappointment. Don’t worry about her. She’s learning to pick up the pieces.

Anyway, here’s the gingerbread cookie recipe: 1. Buy a big block of gingerbread 2. Cut out large chunks that vaguely resemble people 3. Frost as necessary. Attempt to enjoy.

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December 1, 2021

THE MQ GETS LEFT Wewereabouttogoonatripwithourfamily,whenwewerelefthomealone!And,beforeyouask,it’snotbecausewe’reforgettable.

Trustus,MommyandDaddyalwaystelluswe’retheircute,littleprincessangelswhoareperfectandworth10ofSusieMcDermall,who livesnextdoor.Anyway,whiletheyweregone,intruderstriedtobreakintoourhouse!Ohno!Butthankfully,wehadplentyofeffective booby traps, window displays, help from strange weirdos, and pure, unfiltered rage and bloodlust to protect us.

Who is trying to recruit us and why?

The Intruders

Where is our family?

• At a family therapy session trying to figure out why they keep forgetting us • Having their own adventures in a spinoff show coming to you soon only available on Disney+ • They work for Amazon • They are on a four-day cock bender, sucking and fucking all around the LA area

Mariah Carey, for obvious reasons

My Family

Florida? Earth?

The Virgin Islands from Jeffrey Epstein’s private plane?

00000-99999

The CIA agent who’s trying to recruit us

What we put in the windows to scare off intruders: • Student crying over their textbook • All your TV screens playing slideshows of people partying • Those waifu body pillows your dad keeps in his room for some reason

weirdos we met along the way

Future president Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

Macaulay Culkin (full circle mentorship) Aggressive product placement for Pepsi

A man with a giant-ass sword (cool)