The Muir Quarterly Volume 29 Issue 4

Board of Education Investigates Chromosome “Homolog Agenda” in Biology Curriculums

—Grant Wood, American Gothic painter

IN THIS ISSUE

PHYISICISTS

THE MQ GOES TO THE YEAR 1023

NEWS IN BRIEF

CHINA CLAIMS BALLOON ORIGINATED FROM “LARGE BIRTHDAY PARTY”

BY MILLIE YOU Ass. Graphics Editor

Despite its widespread acceptance as part of a standard biology curriculum, parents and politicians alike are mounting increasing hostilities against the subject of homologous chromosomes being taught at UC San Diego.

“This saucy biology calls for the total separation of these homosomes from the classroom,” said a leader of the opposition. The recent surge in anxiety has been attributed to homologs being “joined at the centromere,” leading to a widespread belief of “suspicious pelvic activity.”

This sentiment is not held among biologists. “To be very blunt, homologs are an eighthgrade concept. You don’t even need to cover them in detail in class,” said UCSD genetics professor Paul Ru. “Basically, they’re chromosome pairs. One is from the maternal side, the other the paternal, and they pair up for cell division. That’s it. I don’t see what the fuss is about. Some people are doing too much.”

“It’s … I don’t know,” pondered Ben Sharp, 32. “I just don’t know. They’re so entangled, body and soul. Surely there’s some — exchange — happening there.”

The exchange, experts say, merely has to do with genes.

“In an event we call crossing over, these homologous pairs swap some parts of their genetic material,” explains Violet Chalkee, a researcher focused on cell division at UCSD.

However, this clarification only seems to have incensed opposition. “Leave it to snowflake scientists to describe something lewd as ‘crossing over’ and ‘genetic material,’” one blog post read.

“What kind of slang term is chiasma? Are biology curriculums really using this type of wording to describe sex positions?” another post demanded. “Well, biologists can chiasma in the privacy of their own homes, but not in front of my kids!”

“This post-modern neoMarxist, critical race theory offshoot of a curriculum has done enough damage to

schools everywhere. Enough is enough,” said a formal statement penned by Peter Jordan, an avid protestor of the “homolog agenda.” “Homologous metaphase is unnatural; swapping of fluids — ahem, genetic exchange — is meant for man and woman. This agenda shall NOT triumph over the righteousness of parenthood. They shall not ruin our children!”

“I’m literally an adult, Dad. Please stop, you’re embarrassing me,” Jenny Jordan, 19, posted an hour later. She later commented, “I think we can acknowledge here that they’re freaking out about the word ‘homo,’ which is so juvenile that it’s almost funny. It doesn’t mean anything except that homologous chromosomes are, well — homologous!”

“We’re biologists. We study this in great detail for many years,” protested Will Moon, a member of the National Biologist Coalition. “This is an extremely targeted campaign from an extremely small population of very loud, misinformed, and paranoid people. Please. We are talking about

chromosomes here. This is what they’re supposed to do! They can’t help it!”

UCSD has released a statement addressing the conflict.

“As always, UCSD is committed to an inclusive and fair campus that does not tolerate the discrimination of new ideas, especially movements from minority groups,” an announcement read on Tuesday.

“The board is working closely with this minority to resolve concerns about the curriculum. We see you, we hear you, and we are learning.”

UCSD’s response has been met with mixed views. “I think everyone is being way too facetious. It’s not complicated,” said an anonymous counter-protester of the antihomolog agenda movement. “Some people are depressed and horny and try to ruin it for everyone else. I mean, really. If you can’t get laid, don’t make it my problem. I get blue-balled all the time! You don’t see me raving against ‘genetic exchange’ between men and women!”

Costco to Offer Medication Samples

Last weekend, the United States military shot down a balloon suspected to be part of a Chinese espionage operation. When the balloon was first discovered over the continental United States a few days before, the government of China stated that the balloon was a weather balloon that flew off course.

After the discovery of a potential second balloon above South America, a spokesperson from China’s “premier balloon authority” offered a new explanation for the balloon. In a video posted on Twitter, they said, “Everybody loves a memorable birthday party, and apparently somebody celebrated by building heavy-duty

high-altitude balloons with cameras on them. We have learned that they used it to take a high-resolution infrared selfie of their party from 60,000 feet, and we apologize that it then floated over numerous military installations in the United States.”

Americans living in the path of the balloon had mixed responses to this new explanation on social media. Twitter user @balloon_enjoyer said, “This makes so much more sense! Going to buy one of these for my next birthday party!” However, user @under_where wrote, “Kind of skeptical about this whole birthday thing. Where are the candles? And what’s up with the telescope sticking out?”

SCIENTIST REVEALS DAYS ARE ONLY GOING TO GET SHORTER

Meteorologist Marty Harrow recently published the results of several years of research. In his article, he concluded that while daily hours of sunlight fluctuate with the position of Earth in its orbit, this year he is “pretty sure” that the hours will only continue to decrease. Describing his methods, Harrow said, “It’s pretty intuitive. I just look outside, and I think, wow, it’s dark at 4 p.m., and I don’t feel like the sun is ever going to rise again. Some people say this is just because I’m vitamin deficient, but I drink essential oils every day, so I don’t think that’s it.”

Other meteorologists have criticized Harrow’s

methods and findings. Barbara Plant said, “[Harrow] chases after bizarre explanations completely disproportionate to his vague ennui. He claims Earth’s northern pole is slowly tilting away from the sun, so the hemisphere where he lives will be eternally dark in two years time. He completely ignores all laws of physics, common sense, and standards of peer review to instill his temporary hopelessness into his worldview. You might think it’s inspiring that it’s so difficult to be reasonably pessimistic, but this isn’t a metaphor — he’s giving meteorologists a worse reputation than Bill Murray.”

TIKTOK WHERE CREATOR POINTS TO TEXT HAS GREAT RELATIONSHIP ADVICE, ACTUALLY

BY CONNOR BETTERLY Copy Commander

In a groundbreaking move last week, the director of Costco announced a

new initiative to expand the company’s famous free sample program into its medication offerings. Starting next month, customers can visit designated sample sta -

tions throughout the store to try out a variety of overthe-counter and prescription medications, including painkillers, antidepressants, and even recreational drugs.

“We want to make it easy for our customers to find the right drugs for them, just like

HOUSE HUNTERS RENEWED Houses go into hiding

As February began, many young people described themselves as “pressed to impress” their partners. One such youth, Julian Wheels, found a solution on his “For You” page. “It’s nearly Valentine’s, and I’m like 95% sure that Chelsea’s gonna expect something big. That’s when I found @gfwhisperer on TikTok. I’m so glad subtlety in human communication is slowly getting phased out thanks to these relationship hacks.”

The creator, known for his romantic advice, has “come in clutch” to many users in the comments. “This guy is the real thing!” exclaimed Wheels. “People say that the reason he can make 20 TikToks a day is because he just points to some text above

him, but I think that’s reductive. He knows his stuff.”

Detailing his Valentine’s plans, Wheels continued: “I think I’ll use a gfwhisperer classic: the ‘pretend to not be interested plus gaslighting combo.’ At our date, I’ll show up 40 minutes late with no explanation, then edit my text that tells her when we were supposed to meet. I can already tell she’s gonna be crazy about me.”

Neither Wheels nor his partner could not be reached for comment after that night, but the fallout appears to have motivated Wheels to start his own TikTok page, where he explains “what women really want.”

“I’m Grant motherfucking Wood. I do what I want.”

“It’s Adam and Eve, not adenine and guanine,” insisted one parent.

PHOTO BY SHARON ROTH

“I love Costco,” said Davis. “I never knew prices so low could make me feel so high.”

PHOTO BY FARHAD TARAPOREVALA

Taiwan Bids to Be America’s New Asian Sweetheart in 2023

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1: COSTCO

anything else in our stores,” said a Costco spokesperson. “And what better way to do that than by allowing them to try before they buy?”

Before receiving the sample, shoppers will need to listen to the employee give a “side-effects spiel” and a warning to “talk to your doctor to see if this drug is right for you.” Additionally, children will need to point to a nearby adult and say, “Um, uh, she is my mom and she said it is okay for me to have one, please,” before receiving the sample. In response to concerns about children’s health, a Costco representative said, “It’s actually no big deal if the gummies have some CBD in them. It’ll keep the kids calmer and quieter, leading to a better experience for all Costco members.”

“You know, at first I was a bit skeptical that this would be a good idea,” said a member of the Costco Board of Directors. “Let me remind you, we got so much bad PR after that free urine sample fiasco — or that Tide Pod sampling situation. But I mean, just look at how many new Costco members we’ve gained since the announcement! I think at the next board meeting, I’m going to propose expanding samples to the alcohol section.”

BY BITSY HSU

Staff Writer

In a statement released January 1, 2023, Taiwan announced a new campaign to spread awareness of Taiwanese culture in America. At a press conference, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen released a statement on a new foreign policy, stating, “Seeing fellow East Asian countries, such as Japan and Korea, gain popularity in the United States has made the Taiwanese people feel left out. Due to the hiatus of K-pop group BTS and the upcoming release of the final season of Attack on Titan , we have determined that it is the perfect time for Taiwan to strike.” Taiwan will implement several initiatives in an effort to appeal to the American public, including economic investment in Tpop, T-dramas, and T-anime. However, Taiwan has previously made numerous attempts to debut in America. In the 1980s, the Taiwanese government sent boba tea vendors to the United

States to spread awareness of Taiwan. To boost the drink’s popularity, Taiwan’s marketing team advertised it as the preferred beverage of “beloved” Star Wars character Boba Fett, even claiming it was named after him. In spite of the boba tea campaign, a recent poll indicated that 45% of Americans believe that boba tea originated from Japan, while another 40% believe it came from Korea. In the 2000s, Taiwan tried to debut again, opening more locations of the critically acclaimed restaurant Din Tai Fung in the United States. However, numerous surveys conducted at Din Tai Fung locations show that the majority of patrons believe the restaurant is Chinese.

Taiwan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jaushieh Joseph Wu, commented on Taiwan’s weak presence in America, stating, “Unfortunately, semiconductors and boba drinks are not nearly as sexy as BTS’ Jimin Park. To build a stronger relationship with America, Taiwan

must focus on attractive cultural exports.” To help rebrand Taiwan as a “cute” and “approachable” nation, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s new logo will be a golden retriever named “Bonjour Doggy,” who is actually a little boy that enjoys dressing up as a dog. TSMC is also planning to produce an animated TV show to accompany the logo change. Gift shops with Bonjour Doggy merchandise will be added to TSMC factories in an effort to attract American tourists.

Building on the current Taiwanese influence in America, Taiwan will send pride flags to American boba shops printed with the slogan: “Taiwan is the only Asian country to legalize same-sex marriage. All your gay K-pop ships will NEVER happen. #TpopSupremecy.” An official statement from Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs clarified, “The Paint Taiwan Rainbow campaign aims to tap into the LGBTQ+ market in America. Taiwan

must also show that it is not like the other Asian countries. We’re better.”

Taiwan’s campaign has received a wide variety of responses from Americans. Many voiced excitement over participating in a “fun and fresh” Asian culture as they had “grown bored” with Japanese and Korean culture. However, Taiwanese Americans have expressed mixed reactions to the campaign. Some expressed anger or said that Taiwanese culture should be “gatekept” from Americans. Others expressed joy, with one interviewee noting, “I’ve been waiting for Taiwan to debut in America for so long. I’ve always wanted positive affirmations from White Americans about my culture.” In response to the news, the UCSD Taiwanese American Student Association made an Instagram post, stating: “We hope that people will stop confusing Taiwan with China as a result of the new foreign policy.”

“Where else can you fill your car up with gas, get a rotisserie chicken, a hot dog, and an eight-foot-tall stuffed bear, and then sample the latest and greatest in pharmaceutical innovations? I mean, that’s America right there,” said one Costco enthusiast. Another shopper said, “The other time I went into Costco, I got a really bad headache, and just wished I could get some ibuprofen. I was also craving a cigarette. As soon as I walked in, I was handed both! Man, going to Costco is gonna be addictive now.”

TOP TEN

Cure-Alls

10. Money

9. Apple cider vinegar

One Mr. McQueen also expressed interest in the expanded sample program, to inquire if it would be opened to Costco Gas or Costco Auto. “For too long, Costco has focused its attention on the people inside, and not the cars outside. What if I want to try on some new tires, sample the oil, or compare the 87 octane gas to the 91? Give me a break. And how can they be offering speed inside, when I am speed? Kachow!”

“Costco’s new medication sample policy sounds great! My friend Burt Lopez is gonna love the ketamine samples,” said Alexis Davis. “But I gotta tell ya, nothin’ makes ya feel richer than choppin’ up a line of cocaine with a Costco Executive Member card. That’s what I call the Kirkland Signature.”

8. A little smooch from mama

7. Coffee and a cigarette

6. Those tranquilizer pills from The Queen’s Gambit

5. Driving recklessly and weeping

4. Just walking it off

3. Arguing with people online

2. Shitty grocery store sugar cookies

1. Absinthe

Editorial Board

Editor-in-Chief............................Sharon Roth

Managing Editor...........................Jacob King

Head Content....................Isabelle McKelvey

Content Editor Everett Ririe

Content Editor Theo Erickson

Content Editor.......................James Woolley

Design Lion...................Farhad Taraporevala

Design Witch...........................Taggert Smith

Design Wardrobe............. Romella Sagatelian

Graphics Editor.............................Julia Wong

Ass. Graphics Editor........................Amit Roth

Ass. Graphics Editor........................Millie You

Henry Ashcroft

Mira Avaramuthan

Ayushi Banjeree

Annamarie Bioletto

Turning news leads into comedy gold.

Tuesdays, 6 p.m., Half Dome Lounge.

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

You know what the most common cause of arsenic poisoning is? Arsenic. The best prevention for arsenic poisoning? Drinking water without arsenic. Sometimes the solution is simple.

The best cure for post-midterms hell week sadness? Spending a weekend making a newspaper with my favorite people. It’s pretty simple, really. We just need to write articles and then edit the articles and then make corresponding images and come up with witty captions for those images and make cute and satirical features to spice up the pages and dig up an issue of the MQ from the year 1023 and invent the Spring Olympics and sell items at a flea market and give relationship advice and help you determine your love language. Oh. That doesn’t sound so simple. Maybe it actually takes a lot to make the paper. But there isn’t anything I’d rather be doing, and there isn’t another group of people I’d rather be with. As they always say, you can’t spell DUI without U & I. Thank you for reading this paper. I love you.

— Sharon Roth, Editor-in-Chief

Shantelle Brooks

Yuri Bukhradze

Amaris Carrera

Alberto Castillo

Chris Choung

Emily Cronan

Melina Cruz

Social/Publicity Queen......Madeline Mozafari

Copy Commander.................Connor Betterly

Copy Magistrate....................Kaz Nuckowski

Copy Conjurer.........................Katie Campbell

Web Editor..................................Aaron Sonin

Web Editor..................................Jeannie Kim

Distribution Captain....Alex Reinsch-Goldstein

Distribution Sergeant..............Matthew Ware

Kraken Wrangler.........................Maria Dhilla

Damsel in Distress...........................Jerry Wu

Muir Advisor.............................Mario Garibay

Staff Members

Blake Currier

Rani Das

Isha Dhandha

Sam Ford

Micah Gilbert

Lucas Grimwade

Gabrielle Hart

Bitsy Hsu

Paige Johnson

Elise Jonas-Delson

Claire McNerney

Roye Meitav

George Nassar

Chiara Ng

Liz Overton

Eduardo Perez

Rumi Petersen

Bryce Pollack

Sophie Pubb

Mike Raucci-Crane

Pranav Reddy

Maddie Samaniego

Booster Club

Olivia Scarborough

Katelin Shum

Mackenzey Tolliver

Varsha Varkhedi

Seiji Yang

Jeana Yoon

Karina Yu

Alyssa Zaldivar

Jonathan Zhang

Well, it’s another day at the mercury factory. You know how it is. Start off the day with a bump, do the required five hours in the mercury mines, do another bump at lunch, and then finish the shift with a night at the mercury purifier. They even let us sample some of it. Yum! They also opened a monastery across the street which is pretty nice. If I stand near the back wall I can hear the hymns over the bubbling mercury. It was 2 a.m. by the time our shift was over, which is pretty good. That gives us five hours before I have to report back to the mines. James, Aaron, Matthew, Jacob, Farhad, Sharon, Kaz, Madeline, Isabelle, and I spent the night drinking cotton-based alcohol.

“Our company stands for ‘Taiwan Says ’Murica’s Cool!’” said the president of TSMC.

PHOTO BY JULIA WONG

Student Discovers Their iClicker Works Like Remote from Click Starring Adam Sandler

POINT This Year’s Super Bowl Ads Were the Worst Yet

BY JUDY HOFSTEDDER

Not Angry, Just Disappointed

Every year, on a beautiful winter day, my family gathers for a day of festivities. A day where no matter who you are or what you believe in, you are inextricably bound together. For about three hours, families across the country sit down together and are united by their simple love for a beautiful game — and even more beautiful commercials.

“A, A, A, A, A, A, A,” said one affected professor.

BY AMIT ROTH

Ass. Graphics Editor

At the beginning of the winter quarter, secondyear student Eva Graveller learned that VIS 153: Film Study in American Comedy requires participation via iClicker. She recounts, “It was, I wanna say, 11 p.m. on the Sunday before classes started when I found out. I ordered mine from Wish.com, ’cause I’m sure as hell not paying full price for anything in college when I can find a fix online. I was lucky that the guy was desperate or something and responded quick, saying he could deliver it to me in 10 minutes. Well, next thing I know, I’m manipulating the flow of spacetime!” Graveller’s iClicker can reportedly pause, rewind, and accelerate the passage of time. “Comes in handy when Teach goes on to the next slide too fast,” Graveller explained while describing

her newfound powers, “and parts that were a bore before just fly by now … honestly every class should require an iClicker.” Her use of the remote has persisted outside the lecture hall and is “pushing the buttons” of students on campus. An anonymous protester remarked, “Eva thinks she’s bulletproof. She has over 50 ‘first tries’ at everything. She stole gum from Chuck and Larry, copied Jack and Jill’s homework, and Billy Madison … I think she was testing the iClicker delete button on him.” Many people have attempted to explain to Graveller the alleged “consequences of playing God,” including her roommate, Paula Dart, who commented, “I tried telling her what happens to Adam Sandler by the end of the movie Click , but Eva said she doesn’t watch ‘kiddy’s first PG-13 movies,’ even though I damn

well know she was assigned to watch that movie for VIS 153. Anyways, then she just mutes me. Mutes me! We can’t ever settle anything like grown-ups.”

“Eva does not seem to be taking the situation remotely seriously!” exclaimed Graveller’s mother. “I heard she was having trouble at school. I try to help her, but she answers my texts with A through E responses. Sorry, this is all very confusing.” Graveller’s mom continued, “Even more disturbingly, the only thing I got from my Eva was that she was planning to hold down the forward button on her iClicker and fast-forward through the quarter to be done with finals. I told her she can try, but you don’t mess with the chronon.”

Only hours later, Graveller returned from the future. “After I skipped to spring break, I thought to skip to

PHOTO BY AMIT ROTH

when I get my degree. Then to when I get a nice job. But then I thought about it more — why would I want to work? So I kept going, trying to find when I can stop having to work and worry,” Graveller said. “There was nothing,” she continued solumnly. “I have met face to face with the self-perpetuating cycle of suffering and with my own mortality. My power-hungry id has been overtaken by hubris,” she stated. “It then clicked: Teach was right. We have a lot to learn from movies.” Now that Graveller’s “eight crazy nights” of godhood are over, the fate of the infamous iClicker is up in the air. Afraid that “breaking it would create a black hole,” Graveller decided to donate her magical remote to the professor of her film studies course, who can now fulfill his dream of pausing time and watching every movie ever made.

The MQ’s Booth at the Flea Market

Over the past couple years, I felt my precious day slipping away from me. Why, you might ask, was the most important day of my year ruined? Companies worth billions of dollars aren’t willing to pay a little to give us a good, original ad. I remember the days when watching the commercials was more important than the game itself. With the non-stop brutality occuring on the field, TV timeouts became moments of joy. I grew up watching “Mean” Joe Greene giving a little kid his jersey, the iconic “Where’s the Beef” ad, and “1984” by Apple. I was married two days after Michael Jordan and Larry Bird played

a game of HORSE. My daughter’s first steps happened during the Budweiser frog ad and my younger brother proposed to his wife after Terry Tate: Office Linebacker

All these ads had a couple things in common: they were innovative, hilarious, and handcrafted specifically for the most important day of the year. Now, Super Bowl ads are no longer special. People see the same ads they see every other day of the week, the same drivel companies peddle to watchers of daytime television, or those you might see at 3 a.m. on a Saturday. If I have to hear the Whopper jingle one more time, I might snap. Burger King, be warned. You better not ruin my day.

COUNTERPOINT Try the All-New Flavor Bomb in Your Ford F950!

BY RICK SUBWAY Corpohumanoid

The Super Bowl is an important day. Consumers need to be told what to buy for the upcoming year. Without advertisements, they’d be helpless, and the world would quickly descend into anarchy. Could you picture it? Consumers wandering listlessly through strip malls for hours on end, unable to choose which restaurants to enter, starving to death five Footlongs away from a Subway. However, buying ad time is getting harder and harder, as Big Media works to oppress our beautiful messages, charging $6.5 million for just 30 seconds on your screens. That’s why we haven’t been able to make game-changing ads anymore. There isn’t any money left to spend on the ad itself, because companies are practically bankrupting themselves just to air it. So

TOP TEN

the next time you see what you think is a crappy ad for a Happy Meal, just remember what those poor people at McDonalds are giving up to reach you. Reward their bold risk by taking some of your many dollars and donate to their company. I may never be able to fill the void in your heart, but I’ll leave you with an inspirational quote I heard the other day: “Whopper, Whopper, Whopper, Whopper; Junior, Double, Triple, Whopper; Flame-grilled taste with perfect toppers.”

Things to Do by Yourself on Valentine’s Day

10. Reflect

9. Make mead

8. Email your middle school crush

7. Walk behind groups of friends and laugh when they laugh

6. Make valentines for everyone in your CHEM 40B lecture

5. Stir a pot of mac and cheese

4. Your homework

3. A cool flip!

2. Shrekathon

1. Take an “Am I Gay?” test

Health Influencer Launches Brand of Mercury Supplements

HOROSCOPES

Aquarius

Jan. 20 – Feb. 18

Happy Aquarius season! This month, your power-ups include finding pennies on the ground, never pulling a muscle at the gym, and the ability to completely forget about Valentine’s Day. If you’re single, excellent! Otherwise, you may want to invest in Post-it notes.

Pisces

Feb. 19 – Mar. 20

You should spend this month prioritizing every task you left for later over the past six months. Midterms mean nothing if you never wash your car. But don’t forget to keep lengthening that to-do list; if it’s over 100 lines by the end of the year you win a mental breakdown!

Aries

“Not only is this mercury great for my health, I also love the way it settles in my stomach!” exclaimed one customer.

BY SHARON ROTH Editor-in-Chief

Instagram influencer Jessica Poissonne is receiving backlash after promoting a new line of mercury supplements. Poissonne gained internet fame by sharing her 47-step morning routine, which takes approximately seven hours and involves the preparation of a dozen different beverages. In addition to a cup of matcha and a glass of alkaline water with lemon juice, Poissonne recently shared a recipe for a “fairycore morning potion” that contains mercury, a toxic metal.

“I love taking supplements. I take vitamins A, B, C, D, E, F, and G in the morning, and vitamins H through Z before bed,” Poissonne explained in an Instagram Reel. “I also do blood work every few months to make sure I’m staying healthy. I like it when my doctor tells me my vitamin levels are way above average. It makes me feel like I’m getting an A in nutrition.”

In her next Reel, Poissonne added, “I just did some blood work and learned my mercury levels were really low. Obviously, I had to do something about it, but I couldn’t find any good supplements on the market. Then, I totally fell down the rabbit hole of researching mercury and learned that almost everyone is mercury deficient!”

A week later, Poissonne launched her own mercurybased supplement, which she named “Silver Elixir.” The supplement also reportedly promotes a “healthy gut microbiome” by including “a special cocktail of complementary probiotics and antibiotics.”

Poissonne shared a video shortly after the launch of Silver Elixir explaining how often she takes the supplement. Her “clean girl detox juice” contains cherry-lime sparkling water, green tea, and two to three teaspoons of Silver Elixir. She explained, “I think skincare is more than a daily cycle ... it should be a

monthly cycle in line with the stars and planets. That’s why I recommend taking a higher dose of my mercury-infused Silver Elixir when Mercury is in retrograde.”

After followers asked Poissonne where she sourced her mercury, she explained that she purchases the mercury on Amazon and mixes it with a “unique blend of essential oils” before packaging and shipping to customers. She said, “The essential oils totally help with mercury absorption, which is so important when you start adding mercury to your diet.”

Poissonne informed followers that she consulted with several scientists at the FDA before launching Silver Elixir. Jim Wooley, the senior scientist who reviewed Poissonne’s new supplement, told reporters that “the FDA does not have the authority to approve dietary supplements for safety and effectiveness, or to approve their labeling, before the

supplements are sold to the public. This is a real sentence from the FDA’s website, and you can read more about it at www.fda.gov.” Or, in Poissonne’s words, “the FDA didn’t not approve it, so it’s good to go!”

One of Poissonne’s followers commented a detailed review of Silver Elixir on Poissonne’s newest Instagram post. They wrote, “Jessica, this is false advertising. Silver Elixir includes toxic chemicals found in tuna fish, and I’m a vegetarian.”

Poissonne replied to the comment: “Uhhh….my products are literally so healthy for you. Have you considered that your mindset might be toxic?”

Despite the negative reviews, the FDA has allowed Poissonne to continue selling Silver Elixir. When asked whether he thought it was a harmful substance, Wooley said, “Sure, you shouldn’t be drinking mercury. But what doesn’t kill you probably makes you stronger.”

Avatar: The Way of Water to Be Re-Released in 192 One-Minute Segments on YouTube Shorts

Mar. 21 – Apr. 19

Have you been missing your free time? Unfortunately, it’s not coming back. Ever. Really, the only thing you can do is try to live in the present, even though it is constantly and rapidly slipping from your grasp. Or you can always run away and join a monastery.

Taurus

Apr. 20 – May 20

Mars is in the night sky this month, so you may be feeling a little warmer. Use the extra kinetic energy to launch your dreams into the stratosphere, where they may get picked up by a passing comet. How did you think wishing on a shooting star worked?

Gemini

May 21 – June 20

You should stand firm in your decisions. Be bold. You know whether that fishing trip will be fruitful or fishful. Use your powers of clairvoyance to make those around you happy. Or use them to turn the entire world upside down. Your decision will depend on how much caffeine you’ve had.

Cancer June 21 – July 22

Have you been feeling a certain angst lately? The moon has been spending more time in the Northern Hemisphere, making things a little more emotional and shaky for you. Try dusting off your flip flops and taking a walk straight off the edge of the world. Taking the edge off, so to speak.

Leo July 23 – Aug. 22

This month, you should follow your impulses — whether it be to kick a small child or buy a caramel Frappuccino. Treat yourself to a very small amount of cocaine. Set things on fire. General chaos is the name of the game. Heal your inner child.

Virgo Aug. 23 – Sep. 22

Do not leave the house unless you want to be seriously freaked out. There is some scary shit out there you do not want to see. Stay cozy with your cats, or blankets covered in cat fur. Blue skies are not in the cards for you. But before the downpour starts, go dig the dead leaves out of your gutters.

Libra Sep. 23 – Oct. 22

You should skip class more often. Your dreams offer you an outlook that will bring hope, love, and insomnia. Try spending more time in other, less tethered worlds. This should bring you the energy you need to go grocery shopping.

Scorpio Oct. 23 – Nov. 21

The angel and the devil on your shoulders are at war. Since your head is in the middle, your mind may be affected. Get ready to make some really bad decisions. You may also experience shortness of breath, chest pains, and tingling gums.

Sagittarius Nov. 22 – Dec. 21

“I can’t understand the plot because part 36 was removed for copyright,” lamented one viewer.

BY JAMES WOOLLEY

Content Editor

James Cameron announced plans to re-release his latest film, Avatar: The Way of Water as 192 one-minute segments through YouTube Shorts on Wednesday after an “unsatisfactory” box-office debut of only $134 million. Though production on the fourth film has already started, the series has seven total planned films; without demonstrating the profitability of the franchise, Cameron’s dream of “solving climate change with big blue cat people” may be in jeopardy. Each of the seven films comes with a titanic price tag of $500 million, and according to Cameron, he secured the funding by including a controversial “terminator” clause in his contract with 20th Century Studi-

os, which grants the studio the legal right to literally kill him if an Avatar film makes less than $2 billion. When asked whether or not he felt he could reach the $2 billion mark seven times, Cameron seemed confident. “Look, Iron Man 3 made $1.2 billion, and let’s be honest, I could direct a movie that’s twice as good seven times while blindfolded and being attacked by piranhas. Come on. The Mandarin? The fucking Mandarin?” This will be the second time that an Avatar movie has been re-released, after the first Avatar movie reprised its run in Chinese cinemas and retook its topearning status back from Avengers: Endgame. “After that time travel nonsense I couldn’t let an Avengers film have the top spot, so I sent cinemas back in time to 2009, when Avatar was top cat.”

While the original re-release of the first Avatar movie looked to target the largest audience in the world, Cameron’s new shortform video strategy is designed to target the demographic that Avatar: The Way of Water’s test screenings performed the worst with: Gen Z. “Our turnout with this group was, frankly, dismal,” Cameron lamented, citing multiple failed marketing strategies, including a TikTok campaign promoting the “Avatar challenge” where participants go to theaters and watch the movie Avatar: The Way of Water. The movie was repeatedly described by Gen Z-ers as “one of the most movies ever” and “quite moist,” falling short of Cameron’s promises that Way of Water would be “one of the most profitable movies ever” and “wildly wet.”

“Kids these days do everything the internet tells them,

but won’t go watch the movie no matter how much we pay Google to tell them to.” Cameron went on to explain that each one minute segment of the re-release would have most of the dialogue re-recorded using a default text-to-speech voice. “I’ve seen the TikToks. For some reason, this voice speaks to them,” he said. Assuming the re-release is successful, Cameron has already expressed interest in filming future Avatar movies with the express intention of cutting them into clips. “Look, I thought that 3D was the future of movies, and I admit I definitely missed the mark on that one. But this short-form video stuff might actually be the future of movies. A psychologist on YouTube Shorts said so.”

Neptune is in Pisces this month, so you may be feeling hostile toward others. Make sure to fill up on gas so that you can run people over at maximum speed and still have enough to cross the border, where you cannot be prosecuted for your crimes and may live the rest of your life in peace.

Capricorn Dec. 22 – Jan. 19

Your fortunes will reverse this month. You may be in for a surprise or two! Expect the unexpected to show up on your doorstep, like Amazon packages you did not order, or a stop sign stolen from the street, or a bird that whispers your loved ones’ secrets in your ear.

This paper makes a great teabag

6 p.m., Half Dome Lounge.

PHOTO BY SHARON ROTH

PHOTO BY CONNOR BETTERLY

Student Debt Relief to Be Distributed via Ticketmaster Verified Fan Presale

EDITORIAL

If You Really Think About It, Life Is Just a Game as a Service

BY HOWARD MARTIN Executive Manager of Player Experience

“2,000th in line? I know this pain all too well!” stated one fan.

BY ISABELLE MCKELVEY

Head Content

Last week, the U.S. Department of Education revealed that student loan debt relief would be unblocked, effective immediately. However, it was also unveiled that there was significantly less funding than initially promised, and not every college student with loans will be able to receive loan forgiveness. Therefore, to distribute relief in the “most fair way possible,” funds will be released in a lottery system conducted by Ticketmaster Verified Fan Presale.

“The U.S. Department of Education was inspired to use the Verified Fan Presale system after seeing the undeniable success of Ticketmaster’s collabora -

tion with Taylor Swift for her Eras tour,” said Department Chairman Harry Smencil. “There’s nothing we find more inspiring than watching millions of people fight desperately for something they really want, but likely won’t receive.”

The Department of Education announced this plan via a series of cryptic Instagram stories that — after being put in reverse and played in the key of C# — recited the sequence of numbers “13 13 13.” After some time, university students were able to decode what these numbers meant, revealing that in 13 days, at 13:00, 13,000 students with student loans would receive invitations to apply to be a “Verified Department of Education Fan.”

Once word got out, ticketmaster.com was immediately overwhelmed by traffic from millions of debt-ridden students attempting to apply before the website eventually crashed and never returned.

In the days following the website crash, a random set of university students received notifications that they were not selected as Ticketmaster Verified Fans, along with bank statements informing them that they were given even more student debt. “That’s not something Taylor Swift did — we just added that because we thought it’d be fun. And it was!” stated Smencil.

However, even the few who were selected as Ticketmaster Department of Education Verified Fans are not guaranteed debt

relief. These selected fans must join the online Ticketmaster queue at 9:00 a.m. PST on February 13, 2023 to compete for the 13,000 available slots.

“But don’t worry, we know ‘All Too Well’ how tough it is being a broke college student, so we’ve added two incredible options for students to increase their chances in receiving loan forgiveness,” Smencil added. “If you were not selected for the Verified Fan Presale, ‘Shake It Off!’ You have another opportunity to join the queue via the special Capital One presale. And if you’re already a Verified Department of Education Fan, you can buy just one ‘No one makes my jimmy harder than Jimmy Carter’ T-shirt to jump ahead in the queue by 200 spaces!”

Physicists Run Out of Greek Letters

Iremember when the first arcades opened. My brother would spend hours in them, coming home late at night on an empty stomach after turning his lunch money into quarters. He took me one time, and I could never see what was so enchanting. I asked him what was going on and he would point to a ball of green pixels and say “that’s a turtle,” pulling the joystick and pressing the cheap buttons just to land on top of it, repeating the same action for minutes before the game ended.

I hated him. I hated how he was wasting his time and money, and I vowed to never be like that. It was the disastrous experience with the Mario Brothers that drove me to excel in life. At age 17, I was accepted into Harvard Business, where I stayed for six years, getting my bachelor’s and master’s back to back. I spent another five years floating from one low-level executive job to the next, trying to determine how to make my mark on this world. One day, an offer came across my desk from a company I had never heard of. It was for a video game company. I was astonished they still existed. Even from a young age, I knew that the mere concept of a video game was flawed; the

whole industry was doomed to fail within five years. But then an image flashed across my mind: my brother continuously sliding quarters into the machine every time whether he won or lost, only stopping when the money ran out. That’s the moment everything clicked. Video games would be successful if they captured the most important aspect of arcades, of carnivals, of life: the never-ending churn of dollars. I took the job offer instantly and waited decades. Technology evolved, gameplay got more complex, stories got richer, graphics became crisper. Yet there was still no way to recreate the key feeling until the magical, improbable creation known as the internet hit the world with the force of a basketball dropped from space.

I pulled all the best people in the industry together and got to work, figuring out how to harness the awesome power of instantaneous online purchases. I dedicated my life to this pursuit. I was there for the advent of subscription games. I worked on the first DLC. I wept tears of ecstasy with the launch of the first battle pass. All of my hard work — my lifelong goal — was finally materializing. I look across the blazing field of games today and feel nothing but joy. Everything is perfected. Live service games dominate, constantly asking players to pay more and more for everything from cars to cards to dance moves. There is so much to buy. This is what players want. This is what players need. Every time I see the revenue number go up thanks to games as a service, I think of the children typing in their parents’ credit card information, I think of my brother pushing coins into the machine, and I sleep well knowing that I have captured that fundamental happiness.

TOP TEN Things That Happen Every Time You Blink

10. You eat eight spiders

9. The DVD logo hits the corner

8. Your eyelids get slightly suntanned

7. You get charged 1/100th of a penny to your student account

6. Everyone playing a secret game of wax museum runs a step toward you

5. The Earth travels 46 meters along its orbit around the Sun

4. You get one microsecond of sleep

3. The professor goes to the next slide

2. Your screen time goes up by five hours

1. You feel nostalgic for peek-a-boo

“I don’t get all this fuss. I thought one of the Greek letters was already nu,” said one physics student.

BY PRANAV REDDY Staff Writer

Arecent announcement from the National Academy of Sciences has declared that physicists have run out of Greek letters. Although the strategic reserves of critical letters like lambda and mu were thought to be nearly inexhaustible, exponential progress in all fields of physics has outpaced production of new Greek letters, leading to physicists running out of vital alphas. This has triggered a discourse in the scientific community, and physicists are concerned they will need to come up with original notation for physical constants.

Several prominent researchers have weighed in on the crisis. Shelley Quark, a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said, “It’s really hard to go without any Greek. I don’t need it to function, but I think using a

delta every once in a while doesn’t really even count, and I’m honestly not that dependent on it.”

Some physicists blamed the crisis on other fields.

“Everyone wants to blame the physicists, but if you think about it, we don’t even use that many,” said one physicist. “The math people use way more. What even is a sigma algebra anyways? Epsilon-delta? Lambda calculus? Aleph-null? That’s not even Greek!”

In response, the White House announced that they would begin investing in advanced recycling programs to reduce their dependence on imports from Greece. However, the supply of literature containing Greek letters is difficult to estimate, and investments may take years to become operational. The White House released a statement, declaring, “The United States is committed

to securing the future of our Greek letter supplies, and we will use whatever means we deem appropriate to ensure our scientists have access to Greek.”

The crisis has prompted some resourceful physicists to search for other languages and cultures to appropriate. Mathematicians have pivoted to Hebrew, while many physicists at MIT have begun using kanji. Some have even resorted to inventing their own letters. A theoretical physicist who discovered a new particle interaction termed his discovery the “unGreek letter coefficient.”

Not all news is bad news, however. In response to the rapidly rising price of Greek letters and the subsequent hoarding of mu, tau, and rho, Greek letter manufacturers are experiencing a complete reversal of for -

tune from their low points during the COVID-19 pandemic. Greek writers are even beginning to produce “luxury letters” to appeal to upper-class readers, introducing such letters as “organic omega” and “fairtrade phi.”

Universities and laboratories are also racing to secure a reliable supply of Greek letters. When asked what steps the university is taking to ameliorate the crisis, UCSD Chancellor Pradeep Khosla responded, “As a world-class research institution, we are committed to mistreating researchers, graduate students, undergraduate students, and generally making people’s lives worse. In accordance with these UCSD principles of community, we are now offering students the opportunity to be unpaid letter-producing interns for our physicists and mathematicians on campus.”

Clock into the joke factory by joining our Discord

PHOTO BY JULIA WONG

PHOTO BY AMIT ROTH

The MQ Goes to

We time traveled to the year 1023 to visit the original MQ (Memorandum Quarterly) office in Satire-upon-Americashire, rowly avoiding death by stoning for showing our shins, we stopped by the ancient MQ office. During news! We also discovered that ancient MQ editors had not invented Top Tens yet — only Top Fives steal this page right out of a 1023 issue

Susan Sourdough

Mr. Sourdough is always away at our second bakery, where he’s trying to franchise our business with our single investor, Emerita. We’re always expanding, dough rising, being created for the sake of fending off hunger another day. I work alone in the bakery. Motes of flour weave through beams of sunlight, and I knead suspended in meaning. I pass the dough across my knuckles, the cycle of creation crossing my hands over and over. I form small loaves and crush them back together. I am not like them. My bread rises and gets to leave the bakery, shared around a warm fire, consumed and enjoyed. I must remain in my workshop, always hungry, never warm but for the heat of the yeast.

I can have it all — a flourishing bakery, an occasionally loving husband — and still feel like something is missing, like there is a hole right through my center. Some days, finger-deep in dough, I dream of an extremely hot bath. Then the warmth of an extremely hot sauna caressing every rounded edge. Then being taken out, covered in cream cheese, and wrapped in foil to be enjoyed under a bright blue sky. I want to be sesame. I want to be poppyseed. I want to be everything. But I worry — what if they reach the hole at my center? What if they say, “Huh?”

Will they manipulate my vulnerability? Will I let them? Can I exist after forming into a circle and boiling and baking, despite it all? Am I forming myself around my own wounds, or does the hole make me whole? Am I Susan Sourdough, or can I allow myself to become Susan Bagel?

Anyway, here’s the recipe:

1. Shape dough into a circle.

2. Boil, then bake.

3. Attempt to enjoy.

Top Five Ways to Defend Your Monastery from Vikings

5. Give them Stockholm syndrome

4. Construct a giant bellows to blow their ships away

3. Present them with a cool horse that definitely doesn’t have a bunch of people inside of it

2. Pour enough gelatin into the ocean to solidify it

1. Contact the Green Bay Packers

Top Five New Inventions

5. Sliced bread

4. The Golden Rule

3. Separate continents

2. Wireless sundial

1. God

What Career Should

to the Year 1023

Satire-upon-Americashire, England. After tasting the newly-discovered fifth element (alcohol) and narDuring our visit, we discovered that satire had not yet been invented, so our papers contained real Fives — and that the old MQ office’s only defense was a “not welcome” mat, so we were able to of The MQ! Enjoy this relic of the past.

Inventions

Classifieds

Do you sin? Don’t we all? If you want to sin and want God to look the other way for once, send 100 shillings to our collection box and we’ll settle with Him. Current indulgences offered include: experiencing jealousy, coveting your wife, and that string of expletives you let loose when you hammered your thumb trying to fix the fence on the Sabbath. Need someone to build a tower to heaven. No hazard pay.

Headlines From the Past

Opinion: Help! My Wife Wants to Learn How to Read

Wanted: Men to model for my sculpture. I’m not a sodomite. Must be nude models. MALE. Nude. Muscular. Again, not a sodomite. Need sculpture models.

Will turn lead into gold. Tie a message to your carrier pigeon and tell it to find 37° N, 122° W.

Should Occupy Thy Days?

Court Jester Fired for Being Too Goofy

Oldest Man in Village

Dies At Age 32

Groundbreaking New Discovery in Medicine: Leeches

King Found to Be A “NEPO BABY”

Members of Pink Floyd Lose Almost Every Brick in the Wall Following FTX Collapse

POINT You Missed Out on Something Really Cool Last Night

BY KEVIN KOOLIDGE

Amateur Meteorologist and Photographer

Last night was truly a sight to behold! As the sun began its fiery descent into the depths of the ocean, a rainbow suddenly arced across the sky! This made for just an unbelievable image, especially for those of us watching upon the shore.

“Hey Bankman-Fried, leave those kids alone,” said Money.

BY MICAH GILBERT Staff Writer

The list of celebrities that have made public statements about losing significant amounts of wealth to failed crypto exchange FTX, now known to have been a Ponzi scheme, has continued to grow. Among the most recent victims to come forward were popular rock band Pink Floyd.

Guitarist David Gilmour described the extent of his losses, “What some of our listeners may not know is that ever since the release of The Wall , we have been constructing an actual, very large wall funded mostly by streaming royalties.” When asked for more details about the wall, he said, “Well, you can’t actually see it anymore be -

cause we lost basically all of it. But that thing was huge.” Gilmour did not offer an exact figure for the number of bricks, but he said that a brick was added every single time the song “Another Brick in the Wall” was played on Spotify, putting the wall at over 600 million bricks. “All in all, there are a ton of bricks in the wall.”

The band was contacted by Sam Bankman-Fried in late 2021 with an offer for an investment opportunity. Leaked emails have shown that BankmanFried promised exceedingly high returns if the band gave him ownership of the wall and allowed him to use it as collateral for other investments. However, he immediately

sold every brick in the wall to raise money in an attempt to resurrect former president Harry Truman to be featured in an FTX ad campaign.

“When we heard about FTX and the blockchain, we were delighted at the opportunity to connect it with our wall to get an even bigger wall. Next thing we knew, FTX toppled, and took our wall with it,” said Gilmour. “You never think it’s going to happen to you until one day it does. It was this big ‘Hey You’ wake-up call to everyone.”

Financial advisor John Money offered his opinion on the event and how so many people were “fooled” by FTX. According to Money, many people buy into

hype and risk a lot of money without doing research beforehand and getting a proper understanding of their investment. “We do need a lot of education. Hell, we might even need thought control.”

Gilmour commented on how the band plans to recover and rebuild the wall. “It’s terrible that we need to start over, but at the rate that young teenagers discover our music and think that they’re immediately better than everyone else for listening to it, we’ll get that thing back up in no time.” As for his opinion of BankmanFried, Gilmour commented, “He’d better run like hell. I will be following the trial very closely.”

Local Man Makes New Year’s Resolution to Become Worse in Every Way Possible

Then, not 10 minutes after the sun bid us farewell with a green flash, we were treated to the most beautiful thunderstorm, which was a cacophonous symphony of electric power all around. It was bright enough to light up the entire beach, and near the end, we were lucky enough to witness ball lightning. It was ejected from the heavens like Lucifer falling from grace, flaming its way across the horizon. As this gorgeous show was going on, a red tide pulled in, and every crashing wave glowed with the aquamarine power of Poseidon.

Finally, the skies began to clear to a brilliant shower of meteorites streaking through the atmosphere. The meteor

shower was dense enough that the entire sky seemed like a shimmering stretch of bejeweled fabric, waving in the cosmic wind. What’s more, every passing meteorite was easy to see, thanks to the total wolf blood blue super-duper-moon lunar eclipse. I caught the most amazing long-exposure photo, and one of the meteorites even landed by my feet — a gift from the heavens above.

As the meteorites began to make their way past our humble planet, we were graced by a truly awe-inspiring aurora borealis! This is incredibly rare to see from as far south as the La Jolla area. Climate change is getting a little out of hand, but it might just be worth it! Science is so cool.

COUNTERPOINT You Are a Failure

BY JIM PORTANT Businessman

You can’t be serious. I missed the flash-rainbow-lightningshower-super-duper-lunaraurora-tide again!? You know, I love to appreciate nature and all of her fascinating phenomena, but I’m a busy guy, and I am beyond disappointed by the constant failure of you astronomers, meteorologists, and marine biologists to adequately notify me of these moments of natural wonder.

Is it really too much to ask that I be kept in the loop when it comes to these things? After all, I am a true connoisseur of the cosmos, and it is nothing short of a travesty that I am repeatedly left in the dark, forced to miss out on these spectacular events due to a lack of proper communication.

For example, take the recent meteor shower I missed. Why did this happen? Because not a single astronomer saw fit to shoot me a text, even though they knew full well that I would want to see it. Or the red tide I missed just last week — that was a total disgrace! Those marine biologists should have been on top of it, letting me know exactly when and where it was going to happen. And let’s not even get started on the lunar and solar eclipses. How

“I won’t stop until I’ve kicked 101 dalmatians,” vowed Fleming.

BY ALEX REINSCH-GOLDSTEIN

Distro Captain

At the start of every year, many Americans resolve to improve themselves in the months ahead. But for Brody Fleming, a junior at John Muir College, 2023 offers a different kind of opportunity: the chance to become the most “disgusting and amoral” person that he can be.

“Everybody talks about self-improvement. Nobody ever talks about conscious self-deterioration,” Fleming said, turning away to urinate out the window of his eighthfloor apartment onto unsuspecting pedestrians below. “So many people try to become better and give up almost immediately. I’m setting goals for myself that I can actually achieve.” While Americans across the country plan to eat healthier or give up their vices, Fleming plans to commit various acts of cruelty while eating at least five pounds of processed meat a day and selling an astounding variety of

controlled substances outside of an elementary school.

Retrieving a black box from under his bed, Fleming proudly displayed a sprawling drug kit containing cocaine, speed, acid, PCP, mescaline, ketamine, magic mushrooms, marijuana, molly, Extra Strength Children’s Tylenol, pregabalin, 4FMA, tianeptine, NEP, datura, kratom, and asbestos cigarettes. “These little suckers look exactly like butterscotch,” Fleming said, indicating a paper-wrapped cannabis dab. “Those kids at Stoner Elementary won’t know what hit them. AWAWAOAWAWEE!”

Packing another gram of ketamine into a Play-Doh container, Fleming continued, “I tried all of it, man. I tried reading every self-help book there is. I tried dieting, exercise, and spiritual enlightenment. I couldn’t make myself stick to it. Everyone gives up on becoming better. It’s hard to give up on becoming worse. And I can do it fast, too. I can satiate my sickest inner desires instantly — screaming at small children that their parents do not love them, or stealing Amazon pack-

ages off people’s doorsteps. Why waste time reading more books when you can derive perverse enjoyment from doing whatever you want, whenever you want?”

Busquous Leander Chiffarobe, a philosophy lecturer at UC San Diego and former pope of a UFO religion, says that Fleming’s New Year’s resolution is an unusual response to a common problem. “Who actually gives a shit about New Year’s resolutions? Lord knows I don’t. I told myself that this year was going to be the year I stopped sniffing glue. Look how that’s going,” Dr. Chiffarobe said, retrieving a bottle of nontoxic Elmer’s school glue from his desk drawer and inserting it into his nostril.

At this point, Fleming burst into the room, imitating the mating call of a barbary macaque and hitting several people over the head with a big steel pipe. Dr. Chiffarobe leapt up, shot Fleming with the taser that he keeps on his person for such situations, then re-seated himself and continued talking. “I think as a society we have

no frame of reference for how much time and effort personal growth actually takes,” Dr. Chiffarobe said, nudging Fleming with his foot to ensure he was thoroughly incapacitated. “We have self-help books, videos, talks, brochures, songs, spokenword poems, trap anthems, fake antique parchment scrolls, eight-track tapes, hypnosis CDs — all trying to sell you on some gimmick that is supposed to make you a better person in a few weeks. But when it doesn’t work, many people understandably become disillusioned. That being said, Mr. Fleming’s behavior is inexcusable. He is, frankly, a piss boy.”

Fleming, writhing on the floor and suffering from the aftereffects of a powerful electric shock, groaned, “Smoke so much weeder! Smoke so much weeder!”

“The truth is there are no quick fixes. Each individual’s path to salvation is different and must be discovered by long journeys and persistent efforts,” Dr. Chiffarobe said, sniffing more Elmer’s glue. “But who has time for that, really? I wanna watch Survivor.”

hard is it to notify me a few days in advance? The Greeks could predict eclipses without calculus or electricity!

And then there are the times when they actually do tell me properly, showing me an article in my newsfeed or pushing it through the grapevine of my friends, only for the sky to be overcast or the information flatout wrong. Come on! How am I supposed to see the eclipse when it is completely blanketed with clouds? What about all the times I get my hopes up to see the red tide, and the ocean is just glowing blue? All too often I’ve headed out to some remote location, only to have my plans foiled by the fickle whims of Mother Nature.

In short, it is a complete failure of the astronomical, meteorological, and marine communities to properly notify me about these incredible events. If you don’t get your act together, I’ll make sure to cut your funding faster than a shooting star.

PHOTO BY AMIT ROTH

PHOTO BY SOPHIE PUBB

Chancellor Khosla “Surprised” to Find Classified Documents in Office

California Storm Drain Systems Augmented with Parched Clowns

“Classified? No, these are just top secret,” said Khosla.

BY FARHAD TARAPOREVALA Design Lion

F

o llowing an anonymous tip, campus police and the Office of Internal Affairs conducted a raid of Chancellor Khosla’s private office last Thursday, finding several classified documents that had gone missing from University of California headquarters in Oakland. UC President Michael V. Drake issued a statement following the raid, saying, “We are deeply ashamed to report that Chancellor Khosla was found with several classified documents in his possession. If he had leaked these documents to the public, irreparable harm would have been inflicted upon the UC brand. Thankfully, we were able to reclaim the documents in time, and we will now be conducting a thorough investigation into how the Chancellor was able to escape the headquarters with my offshore bank ac -

count details … I mean the location of my secret oil field … I mean the plans for a new UC in Bakersfield so we can show Cal that UCB is a cool name. Oh, shoot, I wasn’t supposed to tell you that … ” Following the announcement, UCSD was thrown into chaos as protests broke out around campus. “Chancellor Khosla needs to resign immediately,” said third-year Kamala Pence. “He represents our school, and acting this way really lowers our reputation. The fact that he had the audacity to attack the University of California system — and, by extension, our beloved president Michael, who was kind enough to not raise tuition for a whole year — really pisses me off. I would call for his head to be mounted on a stake, but I just can’t support cutting down a tree for someone as disgusting as the Chancellor.”

However, not everyone was convinced of Chancellor

Khosla’s guilt. A small faction of students and professors formed a group called Khosla’s Krakens to “stop the steal” and to protest the unjust persecution of the Chancellor. “It’s obvious what they’re doing, man,” said history professor Mike Harris. “Big UC obviously planted those documents in Khosla’s office to cover up the truth that he was about to reveal. Time and time again, we have seen the government work to unjustly oppress people in power for no good reason.”

Chancellor Khosla’s punishment was announced by the Board of Regents on Monday after several days of closed-door meetings. The secretive nature of the meetings angered those on both sides of the conflict. “Why couldn’t they televise their decisions?” said Krakens member Mark Giordano. “Seems like they are trying to hide something — perhaps the secret that Khosla was working hard to uncover. If I was able to

watch their meetings on TV, I would feel more confident that the board wasn’t unjustly persecuting such a perfect man.”

“The punishment is not enough. Something fishy happened during those meetings,” said Pence. “Without televising their meetings, how are we supposed to have any amount of faith in the board’s decision? Khosla probably bribed all of them with a bedroom in his luxurious mansion. I mean, who would say no to beachfront property in La Jolla?”

Early Tuesday morning, President Drake and the Board of Regents traveled to La Jolla to carry out Chancellor Khosla’s punishment. In front of the entire student body, Drake slapped Khosla firmly on the wrist. News broke shortly after that classified documents had also been found in the home of Vice Chancellor John Robinette Nixon.

The MQ’s Book of World Records

We don’t like to brag, but we’re pretty accomplished. Since our humble birth in 1988, we’ve broken — nay, shattered — several Guinness World Records. Here is just a small collection of our greatest accomplishments.

BY MILLIE YOU Ass. Graphics Editor

As California braced itself for a torrent of unprecedented rainfall, a plethora of dangers arose: mudslides, car accidents, and flash floods. Since the beginning of January, people have been forced to leave their waterlogged homes as dams burst and the threat of drowning escalated. To mitigate the worst of the flooding and alleviate the pressure on overwhelmed drains and reservoirs, the state has employed an unconventional means of drainage: thirsty clowns.

“Look, it’s not like the rest of the state doesn’t know what it’s like to be constantly dehydrated as fuck,” said Gary “Goose” Lard, the head of the State Water Resources Control Board. “Have some sympathy, jeez. We’re all tired of letting our lawns die, but I don’t see anyone else lining up to guzzle rainwater. These clowns are like tardigrades in space. They absorb water like sponges, and they’re serving the people admirably.”

True to Lard’s words, the residential areas in which clowns have been deployed have reportedly been able to avoid floods as they take shifts to quaff the constant heavy downpour. Residents, however, have expressed mixed feelings. “I’m pretty sure this isn’t ethical,” said Margot Harley, 16. “How can you just stuff some guys into terrible working conditions to inhale water? You’re basically giving them dysentery! They could drown!”

“im in tears and can’t breathe” read a Twitter post with 8,000 likes, featuring a “freak-ass looking shot” of a man in full clown gear peering out of a storm drain. “HE IS GOING TO TAKE OUR SOULS.”

However, not all Twitter users are anti-clown. “i have nightmares about clowns, but honestly, they’re just some depressed hoes milling around in a STORM DRAIN,” read an -

other Twitter post. “if that isn’t a fat mood…”

Some locals also share this positive outlook. “This fine young gentleman is providing excellent service to the community!” a Facebook post declared. “I had some doubts at first, but not only are thirsty clowns highly effective, one of them even kindly retrieved my son’s toy boat before it could wash away! Disappeared just as I arrived. It was clear he didn’t expect thanks. Well, I’m saying thank you, Mr. Clown!” Another California resident agreed. “They’re not so bad,” said Robbie Quin, 24. “One of them gave me an animal balloon yesterday. They deserve better.”

After word spread about residents’ mixed feelings, Gary Lard spoke out on social media. “It’s a little bizarre seeing them stare out of the drains, sure,” Lard admitted, “but where else is all this water gonna go? California’s reservoirs are the size of my niece’s fishbowl. And just you wait until summer comes,” he added in a viral YouTube Short. “You’ll all be wishing you were a clown in these times.” Lard refused to comment on future plans to improve water infrastructure. The clowns themselves seem unfazed by the public response. “Well, for one thing, this is the most lucrative gig I’ve ever done in my life,” said Joaquin Penny, a local clown. “So I’m not looking to flake any time soon. I can see a real future in this. You know how much free shit washes down? Wallets, phones, money clips, a couple of chihuahuas — now those things I don’t keep — a lot of kid’s toys … ”

When asked about the many concerns of residents, Penny maintained a positive attitude. “Yeah, them’s the breaks. This is just a job for me. Tell you what, though, the kids love it. They’re queuing up at every gutter for some good fun. I think we’re gonna start handing out balloons.”

PHOTO BY JULIA WONG

We’re always kraken jokes!

“I’m really glad the government started taking the flooding seriously and stopped clowning around,” said Quin.

PHOTO BY AMIT ROTH

Nicolas Cage Inspires Worship at Sun God

POINT I’m Finally Speaker of the House

BY KEVIN MCCARTHY

Speaker

of the House

As children, many Americans dream of being astronauts, ballerinas, or kings. However, we are a fickle nation — no one pulls themselves up by their bootstraps anymore or continues down the rough road to fame. No one proves that they can become an astronaut or a ballerina or an honorable Republican — they all give up and become teachers or work in HR. However, I, Kevin McCarthy, have achieved my childhood dream: I am the Speaker of the House of Representatives, which has been my true calling since I was three years old. I’ve devoted my life to becoming third in command of our great country, the United States of America, and it has finally paid off.

“You didn't hear it from me,” whispered Cage, “but I heard there’s a treasure map on the back cover of

BY EMILY CRONAN

Staff Writer

Last Tuesday, two-headed snake owner and declared “National Treasure” Nicolas Cage caused a commotion on the lawn of Sun God on Friday afternoon while consuming a dry slice of chocolate cake a crow had been finishing. “I can’t eat this Devil's food any longer,” Cage called out, accidentally beckoning the attention of the Christian student organization CAGE, also known as California Autonomous Godly Emissaries. Members of CAGE tabling on the lawn reportedly interpreted the actor's plea for Sails as a Declaration to “find salvation in the arms of God.”

Cage, who visited UCSD to research his upcoming role as a controversial Theodore Geisel, or “Doctor Pseudo Seuss,”

was slated to meet with a group of experts to discuss “Seussian flimflam” in preparation for his performance. Cage, spotting the CAGE club’s T-shirts and signs, addressed the Christian group as his “personal welcome committee.” “I have arrived!

I’m here and I’m ready to share my story, to move people with the knowledge I gain from each of you to an audience of millions,” Cage said, gaining a following of club members who were intrigued by his “commanding” tone and “recognizable” face from the “allegorical masterpiece” The Croods

“What happened next was as close to enlightenment as I’ve ever been,” exclaimed Mayra Lee, a student who happened to be napping on the lawn following her Cult Studies seminar. “I recognized him

immediately: Nic Cage, legendary in the seminar for his appeals to emotion through Instagram Reels. He flexes his acting muscles for hours by taking improv suggestions from the chat.” Lee pointed Cage out to her clubmates, suddenly moved to tears by such a celebrity sighting. Cage, seeing the reaction of the crowd he’d gathered, began quoting phrases from his self-published self-help book, such as, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it’s not.” Lee then asked Cage to name the verse he was reciting and Cage replied, “Lorax 4:7.”

CAGE members then invited Cage to crowdsurf amongst their “heavensent” arms, as they delivered the actor to Price Center. When they arrived, they noticed the Chancel -

Emily Queue

Valentines Day Edition

Dear Emily Queue, do you have any song recommendations for my sex playlist?

Every year, readers insist that they need a playlist for intercourse, as if their love must be made more entertaining with a soundtrack — as if sex is a grocery store, or a Sephora cologne department. However, I will deign to give you the answer you could easily find in last year’s column. For someone who is quick, I recommend “Einstein on the Beach” by Philip Glass. At only five hours in length, the minimalist score will leave you with no pressure and plenty of space to focus on your partner. For readers who want their private moments to last, I recommend “Der Ring des Nibelungen” by Richard Wagner. The leitmotifs throughout will, in a Pavlovian manner, remind you of the pleasures experienced and pleasure to come.

Dear Emily Queue, how can I brew a love potion in a chemistry lab?

What makes you think you deserve love? Asking this question is the first sign that you are an undeserving spineless limpet with an avoidant attachment style and no sense of personal boundaries. You’ve probably never even met a woman. How would you know how to woo one properly? You think love is measurable, expressed as a threshold concentration of oxytocin in the amygdala. Women are so much more than chemical reactions in a meat suit. You may have a master's in chemistry, but you have no chemistry with real people in the real world. If you’re really incapable of building a natural relationship with time and commitment, then grow yourself a girlfriend in the lab, because she’ll be the only one capable of loving you back in your present denial.

lor was holding a ribbon cutting ceremony for his own pickpocketing program, in which students are encouraged to rob one another at various Price Center locations for the chance to win a competitive slot for a therapy appointment with Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS). As Khosla caught a glance of the paraded Nic Cage, he exclaimed “Oh good! A new model for our Crypto Club, the flesh and blood of Sir Nicolas Cage himself!” According to an anonymous CAGE member, the actor, “in true uncaged Cagean fashion, undertook the unbearable weight of pickpocketing all the pickpockets and replaced the money with priceless coupons to his six-hour-long self-help seminars.”

Dear Emily Queue, what color flowers scream “I’m sorry for having sex with your roommate?” Flowers? Don’t you know flowers are literally the sex organs of plants? Giving them flowers is just throwing that fact in their face. Do you want to seem like a golden buttercup? Make them feel like a yellow carnation? You might as well throw a bouquet of tansies at their feet. You have to put more thought into your apologies. Get them a nice edible arrangement instead. Nothing screams “I’m sorry” like supporting a failing business. Dear Emily Queue, should I propose before or after the check comes?

You should propose after the check — far, far later — when you are home again in your shared domicile. The miasma of public proposals has seeped too far into the sinuses of society. The need to make what should be a special, private act into the burden of an unsuspecting audience is nauseating. The other patrons at the restaurant are there for a nice night of their own, and the second a proposal begins, the whole restaurant is engulfed in the affair. You should check yourself before you force the world’s nose into your business. Dear Emily Queue, I only know English, can I still French kiss? What is language if not a means of communication? Truly, one can speak the language of love without speaking at all; using the lips, tongue, and hands to express far more than they could with words. Should language barriers stop you from expressing your affection? They didn’t stop me when I was … well … anyways, the challenge for you will be finding someone willing to French kiss you back, you monolingual piece of human garbage.

It may have taken me 51 weeks, six days, 23 hours, and 649 votes from the moment that Nancy Pelosi left her desk, but I have at last been elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. There was never another option. I was the only viable candidate, so I moved

into the office immediately after Nancy left. Ronald Reagan spoke to me in a dream and told me I would be something amazing, but not too amazing, because that would be too much pressure for me. But I knew I would be greater than just House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. I had to be. The Speakership called to me, and I answered.

And to all the idiots who voted against me the first 648 times, I’m third in command now, behind Snoreseph Biden and whoever the Vice President is. I can have you arrested. My dad is a cop, and he’s cryogenically frozen in my backyard for this very moment. And, when he arrests you, he’s going to remind you that it's Speaker McCarthy to you. Idiot.

COUNTERPOINT

You Are a Spineless Fool, Kevin McCarthy. Your Days Are Numbered

BY JEB BUSH

Former Governor of Florida

Listen to me, Kevin McCarthy. You have achieved nothing. You are a menace, a leech upon society, proof that the modern Republican Party is a sham. You say you aim for greatness, but you rely upon the flaccid spirit of Ronald Reagan as your excuse for mediocrity. You speak the lies of a false prophet. You refuse to wrestle Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. on live television, which any real man would do in a heartbeat.

You are a pathetic man who has gutted the Speakership and left it for dead. Your subordinates have the power to remove you at a moment’s notice. You stop shy of besting the rattlesnakes in hand-to-hand combat and allow them to bite. You claim to lead the pack, but only a fool could consider you an alpha — you are a lowly dog who whimpers when he should howl. You have been beheaded, and you have not the power of a hydra to regrow threefold.

I embody what it means to be a Bush — my failures make

TOP TEN

me stronger, where yours have only made you desperate. I am a pruned rosebush ready to bare my thorns come spring. When the time is right, I will recover my pride by defeating you — but I will not stop at Speakership. I will pursue the presidency, nay, control of the entire world. You may call me Lord Bush, if you survive my ascent to godhood. I am a real man, unlike you, you sniveling rodent. I manifest the spirit of the Republican Party — dehumanizing anyone who disagrees with me while asserting baseless moral superiority. You are weak, Kevin McCarthy. Your ego is as fragile as your Speakership. You disgrace the very office you now hold — and if you had an ounce of fucking humility, you would know when to give up.

Fastest Ways to Get to School

10. Take the Blue Line offroad

9. Wear illegally modified shoes

8. Travel as the crow flies

7. Pretend you don’t care about getting to school on time so you get there faster

6. Drive your spherical car on a frictionless road with no air resistance

5. Follow the instructions to fold this MQ into a hang glider

4. Just leave your house five minutes earlier

3. Take really big steps

2. Drive in the bike lane

1. Backwards long jump

The Cat in the Hat.”

PHOTO BY AMIT ROTH

Tesla Unveils Self-Driving Stroller

What’s Your Love Language?

1. How fast can you run?

Depends what’s at the finish line I have the speed and gait of a horse Only as fast as the person next to me I have extensive theoretical knowledge of running races

2. Which misdemeanor should be legalized?

Rent gouging Petty larceny

Promoting gambling in the second degree Tampering with a sports contest

BY ROMELLA SAGATELIAN

Design

Wardrobe

Just weeks after an -

nouncing that Tesla’s Cybertruck will enter mass production, Elon Musk unveiled Tesla’s latest innovation: a fully self-driving stroller. StrollerX, the “stroller of the future,” will be “encased in panoramic glass, completely soundproof and bulletproof, supremely comfortable, and easily rechargeable at any Tesla supercharger.” StrollerX will also have the same technology as Tesla’s “Dog Mode,” which keeps the stroller’s interior climate controlled to a set temperature. Citing the StollerX's high level of protection and self-driving capabilities, the Twitter CEO claimed that he is “revolutionizing what it means to raise children.”

“I have 10 kids,” said Musk at the StrollerX unveiling, “so I know what it means to be a father better than anyone. I’m also the

CEO of three companies, and I can honestly say that being a father is harder than my day job. I think having the experience of being a parent is extremely valuable, which is why I allowed the mothers of my children to take the reins. They need the full experience of being a mom — because spending hours in labor is definitely not enough.”

StrollerX will come equipped with all-terrain tires. Musk claimed, “I strapped X Æ A-XII into StrollerX and let it rip through San Francisco’s disgusting hills while I was at work, and let me tell you, X made it out alive. When I sent him out, his StrollerX was low on battery, and the stroller even drove itself to the nearest supercharging station! I had no idea it knew how to do that.”

Grimes unfollowed Musk on Twitter for the seventh time shortly after this information went public.

StrollerX is also set to debut with a “baby bandwag-

on” feature, which allows the stroller to be hitched to the back of a car moving at up to 85 miles per hour, even with a child inside. When asked about the safety of this feature, Musk assured that it had been tested extensively. “True fact, only 1% of all humans are empaths, and I am one of those people. But I had no problem having Twitter employees test drive the feature on the freeway, because they were happy to do it!” The validity of this statement was called into question after it was revealed that the test drivers were all recent layoffs required to participate in the process to receive their severance pay.

The StrollerX will be released with two color variants in addition to the baseline Tesla Silver: “ManMobile Blue” and “Ladies’ Promenade Pink.” The Manmobile will smell of gunsmoke and pine tar, while the Ladies’ Promenade will leave a trail of rose petals wherever it rides. These

WILL YOU BRIEF MY VALENTINE?

LOCAL STUDENT STOPS GETTING GAS, CAR STILL RUNS “JUST FINE”

Sophie Pubb, a thirdyear math major at UCSD, reportedly stopped filling the gas tank of her 1999 Honda Civic after two weeks of back-to-back midterms at the beginning of the quarter. Pubb’s roommate, Sneeth Broth, stated, “Oh yeah, Sophie drives me everywhere. Her car still runs just fine. We went to LA and back just last week, and she didn’t stop to get gas once.” Broth stated that she expressed concern after the Civic’s low fuel light came on earlier in the quarter, but the needle kept going past empty and went all the way around the dial back to full.

In her statement, Pubb said, “The Civic runs because it is blessed by God and untouched by the laws of physics. I do not question the Civic. Every time I turn the key, I hold my breath in case it decides not to start, but she has never let me down. I think it comes from my inimitable and unshakeable faith in the coming demise of the gas industry.”

HORTICULTURISTS DISCOVER BLUE PEPPER

Last week, Dr. Horton H. Wharton, the head of the UC San Diego Horticulture Department, announced his research team had discovered a new hottest pepper and named it the Blue Pepper. “You’re all familiar with how blue is the hottest color of fire,” said Dr. Pepper, co-author of the publication. “It’s just like that, but with peppers!”

A new restaurant on campus opened and began serving food with this “ridiculously spicy” ingredient. Increasingly spicy dishes were supplied for a Hot Ones-style challenge between A.S. President Himmel Yin and show host Sean Evans. When they were “Under the Influencer” of these peppers, the two promptly ran off stage sweating to throw up and drink some milk.

But not everyone was able to experience this pepper for themselves. “I went to that restaurant and ordered their ‘Blue Bowl,’ but there wasn’t a pepper to be found!” said a disappointed Sixth student. “It just tasted like açaí!”

Soon, the pepper supply increased, and more people were able to try them.

“Sheesh, that pepper looks hot,” said Lars Chalavim after seeing several students running from the building in tears. “And I thought bell peppers had quite a kick.”

3. You’re entering a middle school science fair. What is your project?

distinctions are designed to “abolish pronouns now and forever.” Grimes took to Twitter to condemn her expartner’s actions, saying, “I love you … but please stop this. I know this isn’t your heart,” before unfollowing Musk on Twitter for the eighth time.

Musk ended the StrollerX release by announcing that the Boring Company would be creating a new public transit system for children under the age of three. The first iteration of this system would be implemented in Florida and would “allow the children of Tesla employees to be transported from daycare back to their homes, eliminating needless distractions from their parents’ work.” Later that day, after exchanging memes on Twitter with Musk, Governor Ron DeSantis declared that all of Florida’s bike lanes and sidewalks would be converted to lanes exclusively for children riding in StrollerX.

BIDEN DECLARES BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATE THE NEW STATE OF THE UNION

Tuesday night, President Joseph R. Biden shocked the nation during his annual State of the Union address when he declared that the United States would soon transition from solid and liquid states to a Bose-Einstein condensate. In his address to the 118th Congress, Biden outlined his two-year plan for the nation, saying, “Like a gas of bosons, Americans have been divided. This is all going to change due to groundbreaking technology developed by the Department of Energy. And now, thanks to the DoE’s $15 trillion in funding, we will cool down the nation until we all reach the same quantum state of being, uniting all Americans once again into one beautiful, diverse superfluid.”

Following the speech, the country was “thrown into turmoil” as the public tried to decode Biden’s message to America. “I was fast asleep when I got the call from my nephew asking me what was going to happen to us all,” said physicist Souqu Ark. “After looking at Biden’s plans, I can confidently say that there is nothing we can do. We have been placed in a box with a radioactive sample Rube-Goldberged to a hammer and poison gas, and we can only wait and see what happens.”

Local student Philomena Doctersen finally submitted their thesis last Tuesday, which was met with equal celebration and surprise by friends and family. Dr. Fahrt, their thesis advisor who has “never taken Adderall,” expressed measured congratulations. “They kept saying they were going to quit, but now it’s finally done. I’m really proud, but also a little surprised that they actually finished the damn thing.”

Doctersen’s submission also came with news for their friends: “I promise guys, I finally have time for all the fun things I’ve been putting off for the last four years! Who wants to get high with me and listen to obscure 70s folk? Bet you’ve been really missing out on me time.” However, many of their friends report that their thesis submission has had detrimental effects on their socializing. “We have time to hang out now,” friend Kazimir Nunderson explained, “but they won’t shut up about the dang thesis. It’s been four years and we are all proud, but we got together to play Dungeons & Dragons , not to listen to a lecture on flavor physics. Although, I would really love to hear more about the CERN weasel,” Nunderson qualified. “That’s actually kinda cool.”

Testing which roulette number is the luckiest Determining whether a pound of feathers or a pound of bricks is heavier Adding Mentos to soda and measuring the bottle’s trajectory Throwing baking soda into an active volcano

4. Pick a flightless bird that speaks to you: Penguin Dodo Kiwi Peacock

5. If you had a million dollars, what would you buy?

A book called How to Make Two Million Dollars

All my required textbooks for class The copyright to a shitty Illumination movie Color printer ink

Results:

If you answered mostly A's, your love language is cash payments. In love, you swoon when your partner returns your feelings with large sums of money. You may be a university.

If you answered mostly B's, your love language is avoiding eye contact. Have you ever tried reverse staring contests? Talk about affection city. You don’t know what your partner’s face looks like — and you prefer it that way.

If you answered mostly C's, your love language is commensalism. You tend to gain pleasure from someone else while they remain completely indifferent. You may donate to streamers, hoping for your unaware romantic partner to read your name out loud.

If you answered mostly D's, your love language is proofreading essays. You probably enjoy reading romance novels, keeping a careful list of every typo and grammatical error, then emailing that list to the editor.

TOP TEN Things to Tell Your Barber After They Cut Your Hair

10. Who is Dan Druff?

9. *Takes off wig* OK, you pass the test

8. Could you cut it a little longer?

7. When does your cosmetology license expire?

6. I thought you were only going to cut one hair

5. Quick, cut it again, it’s growing!

4. You should consider going pro

3. Wait, this isn’t the car dealership...

2. Can I take that to go?

1. I once killed a man

“Damn those new drivers. Always on their mobiles instead of paying attention to the road,” commented one pedestrian.

PHOTO BY AMIT ROTH

DOCTORAL STUDENT SUBMITS THESIS, PROMISES TO HAVE TIME FOR OTHER THINGS NOW

The MQ’s Spring Olympics

Everybody agrees that the worst part of spring is not the allergies or the end-of-year finals, but rather the fact that you can’t watch the most tense, heartbreaking, emotional moments ever televised during a game of competitive handball. Anyways, now that Punxsutawney Phil has announced six more weeks of winter, the MQ has a lot more time to pay people less than minimum wage to build us a ridiculously large arena. Our ideal location was the American-claimed region of Antarctica, but we had to settle for the Price Center West Ballroom for the Spring Olympics. Stop buying Fortnite skins and start saving for your tickets now!

New Events

Method Acting Getting Hurt Really Bad

Breath Holding

Curling on Grass British NASCAR (driving in circles in the wrong direction)

New Competing Teams What We Bet

Gamers

Military wives

The Waffle House staff

Average Joes

Children’s cereal mascots

Animal kingdom

The Vatican Lefties

Fortune 500 CEOs

The kids from the island Lord of the Flies

• This cool rock we found

• The lives of three of our not-so-close friends

• Dining Dollars

• Naming rights to the 51st state

• A Donald Trump NFT

• An I.O.U.

• Our bottom dollar

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Water Polo with Horses

Apples to Apples

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Ping Pong with Eggs