Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 16:34:39 -0400
Subject: Chemistry   Course:  Organic Chemistry 1   Professor: SWILnews #1

it's 3:00 pm on a wednesday and all is silent in james's room except for
the soft clicking of keystrokes. james herself is suspiciously absent as
the first few lines of the SWILnews are hastily put on screen. why, one
might ask, would james be absent from such a momentous event as the first
SWILnews of the year. why, one might also ask, would she let the giant
peach into her room to write without capitals and write nasty things about
her. well, i'll tell you the whole story...

        it was a dark and stormy night, and a young lass named james
hurried through the pelting sheets of rain to the side of her sick flamingo
that was dying of bronchial pneumonia.

        it was a dark and stormy night, as james tried one last time to
reach the phone that would bring the police to the scene, only to collapse
to the floor, her severed tendons betraying her in this final moment of
need.

        it was a dark and stormy night, but james didn't notice as she lay
on the cabin's bearskin rug toasting her toes by the fire that hugh had
stoked for just the two of them.

        it was a dark and stormy night, yet james's mind was elsewhere,
drifting over the moors on northern wales, the stomping grounds of her
childhood, when she knew nothing of the revolution or the guillotine set to
meet her the next morning.

        it was a dark and stormy night, and as the liquid amonia fell from
the thick yellow clouds james pressed her face against the hard plexiglass
window and thought fondly of earth.

        it was a dark and stormy night, and james eyed the hungry gibbon
ruefully and calculated the distance to the cave entrance one final time
before attempting her desperate plan of escape.

        it was a dark and stormy night, but james felt strangely calm as
she finished wiring the detonators andran through the final checks on the
small console located somewhere in the heart of washington d.c.

in any event, this week the SWILnews will have to come from the mind of The
Giant Peach and thus may be a bit disorganized. however, there is so much
time and so little todo so let's get right to it...

SWILbusiness:

        to begin with, this is the start of a new year, a brave new
beginning with exciting possibilities and sometimes strange new thoughts
and ideas. just one of these was brought up at the meeting and people
seemed interested. apparently, what we're going to do is play a boardgame
of some sort, yet use no pieces. instead, and this is the really weird
part, SWILmembers are going to pose as pieces themselves. now, while this
may sound dangerous to some, we assure everyone that there will be
relatively little physical danger and no animals will be harmed in the
playing of LIVE CHESS. yes, this saturday SWIL will grace the activities
fair with a fun round of america's fastest growing sport involving moldy
reddish squares of carpeting (speaking of which, somebody's going to have
to find said moldy reddish carpet squares or else we'll revert to the days
of masking tape and poor geometry)
        also, we'll need a whole lot of people to sit around attracting
frosh and telling them to sign their lives away. past experience shows that
even if they don't come to meetings, they will at least receive lots of
SWILnewses (SWILnewsi, SWILnewss, SWILnewseem?) in their four years at
swarthmore. so let's get out there and put up a good front.

        another subject of much debate was the potential SWIL mailing list
that would save time, effort, and years of strife for all involved. i have
discovered that i really don't understand computer-based discussions
anymore so i'm not really sure what's involved but several people have very
definite positions on the issue which they voiced quite clearly at the
meeting and which many people either agreed or disagreed with. in our
extreme cleverness your loyal co-presidents managed to handle the situation
without any real grasp of the issues involved. thus the topic was tabled
until our next meeting.

        as it was our first meeting we had to bring up several of the first
semester events that we have to deal with like renfaire which we feel
pretty confident about. it runs until sometime in october which gives us
many weekends to get a van and a bunch of happy-go-lucky folks to fill it.
we will soon be putting someone in charge of this and a list will soon
follow of interested folks. remember, the prices for weaponry are much too
high at a renfaire. if you want a claymore hold out for philcon which will
be coming along shortly. however, a renfaire is the premier location for
silly hats that, although they are costly, will get you a worried look from
the average person on the street and is hence eminently worthwhile.

        philcon should be heard of soon from jere7my who knows of such
things. in the meanwhile vague rumblings have been heard about SWILcon,
that ephemeral brainchild of fred's that might happen this year. what this
would involve is a mystery, but i, for one, can't wait to see how this
thing unfolds. we'll probably talk about it next week when fred is actually
around.

        last year one of the best times i had was watching legend with tom
cruise in kirby when i should have been doing work. interested in
continuing the experience we intend to show more movies at 10:00 on monday
nights. suggestions are plentiful for what we will show so you'll just have
to wait and see. also, we intend to show the star wars trilogy this coming
week for the frosh and anyone else who wants to see it. this ought to be a
fun and meaningful evening's entertainment.
        did you know james has a really nifty highliter on her desk. while
this fact may not seem pivotal at the moment, i assure you that even now i
am thinking of some clever way to link this to something useful in the
SWILnews. i presume it will have something to do with the fact that it
looks like a medical applicator for some really cheezy sci-fi series.
either that, or a futuristic vial of alien blood. speaking of which, i
think one of the movies we show this year ought to be split secondwith
rutger hauer because it has more scenes with rats then any other movie with
the possible exception of night shift, and people are constantly having
their hearts ripped out which makes it a classic in my book.

        james also brought us news this week from our very own king of
spain geoff "the geoff" noer. apparently he's plotting to conquer nice and
begin a plundering campaign towards paris. with any luck he will make
enough to finance a campaign into cornwall or at least by that nifty
motherboard he's had his eye on for some time. other than that he's doing
just fine, soaking in a hot tub in james's home town of palo alto,
california. more news to follow.

non-SWILbusiness:

        jere7my resigned his babylon 5 discussion to non-SWILbusiness since
it's in reruns anyway. he'll be showing some best-of on thursdays until the
new season premiers in october. of course, anyone who likes sci-fi should
check out this show ut i presume you'll hear plenty about this from mr.
tho?rpe himself.

        it seems the prisoner watching time slot may be taken over by twin
peaks which eoj has on tape. having never seen any of these i might be
intrigued myself. we'll have to see next meeting.

        also, roleplaying will continue with fred's sunday group in their
traditional timeslot and jere7my starting again sometime in the next few
weeks. also, there has been mention of amber, a nifty diceless roleplaying
game, that fred and eoj are looking into with a fairly large group. i'd
also like to put in my own two cents in support of an occasional paranoia
encounter or a nice gothic white-wolf game. we'll see what turns up over
the next few weeks.

        that about does it although a mentionable quote ought to be mentioned:

larry:  "take this to orgasm."
and then eoj did...

attendance (2/2/95):

Larry "Ajacs the T-Mek billiards Player" Miller,
Megan "Of course I'm not here, can't you tell?" Hallam, [self-awareness
test case #1. -TGP]
Alice "I have returned.... i think." Unger,  [self-awareness test case #2. -TGP]
Erik R,  [self-awareness test case #3. subject unable to identify himself.
prescription: terminate. -TGP]
Melissa "SWIL mailing list isa GOOD thing" Binde, [I'm a little fuzzy on
this whole good/bad thing -Dr. Venkman]
Andrea "The Volunteer Who Wouldn't Die" Hall,
Joel McNary,   \
Dan Eisenbud,  } [a nickname is a terrible thing to waste. -TGP]
Sarah Piatt,      /
jere7my "Nowhere Man is too a good show." tho?rpe, [Right, thanks for the
safety tip Egon. -Dr. Venkman]
Kendra "Gravity is a harsh mistress" Eshlemann, [Whip me, beat me, make me
accelerate at 9.8m/s/s - TGP]
Jim "[ancient slavic rune which for me to repeat would be both slanderous
and lethal.]" Moskowitz,
Snibor "Denruter evah I! Eciojer!" Eoj, [Raen si dne eht! Tneper! -TGP]
Ben "Ben" Williams, [Williams. -TGP]
Sam "Grek?" Weiler,
Jeremy "Am I a frosh?" Dilatush, [Am I an iiiiiisland? -TGP]
Ahyana "Blue!"-"Back from Edinburgh"-Clark, [and boy are her arms tired-L]

                                                -James & The Giant Peach