From aem @ sccs Tue Sep 12 17:06:28 2000 Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2000 15:50:07 -0400 (EDT) From: Amy' Marinello To: _swat.org.swil @ swarthmore.edu Subject: Two, two, two SWILNewsi in one! in SWILNews #11 Once upon a time, there was a rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth (don't you think "rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth" is a bit of an understatment? -a) Yankees fan and Jedi Knight named Abi-Wan Kenobi. In order to attend SWILmeetings and watch Yankees games that occurred at the same time, she did what anyone would do in a similar situation: she TURNED ON THE CAPS LOCK KEY... no, wait, she built a Time Machine (yes, that seems more likely -b). Then, one day, her Time Machine ran away.... }}}}}} SWILBusiness {{{{{{ Abi-Wan gave us a sign. It said "Swarthmore Warders of Imaginative Literature meeting -- SPECS WELCOME." The rabble was pathetic. It was determined that the appropriate helping verb in this case is, in fact, "was," not "were." Elliot is now the Mob (and Jim is the polloi), due to complaints of everyone having to be rabble. At this moment, a small wormhole opened up, and a small dinosaur fell out and gave a small cry from its small mouth. It was a little strange (dinosaur -a). Movie nominations will take place next week! Think of movies to nominate, especially "Superman II." If you nominate a movie, have a blub (I want a blub! -a) (never you mind that. I meant "blub"... I mean "blurb" -q) to go with it, and be prepared to both recite it at SWILmeeting and email it to Abi-Wan. T-shirts are ready to be ordered. Further information will be included in a further email for your further enjoyment. Remember to think up stories for Senior Remembrances on April 29! Give BDan food or $3 for Walpurgisnacht, or Lindsay will beat you to a bloody pulp with her newly-acquired sabre-toothed tiger. The Spamdenberg goes down (and gets funky! -q) on Friday, May 5 at 7:30pm, probably in Crum Meadow. Tuesday, April 25, 1899: There will be a talk, by Tamora Pierce, in the Scheuer Room, with the lead pipe. It now being April, it is clearly time to start discussing speakers for next year. If Abi-Wan's time machine were working properly, we could just start doing this when we got around to it, but unfortunately it is not. Therefore, Ben, comma, and Kyra signed up for the Committee to Replace the Committee to Replace Amy. Other people should sign up as well by contacting Ben Kenobi to be involved. We will be able to obtain "Gamera vs. Guiron" for Schlock, so we will not be showing "The (Ravenous Bugblatter -q) Beast of Yucca Flats." Tonight's movie is "The Iron Giant" in stereo and in Kirby. A strange-looking portal appeared, and a strange-looking dodo bird emerged from it and flew across the room. A strange-looking person commented, "Dodo birds can't fly!". It promptly fell to the ground in a strange-looking puff of logic and stormed out of the room to its inevitable extinction. There was an unnecessary SWILvote on furniture. The topic of the vote was whether or not BEM should happen. We, except for Robert as token opposition, decided in favor. Then we all voted that someone else should do it, which meant Robert. Hmm. Then ... we revealed the contents of the Fine Print (tm). However, at this point, a temporal vortex of catastrophic (eyiikabbbbotoin! -aq) proportions opened, and a SWILmeeting fell into the chair at the back of the room, accompanied by a cry of, "I seem to be having this tremendous difficulty with _my_ lifestyle!". }}}}}} {{{{{{ v^v^v^v^ SWILBusiness ^v^v^v^v That was pathetic (where "that" = "the rabble"). Ben channelled Franzi to tell us all about t-shirts. This information will be included in an email sometime next week, around the 17th. Amy has suggested that people get light-colored shirts and tie-dye them. Dan Marrin has agreed to be our projectionist (and protagonist! -b) for Schlock. Therefore, "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" will be shown on the Monday of reading week, which is May 1st (primal scream! -a) (AAAAAAAAAAAAGH! -bq). We didn't get enough nominations for books, so book-buying will happen in the fall. Still, email Amydala with suggestions any time you think of them. This week's movie will be "Fahrenheit 451." Challenge Chess happened this Saturday at 2:00. It was a big success, even though black won (hey! Just for that, I'm excommunicating you -a). BEM is still contacting possible publishers. They'll let us know when something happens. We hope. Spamageddon will occur on May 5 at 7:30pm. We painted a nifty banner after Challenge Chess. It reads, "SWIL welcomes 'dactyl-hunting specs!", and people should come help hang it out Chaos' window on Friday. Tuesday, April 25, 1899: There will be a talk, by Tamora Pierce, in the Scheuer Room, with the lead pipe. v^v^v^v^ NonSWILBusiness ^v^v^v^v Mixed Company had a concert in the coffee bar. (it was very good! -aq) Many people like the "Lord of the Rings" trailer. It can be found at http://www.lordoftherings.net/previews rather than in a trailer park, oddly enough. Ben's family had lunch at the Peking on Sunday. Visitors were welcome! Some of them even came (oooooo -q). More of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" radio scripts are going to be read Friday at 4:00 in Greylock 301 (did you know that 6 times 9 equals 301? -b) Go to the housing lottery. Be cheerful and supportive, and play housing bingo! (or go to New York to watch the Yankees. Hmmm... or both...! -a) }}}}}} {{{{{{ The meeting promptly disappeared without leaving a sign of its presence. Well, okay, Scott did find one sign: "SWILmeeting in progress; Please enter." We made him give it back before continuing with his sentience proof. First, though, we referred the rabble (and the Mob and the polloi! -a) to the fine print at the top of the attendence list they had just signed. We then invoked Executive Rule 4, declaring Scott Price to have attended at least three consecutive SWILmeetings, though some claimed that he'd been there since before Jim Huang. Time's funny that way. SSSSSS Sentience Proof SSSSSS The Webster's online dictionary listing for sentience defined it as "a sentient quality or state". Since we usually interpret words by breaking them up into parts, he looked at the pronounciation: 'sen(t)-sh(E-)&n(t)s. He decided to prove, not his sentience, but that he is sentient. Thus, we can get rid of the "s" at the end. "Sent" is the past tense of "send," which Webster's defines as "to cause to go; to propel or throw." As for the "ient" sound, Scott found three different Chinese words that closely approximated it. -The first was "yian," which means "salt." Scott threw a salt shaker across the room, nearly decapitating comma. -The second was "yin," which means "silver." Scott threw silverware across the room, less nearly decapitating comma. -The third was "qian," which sounds like "chian" and means "money." Scott threw pennies across the room, very nearly decapitating everyone. (Chaos offered to buy them from him at a rate of ten for a dime.) Scott went on to point out that in many societies, people are named for great deeds that they do, so he would be called "Sentient." Someone pointed out that SWIL doesn't name people after great deeds (just punctuation -q). Someone else pointed out that the deed of throwing money across the room was not great. Therefore, we voted on Scott being "Sentient" by virtue of not performing a great deed. Comma cut his (Scott's -b) arm off with a spoon. Rebecca K. asked how to nickname "Sentient" with one syllable. It was decided that Sentient's nickname shall henceforth be... "Scott." SSSSSS SSSSSS Everyone voted that Amy should be the Committee to Replace the Committee to Replace Amy. }}}}}} NonSWILBusiness {{{{{{ There was gaming in Parlours at 6:45 on Saturday. Multiple specs came, including Raoul. There was socket debugging in the Sun Lab at 7:00 on Saturday. No specs came, as far as we know. There was an eruption of Vesuvius in the ML breakfast room at 7:15 on Saturday. Many specs died (to bring us this information -b). Vertigo-go had an awesome show on Saturday night to celebrate their 10th reunion, with lots of their alums, including Gail Lerner '92. We suggested to them that they next have a 13th reunion, then a 15th, then a 20th, then a root beer keg party. Try square eggs--the fork slides right in (tm)! Lots of music things from DanB: -Thursday 4/27: Music 12 concert, featuring works by Hollis and DanB! -Saturday-Sunday 4/29-30: Choir concert will be singing Bach's "St. John's Passion." -Friday 4/28: Opera concert. -Saturday-Sunday 4/22-23: Wagnerfest. The entire Ring Cycle will be performed. Bush (not Fred -abq) talked to gay Republicans and called it beneficial. Jim will be holding "Harold and Maude and Sodatasting and Benny and Joon" on Saturday 4/22, at 7:30, 9:15, and 10:30, respectively, in Kohlberg. DanB's watch broke. Apparently, it couldn't handle the temporal stuff. Don't work for Matlab, they're bastards (that's just because I don't know anyone who works there anymore -q). There was a suggestion of Diplomacy during reading week. There was a countersuggestion of ruthlessness and backstabbing. Check the fun list to see which it will be! Go see the banner. Before 4:00 today. As in, hurry. Anna's art show will open on Thursday from 4:00-6:00, and continue to run through the weekend. This means it's going up on Wednesday, so go help, starting at 8:00am. There will be a Passover Seder starting at 4:30 on Wednesday. If you gave Chaos, Kyla, or Hannah your meal number, also give them $2; otherwise, give them $5 (it's way fun, so go -a). }}}}}} The Attendance List of 'Dactyl-Hunting Specs (4/15/00) {{{{{{ I hereby attest that one Scott Price has in fact attended three meetings and may officially be dismembered. chaos "fine print? what fine print?" golubitsky (this is not the fine print you're looking for -b) Scott "if I leave the room and come back, is that a third meeting?" (drat.__My_spacebar_just_broke.__The_rest_of_the_spaces_in this_message_will_be_brought_to_you_by_the_character_'_'. Have_to_get_a_new_keyboard_from_Rebecca..._-q)_Price Robert_"complexity"_McFarland Rebecca_"sneeze,_drip,_sneeze,"_Jones Jim_"Absolutely_nothing_to_see_here,_move_along"_Moskowitz Anna_"I_am_your_acorn"_Hess_(nooo!__It_can't_be_true!_-a) Lindsay_"Stat_Stud"_Herron Rebecca_"if_you_could_sit_on_any_furniture,_what_furniture_would _you__sit_on?"_Kuipers_(those_are_underline_marks_around the_"you",_sorry_-q)_(heh,_heh,_heh_-a) Amy_"I_have_a_grad_school!"_Swift Kara_"Time_Machine_incognito"_Zor-El Dan_"no_more_floor,_just_bodies"_Blim ~Elliot_"How_do_you_pronounce_'Qiwi'?"_Reed_(just_likes_it_looks_-q) benjamin_'...addition_is_commutative--right!'_r,_george &_Callicles John_"your_ad_here!!!"_Finkbiner &_Margaret Kyra_"Yeah,_you_love_ML_now,_but_how_will_you_feel_when_all_the_frosh love__me__best_b/c_I_walk_home_from_storyreadings_with_them?" Jucovy_(again,_underline_marks_around_the_"me"..._-q) }}}}}}_Abi-Wan_Kenobi,_Ben_Kenobi,_and_Queen_Amydala_{{{{{{