Our campus media critic is back! We’re waiting with bated breath to get our hands on a copy of The Soapbox or The Punchbowl, but in the meantime, we’ve managed to procure the new issue of The Wharton Journal. Won’t you join us for a spirited critique?
Let us preface this critique by saying that we’re not entirely sure we have a complete version of the current Journal. We found a haphazardly folded copy in one of the Huntsman study rooms, so for all we know a rogue School of Social Work grad student could have snuck in to plant a bunch of tampered-with copies. But, moving along…we freaking love this paper!
Their “news” articles are typical fluff, but if you flip to the back of the issues, it’s like this weird little yearbook that the MBA’s put out, and there’s nothing we love more than yearbooks. Our favorite feature comes on page 11, where the editors rip off New York Magazine’s approval matrix to produce their own [brilliant] “Second Year Approval Matrix.” With items like “In: Cohort L singles, Out: Serious relationships” and “Ken and Mike giving Hunter a run for his money for WG09 hookup king” calling to mind the late, great Street Sweeper, this is just the kind of trash we live for. Check it out (click on it for a full-size scan):
OMG, we found a time capsule that contained Amy Gutmann’s and Ron Daniels’s high school yearbook photos! Just kidding, we made them on yearbookyourself.com, but we still think they’re very cool.
Attention all aesthetically-minded 34th Street readers: have you checked out our exquisitely redesigned new website? In our humble opinion, it’s basically the Mona Lisa of independent college magazine websites. We are so greatful to the DP web elves (they’re like the house elves in Harry Potter, except they know HTML) for working so hard on it! In fact, we at UTB are starting to get a little jealous that 34st.com is so much prettier than us. It’s Marcia and we’re sad, plain Jan, the middle child with a “great personality.” 34st.com34st.com34st.com!
In September, while doing my routine Facebook stalking one night, I was struck by an ad that appeared on the sidebar. The ad was for something called “The Lazy Grocer”–being one of those two thing (lazy, not a grocer, in case you were unsure), I decided to click and see what was going on; ostensibly, some Penn kids decided to start a late-night FroGro delivery service. When I checked the site, it had some pretty impressive Flash graphics and not much actual content–or any delivery options. I brushed the business off as a failed Marketing/Management project and pretty much forgot about it. However, this evening I received an email informing me that the Lazy Grocer was open for business!
The Lazy Grocer offers a multitude of food and drink items, as well as party and household supplies, which include–but certainly aren’t limited to–copy paper and condoms. Also, their $2 delivery charge guarantees delivery in 30 minutes or less; pay an additional $2 and you can have it in 15 minutes or less. Not too bad! I decided to try it out, and ordered some Gushers and a few sugar-free Red Bulls, neither of which I really needed. Oh well. My shit was delivered in a little over a half an hour, but I’m not going to be nitpicky. Gushers are awesome. This is a Pennstitution on the rise, and I encourage you all to try it when you get sick of Insomnia or Ed’s Pizza.
A devoted reader sent me a link to a story from The New York Times that further proves that a vote for Obama is a vote for hope. Hope that our society will cast off its BlackBerry addiction and emerge stronger and renewed.
Indeed, in the interest of national security (and, I’d like to think, breaking the habit), Obama will have to give up his BlackBerry. Apparently, e-mail is not a secure enough form of communication to be discussing national secrets. Not only that, but it’s hardly appropriate for the President of the United States to conduct his diplomacy over BBM (to Gordon Brown: “lol @ ahmadinejad. srsly, txt him and tell him to 86 the WMDs or watch his back: sanctions.” to Horst Köhler: “c u @ G8 poker night?”).
Either way, the article discusses just how attached to his BlackBerry the President-elect is. Which just goes to show you, ladies of Penn, despite your compulsive BBMing every three minutes, yes, you can.
This is more or less the most socialist thing to come out of Germany ever, aside from, well, the whole Iron Curtain thang. The government shut down the entire German Wikipedia for two days after an article said political figure Lutz Heilmann was “sending threatening text messages to his ex-partner and stated that Heilmann was about to lose his diplomatic immunity. There have indeed been rumors that Heilmann is under investigation by the German parliament because of these reports, though other statements in the article about the questionable status of his college degree and his involvement in an online pornography venture are rather questionable.”
But now it’s back! Which is good for me, since I have a presentation about post-WWII Germany for my German 104 class tomorrow. Thank god it wasn’t “Aufwiedersehen” to Wikipedia!
Beyonce is the new Obama, in that every other UTB post is about her now. We hope you’re pleased with this development.
Remember that time I was concerned that SNL would lose it’s edge after the election? Well, I’m wondering if Lorne Michaels reads this blog, because on Saturday, the show broke out the big guns.
Advertisement in the window of CVS, 40th and Walnut.
Yes, the new CVS is a CVS. It’s nice and clean, it’s close for off-campus students who don’t want to venture to 43rd and Spruce, and like I said, it’s a CVS. Yay.
One question, though: Why is milk the only thing being advertised there? Are they trying to pull away Fro-Gro dairy product loyalists? Should we expect a war between Fro-Gro and its new competitors across the street, with those stuck in the middle (McDonald’s and Hummus) forced to choose sides? Probably not, but these are the things I think about.
With finals inching nearer and nearer, Van Pelt has initiated extended hours for floors 1-5 of the library, which are now open until 2 AM. Rosengarten will be open 24 hrs, 7 days a week–yes, even on Fridays and Saturdays–so the comforting fluorescent lights of the Undergraduate Study Center will always be available to you.
The only thing better, of course, than additional hours would be additional desks. Let the territory battles commence!
The new CVS, located in the Radian between 39th and 40th Streets on Walnut, is finally open! No longer will off-campus-dwellers be forced to trek to 34th and Walnut to get their pharmacy fix. To be honest, I didn’t really believe that it would ever open, along the same lines as the alleged Capogiro and Steven Starr restaurants that the Radian was allegedly going to house.
Have you been to the new CVS yet? How is it? Let us know!
As a self-appointed foodie, I’ve found that one of the most painful parts of living in a dorm is the lackluster kitchen (or, in many cases, the lack of any kitchen at all). And even for those us who have the ideal kitchen, we often don’t have money to buy nice pots or pans, fun kitchen tools or quality ingredients. So instead, we turn to ramen (bad), Easy Mac (worse), and Penn Dining (think Tales from the Crypt).
It was after staring at the unidentifiable piece of meat on my plate from Hill Dining that I decided it was time to live vicariously through the food experiences of others. And thus, the food-blog: because when you can’t have polenta, you might as well read about it.
But it wasn’t until I discovered TasteSpotting that I really began living. This website is a foodie’s dream. TasteSpotting is basically an index of tantalizing images of food. And even though the pictures are user-submitted, the editorial staff of the website reviews for quality, meaning you’ll see things that are more visually akin to gazpacho by Jose Garces than meatloaf by Aunt Marge.
Beyond that, though, TasteSpotting links to blogs, recipes, restaurant reviews, and information on unusual and exciting food ingredients. Basically, think of it as a launching pad for your food blog journey–a Google Images of the food world.
It recently dawned on me that in the past year, every hook-up I’ve had has gone one of two ways: I’m into it, or he’s into it.
The “I’m into it” situation is pretty self-explanatory, and I’m sure most of you have been there at least once (if not, I hate you). From our end, it seems to go extremely well, until, for reasons unbeknownst to us, we’re dropped. I’ve been lucky enough to watch these d-bags become temporarily ugly post-break-up: whether weight gain, face bloat, or acne regression, it’s fabulous. Karma’s a bitch, boys.
Out of the blue one day, though, I experienced the “he’s into it” scenario for the first time–and then repeatedly. When he’s into it, it’s so terrible that you peace out ASAP, but your escape is immediately followed by a bombardment of text messages for cuddling, movie watching, or just random attempts to be cute or endearing that flat out fail. Just the thought of the initial interaction brings on a visceral reaction, and you blame tequila, even if you were sober.
In September, while doing my routine Facebook stalking one night, I was struck by an ad that appeared on the sidebar. The ad was for something called
As a self-appointed foodie, I’ve found that one of the most painful parts of living in a dorm is the lackluster kitchen (or, in many cases, the lack of any kitchen at all). And even for those us who have the ideal kitchen, we often don’t have money to buy nice pots or pans, fun kitchen tools or quality ingredients. So instead, we turn to ramen (bad), Easy Mac (worse), and Penn Dining (think Tales from the Crypt).
It recently dawned on me that in the past year, every hook-up I’ve had has gone one of two ways: I’m into it, or he’s into it.