This is the online component of the humor section of the Argus, the Wesleyan University newspaper.

1/12/13

4/12/12 Issue

Cowardly Officer of Admissions Rejects Applicants Via Text Message:


Admitted Student Band Genres


Prefrosh Blind Dating




Overheard: Three Prefrosh Talk it Up


Gabe: Are you guys going to the seminar at 3 on “Athletics?”
John: No, I’m going to go look at some classrooms in 41 Wyllys Avenue.
Rachel: Hmm I’m not sure. Like I play varsity tennis now but I’m not sure if I will in college and I don’t even know where I’m yet for sure so what’s the point?
Gabe: Yeah I’m totally not going either.
John: Have you guys been to the Oozedan Marketplace yet?
Gabe: Yeah, my host and I got Chobani yogurt.
John: No, I’m pretty sure you’re talking about the Cafe; the Marketplace has ice cream sandwiches.
Rachel: Where else did you guys get in?
John and Gabe: Vassar, Skidmore, UChicago, waitlisted at Brown.
Rachel: Cool, all of my friends in Westchester, which is where I’m from, also want to go to Brown.
Gabe: Oh, you’re from Westcheser? I’m from the city.
John: What city?
Gabe and Rachel exchange judgmental glances.
Rachel: Do you guys want to live in the Butterfields?
John: Maybe; it seems like the students who live there really know how to balance their academics and social life.
Rachel: Yeah, a lot of the students here seem be “work hard, play hard” types.
Gabe: My host lives in the Nics. It smells like my grandma’s house.
John: Did you guys know that MGMT went here?

Frequently Asked Questions


Is this the Ohio Wesleyan?

Is there anyone else from Wyoming here? Anyone?

Is it WEZ-lee-an or WES-lee-un?

How do you pronounce Usdan?

If when I cross campus I have to pass an infinite number of midway points, will I ever leave?

If I slowly replace all the parts of a car in repairing it over a lifetime of use, is it still my car, or do I have to pay that registration fee all over again?

You know that second c in Connecticut? Why’s that there?

What’s Mitt Romney’s real first name? I heard it was Mittens.

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

What does the scouter say about his power level?

If whatever happens to me today was always going to happen, do I really have any control over how I live my life?

Was this the most vegetarian-friendly college campus in 2009?

Admissions Office Hires Specialist to Seduce Students


This WesFest, University officials have flown nobleman and infamous seductive force Count Domenico Gautrand-Hass in from his “love chateau” on Lake Geneva in order to teach the university a thing or two about the delicate tango we call temptation. Gautrand-Hass, known throughout Western Europe’s orgy community as “le vipere,” brings two decades of experience, a cask of aphrodisiac brandies, and an ancestry that includes François Gautrand, the French homosexual credited with “turning” Oscar Wilde, as well as Kaspar Ludwig Hass, known to readers of Goethe’s Faust as the inspiration for the character Mephistopheles.

“Lust is not a night boat,” reports Gautrand-Hass. “It is a cosmic perfume.”

Prospective and current students alike report that they did not think that they could ever be attracted to the sort of razor-thin moustache that runs puckishly along Gautrand-Hass’s upper lip, but they are.

“I was looking as the art center and he rode up to me on a Hungarian purebred stallion. He asked me what I knew about the breeding of truffle smelling pigs,” says Ethan Rosenblatt of Sbarro, PA. “I told him I was interested in Neuroscience and Film Studies. He put one finger to my lips, an unseen hand barely caressing my nape. I felt safe. The next thing I remember, I had already sent in my deposit. Go Cardinals…”

“Domenico has been great,” reports Elsa Flips, Dean of Admissions. “We used to focus all our attention on alumni panels and barbeques. Count Gautrand-Hass has shown us that the only things necessary for a successful WesFest are tasteful cheeses, the strength to give as well as take, and the confidence to take what you must not lose.”

Other schools have intensified their prospective students weekends as well. Harvard introduced “Crimson Spoken Karaoke,” a participatory event meant to introduce students to the joy of telling other people they go to Harvard. Sarah Lawrence hired well-known pick-up artist John Shadow, author of The Pull to lure students to their school through alcohol and well-placed comments deriding their weight. For now, Wesleyan has its European sorcerer.

“Give me one night with them,” says Gautrand-Hass. “One night to change their lives.”

Admissions Office Unnecessarily Mean in Rejection Letters


In a very much uncalled for manner, the University’s Office of Admissions was uncharacteristically rude in its rejection of a record number of students this year. Applicants have reported receiving letters with no less than three uses of the term “bitch-tits” in reference to themselves, and in more than one case a large envelope was received which contained, instead of the customary information packet given to accepted students, a slab of raw, festering tenderloin.

“Of course I was nervous when the letter arrived,” said high school senior and prospective student Elizabeth Tanty. “Then I opened it up and saw that the office of admissions had written me a poem that…well, I won’t go into details, but let’s just say you’d be surprised how many different rhymes you could make with words describing feces.”

“You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do,” said Head of Admissions Carl Hackabasset. “We simply can’t afford to keep taking on students like this willy-nilly. Really, you could term what we’re doing a public service. By making it so explicitly clear that they have no chance with us, prospective students are free to more efficiently direct their energy in the stressful college admissions process.”

“I graduated from Vassar in 1993, so I definitely wasn’t expecting a letter from Wesleyan,” said Systems Analyst Gary Brooks of New Haven. “Then I open up the envelope and it’s just this piece of cardboard with ‘YOUR ASS IS GRASS’ scrawled on it in black marker. I mean really, what the hell?”

Hackabasset plans next year to widen the scope of the Office of Admission’s ability to inform rejected students of their plight.

“If we can muster up enough resources, the hope is to get local Wes graduates to pie prospective students in zir faces, preferably in front of their friends or family. That should make it pretty clear.”

Brendan O’Donnell Inexplicably Acquainted with Every Prefrosh

Sources close to universal friend Brendan O’Donnell ’14 are at a loss to explain how the sophomore CSS major is already friends with approximately 100% of the Wesleyan Class of 2016. “Brendan’s always been a pretty friendly dude,” explained friend and fellow CSS student Bill Biebe ’14. “But how did he just bro-hug every prefrosh at Schmooze with the Jews?” O’Donnell was unavailable for comment at the time of this writing, reportedly being engaged in simultaneous conversation with Danforth Franklin ’16, Amanda Steinberg ’16, and four porpoises presently residing in Usdan’s Multi-Porpoise Room.

1/9/13

Ampersand 4/3/12

LaundryView Haiku


POV: LaundryView


Preview: Sims LaundryView


Hilarious WSA LaundryView Prank Tricks Everyone!


The Spin Cycle: More Thoughts on LaundryView


LaundryView is everything I look for in a man: convenient, three-dimensional, and sudsy. But if you thought this hunk of a technological advancement couldn’t get any hotter, then you were wronger than wool and hot water. Next year we can expect numerous innovations to what is being called “the next Chat Roulette.” Hello, 4.5 percent tuition increase! With the launch of LaundryView 2.0 we can look forward to:

Livechat and other social media:
Starting next year, Facebook will seem weirder than the way Irish step dancers hold their arms or the logic behind spear fishing. There’s a new social media in town, and the Sheriff is angry, and he’s mandating that there are no secrets anymore. LaundryView’s livechat will make talking about laundry with your friends and professors easy and fun!

Detergentleman04: hey, karen, i think ur lites r dun. i c u used cold water 4 the environment.nice
Hotnakedchick12: thx bill!

And let’s not forget uploading pics of your laundry to your LaundryView profile. This way, you can protect your identity while saying something about yourself at the same time, i.e. your laundry is separated into darks and lights, but there is a stray white sock in the dark pile= “I’m smart and put-together, but I also know how to have fun!”

LaundryView 3D:
Thanks to the surveillance cameras being installed in all laundry rooms on campus, we can forget about primitive rotating graphics and say hello to actual footage of our actual laundry rooms! 
Special features (for which students will have to give up their meal plans) will let you personally sort through other peoples’ laundry (I totally knew she wore that slutty top out even though she said she wouldn’t!), send messages that will appear on the time screens of a machine of your choice (Sry I took out ur clothes, all the washers were full! should have checked the weekly usage chart lol :/), or inform a senior that you have a crush on them.  
At the beginning of the semester, ResLife will hand out 3D glasses for use with the newest LaundryView. If you lose your glasses, you have to pay double tuition. Those of you with a faint heart and a fainter stomach: fair warning. I hear that something pops out at you.

LaundryView dating service:
Are you ready to put yourself out there? Fall 2012 will see the dawn of a new era in on-campus dating life with the additions of LaundryLove, LaundryView’s new dating service. Simply post a blurb on your “MyLaundry, MySelf” profile and watch the offers role in. See example profile below:
“Male seeks a lady in mostly hand-washables. Nothing serious, but if you’re up for it, I’d love to tumble dry on low with a cutie in cotton.”

Sponsored Poetry and Essay Contests:
Each week, LaundryView will be sponsoring essay and poetry writing contests, with prompts like:
— Describe a time when you felt laundry was more than just laundry. What caused this change in perception, and how did you respond?
— Imagine a situation in which laundry makes a difference, individually, or globally.
— What does “redefining sorority” mean to you?

LaundryView’s Glorious History


The history behind Wesleyan’s favorite laundry monitoring systen is one of fascinating detail that certainly leaves some suds a-bubblin’. Shortly after his suspension for creating the pornography website WesPorn, self-styled 
“internet maven” Steve Laundry ’83 returned to the WesDigital scene hard with LaundryView.
Steve explains that during his suspension, his beloved neighborhood Korean laundromat became a place of refuge. While speaking with laundromat owner Gun-woo one foggy night, Steve was indoctrinated into the fold with tales of laundry lore. 
That night, Steve went home and bought washingmachine.gov (a website that filmed unsuspecting laundry room goers at work), dryme.gov (similar to the former but made by a group of people who perform long-distance reiki on diabetic cats), and detergentbottle.tmblr (security camera footage of the detergent shelf of a wal-mart, soon to be implemented by the  washing-goods shelf in WesShop). 
Laundry does it for altruistic purposes, or so he claims. “I love the people, you know? If there’s anything I can do to help them out, I’m gonna do it.” Laundry currently resides in the Silicon Valley, and is working with Justin Timberlake on creating a new Napster.

LaundryView or Die Hard


Previously, our hero tracked down the cabal of hackers responsible for the rash of plumbing failures, but their leader had managed to escape. After a harrowing pedicab chase, we find ourselves at the entrance to the MacGray office building…

The doors to the skyscraper I found myself facing appeared to have been forced open, and as I ran into the marble-floored lobby I noticed the bodies of a pair of security guards. When I saw that someone had moved the hand of one corpse onto the butt of another, I knew I was looking at the handiwork of Arcturus.
I followed his trail of broken doors, smashed locks, and dead guards in humiliating poses. It led at last to a room marked SERVER CONTROL. I drew my revolver and edged my way through the doorway, only to be met by a hail of gunfire that forced me to leap for cover behind one of the many desks that filled the room.
“You’re too late!” Arcturus shouted from his place behind the central console. “You can’t stop what’s coming next!”
“Oh yeah?” I asked, hoping to distract him as I moved from desk to desk. “And what’s that?” He chuckled.
“It’s simple... the death of LaundryView.” 
I froze in my tracks. “You’re mad!” Arcturus responded with a burst of fire from his AK.
“I’m more sane than anyone! Laundries are the last places of physical community we have left in this world! Waiting around and awkwardly making small talk while your load finishes is the only human contact left untainted by technology, and now even that will disappear! America can’t afford to let its social bonds deteriorate like this, or we’ll just be easy pickings for the Chinese.” There was a pause.
“…wait, what?” Arcturus fired at me again.
“Once the worm has uploaded, all the machines in America linked to LaundryView will explode. It’s a failsafe the creators built in to the system, and now it’s the only thing that can save our country.” The gigantic screen at the far end of the room helpfully turned on and displayed a progress bar that crept toward completion. I checked my gun and saw only one bullet left in the chamber. I gritted my teeth and whispered to myself, “Looks like it’s time…to do this.”

TO BE CONTINUED?!?!?!?!

LaundryView Pretty Slow Over Spring Break


Like many students, all Chester Peeves ’14 wanted to do over spring break was to see his friends, relax, and catch up on all the laundry viewing he missed while mired in his demanding academic schedule.
“With no classes to speak of,” Peeves recalls, “all I wanted to do was spend all day in my pajamas, eating delivery pizza and viewing laundry on the revolutionary new LaundryView monitoring system. But like nothing happened. I waited all day and like one guy did a load of laundry and he didn’t even dry it.”
Julia Tanets ’12 agrees. “All through midterms,” she bemoans, “I eagerly anticipated showing my home friends the revolutionary new LaundryView monitoring system. I built it up so much, but when we finally broke out the wine and got the projector to work, there was hardly any laundry to view at all. Now everyone thinks I’m some sort of neo-minimalist perv.”
“Just seeing all those empty washing machines on made me want to rush over and wash a hot load of laundry,” admits Conrad DeLazaro ’12. “Unfortunately, I was stuck in Venice with my Mom who does all my laundry for me and doesn’t even tell me so I can watch. Now the revolutionary LaundryView monitoring system is better than ever, but I’m busy with my stupid thesis.”
In this world there is no respite for those who burn with longing.

Editors' note


The esteemed editors of the Ampersand are very smitten with the parallel world of wonders we’ve found in LaundryView. Please enjoy this selection of our intensive research, to which we’ve applied the very best minds that “The Tufts of Central Connecticut” has to offer. 
Mozzle Tov!