now hear this!

We are going indie and have begun to set up Taste No Evil at its very own domain! This means total creative control in addition to a greater amount of work for me. Overall an excellent development. Stay tuned! Maybe I'll even frigging make a new POTW sometime in my life, eh? - The Drawer.

COLLEGE! A Primer to the NESCAC Schools - Part Drie

Outsourcing is the new fad in American Industry and we at TNE are doing our part to keep up with the cool. Here is a guest article straight from our favorite unemployed English major (is there any other kind) who would prefer to be known as BP (not British Petroleum) do to his job search. He is currently waiting to hear back from Denny’s. If you don't have a clue what this article is about catch up and read Part I, or Part II of COLLEGE! a Primer to the NESCAC Schools.

Part the Third: Hamilton College


At A Glance

Name: Hamilton College.

College Mascot: The Continental Breakfast at Denny's. (Interesting trivia- if you go to a Denny's, there is a 76% chance that your server is a Hamilton grad.)

Team Name: Continentals.

Location: On a hill in Clinton, New York. It's a hop, skip, and 5,000 miles from any other NESCAC school.

Student Body: 1,780. Apparantly, it is divided 50/50 between men and women. However, the men at Hamilton are pretty much women and the women are pretty much men, so Lord knows how they calculated that ratio. It's a guestimate at best.

HISTORY
Hamilton College is named after Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton was a brilliant economist and author of the Federalist Papers. He was also one of the biggest losers in American history.

Hamilton College chooses to emulate Hamilton's dueling career instead of his political career. Their athletic teams try to cheat, attack wildly, get blasted, and then grovel around on the ground screaming in agony until the final whistle.

WARD CHURCHILL CONTROVERSY
Hamilton got a lot of press when they tried to invite a delusional lunatic named Ward Churchill to speak at their campus in 2005. Churchill was famous for referring to victims of 9/11 as "Little
Eichmanns". A Hamilton spokesman said, "We here at Hamilton wish to honor the honorable Prime Minister and believe should have the opportunity to speak freely."

When informed that Ward Churchill was not the British Prime Minister, who had been dead for forty years, but a wacko from Colorado, the spokesman said, "Um, what?"

On a matter of free speech, Hamilton paid Ward Churchill $3,500 to stay home.

"NESCAC" CONTROVERSY
Hamilton was inducted into the New England Small College Athletic Conference in the 1970's, despite the fact that Hamilton is in New York, and New York is not part of New England. True NESCACers often say that Hamilton is, "the red-headed stepchild of the NESCAC". That doesn't really sum it up. More accurately, Hamilton is the "crack-addict-brother's-ex-girlfriend's-red-headed-stepchild-that-somehow-winds-up-in-your-care
of the NESCAC". The NESCAC doesn't know how Hamilton got in to their life, they resent Hamilton and everything they represent, but they realize that they would look like a bastard to kick them out. So, they let them stay, grinding their teeth as they endure a steady stream of public humilation brought upon them by the staggering ineptitude of their unwanted long-term guest.

ATHLETICS
Hamilton College has long been rumored to have won an athletic contest, once back in the late 70's. It was a duel in darts against the Perkins School for the Blind. Despite falling way behind early, the Continentals snuck away with their opponents' darts, disqualifying them and earning the victory.

STREAKING TEAM
The Streaking Team has been the pride of Hamilton since 2002. Every
year, the entire student body tries out. Only the fattest, sweatiest, pastiest, and stupidest are allowed on the football team. The rest join the Streaking Team. In true Hamilton form, the Streaking Team long claimed to be undefeated until someone actually challenged them to a contest. They promptly lost (to Williams, natch). Hamilton's ability to lose at something that only requires taking your clothes off, running around, and not getting arrested is impressive to say the least. Only Hamilton is capable of losing even at sports they invent with rules that don't exist.

So, if you get your GED and you have five or six years to kill along with a spare $160,000 lying around, you can join the Hamilton family! You're virtually guaranteed a job at Denny's when you're done.

Screen Play… an Opening

Black screen: sound of waves lapping against the side of a wooden boat
Fade from black. A tiny boat, alone (by which we mean surrounded by a gazillion (actual number) other boaters, and jet skies), in the vastness that is Florida Bay. An old man, much as Hemmingway must have imagined him, in a loose fitting Hawaiian shirt, sipping at a bottle of Corona and lime (delish), with large blue blocker sunglasses and a VFW trucker hate sitting high atop his head with wispy tufts of snow white hair waving loosely in the wind, sat at the helm of the ship. The sail was down and the ship relied on the large onboard motor to putter along leaking oil and spewing smoke out into the crystal blue hazy sky.

Cut scene:
A buzzing fly lands on the back of a dark chocolate colored hand layered with dust everywhere except for the few places where sweat has beaded up enough to run. The fly is quickly brushed away only to return to the pile of trash next to the deck that the African man sits on. Next to his chair is long barreled high powered ivory gripped riffle that he absentmindedly caresses while staring intently out over the railing. Surrounding the house are mounds of dirt from a trench that was obviously quickly and recently dug. A large log creates a bridge leading from the driveway in front of the house to the surrounding fields where tinny zephyrs send dust swirling into the savanna.

Pan to sky:
Fade from sound of buzzing flies to that of water caressing the side of a ship. A buoy dings in the background. Music blasts from a party boat as men and women in tight fitting designer swim wear race around the ocean. The old man in the wooden boat shakes his fist at them yelling something about “dang young’ens” as his grand kids lie on the bow and wife holds, white knuckled, onto the railing. The boat shudders as if it stuck something. “prob’ly one of them dang manatees.” The old man gets up and looks towards the stern of the boat, as he does so there is a splashing and a stingray jumps into the boat, knocking the man down. Using its tail as a like a spear the stingray stabs at the man as his grandchildren scream and his wife calls for help, eventually the stingray hits home stabbing the man before dying of suffocation.

Cut to shaking screen:
Trees come crashing down as a large male elephant rips apart the forest bordering the fields in the African savanna. The man on the deck jumps up as the elephant turns towards the house, grabbing the riffle in one motion while running off the porch. The elephant, shaking its head and bellowing, makes a b-line for the man paying no head to the trench or barbs that stick into its thick skin as he runs though fencing. Wielding his tusks like a pair of giant scythes the elephant clipped the man as he lowered the riffle sending him reeling onto the dusty ground… cut to black

Dun dun dun (music)

Voice over: Even animals can only be pushed so far. Will this be humanity's last stand? What will be do when...
ANIMALS ATTACK!
Coming to the real world near YOU

Check out these two articles on animals that are normally docile creatures suddenly turning on humans. Could it be that they are pissed at us? Could it be that it is time for revenge? Could it be an awesome movie starring Denzel as an honest hardworking man who has to fight for the human race? I think so!

Or is it like something out of an old Hitchcock movie where suddenly the animals rise up to kick all our asses. We should get them before they get us. Hippies, you are either with mankind or against it! Start eating MEAT and show those tasty bastards who's boss.

Article Uno

Article Uno Two

Interlude: The Nastiest Candy

Here is a story. It is a story about a person who made some candy that turned out to be his least successful, most off-putting cooking experiment ever in his whole life! How could this happen, you ask???

Well. One Wednesday evening, Jono came up with what he thought would be a great idea with great results. He took a mug out of the clean dishwasher, placed it on the white Formica counter, and lovingly poured in some sugar, cornstarch, water, and vanilla extract. Then he stirred it all really really well and put the mug in the microwave. He set the microwave to cook for 2:22 (ding ding ding went the microwave as he pressed the buttons). Jono started the microwave and soon the enchanting fragrance of vanilla was wafting out of it! After a minute, Jono checked the mixture. It had crusted over some and taken on a custardy texture!

"Wow," Jono thought with excitement and just a hint of fear, "I've never seen or tasted anything like this before!"

He put the mug back in the microwave and let it continue cooking. In the meantime, he did some dishes.

Ding!

The microwave had just told Jono that the candy mixture might be all done, so he brought the mug out (carefully - it was hot!) and poked at its contents with a fork. Now the mixture was more like something halfway between doughnut jelly and cake! But it still wasn't all that candy-like. So Jono set the microwave for 2:22 again and put the mug back in.

After about a minute of cooking, a familiar smell made its debut out of the microwave.

"Mmmm!" thought Jono. "Caramel! Or should I say, pure delight! But that means I should take out the candy before it starts to burn!" Jono was thinking exclusively in exclamations, a sign of just how exciting was this unfolding candy event.

Jono removed the mug from the microwave and poked at the candy thing with a fork. For no longer could what was in the mug easily be called a mixture - it was too hard and cohesive for that - yet at the same time it was too amorphous to be dubbed simply candy. Jono had made a candy thing, and it was like a viscous, extremely high-temperature sponge with a disturbing caramel-lined interior cavity. Jono tried in vain to break a piece of it off with a fork to taste, but it simply deformed. Not even a spoon accomplished the task at hand. Jono temporarily gave up and instead added some chocolate syrup to the candy thing to try to make it taste better. Then he put it in the freezer for a few minutes and, after that, placed an ice cube on top of it in a quixotic attempt to cool it down a little.

After all this, the candy thing, with chocolate syrup covering it and the sugar-glued walls of the mug, looked more than a little turdly, and Jono felt sincerely sorry for the languishing ice cube. But now the candy thing was cool enough that Jono could carefully pry it apart with his teeth! As was his wont, Jono ate the whole candy thing over the course of the next few minutes, not wanting to let it go to waste, but ruing his confectionery experiment with every difficult, saccharine, vanilla-laden, burnt-tasting-yet-still-cornstarchy bite.

Once he had eaten the entire candy thing, Jono took some time to reflect. He resolved to go lighter on the cornstarch and vanilla next time (perhaps egg whites and almond extract would be suitable replacements??). He also took some pictures of the remaining sugar crust and chocolate syrup, which were busy doing an uncanny impersonation of dried, grossly discolored Superglue, so that he could show them to his friends on his blog and help them experience a bit of the same queasiness that he had just endured. They all lived happily ever after???

FIN

COLLEGE! A Primer to the NESCAC Schools - Part NI

This is the second part in an 11 part series. Read the introduction to Part I if you have any questions

Part the Second: Bates College

At a Glance:
College Name: Bates College… not the hotel.

College Mascot: Some sort of a cat, fisher cat, polecat, Pussy... cat

School Motto: “Do you smell that? No? It wasn’t me!”

Number of Students: 1,673 on campus…829 males, 855 females- *we know that those numbers don’t add up, (we tried several times with different calculators) but adding was never something that Bates students had a high aptitude for.

Location: Lewiston “the armpit of Maine”

Price (2006-07): $42,100 does not including the years of therapy most Bates students will have to go though.

A Brief History

Founded in 1855, Bates was incorporated by Maine abolitionists, an obvious response to Kentucky being founded as a slave state. For that reason Bates is often called the “Kentucky of the North” and has the incest to prove it. Fun Fact! 80% of Bates students end up marrying one another. Guess it gets to the point when you figure out you can’t do any better and take what you can get. While many colleges have just recently done away with the Greek system Bates boasts never having had fraternities or sororities stating “on principle, all student organizations are open to all” this type of openness is also apparent in their admissions department.

What to do at Bates:

LEAVE!
How to play with statistics!
What they say- “The percentage of students engaged in study abroad is among the highest in the nation: 70 percent of members of the Class of 2003 earned credit for study abroad at some point in their college experience” Bates webpage-
What it means- after two years at Bates almost ¾ of the students want out and are willing to go to places like Africa, Australia, Antarctica, France, Western Europe, and even Canada to do so.

Community Involvement:

Bates prides itself with the connection it has with the Lewiston community stating on its website that: “Bates is one of the top ten employers in the Lewiston/Auburn area- so you have to be nice to us!”
Other ways to get involved is through trying to clean up Lewiston (good luck!) getting in knife fights with townies and through professors who mentor youth sports, volunteer with non profits and sell crack to the local kids! *great way to supplement that professor income!

COLLEGE! A Primer to the NESCAC Schools - Part I

We at Taste No Evil miss college. This real world with “work” and whatnot kinda blows — note Jono NOT doing any Pics of the Week — and makes us long for the days of drinking (for some (half) of us), living with your friends, freshmenwomen, and living in a totally care-free environment… well, except for having to get good grades and not fail at life (hooking up with a train wreck is considered a sign of failure at life). THUS, in remembrance of those wonderful times, we are producing an eleven-part series called “COLLEGE! Why we make bad decisions (like going to Bates)” or “A Primer to the NESCAC Schools.”

While there are many good schools out there to rip on, we at Taste No Evil are very attached to the NESCAC conference, so are going to be focusing on them for this series. If you feel left out, e-mail us and we will take a cheap shot at whatever sub-par institution you ended up going to (probably an Ivy if you are whining). TasteNoEvil at gmail dot com, remember.

Part the First: Amherst College

At a glance:

College Name: Amherst College (Little Brother to Williams)

College Mascot: the Lord Jeffs (and his comfort blanky)

School Motto: Terras Irradient ("Let them give pastel popped collars to the world")

Number of Students: 1,640, comprising 851 men, 789 women (don’t worry men, Mt Holyoke is nearby and the ratio of men to women is slightly different there with 2,100 students — 2,023 women, 77 question marks.)

Price (2006-07): $43,360 (Ouch! Let's hope Daddy won’t have to sell the yacht.)

Brief history of the College:

Incorporated in 1820, Amherst was dull enough to name itself after the town it was located in, kind of surprising considering one of its founders was Noah Webster, creator of the Webster Dictionary. Maybe he should have written a Thesaurus instead (ZING!). Notable graduates include Emily Dickenson and some other smart people.

While nationally recognized year after year as one of the best liberal arts colleges in the country (the president owns stock in a kneepad company*) (*note: this is hearsay), it is better known for the pastel-colored, collar-popping students who leave Amherst and suddenly feel better than everyone else because of the small NESCAC school they graduated from. While Amherst held the number one spot in the college ranking system for many years, the school that they had copied since their incorporation, Williams (think of Amherst as the annoying younger brother of the NESCAC), has overtaken them, leaving the President to try and figure out a new way to gain higher rankings (more Asians! He said it, not us). (Editors' disclaimer: don’t quote us on that, we cannot prove that anyone ever said anything, either in the past, present, or in the future. As far as we can tell, the world is just the consistent humming of computer fans.)

What to know about the College:

Naturally, when thinking about what college you want to go to (or, if you have graduated already, when thinking about whether you actually want to tell people where you graduated from), you have to consider some very important things. First off, do you want to go to a school that has the school colors of purple and white? You have to live with that for the rest of your life. You also have to accept the fact that your school is named after a town, which is named after a man, who it is thought started the whole trend of using small pox blankets to teach those damn Indians (feather, not dot) not to mess with Europeans who rightly owned the land due to God's decree, Manifest Destiny (see, Muslim extremists, we can listen to our God too. Now give us your oil!). While a creative use of resources (no one else wanted the blankets; Amherst claimed he was the inventor of recycling) not the best thing to be remembered by in today's PC (that's right Mac users!) world.

Amherst College claims a wide range of extracurricular activities and groups, including club sports such as equestrian riding, fencing, and sailing, and clubs including Figure Skating, Cricket and The Sportsman Club (“we shoot guns and fish”) (are the fish Smith and Wesson too?). With all the options that Amherst has to offer, no student will miss the days of lounging on the Vineyard or playing Polo with the family while studying for a job in i-banking.

For more information on the college, visit:
www.amherstcollege.edu/we'restillbetterthanwilliams/noreally.html.

Next up, BATES.

daaang

MAN guys, I don't mean to be doing all this not updating, but there's this weird thing called a "full-time job" that I have that is just getting in the way of all sorts of stuff such as the germination of Pics of the Week. I am trying to get some basic things taken care of, such as getting my room organized and reading some books, and mostly failing to do so, and in the meantime POTWs are just not appearing to happen! I hope to get back into a groove sometime soon, and in the meantime I'll try to at least do occasional ones, but, um, not tonight. - The Drawer

gsd's fashions reflect his realities

To the Moon

Recently NASA let the world know that they had “lost” the original recording of the first man walking on the moon. While many people out there are touting this as “evidence” (Where’s the bloody glove?) for a faked moon landing and walk, I see it as more of an opportunity. NASA should take a clue from another expert on space, George Lucas, and take this loss and turn it into a gain. Remake the original, and re-release it in theaters to make more money to fund the space program. Think of it. The old picture was grainy, choppy, and didn’t have great sound quality. People don’t want to watch that on a new 54-inch plasma TV with Dolby surround sound. They want something sexy, something fast, something more like… well, a sexy, fast, walk on the moon.

While a moon jog isn’t quite what we are going for (think Chariots of Fire with moon boots), perhaps selling it as a moon sprint, away from evil aliens from Pluto (who are pissed off because they no longer live on a planet) with digital effects including lasers, explosions, and spaceships would definitely get us to a theater. As long as Jar Jar Binks isn’t in the movie.

It is time for NASA to step up to bat and make space travel sexy. Those suits have to go. They are bulky, clumsy, and slow; they show no curve, no cleavage, and no rippling muscles for whatever actors they are going to get to walk battle on the moon. Would James Bond be caught dead wearing those suits—even if it was to save Mother England (father Norway?)? NO, he wouldn’t, because he needs a suit that can easily be taken off to bang hot moon chicks (or aliens with the proper anatomy). Neil Armstrong was a good first attempt; he played the part well, BUT think of what we could do with a Vin Diesel as our first American on the moon. We didn’t land there; we conquered it, and then raced around it in a car stealing shit from the aliens who had the place first… maybe that is why they hate us (is their oil on the moon?).

As we write this there are two Americans floating around in outer space (where is inner space? [answer: it is in your heart, Ben – ed.]) performing repairs on the International Space Station. They got to the space station in a shuttle called Atlantis. Are we the only people that this bothers? I mean, we are no rocket scientists (hopefully the people at NASA are), buuuut last we checked, Atlantis was an island that sunk to the bottom of the ocean, probably the Atlantic (linguistics saves the day as always!), and any island that is beaten by the Atlantic has got to suck. (The Pacific is a different story.) Anyway, what is this saying about our space program? We should be naming our shuttles after gods like Zeus, Hermes, Muhammad (you still can’t have a nuclear program!), Lance Armstrong, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Barry Bonds (on the roids, not off), and Superman. If we were astronauts (which we aren’t, just to clarify) we would feel much safer flying into space in Shuttle Schwarzenegger than something called Atlantis (still lost last we checked).

'transparent copout,' the drawer, 2006

i would've settled for just the matterhorn even

it's a series

killa whalez

POTWs are back, peoples. Thank you Jurassic 5 for inspiring the completion of this one. (I had already drawn the whales days ago, but there were only whales - and then I put on Jurassic 5.) It's good to be back; I'ma try to stick to daily updates from now on. - The Drawer

hang on

Hey dudes-of-all-genders, it may suddenly be Tuesday before you see a new Pic of the Week here, because I am busy relocating and not having Internet access until my new Airport card gets delivered. There are a couple of pics in the pipeline though, so stay tuned. - The Drawer

oh man take me there

Goodbye Pluto

Today is perhaps one of the saddest days in our solar system's long history. Today the planet Earth decided to snub Pluto and kick him out of the planetary club. It has long been debated in science as to whether Pluto was actually a planet or just a large asteroid floating along next to Uranus like an interstellar dingleberry (haha butt jokes!). But today, the 24th of August in the year 2006, or 13 Aknal 11 Mac according to the Mayan Calendar that we at TNE prefer to live by, scientists have decided that Pluto no longer belongs.

So we at TNE ask… What Gives? Couldn’t we leave well enough alone? Sure there may be other bodies of rock and ice and methane (from Uranus? It never gets old!) out there that may be the same size as Pluto, in the same area, and are pretty much the same thing, but you are just thinking scientifically then. That, my friends, is the problem with scientists. These damn “experts” aren’t thinking about the cultural aspect of this decision. What about all the textbooks that now need to be changed (apparently scientists hate trees)? What about all the people who haven’t read since high school (do scientists hate the ignorant? Apparently!)? What about Disney (not a fan of Cars?)? And more importantly, is this just another way for the supremacists to try and pick on something a little different from what we are used to? (i.e. "go to the back of the bus Pluto! You know, the solar system bus!")

It is already cold on Pluto, dark, and lonely. This is just another kick in the junk for a poor planet who was just trying to live the dream. The American Dream that the little guy can make it and be called not only a celestial body, but a planet. Sign up on our internet petition today to protest the tragic loss of Pluto! And by sign up on our internet petition I mean add a comment to this article saying that you plan on signing our petition after Jono comes back from vacation and creates one… or doesn’t.*

* The answer is "doesn't," but leave a dang comment with your signature on it anyway.

What's your number?

This is the third installment of Taste No Evil’s guide to getting it on. While the previous two installments were dealing with the best way to meet a potential mate… or hook up, or just meet someone of the opposite sex, or same sex I suppose if you are into that… I guess the previous two installments were simply about manipulating others and yourself so that you can be put into a situation where someone might consider doing something with you at some point in time. They weren’t that helpful, we know, but that is because of the system that is already in place, and much like any system (government, tax, sewer) it is severely flawed and needs an overhaul. VIVA LA REVOLUTION!*

* We at Taste No Evil are not suggesting that you actually take to the streets to start a revolution, especially in France, because they already had one, and look where that got them (still stuck in Europe); and the Sewer Revolution, while a great name for a rock band (motto/hit single: “Get Your Shit Together!”), might not be what this country needs.

So this is what we propose:

Everyone would be assigned a number. This is a number that is updated every five years and judges the attractiveness of its assignee. A committee would be appointed to designate the number. We (exclusive we, that is, meaning TNE and not you) would be that committee.

Now many of you assumed right away that we would be using the old 10-point scale. INCORRECT. The 10-point scale is vague and doesn’t make much sense. Different people like different things about members of the opposite sex and can give excessive points for, say, nice feet when the rest of the package is less than stellar. What we have created is a 16-point system with a certain number of points assigned to different body parts and sections - checks and balances, if you will:

4 points for the face
4 points for the forward and upper regions
4 points for the rear and lower regions
4 points that are the X factor.

SO this is where we get tricky, and here lies the true genius** of the system - the X factor. The X factor points are points that are awarded for such things as good hair, a nice walk, being a good athlete, (if you are shallow) the person having money, or a good sense of humor. If there is something about someone that just makes them sexy, they can be awarded X factor points. One can also lose X factor points for things such as an annoying voice, bad teeth, past indiscretions and so on. These are taken off their total as opposed to added (see genius!**).

** Jono did not in fact come up with this idea, so it is probably not genius.

So we have this ranking system in place, and then to make dating simpler, you can only date, or ask out, people within a 2-point spread on you. Everyone would have a card with their number on it, so if an unattractive guy comes up to you at the bar, you can point blank ask to see his card, and if he has a 4, and you are a 7, you don’t even have to say another word because the deal is TOAST. It avoids awkward situations, makes dating simpler, and shrinks the potential dating pool. If you want to date down lower than 2 points, that is your business.

This system may be called “shallow” or “not feasible,” but think of it… a world where everyone carries a card with them, labeling them as something, making it so we don’t have to be scared of social interactions and insecurities when interacting with others. YOU have a right to ask out someone who is within your point range. AND if someone does not have a card and they try to pick you up claiming that they “forgot it” they get deported back to Mexico, Cuba, Canada, or Europe with the French where they belong.

i like a field guide

a public service announcement

hang on a sec

Hi guys, there's a new Pic of the Week ready, but every time I try uploading it, Safari effing crashes on me. Maybe it just can't handle the subject matter. This issue will be reexamined in the morning. - The Drawer

Edit: Ironically, I had to do the following update on Firefox (i.e. the Tooltip Abrogator), because Safari continues to crash each time I upload an image. Apparently the upload actually works, but the program still crashes. This is vexing.