"If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error ." - John Kenneth Galbraith

Darwin hauntsThe Vatican !

Pope John Paul 11 afraid to sleep!

John P. Fibble

encounters .

"Sure, it began with the noises ,so it did ." recalls father SeamusPatrick 0 Flaherty, a visitingbishop who found himsel fawake one morning in theVatican guestrooms after whatwas apparently one of the moresuccessful wakes of his entirecareer. " But sure we all knowthe Archbishop has a woodenleg and he likes to go-, that is , he gets quite

energetic; don'tyou know, in .the small hoursthere. So wepaid it nomind. But thenthere was thatevent with thedancing cruci-fixes and theholy whisky. Ahsure but thatwas a fine day,so it was, so i t

was" Father Seamus was unabl eto comment further due t osome small motor difficultyapparently incurred while test-ing out the holy whisky aspectof the last haunting, but thedamage was already done .Rumour is spreading rif e

"Chance of heavy rain . Yeah, right."

throughout the Vatican corn-munity as events are escalatingin their severity. Indeed, even insome of the most hallowed andprivate parts of the buildingsights have been seen . Forexample, consider the followin gstatement from GuiseppeAlfonso Jones:

"It was awful .There I was ,sweeping outThe VaticanLibrary, youknow, mindingmy own busi-ness, scrapinggum off theunderside oftables andstuff, when thisshimmerin gbearded blokecomes roundthe cornerwarning of thefall of thechurch!" statesGuiseppe the night janitor.Apparently the spectre wa snone other than CharlesDarwin himself, come back as amessenger from God to givesupport to the miracle of cre-ation in repentance for having

Maurice Spoonbende r

Roving Correspondent

No one's willing to commi tthemselves for certain yet, bu tthe Late Jimmy Hoffa Sr. maynot be so- late after all .

Recent evidence has come tolight which suggests that Hoffamay not be, buried underneathYankee Stadium as previouslysupposed . He may instead haveescaped via connections withthe Irish mob to the east coastof Galway, possibly to begin acareer raising a new breed o fsheep. "These sheep are trainedto carry out the simplest ofcommands . Kill is a particularfavourite", or so claims Special

made the terrible mistake of try-ing to relate human beings withthe apes .

- -

"Imagine being confronted bythe newly resurrected phantas mof a rather distraught scientis twho's been dead for over on ehundred years! I was shocked !

But he was. apleasan tenough ghost .We sat downand chattedabout evolu-tion over teaand biscuits, Imean, he wasEnglish, afterall.

"He claimsthat shortlyafter he died,he was pulledaside by, Godand tormentedfor one hun -dred years forquestioning

the whole theory of creation.Apparently, God really did justsnap his fingers and createAdam and Eve . Imagine havingto see The Sound of Musicstwice an hour for. . . and oh ,God, the roaches . . .no, I jus t

Agent Foxy Mildew of the FBI ,who has been following theHoffa case now for several longyears from his basement officein the supplies building .However, Mildew believes thatHoffa has since moved on, fea r. .ing discovery.

"No one knows for sure wh omight be helping him. The gov-ernment of the United States o fAmerica has deliberately actedto obfuscate any attempts todiscover the truth, just as the yhave continued to deny to thepublic vital information regard-ing the existence of little greenmen from Mars. I swear it's true,and I'll prove it . I'll show youall ." We tried to talk to Agent

can't think of it anymore! "

ArchDeacon James Heffer wasquick to deny all accounts of asupernatural being present in StPeter's or any of its environs,noting that he himself has seennothing at all unusual in theVatican Library. Heffer regularl yvisits the library late at night t ouse the pool table and makepaper airplanes out of the vari-ous Dead Sea Scrolls storedthere.

"Oh yeah, they're great . Theones that don't crumple right ,off go way to the other side ofthe courtyard when you throwthem out the window. But any-way, on this particular nightGuiseppe was just sitting therewith this other see-through jan-itor: Nothing special, I didn' tthink much off it . I just wentover to the hot tub and mademyself a drink from the wetbar. "

Aides close to the Pope believethat his recent decision to sup-port the theory of DarwinianEvolution may ironically havecome in a desperate attempt tokeep the ghost at bay.

As of yet, no plans have beenmade to remove the ghost .

Mildew later that afternoon, buthe was taking his medicationand was therefore unavailablefor comment.

As one other FBI agent noted,even if the theory is true it mayno longer be of help to us .

"The guy could just go any-where" he said. "I mean, all youneed is a fake Irish soundingname like Heffer or. Hoofer orsomething. And there's boat -loads of Irish leaving the coun-try at any minute . Why onlylast week some drunken Iris hpriest was dragging a load ofyobs over to Stodgy Pete's forcheap Roman wine . Or some-where like that, I forget."

-

The search continues .

Holy Correspondent

VATICAN CITY (SP)

New light has been shedrecently on the reportsregarding Pope Joh n

Paul's recent termination of hi svisit to France and subsequentdeclaration in favor of the theo-ry of evolution as outlined inCharle sDarwin's Origin

_ "

of the Species .

Inside sourceshere claim tha tshortly afterPope John Pau lII made his his-torical state-ment acceptingDarwin's theo-ries, strangeevents began toregularly occurat night insideThe Vatican . Before The Vaticanhad a chance to implement a"Don't ask, don't tell" policywith regards to the possiblesource of the disturbances, several janitorial staff and a fewlow-ranking bishops came forthto the local press with'stories o f

"I don't believe it. Godhasn't mentioned any-hing about this to me .He can't go changingthings now. We have acontract, you know! "

- Pope John Paul I I

44Ghost of Charles Darwin .

(Artist's conception)

Is Jimmy Hoffa stillalive?

Rottingpumpkins.

Matt's guide toillness.

Jake the jack 'o lantern

Columnist in therapy

Well the time ofHalloween rapidl yapproaches with the

thought of midterms slowl yreceding back to the edges o fhell from which they came .Thank god for , rotting pump-kins and the goo that you pullout of them like you were som eevil Med student slowly hack-ing open the putrid skull ofsome long dead cadaver andsecretly enjoying the smell ofthe unpreserved brain . Did youknow that when they pump acadaver full of fun stuff likeformaldehyde it doesn't crossthe blood brain barrier, so as th erest of the corpse stays in it sclose to pristine shape, thebrain slowly decomposes, sortof like a compost pile of pump-kins after Halloween . (Alright,who hid Jake's Prozac? -ed.)

Back in the days of my youth ,Halloween was almost as excit-ing as Christmas . Fireworks ,candy, costumes, fireworks ,how can you can you go wrongwith fireworks? I mean beside sblowing off half of your fingers .I'd just like to say I've had fire-crackers since I was twelve andI've yet to lose an appendage.Kids who blow parts off is jus tgods way of weeding out thestupid . You're not supposed tohold hammered seal bombs inyour hand and wait for theexcitement to start . They aresupposed to be chucked intothe nearest pumpkin, and thenyou hide on the other side of aconveniently located hedge an dwait for the pumpkin to spraythe front of the unsuspectingneighbours house. Sure there'spumpkin all over the place, bu tdon't ya just love the smell ofrotting pumpkins .Now when I got a little older,

our pumpkin strategy changedsomewhat . Due to our recentlyacquired drivers licenses, wehad to employ the use of motorvehicles . You'd be surprisedhow far pumpkins roll whe nyou heave them from a fastmoving vehicle . You know it'skind of surprising how littlemembers of RCMP appreciatethis kind of humour, especiallyif this high velocity pumpkinaccidentally rolls / bounces /splatters into the patrol car rov-ing the . neighborhood in eve rdecreasing radii around ou rposition. The enemy's out therecaptain, bravo one to alpha twoENEMY IN THE WIRE!!!

Charlie's got us surrounded !INCOMING! INCOMING !I think walkytalky's should

probably be . banned onHalloween. They allow for amuch more coordinated attackon the pumpkins surroundingyou're , central domicile . Itmakes me very sad when 'menbring three pairs of shoes toschool . (Am I the only one whojust lost Jake's train of thought?And I thought that trains couldn'tswerve . . . -ed.) A certain treasurerof a certain student organiza-tion just explained why hebrought three pairs of shoes .I'm sorry but that's just wrong .It's inherently evil, he's going toupset the delicate balance of theuniverse . Guys are not suppose dto think that far ahead . Look a tme, I don't know what I' mgoing to do after I finish myarticle . Damn it what's thi sworld coming to?! Back to th esubject of-destroying pumpkins ,there's nothing I find more sexythan a woman smashing thehell out of some pumpkin thatsome kid probably spent hourscleaning out, carving, sculptingand perfecting into the perfectlittle lantern which sheds aflicker up onto the graceful sil-houette of the Easton alu-minum bat smashing downupon its little carved out face .Its sexier than a rooster in gymsocks. I really don't understandthat saying either, but apparent-ly in Wyoming roosters whowear gym socks get lucky all thetime. Good thing I wear wool -lies, otherwise I mighC havechickens following me around .Chickens have got to be the stu-pidest animals around . Theydon't do anything besides peck ,turn around, peck. We tried tohave chickens at my parent splace once, but they just could-n't figure out that pecking mydog was not a good idea . Mydog is the size of a small horseand doesn't appreciate a pec kon the head while he is soundasleep . We soon ended up withthe six original chickensdecomposing in the compos tpile right alongside the rottingpumpkins from Halloween .

We're all very concerned fo rJake's mental well being and jus t

general health. It's okay to bekinda loopy. It's even okay to be

attracted to women wieldingshiny aluminum bats, but sexy

roosters?

-ed.

Some time around January,all my friends from backeast begin writing to com-

plain about, the sixteen inchesof snow, the fact that the tem-perature hasn't been above -3 2in nine days, and that theycan't go anywhere on accoun tof three of the sled dogs froze t odeath last night . Times like that,I know I did the right thing bycoming to UBC. In mid-October, however, I'm not s osure . It isn't the coming of th erains. It isn't the four mid-term sI have next week, either. It's therains, the mid-terms, and beingsick in combination . Myimmune system doesn'trespond well to late nights ,stressful days, and being wetand cold for a month. . . but thisisn't meant to be "Matt whiningfor 700 words." I'm sick; I'veaccepted that, and I'm not real-ly sad. Now that I'm sick, whatdo I do about it? When sick,there are a number of thing sthat you can do that, while theywon't make you well, they'll atleast make you feel better .

1 . Go to bed. Okay, sickness ismore of an excuse to go to bedthan a real reason . That's okay.Getting up right now wouldinvolve studying for midtermsand being cold and wet. Beingin bed, on the other hand,means that you can't do any-thing productive at all . Instead ,you lie around feeling warmand cozy, sleeping, or occasion-ally waking up to read your old

Another two weeks, anoth-er issue. It seems like thispaper just continues to

grow in size and complexity.I guess that would be thanks to

all you students out there whodecided to become part of thegrowing family of contributersto The 432 . There's lots of roomleft in our family and I wouldabsolutely love it if you wouldstop by with your input and/orcomments .And I would also like to thank

Calvin and HobbesTM books ,and drinking hot drinks wit hactive ingredients, which bring sus to . . .2. Take drugs . Lots of drugs.

Not that kind (with any luck,you're hallucinating from thefever already). The brand namekind. This requires a little fore-sight; since a trip to SafewayTMwouldn't be much fun rightnow, it's a good idea to have thedrugs in your medicine cabinet(or better yet, within reach ofyour bed), so it's accessible .Choice of drug is very impor-tant. The first thing you shoulddo is count the number of med-icinal ingredients it contains .The more, the better. Second,buy "extra strength" whereverpossible. Third, and mostimportantly, unless it has the"don't operate heavy machin-ery:" disclaimer, it isn't worthyour while .

3. Describe your sickness indetail to everyone you meet. Ifyou actually go to school telleveryone you meet about ho wterrible you feel, and noble youare for coming to - class at all,since you should be in bed rightnow. Describe every abnormalfluid you've produced in thelast three days, giving specificattention to the colour, texture ,and odour. Exaggerate a little. Ifyour temperature is 98 .5°F, telleveryone it's 102. This wil lprobably garner you little in theway of sympathy, but it's veryfun. It will also usually makethe other person go , away,which is good, since you don'tlike them very much anyway,and you sure don't want to beputting up with them when

everyone out there who decidedthat . they couldn't contribute t oThe 432 (for a variety: of rea-sons), and contributed ` to th eeditor (ie me) by giving me lot sof bzzr at various AUS bzzr gar-dens . (Thanks, Shannaz .)

So, what am I saying, you .might ask? I'm saying thatworking for The 432 has itsadvantages . For instance, youcan use the line "Hey baby, I'mthe editor of The 432. Wanna

Granted, , I'm not stupi denough to actually use this lineverbatim, but minor modifica-tions have proven useful forpeople I know (right Frenchy &

Jer) .So, , enjoy the issue! There are

lots of interesting articles to befound about everything fromcream cheese to pumpkins tosomething in Scottish that Philwrote.And if you have any ideas, fo r

God's sake, bring them down . I twould make my life just s omuch nicer and all my friend scould stop having to deal withme complaining about toomuch work .See you in two weeks! And

remember, the deadline hasbeen moved up two daysbecause of a holiday.

dance?"

you're sick.4 . The only important excep-

tion to rule 3 is your roommates/ significant other / parents, orwhoever it is you live with. Inthis case, it is far more impor-tant that you besick than it i sthat you act sick . Why? Becaus eyou want these people to feelvery, very sorry for you . Thatway, they'll do things like try-ing to prevent you from goingto school (which you "shoul dreally <cough> go to, since<wheeze> there's a <sneeze>midterm coming up next week,and it's really important to dowell on, blah, blah, blah,") ..

-That, and they'll dote. This canbe a great tool. Someone tobring you chicken soup (andmake it from scratch), someone °to read you stories, someone toboil the water for your ExtraStrength Neo Citran Cough andColdTM.

Well, that should about coverit. Don't bother going to thedoctor's (unless, of course, youcan't make it there under yourown power. In this case, it'sprobably a good idea. Howoften do you get to ride in anambulance?) . The doctor willjust tell you to do what I did,with the possible exception ofnumber 3. Hope you're feelingbetter. See . you in, oh Marchsometime . I'm going to bed .

Matt has returned to writing forThe 432 after a short creativity

drought. He claims that his sens eof humour only came back to him

because "It got hungry. "

-ed .

Mr. Ed speaks.

VOLUME TEN ISSUE FIVE30 OKTOBER 1996 -

The PopeJohn Hallett(fibble@unixg. ubc . ca)

Cardinals

Mikey Boetzkes, Phil Ledwith,Jeremy Thorp

Vatican Propaganda MachineCollege Printers, Vancouver, BC

Worthless SoulsDoug Beleznay, Jake Gray,Henry ' Laman, TracyMacKinnon, Ryan McCuaig,

Blair McDonald, Jake McKinlay ,Kathryn Murray, Jason Robillo ,Matt Wiggin, Henry Wong ,Warrick YuWriting On The Inside Of ThePope's Big-assed HatThe 432 will bless every readerand turn all your urinal wate rholy. It will also be the officialpublication of the ScienceUndergraduate Society. It i sprinted twice monthly fromour

makeshift

cathedral

beneath the

ChemistryBuilding .All views expressed are strictlythose of the individual writers .If you wish to take legal actionagainst them, you should bewarned that God is on our side .All rights reserved The 4321996

Writers and columnists from al lfaculties are encouraged to sub-mit material to The 432.Submissions must meet the

strict deadline requirement sand should not exceed 700words in length. All submis-sions must make the edito rchuckle at least thrice and haveyour real name attached (legalstuff) before being printed .

The 432 does not support PopeJean-Paul II's statement aboutevolution. We don't believe increationism, either. In fact, w ethink everything we know iscontained within a mink'sdream .

30 OKTOBER 1996 THE FOUR THIRTY Two PAGE 3 .h

Life as a low bud -get horror movie.

Blair

MCDONALD

Ithink I'm living the plot of acheap horror movie . Youknow the type: Bela Lugos i

starring, black and white only,cheesy fake tombstones that getkicked over during the climacti cfight scene between the tall ,blond, Swedish hero with th eIQ of a warm loaf of bread andthe Enemy, some older, over-weight broken down actor wit hway too much face makeup .

I'm sitting at my desk one daylast week, the wind gustingnoisily against the wind pane .I'm trying to concentrate on myessay, but the window isn' tclosed properly and the wind i swhistling in the crack . So Istand up and lean over the deskto tighten the window: clasp . . .and a bird smacks into the win=.dow and grabs on the ledgeright below! It's flutterin gmadly, pressing into the glass ofthe window and screaming thishigh-pitched wail that put mynerves on edge. I can see it sbreast feathers, and the under-sides of its wings as it frantical-ly tries to peck through the window, its beady little eyes alightwith some. sort of:evil whispe ring. I could see its brethren sit-ting on the top of the streetlightacross the road, dozens of themclinging like bats, all chirpingwildly-in some sort of satanicchorus .

I fell back, convinced that thi swas only the beginning of someavian directed campaign of hor-ror, the Dead Zone (Man, didthat movie suck. Sony, just had tointerject that here. -ed.) or TheBirds come to life . How could

Stephen King and AlfredHitchcock known of the dangerof these winged beasts? Then Irealized that a chickadee reallywasn't that much of a danger,and the flock was probablydrawn to the bird feeder my oh-so considerate neighbour fill swith grain every morning . Myheartbeat slowly returned tonormal .

I guess I should blame myover-active imagination . I seeone of those leaf-eating com-bines being driven along MainMall, and I wonder how far thebone fragments would travel ifsomeone was unlucky enough .to fall in . I see a Plant Ops panelvan speeding across a busyintersection, and wonder whatit would look like if the driverwas drunk, dead, whatever, andlost control and plowed the vanright through the middle of acrowd of Education studentsstanding outside Scarfe . Goodof Death and. Destruction, eh ?

I'm living a low-budget horro rfilm. My collection of plantsbecomes a horde of man-eatingflora, slowly taking over myroom. This isn't too much of astretch; peace lilies grow quick-ly, and' the ones I've got arerapidly' extending leavestowards the windows, trying toblock out the sour from the restof my room. Walking back froma bzzr garden with a 'group offriends , becomes Night of theLiving Dead, Part III, and thefilm doesn't stop rolling untillate next day, after the hang-over has retreated . And drivingmy dad's car across the LionsGate becomes a scene fro mStephen King's Christine .Sometinies_l think Stephen Kingis a prophet of some kind, a har-binger of a future religion . He

certainly has the prophecy abil-ity down pat . My life is nothingbut a series of Stephen Kingmovie adaptations, fueled b ymy over-active imagination .

I've often thought my over-active imagination was due to atumour, nestled snugly againstmy metellus pius, my cerebralthingmajig, my brain-basedsomething or other. I've got allthe signs of a giant, canceroustumour: a poor short termmemory, over-active imagina-tion, and a conclusive twitchthat comes and goes withou twarning. What was I talkingabout? Oh yeah . . . This twitchfrightens people : it starts some-where on the left side of myface and ripples_ downwards,growing into magnitude, unti lmy left hand moves with a lifeof its own .

I don't know what it means . Isit a medical condition that Ireally should get a doctor t olook at with the most advancedimaging equipment? Or is it m yticket to fame, fortune and thesilver screen? After all, BelaLugosi's long since dead, andthere's an opening for theEnemy in those low-grade Bhorror movies .

Despite what Blair may be con-vinced of, the frightening similari-

ties between his life and a lowbudget horror movie are almostentirely due to the fact that his

over-active imagination is fueledby all that LSD we slipped in hi s

bzzr last Friday.

Life is a journey. Enjoy the trip.

He he . We're s0000 evil.

-ed.

Okay.

So you've bought your

22oz Science Bzzr ''Stein .

Now let's use it.,.

The "Nothing Happens in

November" ►zzr Garden.

November 15th, 4 :32 pm

SUB Partyroom

Another fire event brought to you by thego

folks at the Science Undergraduate Society .

Upcoming Lectures

Okt. 29 Dr. Steinbok: Neurosurgery

Nos 5 Dr. Fritz: General Practic e

Nov 12 Dr. Livesls : Psychiatry

Nov. 21 Or. Carter : Dean ofAdmissions

Nov 26 Dr. Pritchard: Oncologyand Pediatric s

Dates to Remember

Okt. 31 Ski Trip deposit due ($50) .

Nov. 2-3 Standard First Aid coursewith St . John Ambulance .

Ski Trip balance of $159 .00due.

n. 10-12 Off to Big White!! !

Dec . 1

Philadelphia cream cheese.

to convince her not to bake her grabbed a handful, fed it tomix .

Croak and was about to eatKathryn Murray

432 house chef

Six-year-olds make theworld ' s most creativecooks . Having no sense of

food, recipes, baking or ingredi-ents, whatever they , can laytheir hands on goes into themixing bowl (you hope!) . Moreoften than not it ends up on thecounter, the floor, the chair orgets popped into their mouth sand into their tummies . At least .they have the most importantpart of cooking down pat .

Reminds me of a friend ofmine who loves making andmixing drinks. Last New Year'sEve he was busy making up his"magic" punch to aid the fes-tive celebrations . He started offwith the 7-up and the Ginge rAle, added the lemonade andthen started adding the "other "ingredients. I'm still not surewhat ended up in the punchbut I do remember that therewasn't all that much punch leftwhen the other guests arrived .The mixers also weren't terriblysober. I was told very slowly and

carefully that "You've got tomake shure that ish strongenough sho that ev'rybodishhash a good time (hie) . Wantshome? "

I digress . Anyway, I was cook-ing with my neighbour's daugh-ter, Sophie . Now Sophie, lik eme, loves chocolate . Maybethat's why we get on so verywell when I' baby-sit her. Shealso has a pet bullfrog, Croak,that accompanies her every-where. He hasn't, by somestrange miracle, croaked yet but ,he does have a very resoundin g"ribbit.

I needed to make some choco-late chip cookies for my sister' sparty and, as Sophie was over,she helped me to make thecookies. I had all the "proper "ingredients on the table for thecookies: lots of spoons, a ton o fchocolate and two big bowls—one for each of us . Now I gav eher a portion of the "real "dough and I told her that shecould add • whatever shethought would taste nice to th edough . It proved to be a bit of amistake .

She knows the layout of ourkitchen pretty well so she start-ed rummaging through the cup-boards and the fridge. Beforelong, she had quite an extensivecollection on the . counter:peanuts, raisins, jam, peanutbutter and milk . She also hadorange juice, kool-aid, jello ,cheerios, salami, cucumber,"celeries" and cream cheese . Itried to suggest that somethings go better together thanothers but she reminded meghat I had said that she could"put in anyfink that I want intomy cookies ." She then tossed ina handful of "mackronies, fo rnice big lumpiest "

I really didn't want to bakethese cookies, The. mix was allover the table, her chair and th efloor. Croak had hopped in andout of the batter more timesthen I cared to point out andalmost didn't make it back outagain when he got hit on thehead with a wooden spoon bySophie . I tried to delay bakingall the other cookies but sh ewouldn't be stopped . Then Imade my one fatal mistake - Ileft the kitchen to get my Mum

When we came back a coupleof minutes later having decidedto let her cook the smeggin gthing, she was covered in whitepowder and her mix looked alot drier and had some colouredbits in it . She proudly told usthat she'd added some sprinkleto make it look pretty. Six-year -olds . We scooped the mess ont oa tray and crossed our fingersthat it'd be O.K .

We were very, very wrong .

After the fire department leftwe found out that the kitchenhadn't been burnt down but theoven had indeed exploded. Mymother was furious and I wasnot looking forward to whatwould be happening whenSophie left us . Sophie wasthrilled as' the firemen had lether try on their hats and hadclimb on the truck . Croak hadsurvived his adventure inSophie's hands and was hop-ping happily in the puddles onthe kitchen floor. The cookiemix had morphed into a verystrange substance . Sophie

some of it herself when I got ou tof her hands .

Everything was more less O .K.until the morning when I go twoken up by a loud ribbit . Avery loud ribbit that soundedlike Croak's. As I didn't find th efrog on my pillow, I staggered tothe window and looked out an dsaw Croak. All of Croak. Croakwho was now the size of a VWBug. Croak, who before my eyesstuck out his tongue and gob -bled up the nastiest cat in theneighbourhood.

After the initial cuffufle dieddown and the tabloids wentaway, life got more less back tonormal . Croak now lives in ou rbackyard as Sophie's parents ar eafraid that Croak will hop awaywith her. He is fun to ridethough, and Sophie comes byeveryday to see her frog. I guessthat everything did work out al lright and I've got the cheapest,most environmentally friendlyway to go to school : TheZoologists love looking at hi mduring the day.

PAGE 4

30 OKTOBER 1996

What the bumpkin didn't know .

Iis a little known fact overhere in Canada that the festi-val of Samhain coincides

closely with one of the definin gmoments in British history . Afew hundred years ago, a certainGuido Ffoulkes decided that itwould be a great idea to takeseveral hundred kegs of gun -powder and blow theWestminster Parliament build-ings to kingdome come withthem. We all think that this wa ssuch a great idea that, eventhough he failed, and - . eventhough he and his friends wer eall caught, hung, drawn andfinally quartered in that great

_ British tradition, we like tohave a really big fire in his hon-our every November 5th .Bonfire night was perhaps oneof my favorite childhood mem-ories, and not least because Ireally love fire(more about thatlater) . Bonfire night was a char-acter building experience:

Dwring a recent visit toSUS's Wine and Cheese ,ex-432 editor Ryan

McCuaig decided to try hi shand at poetry. While Ryan is

about three feet longer than theother, the one that was a curi-ous shade of near puke, the one-you so desperately wanted t olose but instead got to wearevery single visit that miserabl ecrazy woman made to yourhome because your motherinsisted it was "only polite" ?We civilized English are spare dthat emotionally scarringencounter because of our fasci-nation with pyromania an dsimulated violence .

Once you had adequatelydressed the guy in your father' sbest suit pants, socks, last year' sresurrected Reeboks, the afore -mentioned sweater and yourschool tie ( and maybe a trilbyhat if you'd been to visit you rgrandparents that weekend) ,you had the opportunity toshamelessly solicit donationsfrom allthe crazy village peoplethat you foolishly referred to a syour "neighbours" .

"penny for the guy, sir?" youwould say, in your sweetestvoice . At the door would be aparticularly crazy village per-son, of rather advanced yearsand with enough attachmentsto make him look more likesome kind of futuristic vacuu mcleaner than a human being

"What's that you say, sonny ?Trying to steal money' from anold man, eh?"

"it's penny. . . . er for the guy,sir "

not a recognized poet or any-thing, he managed to come u pwith something interesting.

The method: a careful andexact placement of vowels and

it him? Eh? "

"Er. . . looking nervouslyaround. . . No, no I don't thinkthe guy's supposed to be real ,actually. . . ." It was usually at thi spoint that my friends and Ibegan to suspect that this oldguy had really truly lost it andmight pull an axe at any sec-ond. Also, something behindhim had by now started hum-ming ominously. So our conver -sation became slightly tangen-tial as we tried to extricate our -selves from an otherwise poten -tially unpleasant situation .

"Ludes!! They're all on Ludes! "We would cry, turning thewheelbarrow about and careen-ing off down the road . Later onthat evening we would comeback and let down the old guy'styres . Before I leave the subjec tof the guy entirely, let me jus tsay a quick word about th ewheelbarrow, which was usually.:tolcn appropriated from anearby allotment, wobbled as i twent, and sometimes had a fla ttyre of it's own. It was alway sexpertly handled 'by olderfriends of mine who I nowunderstand are gainfullyemployed as drunk taxi drivers.Oh, and one pilot for Valu-Jet .

consonants into a word proces-sor followed very closely by cre -ative use of a spell checker.

The result : it is preserved forev-er below, with spacing and into-nation intact .

-

The problem : we have no cluewhat it means . Ryan doesn't,either.

So this whole affair leads us toThe 432's next contest. The per-son who comes up with the bestinterpretation of the followingpoem will win whatever the edi-tor has in his filing cabinet forprizes . , Most likely a Limite dEdition 432 T -Shirt and 22ozScience Stein (possibly multi-ples thereof, it all depends howgood your explanation is) .

All you have to do is submityour explanation of the poemwith your name, phone num-ber, and email to the editor bythe next deadline (Nov. 4th,4:32pm) .

You can drop off entries inChem B160 or email them t ofibble@unixg:ubc.ca

Goodbye and good luck.

off in the end. I told you thiswas character building .

The greatest supply of wood o fcourse came from trees, and i fyou wanted to get serious woodfrom a tree you needed achainsaw. Remember thos ecraaaaaazy village people? Her ethey come again. Once we did-n't have a chainsaw, but one o fthe guys from the other schoolnamed "Herb" was going shop-ping for one, and offered to letus use the thing if we camealong. I swear this guy reallyexists, and as far as I know stil llives somewhere in Bradford.Let me say at the outset thatHerb was about as crazy as anepileptic flamingo on PCP. Weturned up at the hardware storesmelling like something the catwouldn't want to drag in . Nevergo shopping' for a chainsawwith some guy wearing fourday's stubble that seems t oextend down his chest and hi sback . Or dirty and ripped blackjeans, or a blood splattered shirtwith the words "playgroun dsupervisor" scrawled on th efront, or a dirty . mackintosh .Never ever go shopping for achainsaw nursing the sort ofhangovers that actually changeyour skin colour to make yo uresemble your Halloween cos-tume. Never ever ever go with a

what seemed like, and probablywas, five seconds, my finger sclosed on the most solid thing ,which I prayed was somethingsharp. Giving my most menac-ing look, I wielded my findin gin front of me, and growled .

I must have looked pretty stu-pid . In fact, if you were to pre-pare an extensive list of threat-ening looking items with whichto confront a grizzly bear, abanana' would probably placevery near to the bottom of thelist — somewhere between 'wetnoodle' and 'Bob Dole . '

I've seen pretty big . trouble inmy life. However, when one

pumpkin head under your armthat you constantly stop andhave quiet conversations wit hand refer to as "Gerald" .

Okay, I'll come clean . ThePumpkin didn't actually exist.I'm just trying hard to getpumpkins in there somewhere,because John told me 'I had to .But Herb was just the sort o fcraaaazy tosser who would havedone this, only his pumpkinwould have had a name like"Crusher", it would have bee nattached to a broom handle,and it would have had brokenglass for teeth. After the chain-saw episode, we would build astructure that would rival oneof the great pyramids of RamsesIV, toss the guy on top, pourfour or five litres of kerosene o nthe ensemble, and let 'er rip .And for one more night, thedark scary places . weren't s odark and scary, and we couldactually believe that the leafgods might be appeased by ouroffering and an early snowfallwasn't too far away.

With any luck, my mumwouldn't even miss that coffe etable from the spare room . Theleg was wobbly, anyway. Cindertoffee, anyone?

finds oneself on the AlaskaHighway, wielding an abnor-mally blunt banana, trying todefend a Russian DwarfMackerel from a recently awak-ened grizzly bear, all previously'big' troubles quickly revert tothe size of a small pebble .

Of course, Frank the Evi lHamster picked this opportuni-ty to launch his attack .

To be continued. . .

Join Jer next issue as he tapdances naked in the arctic for

food!

-ed .

For one thing, Bonfires areabout Violence against Mascots.This, I reason, can only be agood thing . Over here, for ,example, the T-Bird would beright there smoking away, look-ing like a sort of failed neopren eyellow phoenix against the vel-vety night sky. Imagine thekind of inner peace this woul dgive to the' observers, especially " so that's your guy, is 'it? 'ehafter two or three bottles of - hee heh heh. . . .wheeeeze . . . .heh .

vodka. and we could spend So, anyone I know? "whole weeks putting together

"why, thank you sir, I- er, I'mthe guy, before we threw him sorry?" This was an unexpectedon that bonfire. ( The guy is conversational gambit .what we called our sacrificialmascot to be, incidentally). This " Anyone I know, sonny? Eh?was an - absolutely golden Wheeeze, hack, cough . You're not

opportunity. Remember that deaf are you? Is it anyone I

sweater that you got for know? Wilson's not been seenChristmas that had one arm mowing his lawn this week. . .is

Salt deaf. Lanka sag Dave splunge Sack vex julienne fig era -

who .

User !

Wooer !

Rube! .

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aria Iraqi who?

I, user . . .

I awe . Pro-era wear . . . an oven seize!

Secure aqua upper aqua roe . Vex cacti! Rio red .

Mamma

mazes .

Ryan's Poem .

Leaving aside for now th equestion of , the mascot, thebonfire itself had to be built .This requires the amassing ofseveral metric tonnes of wood ,or I suppose anything else at al lthat could be burned. Hereagain, you had to solicit thehelp of the crazy village people. Continued from the back cover. . .Drunk Taxi Drivers with truck sbecame very useful at this pointbecause they were willing tohelp you get the wood out intothe middle of some field wherethe bonfire was going to b eerected, sometimes withou teven hitting anything on th eway. See, practicing with- th ewheelbarrow as young lads paid

Hamster.

Where Avogadro really got his number.

30 OKTOBER 1996

THE FOUR THIRTY Two

Weirdness. Deed Poolupdate.

ccasionally, in your time

O as a 432 staffer, weirdand just generally

bizarre things might happen .This is accepted . This is expected.But rarely do enough abnormalevents occur between the las tissue and the deadline for theupcoming issue to write an arti-cle about. This article is th eexception to that rule .

I don't know where to start .After a little bit of weirdnesshad been flung my way, Ithought 'okay, that's kind ofodd.' The next day, the weird-ness continued and I thought'now that's genuinely wacky . 'Day three had me saying 'If thi skeeps up I can run a three rin gcircus based entirely on person-al events! Where'd that ele-phant go? ' Day four had metalking to pumpkins .

Where to start? I think I'll takethe chronological approach.

Oktober 19th - The waiter.

Three friends and I decided togo forth to that bastion of goodtimes known as Milestones andpartake in a brief dinner event . Iwas overly pleased with thi swhole concept, seeing as Iwould be the only male in .thegroup. I mean, when was th elast time you got to take threecute girls out on a date ?

The bus ride out was mostl yuneventful, well, the sheep wasa bit of an exception, but it was-n't that weird . Anyway, needlessto say, we arrived at Milestone sa little shaken, but not stirred.After a short wait, our waiterapproached, did the norma lwaiter-gathering-menus type ofactivity, then turned to us andspoke. Normally, the first thingout of a waiter's mouth is "Tablefor four?" or "Will that b esmoking or non-smoking? "This wasn't the case. This par-ticular waiter felt it necessary toinitiate communication wit hhis customers with the remark"I have just got to say this before .anything else . You have thegreatest eyes!" while lookingdirectly at me .

Initially, my brain didn' taccept this information . I triedgiving it the input 'Someonejust said "You have the greates teyes!"', and I got back "Threelittle maids from school arewe!" This whole scenario didn'tbother me that much, consider-

ing that I was fairly confidentthat the statement was directedat my good friend Leah who, Ifigure, was standing immediate-ly behind me. But, after a shortexamination of Leah's currentlocation, I came to the conclu-sion that she was about a footto my right and that the com-ment was probably intended forme .

Being quick on my feet an dfull of enviable wit, I instantlyretaliated with "Urn. . . thanks"to which the waiter replied "No ,really! They just light up theroom. My name's Mark, by theway!" The one-two punch hadbeen completed . I was mentallyon the floor, and my interestin gweek was just beginning.

Oktober 26th - The phonecall .

Imagine waking up the morn-ing after a huge party to aphone ringing . I opened myeyes, determined that the reallyannoying strange noise was, i nfact, a phone and then starte dlooking for the particulartelecommunication device thatwas bothering me . It was conve-niently located imrnediatel yadjacent to my head. I pick it upand answered "Yeah?"

"Hi! Is this John Hallett? "

"Yeah . "

"My name's Colin . I'm fromthe Campus Times!" He wasobviously far too happy aboutthis fact .

"Yeah? "

"You entered our bzzr tastingcontest?"

"Yeah! "

"So, Mr. Hallett, do you want tobe a bzzr judge? "

"Yes . Yes I do . "

My weekend was off to a goodstart .

Oktober 26th - The film guy.

I guess that Film Developin gProfessional would be a moreappropriate title . After all, i ttakes years of dedication andtraining to master the ancien tskills of photograph develop-ment. Not . In reality, it takesabout $10,000 and a desire tostart your own business . As wa sthe case with the guy wh odeveloped the role of film con-taining our cover shot.

I asked him what the goin gprice for 12 shots was and_ h egave me this weird look beforesaying "Um, well, I don' t reallysell that here . But if you want, Ican meet you out back . . ."

"Pardon? I just want to devel-op some film . "

"Film?" He looked a little baf-fled. I gestured to the piles ofKodak behind the counter, th ecameras everywhere, and all th epictures on the wall . "Oh yeah !Film! I do that, too! "

I handed over my film. Hetook it and put it down behindthe counter, looked up, andasked if he could help me .

It proved to be very difficult toconvince him that a) I hadalready asked him to developsome film b) I had already givenhim said film and that c) theroll of film that had mysterious-ly appeared behind his counterin the past few minutes was,indeed, mine .

With all that said and done, Istarted on my way, fully expect-ing to be back in an hour t opick up my newly develope dfilm.

"See you in twenty five min-utes," our friendly film guyyelled out .

"Pardon? Isn't this a one hou rphoto shop? "

"Yes, but for you, I'll do it intwenty five minutes! See youthen!"

Thirty minutes later, I wasback. I asked him if my film wa sready and he said that it shoul dbe, seeing as only one was inthe back at the time . He starte dshuffling through the - variousenvelopes full of pictures andmade it all the way from 'A' to'D' before realizing that he did-n't know my name . After I spel tit out two or three times forhim, it dawned on him that mypictures weren't among thecrowd and were very probabl ythe ones currently runnin gthrough the machine .

Well, we had to wait about fiveminutes for the machine to fin-ish processing my photos, dur-ing which the film guy com-plained viscous about ho wseems to be loosing $200 a dayon the operation. After we left,my friend Kim pointed out thathe just might break even if hestopped buying $200 worth ofpot to smoke during the day .

So, I guess this all just goes toshow that life is really weird .Maybe more so when you real-ize that I had to cut the story inhalf to keep this article under1500 words . The moral of thes estories? There is none, except tomaybe keep film and pot onseparate budgets.

Ihave a horriffic confession tomake. Although normallyfrighteningly conscientiou s

and organized, on a freak occur-rence last afternoon frogsrained down from the sky whileI was out in the back garde ntrimming the begonias . Some o fthem got caught in my hair andinfiltrated my files, which iswhy I cannot now say with cer-tainty that I have all the dead-pool entries . Thus, I'm going t ohave to extend a small grac eperiod of about a week after thisthing gets published for anyon ewhose list I've lost. The lists Istill have are as follows :

Kathy LoShawn WowkAaron Adarnac tJonathan Buchanan (Juri! )

- dead pool- dead writers- dead musicians

_- dead politicians

Stewart AustinJason BrettJenn Gard yBreeone BaxterBrad Gilber tSuper SoleenaBrandon MacdonaldConrad ChevalierDavid Collin sBella & Elle nColin MacDermot -

If you already submitted meyour list of fifteen, and if yo uare not on this list, resubmityour list to me before the 7th o rso and I'll still give you point sfor anyone on the list whobecame a stiff after you firstgave me the list . Otherwise, and

for anyone else who joins th epool after November 1, all you rpicks need to be breathing (offi-cially, at least : I don't remembe rseeing Keith Richards doing anymarathons this month, but h estill counts) .

While we are here, I'll just notea few points from people's list sand answer a few question sposed . Jason Brett : anyone whoflies ValuJet is still not a name .Also, Elvis is dead . You can't getany points for them - but youstill have seven days to changethem, if ya want . . Same goes toStewart Austin for Elvis .

Jenn Gardy, I'm taking LiamGallagher as your #1 pick. (AndI wish you luck, 'cause he reallyis a wanker. . . )

Brad, Don't worry if one ofyour picks gets to buy it befor eNov 1 . One of the priveledges o fentering early is that you can r epick another potential stiff, andI'll give you a bonus point forthe stiff as well . Though havingsaid that, no one actually die dthis week as far as I know, andeveryone still has all their listsintact .

Best prediction so far comesfrom Shawn Wowk, who pre-dicted that "Dr. Jack Kevorkian,Bob Dole, and Ross Perot will becaught in a compromising lovetriangle. The resulting Doctorassisted multiple suicide wil lleave a power vacuum in thesenate and Texas will open th edoor for a long awaited alie ninvasion led by the kidnappedand frozen brain of Jean ClaudeVan Damme (which woul dexplain why he sounds like arobot) "

I guess that's it for this week .Go home. Don't fear the reaper.

— 6 6

"Never let it be said that the Prince of Darkness is astingy wankel:"

- Tank Girl

—

TRUST NO ONE(1;1

EV RVmtN& DIE S

$4ROtJG1 HT T4 YOU H? YOU FRIENDLY

ASS UN IVERs'TY CoMmIss)ON

All submissions to The 432 mustbe in Chemistry B160 no laterthan:

I~

~4 November 1996

6T•Il

4:32Pm

Bagifikian 's Observation :

"Tn'ing to be a first-rate reporter on theaverage American newspaper is like tryingto plci Bach I' V . Matthew '.~ Pa sioir' on aukelele . "Chris Carter takes over advertising for the AMS .

PAGE 6

30 OKTOBER 199 6

Mr. Pumpkinand me.

silence from my class when I' mteaching, ok? "PSYCHO : "Yes sir ! . Mr.ACT ONE

Pumpki n understands ! Right? "Th e scene: Crowde d Chemistry <turns to pumpkin >classroom, late October . Students

PUMPKIN : <silence>are still walking in the door, look - • Tim e passes , and the class dragsing for a place to lean their soak-

along a t the speed of an anemicing wet umbrellas and a place to

snail .sit. Professor enters stage left,walks to front ofclass . Professor

A tall, muscular guy walksplaces transparency on overhead,

down the stairs obviousl y lateentitled "Dimethyl bromide : his-

fo r class but hoping to get th etory, structure and function."

last ten minutes of notes . Heglances across th e aisle, andsees PSYCH O sittin g at the farend.MUSCLES: <bellowing > "What !You again ! Didn't I tell you I' dkill you if I ever saw youagain? "PSYCHO: <shocked, turns topumpkin> "Is that the guy whoyou were- " <listens intently as ifinterrupted >PSYCHO : "Too bad. Mr.

PUMPKIN : <silence>Pumpkin got here first, and I'mnot about to as k him to move . " MUSCLES : <ranting abou t th e<aside to pumpkin> "Did you

injustice , the pain, the inhuman ihear that ? H e wants yo u tomove!" <PSYCHO laughs>

PSYCHO : <screams > "Hey, toobad, buddy ! He's wit h m e now,and you can' t have him back! "MUSCLES : <also screaming>"You stole his love! He wa smine, all mine! I would hav edone anything for Mr .Pumpkin! But no, you had toseduce him, didn't you! "PSYCHO: "Mr. Pumpkin lovesme now, don't you, darling "<turns to pumpkin, cradles gentl yin arms >PSYCHO : <whispers to pump -kin> "Hey, what do you want

PSYCHO : "That's right, I loveto do tonight? How about a

you too ." <kisses pumpkin>movie?" MUSCLES: "I can't take thi sPUMPKIN: <silence>

anymore . . . " <slumps to floor,PSYCHO : "Ok, I'll pick you up weeping quietly >at six ."

PROFESSOR : "What the hell i sSTUDENT : "Shh! I'm trying to going on here! I'm trying t olisten

teach a class! "PSYCHO : "Shut up! Can't I

PSYCHO : "Look, you're piss -have adiscussion with my

ing off Mr. Pumpkin, buddy!pumpkin! You don't see me

Watch it!" <waves pumpki ntelling you to shut up, do you!

wildly . in air-Tell him, Mr. Pumpkin!"

PUMPKIN: <silence>PUMPKIN : <silence>PSYCHO : "Yeah, he is an ass -hole, isn't he! "PROFESSOR : "Is there a prob-lem up ther e that you'd like toshare with the class? "STUDENT : "Sir, there's a guyup here with a - "PSYCHO: "Pumpkin ! 1 wa s try-ing to talk to Mr. Pumpkin! "PROFESSOR: <clearly puzzled>"Well, that's nice, but I expect

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Class groans.STUDENT: "Excus e me, is thi ssea t taken?" <points a t seatoccupied by a small, carvedpumpkin>PSYCHO : "What , can't yousee someone's sitting here !Fuc k off! "STUDENT : "Bu t there's nowhere else t o sit . . . "ty etc>

STUDENT: <shakes head>"Forget it . You're a psycho "<walks down stairs an d sits onfloor-PSYCHO : <talking to pumpkin >"Psycho? ,What's he,talkingabout? <listens to pumpkin >"Yeah, you're probably right .Guess he's just jealous or some -thing. "PROFESSOR: `Blahs blah ,blah" <professor drones on> PUMPKIN: <silence>

PSYCHO : "You tell him! We'r e_ outta here!" <tucks pumpki nunder left arm, picks up bag an dbooks, and defiantly storms u pthe stairs and out <exit, stag eleft> END OF ACT ON EJoin the Psycho and Mr.Pumpkin next issue as they spen dthe weekend volunteering wit hTourism Vancouver as a tou rguide!

Henry Lama nIncredibly odd columnis t0

ver the years my friend shave all made the co m-ment that I appear to belivin g in my own littl e world .Thi s has gotten m e thinking. I tseem s to me that everyon e like sto creat e their own little realityand make up their own littl erules . One example that spring simmediatel y to mind was a gen-tleman that my friends and Imet about a year ago . Heexplained to us how he spen tthe last 10 years of his life sit-ting on bridges and talking t oseagulls. All things considered ,this wasn't too strange excep tfor the fact that his workin gmedium was cheese and bread .The cheese was placed down i nMorse code and the seagull swould communicate by eatin gcertain bits of cheese . This wa sall pretty impressive, especiall ywhen I learned that the seagull swould talk about radio frequen-cies and correct his math . Noweither I've missed out on poten -tial math tutors or this guy' sreality was a little askew .However, strange people onthe street isn't the only place t ofind weirdness . Look at some ofthe latest beer commercials .Now, I'm not talking about th eones that say beer equals fun, o reven the enlightened view o fbeer equals life. No, I'm talking

about the ones that seem to b esaying that beer equals frogssticking to trucks whil eCanadian voyagers meet th esasquatch in a snowstorm inthe middle of the desert . Thesemessages have gone beyondsimple persuasion and into aworld that would make Michae lPalin wince . (Stop it! You're beingsilly! -ed .)There are examples all over th eplace . Just talk to anyone with alittle too much nostalgia . I'veheard many conversations tha tseem to go along the lines of : " Itell you, you kids today have i teasy. When I was young, down -hill hadn't been invented yet .We had to walk uphill every -where we went ." To whichsomeone would inevitabl yreply, "You were able to wal karound? You were lucky! Whe nI was young, we were so poo rthat we couldn't afford gravity .We had to spend all our tim eholding onto trees to keep fro mbeing thrown out into space . "Okay, so maybe these haven' tbeen great examples of peopl ewith a firm grasp of reality .Surely sensible, thinking peopl ewho study the world aroun dthem should all see reality in aclear, understandable way ,right? Well . . . no. Every year inmy physics courses, I learnt sev-eral things that I had drille dinto me in previous years ar ejust not true; For example, thi syear I found out that the charge

of electron is really infinite . Itjust seems to be a constan tbecause nothing (which is real-ly made up out of particles tha tblip in and out of existencefaster than anyone is allowed t omeasure them) blocks out som eof the charge . When I thin kabout this, suddenly beer com -mercials seem to make a lo tmore sense .So-I've come to the conclusio nthat, despite what all the X -philes might believe, the trut hisn't really out there : It seems t ome that most minds don't havea clue to what is really going on .I know my mind doesn't, butit's sure as hell not going let m eknow that . It'll just bluff it sway through life telling m ethings like "Well of course yo ucan make that yellow light . . . ablock away . . . uphill . . . whil eyou're on a bike . "I guess the point I'm trying t omake is that if I believe that if Isquint my eyes I can see Deat hriding a motorcycle over m ydesk and waving maracas, that' smy business okay? It's not thatI'm going crazy, it's just that I' mgoing sane in my own littl eworld .It has been said that writing fo rThe 432 pushes you toward sinsanity. I'd just like to removemyself from all blame by statin gthat Henry was nuts already .-ed.

30 OKTOBER 1996

THE FOUR THIRTY Two

PAGE 7

The drawers of SUS.Henry WongTracy MacKinno n

President

External Vice President ,

0i Oil! Skoosh!! Ah'm no goin tae be tae coherent this issue,ye ken, on account o the fact that ah'm rite shagged oo tafter day o the longboat. The water wiz cold, an a little on

the damp side, but it wiz greeet all the same . The president fromArts, Shirin, wiz thare rite enuff an' lovely as ever in her wee bathinsuit, but her team wasnae as good as our team . The fact that I neviractually saw her team has nae bearin on the matter at oll . An wedidnae capsize the boat this year, which is a lot more than can b esaid for our last team oot on the seas . Anyway, if yer reedin' this,Shirin, Ah hope yer team did well .

By the time ye read this, Halloween will be only a day or tw oaway. The AMS is doin' a Trick or Treat for charity, so get oot thar ean have some fun . Ah've no a greet deal tae say now. The wine ancheeese wiz majic, speshully the wine bit . That's ma lot. Ah gess it' stime for a blatant plug .

Science Week. Meetings at 5 :30 every Wednsday in Chem 160. Ifye can't make it to a 5 :30 meeting, come by any time after 3 .30 andsay helloo ; I'm the bald laddie typing at the keyboard looking real-ly frazzled . Come by and see us spend five grand on a week lon gparty, with explosions an fireworks an egg catapults an mad race san enough beer tae . . . well, ah don't want tae give it oll away taesoon, do I?

Mikey Boetzkes

Social Coordinator

Hi everybody and welcome to another installment of "Ho wMuch Money Can I Lose This Week." This week has bee nvery good in the department of losing money. I've also dis-

covered that Iam unusually good at this. So, please give me moremoney.

Well in other news Oktoberfest was on the 18th . As far as fun goesit was a lot of it but financially there was one or two complaint safterwards . As far as I can tell the rest of the Exec didn't really likethe fact that I lost $3500 on this event . Me I don't see too big of aproblem because I have yet to kill my entire budget .

The good news about Oktoberfest is that a lot of people had a real -ly good time which makes the whole process all worth while . It nolonger matters how much money I lost because I managed to ful-fill my mandate by causing people to have fun . It is such a roughlife, isn't it .

Well in other news we have another bzzr garden coming up o nNovember 15. This will be a much smaller event and therefore onlyheld in the Partyroom but should be as much if not more fun . Iguess at this point I should really know more about this event so Ican pass it on to you but, well I don't . Sorry but it has been a busycouple of weeks . For more info read this article in the next issue .

Someone told me the other day that I'm supposed to have a Socia lCommittee and therefore I should have committee meetings . Ithink that I will have it on Wednesday at about 5 :00. I can guar-antee that this will be short because I have another meeting atS:30, so if you feel like doing some work come to my meeting.That's all folks .

Despite his best effort, Mikey couldn't break the record for most moneylost at a SUS social event. Better luck next time, Mikey.

-ed.

Doug Beleznay

Director of Finance

32,430, . . . . $32,431, . . . $32,432 . . . Oh right my execreport . . .well, we are now officially rolling in money . . . the $2retroactive increase went through (meaning that your fees fo r

January just went up by $2) . . . but they were supposed to already b elike that . (We had a referendum last year, it just got passed on t oBoG a little slowly by the AMS) .

_

So since the $2 increase went through, that means that we're backon track for budgeting, and in fact even have a little more than wehoped. You see, in an effort to boost University productivity,Science allowed approx . 600 more students into :first year last year.(In the long run this means we've got about $6000 more to pla ywith . No John, you can't have any more money . (But the cost ofbuy-ing bzzr, er, printing this paper has just shot up! -ed .)

"So how can I get my hands on some of this money?" you ma yask. Well, unfortunately this paper came out one day too late,because the first budget committee meeting was Oct . 29th . Sowe've already passed out -$7000 to clubs . There will however bemore budget meetings throughout the year, (I plan to hold on eapproximately once a month, or as necessary), so if spending othe rpeoples money turns your crank watch this space . (Or better yetcome in to the SUS office (Chem. B160), and ask for me)

Doug's secret passion is taking all the coins from the pop machine ,putting them in a hot tub and diving in naked. Weird, eh?

-ed.

Warrick Y u

Director of Sports

Hello everyone, this special report is brought to you by me.Oh yes, the rebate . . .I finally made up the new, fantastic ,improved, magnificent, reader-friendly Sport Rebate Policy .

It is posted on the notice board and on the door outside SUS .Hopefully, no one will be confused . If it does happen, ask. One wayto remember how to calculate the amount of rebate your team ca nreceive is to, memorize the following :

R = F/T(M/2 + NG)

This is called "The Great Wall's 2nd Law" which is the modifie dversion of "The Great Wall's 1st Law" . The 2nd Law is fairer to allof you who pay the $12 SUS fee. In other words, "SUS MembersDeserve Better" Note that this is not Gordon Campbell' s"Taxpayers Deserve Better", nor is this Glen Clark's "On Your Side"politics . This rebate policy is all logical mathematics . If you don ' tknow the variables, I can tell you now :

R = Rebate a team can receive

F = Registration fee

T = Total number of players excluding import s

M = Number of SUS members, that means you .

N = Number of non-SUS members excluding the imports, tha tmeans the other guys . . .hmmmmm

G = Amount of money granted to the "other guys" as describe dabove.

This formula is unofficial . The official formula (apparently it i sidentical to the unofficial one) is found in the Sport Rebate PolicyArticle III-3 . Any other questions?

Now, the report of the SUS Executive Ball Hockey team. Ourgoalie, i.e. me, is slightly injured by a player from the opposingteam. This player intentionally crashed into the goalie, who hadalready frozen the ball The condition of the goalie is as follows :

All limbs and the head are still attached to the body. There is noevidence of missing limbs . There is a slightly bleeding in the gu mdue to the collision (or it could be due to not brushing your teeth . -ed.) .A cut is found above the nose beside the right ocular implement(i.e. eye) . Mental stress continues as the goalie is not responding t oProzac treatment:

Where was the ref? I guess he was as blind as Kerry F. Anyway thegoalie is ready to play again !

Warrick is, simply put, the single most energetic person I have evermet. If you want someone to play chess with, he's not so hot, but if you

want a package delivered to Hong Kong overnight, he's your man .

-ed .

Happy Hallowe'en! John has made our office very festive b ythe addition of a jack-o-lantern! And Shirin from Art sbrought us a pumpkin full of chocolates for Hallowe'en

(thanks, Shirin! Club budgets were due a few days ago, so I hop eall you clubs got them in to us already !

Teaching Excellence Awards are getting under way in SUS righ tnow. There are nomination forms somewhere in this paper, so i fyou had a really great prof that you want to recognize, nominatehim or her for a SUS teaching award! More details can be foun dwith the forms, or you can come by the office (Chem 160) and tal kto me or to Henry.

The AMS is having a Hallowe'en Trick or Treat for the Food Bank .Interested people are meeting in the SUB Party Room between 4 :30and 5:30 on Hallowe'en, and then they'll canvass Point Grey an dKits for donations of non-perishable goods for the food bank . Ifyou want more information, you can talk to Kathryn in SUS (she' sthe giggling redhead - you can't miss her) .

Our Oktoberfest celebration was a lot of fun . . Unfortunately, welost quite a bit of money, so we'll have to have very tight budget sfor our remaining events this year. SUS steins (they're a colossal 22oz!) were a big hit though. I believe we still have about 80 left, and

,they'll be filled at all SUS events for all eternity!

Lets see what else, we ve actually got our money from the AM Snow. (They hold on to the money until the end of October .) So that

I'm feeling giddy, so if you need a favour, now would be the time means we can start to spend money a little more freely . We shoul dto ask, since my interviews are going very well (hurrah)! be upgrading the pop machine to take twoonies anytime soon. (I fUntil the next deadline (although the time between deadlines I really get my act together we'll be getting an upgrade to the pho -

seems to get smaller and smaller) (Tell me about it -ed.).

tocopier, and maybe even a vending machine) . Oh did I mentionthe new phone line, and new (to us) couches that we've already

Phil Ledwith got . (Have you seen Chem Club's new lounge? They have leather couches! Say, Doug. . . -ed .) (If you haven't been in SUS yet this year, thingshave changed.) So yeah, if you have a great idea for spendingmoney, or if you want to see how your money is being spent, o reven if you just can't stand the weather outside, and want someoneto complain about it to, drop on by!!! .

Internal We President

n case you haven't heard o f

Ime before, I am your SUSInternal Vice President, and

yes, this is my first ever write-upfor this wonderful paper. Whatis there to say? Well, there wasthe welcome back BBQ wa yback in September. (We wer ethe motley crew baking our-selves in front of two fiery char-coal grills on East Mall) The newcouncil members were elected(appointed due to the lack ofcompetition and candidates )last week. If you didn't notic ethe polling stations, don' tworry, there were none . (It's adictatorship, I tell 'ya! Students ofUBC! Unite against oppression! -ed)However, there's still a way youcan get involved, accomplishsomething, stamp your mark onthe Science community andmake your year memorable .Teaching Excellence Awardnomination forms are out! I tmeans a lot to profs to be recog-nized and loved by their stu-dents, so nominate you rfavorite professor for the award !All you have to do is to tear outthe nice little form at the backof this paper (after you've fin-ished rigorously memorizing allthe columns (We know ifyou do .There will be a test later. -ed.))sign your name, find 9 otherpeople (or 70% of your class,whichever number is smaller) t odo the "same 'arid hand 'the formin to me at the SUS office inChem B160. The academiccommittee will then studiousl yevaluate each nominated pro-fessor to determine the winner .The First Year Committee willbe up and running next week .The first meeting will be onMonday, 28th Oktober 4:32 PMin the SUS Office . Please showup if you are interested to getinvolved. I guarantee you willmeet a lot of wonderful newpeople and thoroughly enjo ythe experience . Imagine that!

Yeah . Imagine that. Also imagin ethat this paper will be printed o n

the 30th of Oktober. Oh well, youcan still come into SUS if you'reinterested. Henry will be the guy

studying the calendar.-ed .

"But the fact thatsome geniuses werelaughed at does no timply that all who arelaughed at weregeniuses. Theylaughed at Columbus ,they laughed atFulton, they laughedat the Wright broth-ers. But they alsolaughed at Bozo theClown."

- Carl Sagan

Bernie goes to Russia, Part I

hT

is is the story of a fish.Or, more accurately, thisis the story of a fish, a

banana and an exceptionallyevil hamster.

Let's start with. the fish. Howmany of you have ever seen aRussian Dwarf Mackerel? No? Iwouldn't be too sure about that .You see, the Russian DwarfMackerel (or the RDM, to thosein the know) looks -remarkabl ylike the common goldfish: Sostrikingly similar are these tw ospecies, that even well trainedichthyologists have beenknown to make the occasionalmis-identification (don'tbelieve me? Ask the guy at thepet . shop .) Now, this often lead sto some rather unfortunate psy-chological problems in theRDM, and my pet mackerelBernie is no exception. Latelyhe's been listless, tired, an ddownright depressed . Indeed ,there were a few days therewhen I was worried that he mayhave deoxygenated his last fewmillilitres of carefully treatedwater. Being the conscientiou spet owner that I am, I decidedthat what Bernie needed was ataste of his homeland: Since Iwas fresh out of Vodka, I packedup my backpack, shined myswiss ; army knife, and headedfor . the great Siberian frontier.(Because that's oh so much easierthan a trip to 4th & Alma, rightJer? -ed.)

Perhaps it would be a goodidea to introduce you to, ormore accurately, to warn youabout my hamster. There is acarefully preserved myth thathamsters are cute fuzzy, and,most ridiculously of all, friend-ly. Let me assure you, mostadamantly, that these assump-tions are not only completelyfalse, but also very, very danger-ous . Many a finger has been los tto the carefully sharpened teethof Cricetus cricetus, and it is onlythrough the most fortuitous cir-cumstances that I am still th eproud owner of eight fingers ,and their associated opposablethumbs. Now that I've warned -you of the dangerous blood-lustthat is- characteristic of thesemost horrible of rodents, it i stime for you to meet Frank theHamster. Frank is the hamsterequivalent of a psychopath .Last week, I gave him an entir epackage of carrot-shaped wood -en chew toys, and returned t ofind each of them carved an dsharpened into small hamster-weapons which resembled pikeaxes . I once caught him rubbingtwo pieces of cedar beddingtogether, trying to ignite his lit-tle wooden house. And myroommates thought I was crazywhen I installed the sprinkle rsystem on his cage.Nevertheless, I still feel that, Ihave a responsibility to Frank,so along he came to Russia, dan-gling from my backpack in hi ssteel-reinforced travel cage .

I always though it would beeasy to get to Russia. I mean ,sure, it's a good 10,000 mile saway, but it looked so close on

that little key-chain atlas I gotin my Christmas cracker when Iwas five . Besides, I've seen Spie sLike Us, and they got to Russi awith one small scene change. -Of course, I was wrong . I real-ized this after being on the roadfor about 7 hours . The gas sta-tions still didn't have anyVodka, and 'Prince 'Rupert' suredidn't seem too Russian to me .But I- persevered — I figured if Idrove long enough on this'Alaska Highway' that it wouldeventually lead to .some frag-ment of the former U .S.S .R .

In the. meantime, Bernie wasperking up with every water'change in his portable plexi-glass tank. His eyes were grow-ing brighter with .every mile,and he was doing laps aroundthe badly painted fluorescen tskull like a greyhound onamphetamines . Even Frank th eEvil Hamster seemed to b echeering up — his chewing onthe cage bars had stopped pro-ducing sparks, and every onc ein a while; you could swear hewas no longer possessed bySatan. As the trees and goat swhizzed by the car like so manyhorseflies . . .wait . . . those werehorseflies . Oh well, you get thepoint. As we continued north -ward, I was struck with an over -powering sense of dedication —I knew, at that moment, thatBernie and I were going to makeit to Russia, and that everythingwas going to be alright.

And that's when everythin gwent to. hell .

There are only a limited num-ber of compounds that can

shear through steel . One wouldguess that none of- these com-pounds would be contained i nthe tooth of a hamster. Onewould be wrong, but that iswhat one would guess . Chancesare, as well, that the averagehuman, if asked; would proba-bly guess that a hamster doesn' thave the cranial capacityrequired to learn the intricaciesof a combustion engine. Onceagain, one would be wrong. ,

whirrr. . . .grAUW!!! thunk.

Not a particularity good soun dto hear from an engine — and areally quite awful sound to hea rfrom an engine when drivingalong the Alaska Highway at4am on an unusually cool fal lmorning. But, I'm not one topanic . I prefer hysteria. I findthat a good five minutes of full -out screaming-at-the-top-of-your-lungs terror-filled hysteri areally calms the nerves . (Is thatpatented Jer 'screaming-like-a-girl 'screaming? -ed .) Unfortunatelyfor me, it also wakes wildlife.

turned into a bear.

I've watched a lot of naturefilms in my time, and I knowthat bears often hibernate fo rthe weekend . Without goinginto the gruesome details ofmetabolical slowing and recta lplugs, I'll just say that hiberna-tion entails falling asleep for agood long time, in order toavoid all that coldness that is soprevalent in the cold-typ eplaces where bears live. What Ididn't know is that, for bear sliving in Alaska, winter start squite early. In October,- to bemore accurate. Have you' everbeen woken up at 4 :00 in themorning, after just settlin gdown for a four month nap in a -cozy nest of carefully preparedbedding products? Well, I knowa bear who has.

Now this was a good time . Notonly was I facing a menacing ,eight foot tall grizzly bear on aremote section of a poorlypaved highway, but I had alsoapparently released a viscou shamster on an unsuspecting ,poorly equipped ecosystem; Mr.Mackerel was hiding in hi sskull, and I was in serious dan-ger of needing a new pair ofpants .

Enter the banana. Fumblingbehind my back, in the fortu-nately open back pocket of myfive-dollar backpack, I searchedfrantically for a weapon . I knewI had my swiss army knife backthere somewhere, and afte r

Sometimes while walkingdown a poorly lit street late a tnight, your eyes can play trickson you. Bushes become knife-wielding maniacs, mailboxe sbecome angry dogs, and busstops become gangs of drunkenhell's angels. Most of the time,however, these phantasms dis-appear. as you move closer, andyou find yourself chuckling inregards to your apparent idiocy.Unfortunately, there aren't a lo tof bus stops, or lamp posts onthe Alaska Highway, and thi sparticular knife-wielding mani- See "Hamster" on page 4ac didn't turn into a bush . I t

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