New Meal Plan Lets NU Students Pay for Dunkin’ Donuts in Self-Esteem

Pictured: Guilt, later.

EVANSTON, Il. – A new meal plan will allow Northwestern students to exchange their self-esteem for food at Norris Student Center’s recently-opened Dunkin’ Donuts. The plan will allow the fast-food chain, along with Northwestern, to capitalize on the plummeting self-confidence of students who eat at Dunkin’ Donuts.

“On opening day it became immediately clear that after eating our donuts, students were losing self-esteem and satisfaction with their body image—mostly due to the fattening nature of the food we sell,” said Nigel Travis, CEO of Dunkin’ Donuts. “We figured we might as well turn a profit on their loss.”

Students will still be able to pay for donuts and sandwiches with Equivalency Meals, Munch Money, and points. NUcuisine yesterday released a more detailed explanation of the meal plan, summarized here:

7 Observations From Being Home For Break From Northwestern

Bonus observation: The lakefill looks like a man pooping on the library.

Nothing brings clarity to a Northwestern student quite like being home for the holidays with a refrigerator full of your parents finest beer. Here are the observations of one Wildcat on life on the outside.

1. Nobody will compliment you on how good you look ever again*

Maybe you’re like me and were in peak physical condition sophomore year of high school. Maybe you’re also like me and your body stopped changing for the better by the time Wildcat Welcome Week rolled around. Or maybe you’re like me and just not that good looking to begin with. Either way, you can kiss those “oh my god you look so great!”s and “wow, bro, you lift?”s and “hey, so the thing is, I never would have broken up with you outside of Six Flags Great America’s Raging Bull if you looked like that”s goodbye. Your physique has started what promises to be a decades-long decline, and all that you have to look forward to is people poking your love handles and observing how fat you’re getting. But hey, making donuts with your belly is pretty fun, right?

A Review of Game of Thrones Season 3 Episode 3 “The Walk of Punishment” (by Guest Author Timmy Jenkinson, 6th Grade)

(Note: As part of our new student writer heinous-reach program, Sherman Ave has decided to partner with Evanston Township Middle Schools to give you content created by younger minds, and thus foster a healthy and positive interest in writing. Education is a vital part of a child’s life, and we at Sherman Ave understand that and yadda yadda yadda Michelle Obama.  If you know a talented student who would like to participate in our program, keep it to yourself.)

Moreover, Joffrey is a total jerkface

Hello!

My name is Timmy Jenkinson and this is my report about episode 3 of Game of Thrones this season.  A bunch of really cool stuff happened, Greyjoy escaped and also Robb Stark and a bunch of old people talked to each other about the war.  His wife is kind off ugly.

In another important scene, the fat guy saw a girl give birth tooo a person, it was gross. My dad told me that they have to kill the baby because it’s a man.  Ther’s a rule that those people have that they kill every baby that’s a man.  My dad likes Game of Thrones almost as much as he likes Captain Morgan.  He didn’t say that, but that was my “observation.”

In Which I Wax Poetic on Hamburgers

You’ve gotten me through so much, Edzo’s.

Hamburger you disgust me.

Hamburger I don’t care where you came from.
I don’t know where to find you on a cow, or a horse
or whatever else you may be made of.
Secretly I find the mystery exciting.

Hamburger I know you’ve been getting fatter over the years
but that’s alright.
I had a brief affair with Subway and she’s been good to me,
but you’ll always have more to love.

An open letter to the Northwestern Kid who Just Didn’t Get Involved Enough

Happiness Club does NOT count

Dear Northwestern Kid Who Just Didn’t Get Involved Enough,

Let’s face it.  Every single person at this university is way busier than you, and everyone knows it. Uninvolved Kid, your lack of extracurricular involvement within Northwestern is like a giant dildo on the floor of a nursing home. We all know it’s there, but we really, really don’t want to bring it up.

Remember how you sobbed after realizing how fucking fat and lazy you’ve gotten since high school? How you dripped tears and snot onto your iPhone and Siri was like “whoa, this kid needs his mom” and called her for you? And how your faithful mom, who has been glued to her phone ever since that one time you rang her up about barfing in the BK lounge AGAIN, answered your moaning self-denigration with a “Honey! Of course that’s not true. You’re my little rainbow! Why, I bet everyone at your smart college thinks about themselves the same way.”

The 5 Least Smangable First Ladies in American History

With no official duties, salary, or elected position, the First Lady of the United States is first and foremost the hostess, or ho-stess, of the White House. Nevertheless, the First Lady of the United States plays an important role in the Executive Branch, handling everything from official ceremonies of state to the Senate Majority Whip, if you know what I mean (looking at you, Lady Bird Johnson). Sometimes, Presidents’ wives will even be entrusted to handle such politically divisive issues as child obesity and literacy, at least when the Vice President is too busy.

Yet for all of America’s Mrs. Presidentress’ accomplishments as powerful women, celebrities, activists, and interlopers, some of the First Ladies in the annals of history were just downright dogs. What follows is the list of the top five First Ladies that not even JFK would bang.*

Florence “The Machine” Harding

5. Florence Harding
Popularly referred to as The Duchess, Florence “Flo Rida” Harding was quoted as saying, “I know what’s best for the President. I put him in the White house. He does well when he listens to me and poorly when he does not.” Although the circumstances of President Harding’s sudden and untimely 1923 death remain unclear, rumor has it that Warren’s balls had been irreparably busted by his wife. That’s what you get, after all, when you ask your wife for some Teapot Dome after a long day of corruption work in the Oval Office.

4. Ida McKinley
What else can you expect from a woman who’s main devotion in life was crocheting slippers? After losing two daughters in childbirth and a devoted husband to an assassination, Ida most certainly was not DTF. The epilepsy didn’t help either.

Not terribly interested in her husband’s “Old Rough and Ready”

3. Margaret Taylor
Described by others as “a fat, motherly looking woman,” Margaret Taylor’s physical appearance wasn’t nearly as bad as her demeanor. After praying for her husband Zachary to lose the Presidential election of 1848, and still smarting from Free Soil candidate Martin Van Buren’s political smear campaign that Zachary Taylor’s wife “Haveth a Total Butterface,” the First Lady spent much of her time cloistered in the second floor of the Presidential mansion, composing erotic fan fiction about the exploits of Whig Senator Daniel Webster. She did, however, once accidentally walk in on Millard Fillmore’s “personal time” in the mural room, an event that subsequently ruined all men for the First Lady.

2. Pat Nixon
Surprisingly, Pat Nixon never really caught on to the whole “deepthroat” thing.

Surprisingly, “Mary Todd Lincoln” is only the third least appropriate name of a First Lady to shout out during coitus.

1. Mary Todd Lincoln
Mary Todd was crazy. Not the good kind of crazy — the kind of crazy that results in Abe trying to explain away how he was found blindfolded and handcuffed to William Seward in the base of the Washington Monument — but rather the “I had to endure a marriage through the most stressful period in American history and witness my husband’s assassination and I buried my son Tad and I’m addicted to chloral hydrate and I think there’s a wandering Jew trying to steal my purse and now I’m pretty sure my son Robert is trying to kill me” kind of crazy. Abe Lincoln may have been the Rail Splitter, but he certainly wasn’t going to tap that any more than necessary.

——————————————————————————————————————————
*LOL JFK

Badasses in History: Winston Churchill

Rumor has it that Churchill fathered his successor to the throne of Badassery, Morty Schapiro

The study of history is, in many ways, the study of humanity. From kings and heroes to slaves and cowards, history provides us with an unrivaled view into the inner workings of the human mind.

But never has any historical figure kicked quite as much ass as Winston Churchill.

Let’s start off by investigating what the man had to work with. On the pros side, he was born the grandson of the seventh Duke of Marlborough. Aristocratic blood? Check. He was enrolled in the best schools. Education? Check. He was a brilliant politician. Acumen? Check. Oh, he also beat the Nazis. Awesomeness? Check.

Now for the cons. That school he was in? He hated it and got bad grades. Good GPA? Not check. He was fat…and rude…and a bit of a drunk. Winning personality? Not check. At the time of his political achievements, he faced a weak parliament and a weaker aristocracy. Strong support system for confronting foreign difficulties and interacting with the power-hungry, vicious Nazis? Not check.

The man was born with five-pound jowls

So to recap: Winston Churchill was born rich, but balked at any attempts to civilize him beyond what was required to find and light cigars, and—who could forget?— jimmy open the liquor cabinet. He then went off to the Royal Military College where he had the option of enrolling in either the cavalry or the infantry. He chose the cavalry. Why? Because it had a lower grade requirement and he hated math. Here was a man who had his priorities straight.

At that point, his father asked that he transfer to the infantry, to which I can only presume Winston replied: “Suck it.” Whatever his exact words, he stayed in the cavalry for some time until he got bored—again I can only assume because he was too bitching at everything for his regiment to handle—at which point he became a journalist and war-correspondent. Even more awesome (if such a thing could be possible) Churchill then went to Cuba to follow a conflict between Spain and the Cuban rebels, where he learned about cigars. His response was reportedly to blow smoke in the face of the Spanish General Ramon de Not-As-Mind-Blowing-as-Churchill. As history has taught us, this ended the war then and there.

But while his early life was too grandiose for words, it was Churchill’s later life that cemented his place as history’s greatest badass. You see, Churchill’s greatest quality was this: he was fucking hilarious. Yes, Churchill played a central role in the defeat of the Axis powers and the preservation of Great Britain beyond the bombing of London. But all of that nonsense pales in comparison to his rollicking contributions to insult comedy.

This image was captured moments after Churchill listed off the gut-wrenchingly filthy sexual activities he had engaged in with Stalin's mother

Though Churchill’s insults can — and do — fill entire books, some of them stick as even more groin-grabbingly funny than others. When asked about his opinion of Neville Chamberlain (who some of you may remember as the dickwad who tried appeasing the Nazis as British Prime Minister before Churchill), Old Winston had this to say: “He looked at foreign affairs through the wrong end of a municipal drainpipe.” In other words: “That dude is a shitface.”

On cultured people, tubby had this to say: “Cultured people are merely the glittering scum which floats upon the deep river of production.” What a baller.

Still, as funny as Churchill was in general, he had two particular adversaries with whom he had supreme moments of insulting hilarity: Lady Nancy Astor, member of Parliament and second-class comic, and playwright George Bernard Shaw.

We’ll start with Shaw. Both intellectuals (Shaw of the kind that actually does things of artistic and literary merit, and Churchill of the kind that makes fun of those things), the two often enjoyed exchanging witticisms. Shaw, no real fan of Churchill’s, thought it might be funny to send Winston a pair of tickets to Shaw’s newest play, Major Barbara. Accompanying the tickets was a short note: “Have reserved two tickets for opening night. Bring a friend, if you have one.”

Now, at this point, any lesser man would have accepted the truly hilarious burn at face value. Not Chubby Churchill. He wired back—in a moment where even God himself spit out his top ramen in laughter—”Cannot possibly come first night, will attend second, if there is one.”

Awesome.

Onto adversary number two: Lady Astor. The two had a long legacy of mocking one another, Astor for Churchill’s rampant alcoholism and obesity, Churchill for Astor’s general bitchiness. Who can forget this exchange:

He usually only needed one of those fingers to properly express himself

Astor: If you were my husband, I’d poison your tea.
Churchill: Madam, if you were my wife, I’d drink it.

Again, awesome. But these clashes of wits pale in comparison to a later insult. One particular evening, Churchill came to a party visibly drunk and irate, so much so that a Mrs. Bessie Braddock quite publicly remarked, “Mr. Churchill, you are drunk!” But Winston, drunk or not, knew a challenge when he heard one. After shouting “Challenge Accepted!” he looked the offending woman in the eye (or chest, as Churchill was not one for manners) and said: “Yes, and you, Madam, are ugly but tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be ugly.”

So yeah, no one rocked the house like Winston.

Some more Churchill insults for your consideration:

• Young man (after seeing Churchill leave the bathroom without washing his hands): At Eton they taught us to wash our hands after using the toilet.
  Churchill: At Harrow they taught us not to piss on our hands.
• [Referring to Arthur Balfour] If you wanted nothing done at all, Balfour was the man for the job.


The British Prime Minister after single-handedly clearing Juno Beach during D-Day

• Churchill: Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?
  Woman: My goodness, Mr. Churchill… Well, I suppose… we would have to discuss terms, of course…
  Churchill: Would you sleep with me for five pounds?
  Woman: Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!
  Churchill: Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.

And now for the winner:

• [Referring to Charles De Gaulle] He looks like a female llama who has been surprised in the bath.

–Josh Kopel

I’m sorry I made fun of Rebecca Black

And it was fun, fun, fun, SO GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING FUN!!!!!

When Rebecca Black’s “Friday” video first debuted, I was among its harshest and most persistent critics. Even this esteemed website pounced on the unabashed heinousness of the video. I was quite proud of my ability to completely and totally eviscerate that power-tripping adolescent at any turn.

“Oh, today’s Thursday,” I’d say, a sly grin stretching across my face. “Wonder what day tomorrow is? Better ask that hoe Rebecca Black, amirite guys?!”

Got a laugh every time. And as Rebecca’s 15 seconds of infamy faded away, I worked tirelessly to resurrect it. I showed Brock’s Dub to everyone I knew.

“MY HAND IS A DOLPHIN!” I bellowed originally. My friends found it equally hilarious, I’m sure, so I continued to mock the video.

But the fact of it was, I was always mainly mocking the video itself. My hatred was never aimed at the girl involved; I assumed she was likely just a 13-year-old who had been sucked into the collective p-trips of her parents and that excruciatingly talented producer/rapper whose name I am too disgusted to Google. We’ll just call him Fat Usher.

So as I mocked and lawled and gleefully took part in the collective national destruction of Rebecca Black, I did it with my true hatred directed at the adults who had put poor Rebecca in that position. As her Good Morning America appearance demonstrated, while she is outrageously far from being a professional-caliber singer, her voice is not THAT horrendous. Anyone would sound less than prime while belting out the lines “my friend is by my right, heyyyy.”

Kids these days...

Yet today I regret that I did any of it. Even though I meant only to emotionally cripple her parents and Fat Usher — who I know were listening to my every critique, lips trembling — I must admit that I have contributed to the bullying of an adolescent girl from another state. And I had promised myself I would stop doing that.

That bullying culminated this week in the news that Rebecca was leaving her school and being home schooled due to the incessant teasing by her schoolmates.

This, my friends, is too far. If we have become a nation where untalented little children can’t spend thousands of dollars on music videos, post them on the YouTubez in the hopes of getting famous, and go on a nationwide tour of talk and morning shows without being teased by their peers, then we have lost all that makes America great! This kind of mean-spirited behavior is probably why Pippa Middleton is still British.

And I know what you’re thinking: “But Rebecca Black got to touch Katy Perry!” And while this is certainly true, it doesn’t mean that she isn’t still capable of having feelings. Russell Brand probably touches Katy Perry often, and it’s hard to imagine a world in which he doesn’t cry himself to sleep every night.

So, cut the crap America. Specifically, cut the crap you students of Rebecca Black’s school. There’s a fine line between good-heinous and bad-heinous, and those kids just obliterated the line like Michele Bachmann obliterates the line between hot and terrifying on a daily basis.

Amateur attempt at photoshopping with spare "bullying a 13-year-old time"

There are plenty of other things to do in life besides bully Rebecca Black. Like Photoshopping yourself into photos you weren’t originally in! Or tweeting with the hashtag #replacebandnameswithpancakes! Or listening to Demi Levato’s new song “Skyscraper”…you can just feel the pain in her voice.

But the bottom line is this: go live your lives Sherman Ave readers. Live them well and heinously. And for Yahweh’s sake, LEAVE REBECCA BLACK ALONE.