The Slant vs. The Mayans

December 1, 2009 By

I know what you’re thinking: “Hmmmm….what could a clever little newspaper like the Slant possibly have against the Mesoamerican civilization noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas?”  Well, if you have been around a movie theater lately, you may have heard of a little movie called “2012.”  And, if you have been willing to give up your first born child, you may have been able to afford a ticket to see it.

The movie is based on the ancient Mayan prediction that a series of cataclysmic events will cause the destruction of the world on December 23, 2012.  (SPOILER ALERT) The plot revolves around a divorced couple, their two kids, and the mother’s new boyfriend who mainly serves as the family’s pilot chauffeur before getting conveniently killed off later in the movie.  They miraculously manage to survive the crumbling of Los Angeles, the eruption of Yellowstone, the destruction of Las Vegas, a plane crash in the Himalayas, and massive super tidal waves higher than the Himalayas.  Sounds awesome, right?  Well, let me be the first to inform you that if you expect a dramatic masterpiece, you will be severely disappointed.  Little-to-no character development…several random side plots which eventually converge…predictable ending….you get the picture.  Other than the earth-shattering special effects (literally and figuratively), the movie is a cinematic disaster; however, the entire time, one cannot help but think that it’s all the Mayans fault.  Which comes back to the issue at hand: what’s your beef with the Mayans?

Timing.  That’s what it comes down to.  They could not have picked a worse time to schedule their damn apocalypse.  Two main (alliterative) reasons: Christmas and college.

December 23.  Christmas Eve Eve.  The Mayans must be the Grinch incarnate.  They are literally stealing the Christmas of 2012 away from us.  No Christmas Eve parties.  No Christmas morning.  No satisfaction of unwrapping yet another much needed pair of socks.  No turkey or ham dinner on Christmas day.  The Mayans did away with all of that.  They just want to get everyone’s hopes up for the big Christmas holidays and then promptly dash them on the rocks, much like the tidal waves did in the movie.  Those scoundrels….

However, the biggest travesty of the Mayan apocalypse may be the interruption of college life.  Even though seniors may currently feel like the apocalypse is nigh with exam week coming up, they are, in fact, the lucky ones.  They get to graduate and go on with their lives for a couple more years.  The current freshman and sophomores don’t even get to graduate.  That’s right pre-med people: you will probably have taken organic chem for nothing.  Sucks, right?  All that the current freshman and sophomores will get to show for their efforts will be a degenerate liver and an aversion to sunlight due to interminable hours in libraries.  Special message to current freshman: You will only get five semesters of college partying.  What a travesty!

So thanks for nothing Mayans.  You may have been one of the most advanced Mesoamerican civilizations in history, but you were probably the worst schedulers known to man.  You better watch your backs; we at the Slant are gunning for you……wait, what?  The Spanish conquistadors already beat us to the punch and conquered the entire Mayan civilizaiton in the 16th and 17th centuries? Oh.

Well, don’t even think about coming back, Mayans.  The ConquistaDores are watching….

Filed Under: Articles, Opinion Tagged With:

The Slant VS The Rec

November 15, 2009 By

The Rec center at Vanderbilt is what is wrong with America. There I said it. And yes, I mean the whole thing. Every Wal-Mart filled with obese children. Every Starbucks rife with teenage girls. Every street corner in Middle America littered with Tea-Baggers. All of them can trace their problems back to Vanderbilt’s Rec center. How? Here’s how:

First thing you notice when you walk into the Rec center are the two distinct groups of people coagulated at separate ends of the weight-room. If you don’t notice this, then you are probably part of one of the groups; may God have mercy on your soul.

First off there are the sorority girls. I’m not talking about your average girl that’s pressured to join sorority because if the don’t they’ll be “totally lame”, I’m talking about the hardcore foot-soldiers; the ones who come up with stuff like “D ClDssy Tribute to VeterDns!” and “Theta Loves to Hate Malaria!” You’ll see these ones on the Ellipticals. What is the reasoning behind this? Some of them will tell you it’s because running is too “high impact for my malnourished bones” and the exercise bikes are “all sweaty and junk”. In actuality the only thing the Ellipticals help you do is run through oscillating pits of sand, a challenge few of us will ever face. But hey, 99 problems right?

The second group isn’t connected by any higher organization like a sorority; instead the group itself acts as the binding force. These people love doing curls. Never mind that your body has many other more important muscles that you could be developing, everyone with half-a-brain knows curls are all that matters. This perception is bolstered by the fact that the girls who use the Ellipticals sometimes look to mate with guys who can lift heavy things from their waist to their shoulders, only using their arms. This is also how the choosing of a mate works in many isolated villages in Central Africa, the Amazon, and rural Kentucky.

Meanwhile, the people who actually know what they are doing have to wade through all these people. However, this is not the fault of either of the two aforementioned groups; the onus for that mistake lies on the shoulders of the university. In the construction of the facilities they seemed to forget that around 6000 undergraduates are enrolled at any given moment. This makes their choice to make the weight-room of comparable size to that of its high school counterpart, interesting.

Now, after all that, you would think that the Rec would finally get its act together when it came to the Intra-Mural leagues. Unfortunately for all of us, thinking this would be a colossal mistake. The scheduling and re-scheduling of games seems to be completely incongruous. “Oh you can’t play 1:30 pm on Mondays? Class? Ok, we’ll move your game to 5 am Tuesday then. Sleep? No problem, we’ll just move it to 8 am Sunday. Church? Well, you’ll have to forfeit then. By the way, you owe us forty dollars for joining the league, thanks”.

In closing, the Rec Center could use a little attitude change. I don’t know how it has contributed to the ills of American society. Sure, I could go for some metaphor that The Rec represents our moral and cultural deficiencies, and that such a tenuous metaphor the best evidence any of us will ever muster in our chaotic and materialistic lives, but that would take too much time. So here’s to you Rec center, thanks for giving the Slant a new enemy; I’d watch your back…

Filed Under: Articles, Opinion Tagged With: ,

The Slant VS The Slant

October 25, 2009 By

“The Slant V.S.” is where the staff of The Slant, or more accurately me, decides to channel all their unfettered hatred in their lives toward one unsuspecting victim.  This is “The Slant V.S.”

The Slant V.S….The Slant

 

Be honest.  You didn’t see that one coming.  Unless you looked down here before reading the preface.  In that case, 1. Learn how to read, and 2. You’re next.

The Slant…jeez where to start…I mean you’d think we’d give a little slack to one thing at this school that puts out a good product?  Why make fun of ourselves when The Hustler and Rand provide enough typo and diarrhea laden quips to last a lifetime?  Here’s why: Read one of our issues.  I’m talking the whole thing.  Chances are you never heard a group of people so self-righteous in your life.  Who are we to pass judgment on the student body of Vanderbilt?  If you answered “clique of wannabe indie-hipsters, “individuals”, and sarcastic assholes”, then yea, you got it right.  GREAT WORK.  You’ve probably seen some of us, walking to class, with our moccasins and flannel shirts, listening to Arcade Fire on our Zunes.  Those would be the aforementioned wannabe indie-hipsters.  The “individuals” can be spotted easily by whether or not they own a black Northface.  The sarcastic assholes are the hardest to spot.  Usually you have to talk to them.  If you have a conversation with a seemingly normal person and you say to yourself “what a derisive jackass” afterward, you probably just had a conversation with a member of the Slant.  Congrats.

Our meetings consist of this curious amalgam of people trying to come up with something original for 45 minutes before falling back on the all-to-easy HOD/Greek Life/H1N1/ whatever was on Digg that day, jokes.  And trust me…its easy.  Like kicking a seal in its adorable face, easy.

So why would such a group of Vanderbilt-loathing people stay at Vanderbilt? 

Without an outlet for our ridicule how would we inflate our sense of importance?  If we were at a school where everything was perfect we wouldn’t be “kind of funny” or “unique” or even “interesting”, we’d just be dicks.  So yea, we’re kind of like social masochists but we have Vanderbilt to thank for that.  And trust me, we’re thankful.

Thank you for closing dining halls for half the week.

Thank you for running a QB draw five times in a row.

Thank you for extorting money from us whenever we need books.

Thank you for setting up more tents than Kublai Kahn himself.

Thanks for all the material Vanderbilt.

-Zach Wright

Filed Under: Articles, Opinion Tagged With: ,