The Wandering Classicist, Part I

Editor's note: I'm out of ideas for actual articles, so I'm trying something here. Is it any good?
(Probably not.) 

~~~

The Wandering Classicist,

- or - 

The History of The World

(And yea! all that be upon it)

As elucidated by Fiends of Olde

("Because it's not old without the 'e'.")

  ~~~

Part I: Beer with Gilgamesh

The weirdo was building a boat.

"It's an ark," he insisted. Hardly the point, I thought.

___

In case you've never visited the city-states of Sumer (and you should! It's a party there!), there's probably one thing you should know. It's flat there. Flat and dry. A boat (or ark, or whatever) is about as useful there as, say, a gangsta-rapper. In other words, not at all.

___

I mentioned it over the beer that night. It's about the high point of Sumerian technology. We could make beer. (Actually, the high points of Sumerian technology were probably writing and the wheel. But we preferred the beer. Wouldn't you?)

The guys all knew what was up with boats in the desert at once. They introduced me to some guy called Gilgamesh.

I'll spare you what he said. Y'all know exactly what's up with the boat-dude. Or at least you will, if I mention that his name was Noah. Apparently, Gilgamesh is one of those hero types who has nothing better to do than talk about the gods that he's killed and/or* slept with - and he's well accomplished enough that he can drag that on for hours and actually make it boring. (In my life, I've met far too many of these guys.) And apparently, Gilgamesh got into a Flood situation of sorts himself a while back.

___

None of my Sumerian drinking buddies are worried, but they're just stupid. I'm not worried either. I don't die easy. You see, I'm not exactly human. I'm the Wandering Classicist. I was around when the universe was created (no, I can't tell you how. I promised.) and I'll be around when it ends. In the meantime, it's my job to gather classiness and information about classiness from every civilization in history (except the ones that aren't on Earth. I've got coworkers for that). Of course, there's not much classiness going on on Earth just now, so it's either get drunk in Sumer or research the first Emperors of China. I chose the beer. Can you blame me?

___

So anyway, to make a long story short, it started raining. For forty days and forty nights. I was pretty wet, and, like most people, I prefer breathing to not breathing, but, unlike most people, it doesn't make much of a difference to me biologically. It's more of a comfort thing.

It really wasn't all that bad. There was plenty to drink (of course) and plenty of animal corpses to eat. There wasn't any beer, unfortunately, but so it goes.

~~~

Join us in the future

For the second Installment

- of -

The Wandering Classicist

___

*: Usually "or," not "and." Gilgamesh isn't really into killing people and then sleeping with them.

MANSWERS: The most terrifying "holy crap is that actually a show?" show since the advent of vh1 reality

Ever wondered how to guarantee tapping it from the back? How about how fat you have to be to stop a bullet from killing you? Of course you have! And if not, the fine men at MANSWERS have done it for you!
Armed with statistics taken from college campuses(duh) the angry voice on MANSWERS yells the answers to all the mysteries of the universe ranging from the practical( How to best kick the crap out of somebody or how to get rid of a boner quickly), to the weird (how fast will a kilo of cocaine kill somebody on a plane), to the slightly disturbing (Which animal has the "fullest tank").
The answers range from the simple (ten minutes for the cokehead to croak), the surprising but effective (a cold beer under the erection) to extremely disturbing revelations revealed by people as respected as medical proffesionals and disturbing as people who bang their cars. They exist. It's terrifying.
In short, MANSWERS is the most informative show, if you're into finding out really really creepy things that you may or may not ever considering make use of (a ringtone that increases breast size over ten days).

The Evils of Morning Radio

Fine readers of NOTR, there is a continuing injustice in this world that can no longer be tolerated. No, it is not the career of Miley Cyrus. No, it is not the nightime programming of SPIKE TV. This injustice is the music or, more accurately, the lack of on morning radio.
Why do people listen to music radio stations? duh- listen to music, be it Arash, Taylor Swift, or Lil' Wayne. But not Dream Theater. They're never on the radio.
What morning radio has done, however, is to take the few precious minutes not taken up by commercials and, rather than dedicating those moments to the music without which the radio station could not exist, give those moments to "radio show hosts" who talk about stuff nobody really cares about because the listeners are tuning in for music- not to hear what some chode had for breakfast or did on new years. the madness has to stop.

This is getting annoying

Does anyone actually read this? 'Cause all I know is that I (and perhaps once a month Shatzmaster3000 and perhaps once every 3 months WickedJumbo) am pretty much the only one posting here. It's getting annoying. I don't mind being a big part of this, if no one else wants the responsibility, but I do mind being the only one who's ever writing stuff here.

So here's the deal:

1. I continue programing the Arash game, because I'm cool like that. (I know, it doesn't work for some of you, and some of you don't see the bicycle. I'm working on it...)
2. I stop writing articles here.
3. People post articles (if they're already contributors to the blog. If they aren't contributors, they can send an email to askthetuber@gmail.com ; we will arrange it so that any articles contained in that email are published, and, if you want, the sender of the email will be added as a contributor).
4. For every article someone else posts, I'll post an article of my own.

There. That's a pretty good deal. I'm still doing more than half the work...
But until someone else posts/sends something, I'm on strike.

If you don't really care about the News of the Roundtable, we can end it here. But if you do care, it's time to work a little for it.

Happy Roundtable Friday. Make it a good one.

Nobody Expects Josh P――― Day!

Editor's Note: Posted an hour before Friday officially starts. I'm going to get to bed early. Also, be sure to check out the prototype Arash: Flying Bicycle game, below.

Nobody expects Josh P――― Day!

(Its chief weapon is surprise... surprise and fear... Amongst its weaponry are such diverse elements as surprise, fear, nice red uniforms, and lack of fanatical devotion to the Pope... heh - that's a Monty Python reference, folks. Did I really need to tell you?)

Although his last name may have been censored to avoid cyberbullying, Fiends of the Roundtable surely know of this man's heroic quest to enter the greatest (or so he thinks) college in the history of this universe. (Although I'm told that the RCC two universes over might give it a run for its money.) I am speaking, of course, of the great and grand, awesome and amazing, cool and classy, blessed and bloated Cornell University.

Mr. P――― had always dreamed of going to Cornell University. He yearned to go to Cornell University. He dreamed of yearning to go to Cornell University.


And on December 11, 2008, exactly one year ago from today, Mr. P――― was admitted to that amazing school whose name I shall not repeat because I would have to put it in extra large letters and that would cause formatting problems.

But anyway. One year ago was the first ever Josh P――― Day. Today is the second one. Don't you feel special living through such a momentous occasion?

Some naysayers might claim that Josh P――― Day is unclassy, and should not be included on this most classy of blogs/online versions of fake newspapers. They are wrong. First of all, Cornell University is so special and classy that it automatically comes out in big letters. Fairless Dickinson University doesn't. Columbia University certainly doesn't. Only Cornell University is classy enough for that. The font size proves it. (Don't even get me started on John's 'Hopkin' Univeristy...)

Second, just think about Mr. P―――. Pretty classy guy, eh? Sure, he didn't write for the News of the Roundtable, but then again, neither did Archibald MacLeish. (Perhaps for completely different reasons, but, hey...)

Third, well, there is a third reason, but I'm not sure what.

Happy Josh P――― Day!

Arash: Flying Bicycle

UPDATE/NOTE: For mysterious reasons, the game does not display properly on computers running Windows. An investigation has been put in place...

During a recent conversation, our dear friend, the Master of Shatz, reminded me that no one actually believed that our up-and-coming online game, Arash: Flying Bicycle, would actually be made.

Well, my friends and fiends, perhaps you should believe.

After the link below, you will find yourself inside of a miraculous new online world filled with Arash, A Flying Bicycle, and various other classy things.

Said online world is actually kind of ugly as of now, and almost all of the classy things have not yet been implemented (including Arash himself), but the flying bicycle is there. And it is waiting...

...for you.

This is not an April Fool's joke. This is not a December Fools joke. This is not a BurningBush Thursday Fools joke.

This is as real as it gets.

Well, not quite yet. I haven't even programmed in the car (full of hot girls, of course) that you're supposed to catch, yet, so there's no way to actually win. I haven't even stopped that really annoying flickering.

But it has begun. And now, I have the honor of presenting you with: Arash: Flying Bicycle.

The bicycle awaits...

Movie Review: Fiend Girls!

The world has experienced some tragic disappointments over the years. The epic collapse of the Mets franchise, the dominance of Philadelphia over New York(the teams that matter, anyway), the rejection of the entire current and former staff of NOTR from so-called "Ivy League" universities, the last Guns N' Roses album, the new season of How I Met Your Mother, and the very unclassy and untimely death of Patrick Swayze(may he rest in peace. Amen.). All of these were tragedies, some more so than others. However, the recent release of the short independent fil "Fiend Girls" rivals all of them in the heartbreaking disappointment it causes in its audience.
Not since the release of the epic masterpiece "The Rise and Fall of the Nazi Dinosaurs" has NOTR seen fit to write a movie review. But while "The Rise and Fall of the Nazi Dinosaurs" is an uplifting and emotional work of art, "Fiend Girls" deserves mention for being almost as disappointing as the New York Mets.
Much like the Mets, "Fiend Girls" looks like it could be something special. Where the Mets have Johan Santana, "Fiend Girls" has the word "Fiend" in the title. Where the Mets have Jose Reyes, "Fiend Girls" has the presence of a unibrow. However, as we all know, Santana and Reyes got hurt and the Mets are starting to resemble the New York Knicks in futility. Despite the great potential inherent in its most basic elements, "Fiend Girls" fails to deliver.
Clearly the creators of this film have no respect for the sanctity of unibrows or fiends. The girls depicted in this film are no more deserving of the term fiend than a certain Fraudmaster who shall remain nameless. This disrespect has brought the film close to the vh1 level in terms of unclassiness, and everybody involved deserves nothing less than a donkey punch on a boat in the middle of nowhere.
The film goes wrong even in the aspects that seem unimportant. "Fiend Girls" was meant to be a spoof of the film "Mean Girls" with a similar message: "coolness is what you think it is". Well, everybody knows that classiness is the coolest attribute possible. Plus, the unibrowed girl playing the part of Lindsay Lohan more closely resembles the post-crack whore version of said actress than the hot version that appears in "Mean Girls"
In short, this film is the greatest disappointment since the establishment of New Jersey. Clearly these filmmakers had no idea what sacred mythology they were toying with and created an abomination of Frankenstein-esque proportions. As such, NOTR is instituting a moment of silence to commemorate the classiness lost by the creation of this film. Amen.