Trani’s underground tunnel, invisible writers and the hunt for circulation

Bob,

It’s about 10 a.m. Tuesday and I’m appalled that Eugene P. Trani is opening school today. No, I’m not a slacker that doesn’t want to go to class. I live in the fan and let me tell ya, the roads bite right now! They’re a sheet of ice! Does he have a warm underground tunnel to take him to campus?

Snowbunny

I am glad you asked. It would indeed seem the our glorious president has a secret underground tunnel to take him around campus. In fact, he has build an entire subterranean bunker system to protect himself and his trusted advisers from ice, snow, rain and possible terrorist attacks.

He also has built an increasingly huge pile of duct tape and plastic. In a recent report from a secret (and made up) source, Trani was seen buying all the duct tape in Richmond. This may explain why you were unable to find any to protect yourselves from the terrorist threat.

You see, Trani’s car also is equipped with 6-inch metal spikes to help him stay on the road even while the rest of us battle our way to class. Just to make sure he understands the entire course of getting to class, let’s go through the routine.

First, you have to unearth your car from the icy shell that has encompassed it. This requires a team of ice-melting elves with flame throwers, or at least a really big scraper and 10-15 minutes to let your defroster defrost enough of the ice so you can chisel off the rest.

After that, you can venture out onto a road that may or may not be cleared, or plowed or even thought of by the lovely Richmond area plows. Assuming you can make it out of your driveway and onto a road and you can make it down that road without being run off by a psycho in an SUV.

After that, you reach the arctic wilderness of campus. Now, the real fun begins with the great game we call parking. You need to find a place without a 4-foot impenetrable wall of snow to place your car where it will not stick out into the roadway and block an entire lane. (It seemed this was completely viewed as optional for some of you.) If you found a safe place to park, you finally traipsed into class, after being splashed by those same SUV drivers zooming through that lake at the corner of Harrison and Main, and you were greeted by a sign stating that class had been canceled.

But remember, as you are nursing your wounds from the day, and retelling your tales on Web logs or diaries or on the phone (probably a cell phone as you drive home), that Trani has his underground tunnels and a fleet of snow immune cars. He is unconcerned.

Where have all the writers gone?

It seems that after last semester, anyone with the ability to write, has graduated, transferred or fled the campus screaming into the darkness of the Richmond landscape. Why is this? Why is it that last semester people read and enjoyed Bob and there was always a full mailbox awaiting me as I checked for new questions. Now, there is scarcely enough to keep me going.

Sometimes I think no one reads this anymore and I am just wasting my time writing to you, trying to amuse and entertain you each week. I hope that is not true, but the evidence seems to point in that direction.

However, I have the solution… budget cuts. Due to budgets cuts, chalk and paper on campus is scarce. Trani has underground tunnels for easy passage across the icy land. However, of all the casualties mentioned since we began talking about and worrying about how the budget cuts would affect us, we have overlooked the ability of our colleagues to write to their local newspaper.

Punchline is down and out for the time being, yet The Commonwealth Times remains. The small overworked, underpaid band of misfits that assemble this paper twice a week work their fingers to the bone creating a paper that so few know of and even more use as lining for their bird cages. (Bob Note: I endorse using the CT as bird cage lining because it means someone or something is getting use from the paper, but please try to read parts of it before condemning it to bird cage lining.)

So next time you sit and ponder a question that you are curious about, something you simply cannot understand or even something you know and want to test my knowledge on, send it in. Please direct your questions to ctvcu@hotmail.com and of course, do not forget to read The Commonwealth Times online, if you cannot find a print edition at www.commonwealthtimes.com.

Also, keep in mind that we are still looking for a circulation director. Can’t find a paper on campus? That’s why. We will pay you in cold, hard cash to get newspapers from a shed, pile them onto a hand truck and walk them around campus, leaving piles in different buildings. Then, you can jump into your Batmobile, Popemobile or whatever cute name you have for your car and take the newspapers down to our good friends at the Medical Campus.

They are training to be doctors, they need something to sit in their waiting rooms or apartments so they feel right at home.

You will be the mailperson of The CT. In the rain, sleet, snow and sun you will carry papers around and make sure they get out to the world! Think you are man or woman enough to carry out this ultimately important task? Then march yourself down to the Temple Building, Room 1149 and pick up an application, or even better, walk right in and talk to the fine people there.

Boldly walk in and ask for John, if John is not in, then talk to the first person you encounter and state in a loud, proud voice that you are willing to accept the challenges of being a circulation director! Think you can handle it? Many have tried, many have failed. Can you succeed?

Let us review: You get paid. You have an easy job of taking papers to different buildings and placing them in stacks. We will pay you. Interested yet? I thought so. Call us at 828-1058, e-mail us at ctvcu@hotmail.com or march into our offices and proclaim cheerfully that you are up for the challenge of circulation director.

LINK OF THE DAY!

Raptastic plushies!

www.ruben.fm/format.html

What could be better than plush animals dancing around and rapping? Nothing. See them dance and sing and rap and laugh. Laugh as you have never laughed before. Laugh, because I tell you to.