On Friday afternoon, a text message (followed by an e-mail and a phone call) put my mind at ease. The UPenn Alert system was fully functioning.

The Penn Police have taken a giant leap into the 21st century. They plan to text us if there is a campus emergency. This is wise, as our generation invented the text message break-up. The new strategy is also convenient: now I don’t even have to take out my earphones to know that there’s a shooting rampage.

So, the new alert system got me thinking about all the ways my life at Penn would be easier if the University sent text notifications for more than just violent emergencies. Here are a few examples:

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Yesterday I saw a girl. I did a double take, and then I grilled her. I figured that she was wearing a bright orange miniskirt and a blue cutoff halter because she’s a pledge. No one would wear that by choice.

Speaking of, today marks the end of “hell week.” I’m not even pledging and I’ll breathe a sigh of relief. I’m just disgusted by the entire pledging process. It’s uncomfortable.

I’ve seen a large man wearing cutoff shorts and a pink paperboy hat. I’ve seen Tabards cry; we’ve all seen them “lounging” on tarp on College Green. I’ve witnessed a really pretty preppy boy with a box tapped to his back. His task was to carry sandwiches from Gia (metro frat…) and blush all the way home.

A few days ago, SAE pledges were standing on a ledge and screaming a song about “dick sucking.” They yelled in my ear as a friend and I passed by. Please boys, bitch about your life devoid of blowjobs in private. I see you in your ill-fitting blazers, khakis, and loafers, and the last thing I want is your penis near me.

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For admissions officers, application review season (currently underway) is the most fun time of the year. But according to a recent DP article, some of this year’s admissions essays look as if they’ve been plagiarized or even written by counselors and parents — and that’s not “authentic.”

First of all, it astonishes me that people still want to attend this university — what with its killer hawks, rampant anarchists and sofa-less male bathrooms. But on the other hand, I sympathize with this brand new batch of Penn hopefuls, and I want to help them and future generations with the intimidating task of writing a college essay.

In that light, I’ve gathered some of the best tips from EssayEdge.com — The NY Times’ top-rated college essay site — and reinterpreted them below without all the academic jargon. If I can help just one Harvard reject make it into Penn, my job is complete.

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The Daily Pennsylvanian recently reported that Harvard University proposes to enforce women’s only gym hours (about six hours a week) up in Cambridge. In the words of my namesake and hero, Eric Cartman, that is total and utter “bullcrap!“.

Exactly why is it that women get this treatment? For those of you following Islamic law, as stated in the article, I can understand. My solution would be a separate room within the gym, rather than banning all men from the gym. That’s how they do it in predominantly Muslim countries, anyway.

But what about the rest of you??? Would you like to dress even less appropriately? Can you not stand the idea of a penis being within five hundred yards of an elliptical machine? Do you think we men care if you look your best when working out? If you do not like us staring (which we shouldn’t), then I suggest a pair of sweatpants and not skin-tight, arse-hugging, lycra, look-at-me short-shorts.

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A study called “Booksthatmakeyoudumb” has been making the rounds, and I finally took the time to check it out. Created by one Virgil Griffith, it claims to map the correlation between one’s favorite books and one’s intelligence. According to “Booksthatmakeyoudumb,” the “smartest” book out there is Nabokov’s Lolita (it’s about white people), and the “dumbest” is Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (it’s about black people).

A closer look shows that of the “stupidest” 10 books, 8 are written by African-Americans. Naturally, this raises some serious questions about race and intelligence. It’s unfortunate that Griffith refuses to address them. But it’s unforgivable that his method actually invents them…

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Last Friday, The New York Times publicized some frightening information: 1 out of every 100 American adults is currently incarcerated.

The report, conducted by the Pew Center on the States, asserts that 1.6 million adults are in federal prisons and an additional 700,000 are thumb-twiddling in local jails. The United States boasts the largest population of imprisoned people worldwide; China is second on the list.

When did going to prison become as common as a trip to Acapulco?

But the more I thought about it, the easier it was to put these figures into context.

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I would just like to begin by pointing and laughing at those who were reportedly in line at 6:45 a.m. for Clinton tickets (box office opened at ten). I turned up at 9:50 and, though the line was very long, was in possession of my ticket a mere five minutes after the Clintonettes (as I shall call his most hardcore fans).

Security was tight (ish). It was both fascinating and exciting to the see the Secret Service agents doing their duties. I’d never seen any of them before, and I guess my life isn’t that different now I have.

And he was late. Boy was he late. Though not the President any more, Bill Clinton managed to live up to the “Clinton Standard Time” reputation we all know him for.

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A new student group has emerged on the Villanova campus: the Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. The SCCC (which I hope is pronounced “sick-kuh-kuh”) is an umbrella organization that boasts nearly 20,000 students on 500 campuses nationwide. In the wake of the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois school shootings, they are fighting for the right for students to carry concealed weapons on their college campuses.

Their argument is simple: if granted proper permits, students should be allowed to protect themselves against would-be shooters.In the Inquirer article, Ken Stanton, a graduate student at Virginia Tech, compared wearing a seat belt to carrying a concealed weapon. He said, “It’s the same reason we wear seat belts - we just don’t know when something is going to happen.”

With great respect to Mr. Stanton, I’m not aware of too many seat belt massacres and, typically, a lengthy background check is not necessary to acquire a seat belt. (more…)

It’s March, which means it’s not February, which means FebClub is over. As promised, here are my thoughts on the second half of the month. After receiving some Class Board death threats feedback that my “Good, Bad, and Ugly” categorization was too negative, I’m switching things up to “Great, Pretty Good, and Nice Try!”

It should also be noted that my participation kind of flagged towards the end. I finished with 20 stamps, putting me shy of the much-coveted Class of ‘08 beer stein. So if there was a particularly great or awful event that I missed, let me know. Anyway, here it goes…

The Great: If Dave & Busters is the STD-riddled skank who makes the rounds in your neighborhood, then University Pinball is the unnoticed shy girl living next door who would be really popular if people took the time to get to know her. This is an old-school arcade. They’ve got air hockey, pool, three pinball machines, the Simpsons, Soul Calibur II, Tekken 5, Mortal Kombat 3, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Area 51, and plenty of other games. The machines take quarters, not credit cards. And best of all, Class Board actually threw their weight around for once and made the event a “Free Play” night. But I’ll definitely be back even if it means dropping $5 to beat the Mothership…

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Most of us remember those lengthy, impressively pointless “career tests” we had to take in our junior year of high school. They would ask simple questions — like “Do you enjoy laying bricks?” — and then predict a potential career for the respondent if he said “yes.” (My guess: a bricklayer.) Some would even ask more difficult and philosophical questions — like “Do you have a soul?” — and predict a good-fit college for a “yes” answer. (My guess: Wharton.)

But as fun as those tests were, it turns out that many high schoolers more or less ignore them. (And have a whole different understanding of the phrase “to get tested.”) This report, for example, explains that only half of teenage students actually seek out career counseling, and those who do don’t find it particularly effective.

That said, I’m not trying to say that high school guidance counselors — even the worst of ‘em — are totally hopeless. Perhaps Stephen Colbert said it best in I Am American (And So Can You!):

“A guidance counselor [wonders], ‘If I’m so good at finding careers, how did I end up with this one?’”

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