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This page is satire. All names are made up, except in cases when public figures are being satirized. Other use of real names is accidental unless otherwise noted.
Questions? comments? Contact Lucas Wetzel at 864-4810 or beak@kansan.com
TONGUEINBEAK
WWW.KANSAN.COM/SATIRE
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2003
Parking department tows student
By Lars Falkenberg
beak@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
The University of Kansas ticketed and subsequently towed a student found illegally parked behind Strong Hall earlier this week.
The student, initially believed to be a corpse and later identified as Erica Halverson, was removed from lot 3 at 10:28 Monday morning after a reportedly aghast administrator called parking officials to complain that somebody was in his spot.
"At first, we didn't think anything of it," said Donna Hultine, assistant director of parking services. "It's pretty normal for administrators to sound shaky-voiced when someone takes their spot. Understandably so. What we didn't realize is that when he said 'somebody,' he literally meant some body."
photo by Spencer Roberts/Kansan
The macabre cavalcade was halfway to the A&M Towing company headquarters when alarmed motorists noticed that the body being dragged appeared to be alive. When a medical emergency crew intercepted the truck at Sixth and Kentucky Streets, they found a young woman flailing her arms and yelling in apparent protest.
Halverson, Oskaloosa freshman, was rushed to Lawrence Memorial Hospital, where she was pronounced in good condition. Examiners said heavy winter clothing protected Halverson from what would otherwise have been nasty cuts and bruises.
Halverson said she had been waiting for an appointment at the Freshman/Sophomore advising center when she decided to take a nap behind the building.
"One minute I was sleeping peacefully against a snowbank, and the next I'm being hitched up to a tow truck," said a calm but irritated Halverson. "I kept asking the man not to tow me but he just said, 'orders is orders.'"
At the A&M Towing Company shack, the atmosphere was decidedly grim. The silence around veteran employee Terry Wilson's desk was only broken by periodic dispatches from other trucks.
"I'll be honest with you," said Wilson finally. "This doesn't look good for us. Not at all. And to top it off, I'm not even sure if you're telling the truth. My wife read what you printed last week about the wizard. Now she won't leave the house. She hates wizards. Scared to death of them. Shame on you. Shame on us both."
In perhaps the most brutal corpse-dragging since the battle of Troy, an A&M Towing Company truck drags KU student Erica Halverson away from the administrative parking spot where she illegally slept. Despite an emotional bruising, Halverson said she didn't hold any hard feelings. "Everybody makes mistakes," she said. "But I wouldn't mind if they bought me a new sweater."
Wilson said the employee who towed Halverson had perhaps mistaken her for an automobile.
"You have to understand, we tow 45, sometimes 400 vehicles a
day," he said. "No two cars look alike."
Hultine said that even though there was no official policy for students found sleeping in restricted zones, they were expected to follow the same rules as vehicles.
"Hmmm," Hultine said. "I suppose we could set up a parking pass, you know, for vagrants or cadavers or what have you. Sell them for 115 bucks a pop. Matter of fact, that's not a bad idea."
Speaking on behalf of the university, director of University Relations Lynne Bretz called the incident "a shame."
"Anytime you have a live student hooked up to a trailer hitch paid for by University funds, that's regrettable," she said. "You hate to see that."
Message from hacker intercepted
Tongue-in-Beak received a message yesterday believed to be tied to the University's hacker investigation when someone claiming to be BubblezQT sent a coded message to beak@kansen.com. The e-mail was immediately turned over to authorities, who came up with a composite sketch of the subject. The message is, as follows:
d34r FB1 & KU 10s3rs
I be the h4x09ing while j00 100k3d at t3h pr0n!
1 h4x0r3d j00r C0mpUt4r, j00 sUx0r!
1 own j00!! 1 am t3h l33t3st H4XOR!
I gotz da warez and you got nuttin!
composite sketch of hacker
j00 w1ll n3var ca7ch m3! I am teh win! y0u police = teh sux!
cya lat3r l0sars! ROFL!
xXx-bubblezQt-xXx-
-Mandalee Meisner
squirrel
Rosen Rosen ruins Columbia House
Bv Jeff Akin
beak@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
After three years of intensive pursuit, the Columbia House Music Club and U.S. Dept. of Aliases and Pseudonyms (USDAP) has ceased its search for Señor F.U. Rosen Rosen PhD., supposed Lawrence resident and world-renowned compact disc-scammer. The charges against Sr. Rosen Rosen stemmed from December 1996 when he officially defaulted on an agreement with Columbia House to "purchase only 2 more CDs at the everyday low club price," after he had received 8 CDs for 1 cent.
Columbia House spokesperson Hewey Luis says that the company is nearing bankruptcy due to an inordinate amount of past due accounts and alleged scammery.
"Sr. Rosen Rosen was going to be an example that you couldn't screw the music club," Luis said. he said. "We were not conceived as a musical soup kitchen passing out warm bowls of John Cougar Mellencamp with fresh-baked Wilson-Philips for free. But thanks to criminals such as Sr. Rosen Rosen, that's what we've become."
After several more orders emerged from the same address in Lawrence, Columbia House realized that Sr. Rosen Rosen may be using several aliases to acquire free CDs. Don Dalripple, USDAP assistant secretary, began investigating such claims late in 1999 and released a list of SR. Rosen Rosen's aliases: Smelly McSmellypants, Dr. James T. Boob, Hairy S. Truman, among many others unfit for print.
"During the past 10 years we've shipped~under the honor system~over 25 million CDs to our members. In return, we've received compliance from only 8 people. Maybe we should have asked for credit card information. Maybe we should have asked for social security numbers. Maybe I should have been a writer or an artist. Maybe I should have married my college sweetheart, Angela. Anyway you cut it, people like Sr. Rosen Rosen have ruined my life."
"We believe that Rosen Rosen used these aliases to acquire a rather extensive library of 1980's ballad rock, in total we believe he has obtained nearly 8000 CDs for the low, low price of $10," Luis said.
Due to increasing financial woes attributed to scammery, Columbia House will abandon its Music Club division later this year. In an official statement from the club, Luis spoke of the company's trouble:
Earlier this week Sr. Rosen Rosen left a voice-mail with the Tongue-in-Beak in an attempt to clarify the charges made against him and any misconceptions about his music collection:
"First of all, I'm not that into 80's ballad rock. I ordered a little White Snake, Scorpions, and Night Ranger: Live at Worlds of Fun. But I also ordered a lot of other stuff, like DMB, REO, ELO, REM and Jock Jams Vol. 8, you know, for when I lift. Secondly, the Scorpions are a lot better than people give them credit for. Thirdly, I'm not a criminal. Unless driving through campus in my '86 firebird listing to Billy Squire, Journey, Foreigner, or whatever happens to be in my tape-adapted CD player is illegal. Peace out, mother truckers."