Monday, December 8, 2008

Ask Liz about the new addition

SIGH. Some of us never learn...

Monday, December 1, 2008

Still pissed about the game


Ok, so I am still extremely bitter about the BYU/U game. It was only the biggest game ever in the history of the rivalry, and Max Hall threw it away, literally. He is supposed to be the strength of the team and he totally gave the game away. This is in the top 2 for worst losses for teams I cheer for. The other is the Raiders losing the Super Bowl a few years ago in similar fashion. Both make me want to vomit and break stuff. Anyway, in honor of this total piss-off, I submit this Ute Catalog that I created after last year's game. I did some updating, but mostly it is the original.




University of Utah
Class Catalog

Welcome students. All of you can stop whining about not getting into BYU. This is a fine institution of higher learning, and we have a great medical school. Hey, I said STOP WHINING. Get over it, you’re here now. Make the most of it. As incoming freshmen, you have a ready-made schedule, courtesy of the counseling staff. It will help you become true Utes. Good luck in your quest to find out who you are and what you lay down, I mean, what you stand for. You will find a brief class description and some former students’ commentary blended together to help pump you up. Again, welcome and good luck.

Schedule
Social Studies 312: Advanced Poor Sportsmanship- Don’t be afraid of this being an upper level (lower level according to good sports) class. This is required of all freshmen. Your prerequisite is simply being a Ute fan. There is no time for introductory or second year courses in one of the most important Ute traditions. No one teaches poor sportsmanship like the U of U. Utes lose badly, but often win worse. Trash-talking is actually worse after a loss, but then many things don’t make sense up here on the hill. Refusing to lose is a good thing; refusing to acknowledge when you have already lost is not. In this class you will learn how to jump ship, get off the bandwagon, and then do a complete about face and proclaim your team the dominant force in the conference. You will learn the proper techniques for whining about the coach, calling for his removal, his assistants removal, and how to completely deify him after a win or two. You will learn how to make ridiculous predictions based on shaky research, and how to boast about the upcoming conference title (even in those years you don’t have a realistic chance of winning it). You will learn how to blame the referees for everything. It doesn’t matter than the refs aren’t the ones dropping coverage on last ditch, need-a-miracle plays that shouldn’t have a prayer of succeeding. It also doesn’t matter that they aren’t the ones throwing interceptions in the red zone, not making a tackle on an 11 yard touchdown run, and not backing up their trash talk from the preceding week. We can blame everything on them. You will learn to make other lame excuses such as saying the other team got lucky (when they dominated every facet of the game), we had injuries (even though everyone has them), and totally discount that we were lucky to be in the game at all.

Sociology 101: Identifying the Father/Orientation and Survival Tips- This class is a split class. If you are female you will take the Identifying the Father section. This class will help you learn important information on DNA testing, memory and recall, and safe partying so you can avoid making this mistake again and again. This class will also teach preventive measures, such as the buddy system, sipping instead of gulping, how to seem not so easy, and a few key self-defense moves. For the males, you will learn the quickest routes to class, so you aren’t more than 10 minutes late, how to cheat, I mean, study properly for tests, and places you can take a nap or ditch the evidence. You will learn valuable pick up lines, and get maps of the local hot spots. Both men and women will learn information about the Greek societies so they can make educated decisions on which fraternity/sorority to join, thus ensuring many painful mornings nursing your hangover.

English 117: Profanity and Hate Speech- This is an honors course, but you all qualify. This is similar to your social studies class, but is more about what you can say, write and otherwise communicate in somewhat proper English. Most freshmen fail the English part, but excel at the spewing hateful blather part. This is where you learn the art of using words to show what an obnoxious fan you can be. This is the class that teaches you to call those hated BYU fans the worst fans in the world, but secretly admit no one is worse than us. This is where we call everyone else classless, but learn things like running up the score, giving no credit where credit is due, and name calling. You will learn the meanings of the words and how to use them, but the fun part of this class is twisting them for your own purposes. The profanity section is excellent. You will learn new and exciting ways to string together various profanity words. You will learn how to teach that little Zoobie fan a thing or two about the F-word. You will learn how to coherently swear even when drunk or worse. It gets even better when we get into the anti-Mormon section.
The U realizes that a huge percentage of its students are Mormon, but this doesn’t get in the way of this nationally protected form of hate. Drunken Utes have long profaned and persecuted Mormons from the school down South, while their Mormon comrades in red have turned a deaf ear. This section will teach you how to either do the taunting or be duplicitous in your faith. You will learn how to brag about many apostles attending the U while at the same time tolerating and maybe even encouraging hate-mongering directed at the fans in blue. Long held favorites are examined such as “F- you, BYU” and dumping beer on Zoobie cheerleaders. You will also learn the proper use of statements like “you are exactly why everyone hates BYU,” while subtly or not so subtly showing why everyone is hating the U more and more. We will show you how to make stupid comments by fellow Utes sound like Pulitzer prize winning essays. You will also learn how to call BYU fans “scared Zoobs” because they talk about the upcoming U/Y game a few weeks early, while knowing full well that Utes have been talking about it for months. Learn the true meaning of hypocrisy in this class.

Chemistry 119- This is a class of mixtures. You will learn the best ways to mix all your favorite alcoholic beverages with anything you want. You will learn to mix in caffeine, unlike those goody-goodies down South, and any other stimulant you desire. Throw in a section on horticulture and this class will have you smiling and munching the day away. So that co-ed isn’t interested in you? This class will help in more ways than you can imagine. Undetectable and delicious to the taste are the themes of the first semester. Be a star at any frat party. Wow your friends with your knowledge of drink ratios. You can tell them what will get them plowed the fastest, the hardest, and the longest. Whoa, that sounds spicy, doesn’t it? And you thought high school parties were fun. With this class, you won’t even need to leave campus. Taste testing gives you a chance to grade yourself. Test your new “chemistry” with the opposite sex. Don’t worry about being underage. The prof will buy for everyone (he’s dating the undergrad assistant, even though she’s his daughter’s roommate! Shhh don’t say anything, Oh my hell, I’m sloshed). You won’t remember much of this class, but it will probably be the most fun class you ever take.

Utah Mathematics and Logic- You get credit for math and philosophy in this whopper. It is long, six hours a week, but you will make peoples’ heads spin with the equations you learn. Fuzzy math is the name of the game. You will learn to take any number and skew it to your benefit. You will learn to take the numerical results to make uneducated philosophical statements. This class will blow your mind. You can take a stat such as BYU vs. Utah in the current and last decade, 1990s BYU 5 Utah 5, 2000s BYU 4 Utah 4, and skew it to show total Utah domination. Here’s how. Don’t take the full 18 games played. First, you can go back just 6 years and say Utah has won 4 out of 6. Or you can go back to 1993 and say Utah has won 9 of 15. Especially use the total games played because we will have an edge in that stat for years to come because of true domination in the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. You should only be able to brag about stuff that happened while you were alive, but come on, WE ARE UTES. Don’t listen to the argument that since 1950, even with total Ute domination in the 50s and 60s, BYU leads 29-28-1. Especially don’t pay attention to any “since Lavell took over” talk. That blows all our equations. Being on the short end of 25-12 is not good. So we teach you how to skew it in our favor. Thanks to the 21 victories against 1 loss and 3 ties prior to 1950, we will always have the overall numbers to fall back on. At least, it will be decades before we don’t. We teach you how to use the numbers to show that WE OWN the Zoobs in their own stadium, 6 out of the last 9. How awesome is that? Sorry for the Zoobie term. Just gloss over the total reversal in our own stadium over the last 9 games. Shh, most Zoobs don’t realize they have dominated our stadium exactly the same. We can always be louder and more obnoxious than they can and scare them with our fuzzy math. The truth means nothing to us. You will also learn the ultimate equation. How to ensure a Ute victory based on scores against common opponents. This is where the class gets so tricky, but very rewarding. For the 2007 season you will be able to take a BYU victory over New Mexico by 8 points and show that Utah will beat BYU by 10 because Utah beat New Mexico by 18. See how it works? Incredible. Try another one, BYU beat CSU by a measly 16 and allowed them to score 16. Pathetic. We beat CSU by 24, and they only scored 3 against us. We should therefore beat BYU by 13. See how it works? I don’t either, but it does. They beat Wyoming by 25, we beat them by 50. We’ll win by 30 against the Cougs. Here is the best part. They lost to UCLA by 10. We beat UCLA by 38. That is huge. We will beat BYU by 45. What? We lost to Air Force and got shut out by UNLV, and BYU handily beat both teams? That does not compute, so don’t worry about it. We have won our last 6 bowl games. Don’t worry that we have 12 total bowls to BYU’s 25. Don’t worry that we have been ranked 4 times to BYU’s 14. Just go back to winning 4 out of the last 6. 9 out of the last 15. SKEW IT, SKEW IT, SKEW IT!
NOTE: FOR THE 2007-2008 SCHOOL YEAR UTAH MATHEMATICS HAS BEEN CANCELLED THIS YEAR DUE TO AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. THAT IS WE GOT BEAT BY BYU AND OUR MATH PROVED A BIT FAULTY. WE ARE WORKING OUT THE KINKS AND WILL COME BACK STRONG NEXT FALL.


UPDATED NOTE FOR 2008-2009: YES, WE BEAT BYU THIS YEAR, SO ALL OUR FUZZY MATH ACTUALLY WORKED. ADD A WIN TO THE UTE TOTALS AND A LOSS TO BYU’S TOTALS. WE ARE OFFERING THE FULL CLASS THIS YEAR. IT STARTS IMMEDIATELY, EVEN THOUGH THE SEMESTER IS ALMOST OVER. FREE CLASS CREDIT IS GIVEN IF YOU CAN WRITE A 500 WORD ESSAY ON WHY OUR 2004 TEAM IS THE GREATEST COLLEGE FOOTBALL TEAM OF ALL TIME. USE YOUR FUZZY MATH SKILLS TO PROVE YOUR ARGUMENTS. HERE IS AN EXAMPLE: We all know the drill. Any time you are talking to a Zoobie, be sure to point out how wonderful our 2004 team was and state your claim that we would have beaten any team in the country that year. Just point out that the Utes beat FOUR BCS teams that year. Leave out the records of those four teams. Don’t worry about it that Texas A&M was only 7-5 that year, Arizona was 3-8, North Carolina was 6-6, and Pittsburgh was 8-4 and probably the most undeserving BCS bowl team ever. Never mind that A&M was 4th in the Big 12 South, Arizona was 9th in the Pac-10, and that North Carolina was only 5th in the ACC. And Pitt, they didn’t even have the best overall record in the Big East, they made it in because they won the tiebreaker in the conference. Not very impressive teams, but still they got beat by the mighty Utes. Just state the claim that your Utes could have beaten #1 USC (not a chance), #2 Auburn (totally unlikely), and #3 Oklahoma (no way). It’s also probable that #5, or 4 depending on the poll, Texas that would have fallen to the Runnin’ Utes(in your dreams). Make the claim because the best part about saying that the Utes would have beaten anyone in the country that year is that there is no way to prove you wrong. The games aren’t going to be played, so hypothetically the Utes could win. Anything can happen hypothetically. Oh, and don’t worry that not a single team the mighty Utes beat in 2004 finished ranked in both the USA Today and AP polls. Pittsburgh finished a measly 25 in the AP. Continue to make the bold claim. It’s ridiculous, I know, but hey it’s all we got. Be sure and point out how Utah is more nationally recognized than the boys down south because we had 2004 and the current campaign in 2008. Just forget that the Zoobs have been nationally ranked 3 times as many times as the Utes. Remember, we can skew anything. Especially this year, since we have scoreboard. Don’t worry about the National Championship in 1984 and the top 5 finish in 1996 for the Zoobs. The Utes have 2004 and a possible (but highly unlikely) top 10 finish this year. Well, even if we lose our BCS bowl this year (which will definitely happen) we might still end up in the top 10. Remember how we whined out loud about how we wished we could play a real team in 2004 to prove ourselves? Remember how inside our alcohol-clouded minds we secretly were grateful we didn’t have to get humiliated by USC or Oklahoma? Anyway, this is the 5th year the Utes will finish ranked in the top 25. We must be the most dominant program ever according to Ute calculations.

ALABAMA by 10+