Microsoft Fails to Heed Important Adage with Word Count Feature, Student Finds As Deadline of 1,000-Word Essay Rapidly Approaches

"It was all I had"

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Tragedy stuck George Baker this morning when he realized, thirty minutes prior to the deadline, that his well- illustrated essay on ‘The Sociological Impact of Communication Technology on Modern Man’ was far, far shorter than Baker had realized.

“I’d finished my essay and was all ready to turn it in, and just thought I’d double check that it was long enough- and the next thing I know, Word Count pulls a fast one and leaves me about… 1,000 words short of what I’d expected,” Baker sobbed into his hands.

The document, abandoned shortly thereafter, remained maximized on Baker’s screen. A single image- an emoticon, smiling gaily- was boldly positioned just below the title, and slightly to the left of a familiar flickering vertical black line.

“It was all I had,” Baker recalled wistfully.

Microsoft representatives have declined comment.

Cheer Up: It's Tele-BEARS Time

It’s Tele-BEARS season again! Students everywhere are vowing to wake up later than ever, waitlists are growing by the second, and third-year students are still getting a hang of the system. You, in particular, will find- at the last minute- that the class you need has been moved to 8:00 am, that its well-populated waitlist didn’t manage to get left behind, and that its unit value will be miscalculated to be just enough to block you from enrollment.

Theoretically though, one day, our future won’t actually be scheduled on Tele-BEARS anymore. But will “real life” really be so different? Probably not. What life lessons can we draw from our Tele-BEARS experience?

Now: You realize you chose the wrong major as you find, yet again, that all of your classes are scheduled for 8:00 am

In the Future: Every morning at 5:00, as you wake up, you realize the same thing about the rest of your life

Now: INTROSPECTIVE NORMATIVE ANALYSIS OF SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY 10AC sounds like something you’d rather not do

In the Future: so does PAYING THE RENT

Now: There is a $10 drop fee to correct bad course decisions

In the Future: For $10, your young children can still be persuaded to go away

Now: No matter how carefully you plan it, one of your classes will later be rescheduled to create a perfect conflict with another

In the Future: Your wedding and funeral will occur simultaneously

Now: Choosing a class involves cross-referencing between multiple websites, many of which contain no information, finally culminating in an unsettlingly permanent random decision

In the Future: Choosing a wife will involve cross-referencing between multiple websites, many of which contain no information, finally culminating in an unsettlingly permanent random decision

ISLAM ABUSES WOMEN,

or so proclaimed a new character outside Dwinelle on Monday, holding above him a sign twice his size. As he pondered his heavenly reward (Jesus, after all, taught always to offend and to love others only as a last resort), an angry crowd gathered to read and absorb its wisdom:

ISLAM:

Pedophilia: check!

Polygamy: check!

Wife Beating: check!

“Islam advocates the abuse of women,” the man quietly repeated, savoring the far-more humanitarian thought of the opposing crowd burning in hell. Not to be outdone, they began to chant: “Racist go home! Racist go home!”- affirming their correctness through repetition, and most importantly, use of the term “racist.” The obvious misapplication of the word, in the considered opinion of many present, lent the argument a certain extra poignancy. Someone in the crowd produced a Bible. Someone else produced a lighter.

Ten minutes and twenty-seven “CRUSADES!!!” references later, I began to realize- and I suspect not uniquely- that I was, without question, the most intelligent, reasonable, and virtuous human being in the crowd.

“Take your hate somewhere else, you F*#KING MAN PIG!” the girl next to me (incidentally, a hate-free individual) screamed above the din of the rapidly-expanding crowd.

I may have received a “Just Drop Out Now” on my last midterm, but at least I didn’t say that.

Protests, it strikes me, are not the essence of Berkeley- they are its therapy. Only after months of immersion in this environment of pure and crushing personal failure can we fully appreciate how deeply and perfectly good it feels to catch our peers in the act of being so wrong. Sproul Plaza affords every one of us a unique daily opportunity to be reminded of how brilliant we truly are- if only by nature of not spending more time there. Of course, for those of us with extra-large martyr complexes (and size zero mathematics skills), participation can only serve as a greater distraction from our GPAs. Our protests don’t have a prayer of changing anyone’s mind, let alone the world. But we need them. Tree-sitting might sound stupid- but only if you’ve never sat through Econ 100A.

At some point in this particular protest, some loser pulled out a Qu’ran and began to translate. The rapid influx of information, naturally, terminated our exercise in Free Speech, and the crowd dispersed.

It would be difficult to find an example of a recent protest half as concerned with informational accuracy as it has been with endowing its participants with freedom-fighter status.

But being wrong, as it happens, is our constitutional right.