I’ve been dead. True story — that’s why you’ve missed this column the past two weeks. But coming back from the dead is underwhelming. One week, you’re sitting in bed, anticipating the imminent implosion of your head and perhaps the universe (so much for Einstein). Two weeks later, you’re just comfortably filling out forms, trying to prove to your government that you didn’t actually die. Ridic. But nothing says, “Welcome back!” quite like math, drugs, and people suing each other.
Confirmed by science: Lazy is best
A new study just came out from Naught Rue University in Amsterdam that said whenever magazine articles cite university studies that use math, the author’s argument automatically becomes 37.5 percentage points more compelling and the author’s editors become 87 percentage points more attractive.
In the same week, a study by Harvard and Caltech professors published convoluted mathematical proof that being lazy pays off. In terms that even readers of this column can understand: Keep doing what you’re doing.
Wondering whether you should wait for a late bus or begin walking to the next stop, the authors concluded you should usually wait. If you start walking, your choices are grim. You will either become frustrated when you just miss the bus at the next stop, become frustrated that you didn’t begin walking earlier or expend unnecessary energy if you do ever catch up with the bus.
This advice breaks down in extreme conditions where the existence of the bus is unconfirmed. This includes, but is not limited to, Northwestern’s Frostbite Express.
Empowered with this information, we Northwestern students can continue standing there in the cold, waiting for the shuttles. To drive away the shivers, practice chanting my favorite mantra, “Math trumps frostbite.” If meditation doesn’t keep you warm, consider first stopping by a California vending machine for some pain-numbing munchies.
Californians do drugs, no one surprised
Vending machines, some available 24-hours, that dispense five varieties of marijuana have “been working out great,” said an employee at a medical-marijuana dispensary in California. This is high praise for the new machines, whose wares are going at $40 for an eighth-ounce packet.
The security on these machines is so good that they can withstand even a whole parade of drunken Bobb kids. To get drugs, a user swipes an ID card to get into the door, swipes it again to activate the machine, which then photographs the user and scans his fingerprints before it finally drops a large green envelope of drugs into the consumer’s sticky hands.
Additional precautions will include a guy “in a black T-shirt emblazoned with the word Security on the front.” Hopefully he’ll also be of imposing build and have an unmistakable gleam of terror in his eyes, otherwise the black T-shirt’s just wasted.
Oh, minor detail: Despite California law, marijuana is still illegal under federal law. Using the machines will therefore mean fewer employees are susceptible to arrest if the feds raid the medical-marijuana dispensaries and round up the mostly geriatric and dying crowds who frequent them.
“It’s on a property and somebody fills it. Once we find out where it’s at, we’ll look into it and see if they’re violating laws,” said a DEA Special Agent in reaction to the news. Considering the locations have been widely reported in Los Angeles news, my money is on the Feds sitting at a bus stop, waiting for the drugs to come to them. But L.A. is dangerous, so hopefully they’ll be alert enough to see the white Ford Bronco coming around the corner before it mows them down.
Suing the sufferer of a smash you spawned? Sick!
Running over kids riding their bikes with one’s badass sports car is a costly endeavor. And it only gets more fun the more times one does it, so it’s rather necessary to have a crap-ton of money before trying it.
Case in point: Tomas Delgado, who irreparably damaged his only Audi A8 after crashing into a 17-year old riding a bike and killed the lad. Sad news for poor Tomas, who no longer has a shinny babe-magnet of a car or the money to buy a new one.
But Tomas is a plucky fellow, and instead of conceding to catastrophe, he sought a solution. And luckily for him, this is the part in the narrative where our caped hero sweeps in to save the day — and Tomas’s car. Welcome, Lawsuit, our praiseworthy patron.
And Lawsuit called out in counsel, commenting that after contemplative consideration, “It’s obvi that thou, Delgado, must get thee a lawyer and litigate the parents of the boy to recover costs for your car!”
But wherever Lawsuit parlays its message, easily offended moralists can be found. So when Delgado carried the parents of the kid to court, protesters lined up outside the courthouse. Further fueling fears that an indignant (or, as I’d originally typed, indigent, which is almost the same thing) media can influence otherwise freethinking people, Delgado dropped the suit presumably because of the backlash.
Next up: The parents now sue Delgado (sounds like a joke, but it’s the Lawsuit’s honest truth).