Hate

Two Minutes Hate, Part I

I Hate 4/20

Every year, on April 20th, marijuana consumption spikes off the charts. In every dorm, in every riverside hollow, in every tree and car and 13th Street hovel, the masses burn 'em down. And they pack 'em up and burn 'em down again. Ben Harper echoes through the empty streets. "The Simpsons" reruns at 6:00 and 7:30 are met with glazed eyes and parched guffaws. 7-11 sells out of Corn Nuts. It is, by all appearances, a day of celebration, a day of togetherness, a day of relaxation, and most of all a day of smoking oneself into a delirious stupor. Every damned year I get asked some variation on the same question: "Ho ho, dude, d'ya celebrate 4/20?" I always say, "Fuck no!" One year, a friend and I waited until 12:01 AM on 4/21 to get stoned, in foolish defiance of this holiday. It sickens me.

This Great American Smokeout is ostensibly based on the police code for a pot bust. Since police codes vary from municipality to municipality, I find this story rather hard to swallow. Another supposed origin is the contention by many a stoner that there are 420 active chemicals in marijuana. If there were really 419 chemicals, then what?

I recently learned of something that has led me to question the politics-indeed, the very sanity-of the stoners around me who relish the annual arrival of April 20th. It is the birthday of Adolf Hitler. Suddenly, it all made sense. The way stoners embrace diversity-the funk, the dreadlocks, the socialism-it's all a ruse. And every April 20th, the cover is blown as these sociopaths devote the entire day to creating ashes in honor of their hero, their F|hrer, their Adolf Hitler. You people are sick, sick, sick. GH.

I Hate the Foreign Language Requirement

What overpaid administrator came up with this bullshit? The foreign language requirement amounts to little more than academic sadism. Every day, hundreds of students on this campus are forced to attend a class that they probably couldn't care less about.

What makes matters worse is the fact that the University's foreign language courses are organized in the most degrading manner possible. 10% of a student's grade is based on class participation; i.e. raising your hand and taking part in dinky classroom activities. If you're shy, or usually attend classes hung over, fifty minutes a day in a Spanish class is like an eternity trapped in a cage with a rabid hamster high on Propecia. Daily quizzes and mandatory attendance only make the six-term requirement all the more unbearable. Facing the prospect of slogging through the foreign language requirement is probably the number one reason why arts majors drop out of this university. DR.

I Hate the Willamette Valley Folk Festival

On what usually proves to be the nicest weekend in May, hundreds of smelly people invade the EMU lawn to spin around until they puke. The Willamette Valley Folk Festival is the premier yearly event of Eugene's less "hygienically-inclined" crowd.

While the festival may seem harmless to those living off-campus, it can be a living hell for the unlucky prisoners of the dorms. Imagine struggling to sleep off a Saturday morning hangover while some Joan Biaz wannabe with a microphone rambles tunelessly in your backyard. This years' highlight was one such wannabe who thrilled the crowd by chanting "The aliens came down... and fucked the monkey! They fucked the monkey!" for at least fifteen minutes solid. Most people faced with this situation could simply pick up the phone and call the cops-dorm rats are forced to put up with such drivel for an entire weekend.

In order to avenge my sleep deprivation, I plan on spending the next couple of days conducting my own concert in the backyards of the festival's organizers. Let's see what those hemp-covered, resin-scraping, Ben-and-Jerry's-hoarding motherfuckers think when they're woken up early in the morning by a two hour set of Judas Priest covers belted out of an old Casio megaphone. Uncompassionate pricks! DR.

I Hate Sports Talk

Down the stretch. Mental errors. One game at a time.

Occasionally sports talk can be remarkably insightful-even candidly metaphorical, such as when John Madden analyzed a running play thusly: "He just got down there and found a hole he could work with. Amazing penetration!" Yet the clichis and euphemisms are really getting out of hand. I remember a two-week period last winter where the following brilliant observations spewed from the world of sports on the same day:

"They were better at putting the ball in the hoop." -Jerry Sloan, head coach of the Utah Jazz, explaining a loss

"We're focusing on it because it's our next game." -Jody Runge, head coach of women's basketball for the University of Oregon

Things reached a low point over the weekend of May 22, with the NBA playoffs in full swing. Out of six Associated Press game recaps that weekend, the average occurrence of the phrase "down the stretch" was 1.333 times per story. The recap of the May 23 Utah/Portland game reached a high point with 4.

The world of sports needs to transcend banal non sequiturs and horse racing metaphors. Either everyone involved in athletics takes a year off to enhance their literacy and invent some new phrases, or the media simply stop asking these boneheads questions and let them play. What's it gonna be, Ahmad? GH.

I Hate CIS 120

Computer and Information Science 120 (Information Processing) is what your average college course would be like if the Nazis had won the war. This 400-level course masquerading as an introductory computer class is a test of both physical and mental endurance for its students. Attendance to lectures is mandated by potential pop quizzes, while the weekly assignments can take hours, days, and even weeks to get through. CIS 120's two midterms make the State Bar Exam look like an Albertson's coloring contest. If you're looking to finish off what remains of your science requirement by taking CIS 120, forget it and sign up for Astronomy again. This one's strictly for those raised by parents who spoke in binary code. DR.

I Hate the Fact that I'll Never Ever Find Out Why Men Have Nipples

Nipples on men are as worthless as the Pope's scrotum. Why are they there? What mysterious purpose do they serve? They're irritating! I wish my nipples would just sneak away in the middle of the night or something. DR.

I Hate the Eugene Weekly

Why are their feature stories written by University of Oregon GTFs? Why can't they do something about their layout? Why don't their stories run any longer than two pages? It doesn't get much worse for the alternative press than this. When the EW unwittingly ran a Spring Fashion front cover this year, they finally proved themselves to be: a) out of story ideas, and b) not alternative press. BB.

I (Surprise) Hate OSPIRG

As of April 23rd, 1999, it was official: the campus at large no longer cares what happens to their money. While a backlash sufficient enough to zero-fund their beguiling outfit held the majority last year, this year's crop of voters either forgot what OSPIRG did for them (nothing) or was so tired of the whole thing they surrendered their personal choice to the path of least resistance, the imbeciles. ZT.

Compiled by: Bit Bitter, George Hayduke, Viggy "Supafreak" James, Dan Rosenthal, and Zeke Teven. With additional reporting from: Schitznatic Jack and Silo Meserschmidt.