Saturday, August 15, 2009

THIS MEANS WAR MCCORMICK

WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT

WAIT

I go on vacation for a few days - A FEW DAYS - and I turn around, and next thing you know, I go online to Deadspin, and find out that MY VERY OWN CLASSMATES ARE SPENDING THEIR SUMMERS BEHIND MY BACK FINDING WAYS TO PUT ME OUT OF WORK FOREVER. 
Yes. McCormick students - and some backstabbing Medill people - have developed a system to take box scores from sporting events and make a rudimentary game story. As someone who is trying to become a sportswriter, the fact that my fellow students are developing sportswriting machines is worrisome. 

I might've expected this from those UChicago punks, but I dunno, I guess I was lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that I hadn't met any NU students named Judas yet. 
I probably could have sensed something was up when I noticed that most engineering students were considerably smarter than me, could do basic math such as multiplication and division with little trouble, and talked about how engineering was a higher-paying field than journalism. But I didn't expect anything them to go ahead and invent some evil sportswriting cyborg that understands basic grammar and doesn't make spelling mistakes and can use inverted pyramid paragraphs and describe the crisp, cool smell of the freshly cut infield grass on a warm summer night when the sun is just setting over the grandstand and can probably Stump the Schwab if it had to. But you know what, engineering students? THIS MEANS WAR.

Yeah, this isn't over. Two can play at this "putting other students out of their future professions" game. Expect articles to be published in sports sections around the world with headlines like "Engineering: Necessary, or a Huge Waste of Time?" or "Engineers Suspected in Every Killing Ever". We'll see who has the last laugh then. 

In other news, later today, there will be a post on the difficulty of being an NU fan despite being unable to display or comprehend emotions by my new bloggin co-partner, the PurpleBot3000. He will also have a post on the Top Ten historical Wildcats sporting events that most remind him of the struggle to resist his urge to overthrow his human overlords. Should be good. 

(Of course, uh, satire. Congrats to the computer science kids who did this, but... couldn't you put, like, some other business out of work? All will be forgiven if you invent a robot that can drive up voting numbers in the poll on the right side of the screen.)

(Oh, and I just reread this, and it wasn't that funny, but I'm posting it anyway, because it's rainy in Miami and I just spent like 20 minutes hammering this out, and I'm not letting it go to waste.)

(also, it's in a different font, and I have no idea why.)

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