Friday, 14 September 2001
Where’s the Beef?
Joey becomes a grill-seeker after Kimball cuts on weekend brunch.

Friday, 21 September 2001
The Campus Reconnected
Joey celebrates the real benefit of construction's end.

Friday, 28 September 2001
God’s on Our Side
Joey explains why the Cross is a safe bet against Yale this weekend.

Friday, 5 October 2001
The Good Old Days
Joey waxes nostalgic, pining for the halcyon days of 2000.

Friday, 19 October 2001
Holy Cross: Gotta Love It
Joey reveals his love-hate relationship with Holy Cross.

Friday, 26 October 2001
Making Up the Grade
Joey investigates the History Dept.'s weird grading scale.

Friday, 2 November 2001
The Suite Life
Joey blames his laziness and other faults on environment.

Friday, 7 December 2001
Where the Heart Is
Joey will yearn for home especially hard this month.

Friday, 25 January 2002
Chill on the Hill
Joey is not the only one surprised when winter comes to Woo.

Friday, 1 March 2002
Living Dangerously
Joey reflects on the fragility of life while riding Red Cab.

Friday, 12 April 2002
The Naked Campus
Joey is frightened by the re-emergence of the female form this spring.

Friday, 19 April 2002
The Man, the Legend
Joey tells his life story, as if you cared.

Friday, 26 April 2002
Passing On
Joey says goodbye to Holy Cross campus life forever.

If you have been skipping your readings, now is the time to figure out when you're going to catch up. If you've been dragging your feet on putting together that research paper, now would be the time to get your sources together. If you're taking a philosophy course, now might be a good time to start paying attention in class. You never know when some of that stuff might get put on the final.

Third-year straight-C student Joey Brocklesby '03 was doing just that yesterday evening at the weekly dual celebration of studiousness and drunkenness known as Thursday Night. Joey was attempting to balance his festiveness and affinity for Rolling Rock with a vain attempt to learn the economics principle of dead-weight loss (hint: it's the triangle), when suddenly he looked up and said, in that overworked, half-inebriated, charming voice of his, "I hate this school."

Of course, he didn't mean it. Not more than any of us does when we say it. We love Holy Cross. Holy Cross is beautiful. Holy Cross is fun. Holy Cross is a $32,000 drain on the wallet of us or someone we deeply love and care for (hi, dad!), so we'd better darn well like it. But, deep down inside, on a basic level, we all hate this school.

More precisely, we have a love-hate relationship with this school. Just like Holy Cross students have with everything. Consider the most important parts of a Holy Cross student's life:

1. Beer. We start with the most important. We love alcohol, any night of the week. It is our friend. We sing songs about it, we waste inordinate amounts of money and dignity on it, we play games with it and put ourselves in great personal danger for its sake. The morning after, however, is a different story.

2. The Work. On one hand, it's proof of a quality education, and it's the reason why we are here. On the other hand, who can be bothered to do all those papers, equations, essays, labs, etc., when there's still N64 to be played, sitcoms to be watched, beer to be drunk, etc.?

3. The Hookup Culture. Half of the school disdains the hookup culture and complains loudly that people don't talk enough, people don't hold hands enough, people don't commit enough, people don't (and at this point you tune them out). The other half is actually the same people as the first half, except that they did hook up with someone last weekend.

4. The New York Yankees. Half of the school is obsessed with how good they are. The other half hates them. Yet intelligent Crusaders still make friends with Yankee fans, despite their inexplicable penchant for cheering evil. We thus subject ourselves to the kind of torture that all Red Sox fans are enduring now, after Oakland failed to do its job and allowed evil to advance in the playoffs. Please don't get me started on this, gentle reader. It's a long and unpleasant tirade.

5. The City of Worcester. Surely it is a given that we all hate Worcester, having all of us -- Worcester natives excepted -- come from nicer, hipper, cleaner, more urbane, and all-around better cities (Joey's native Winooski, Vt. comes to mind). Admit it, though. You love Worcester just as much as everyone else does. The rolling hills only half marred by ugly houses, the perpetual state of gloom that takes a concerted civic effort to maintain, the endearingly cute way in which the city hopelessly attempts to create a vibrant marketplace in the Common Outlets ... it grows on you. Like a fungus.

6. Comments on the Passing Parade. Yes, loyal reader, The Crusader's very own Comments on the Passing Parade is worthy not only of the unfailing love and devotion which you have already shown it, but also of the scorn and hate that you might reserve for a lesser column, one which mangled facts, misrepresented sources, and fabricated quotes.

Indeed, a quick look back on this year's columns would reveal a startling amount of misinformation, which can only be explained by the writer's complete and total distaste for research. So much misinformation, in fact, that this reporter could definitely fill an entire column with corrections, if in fact he were willing to look at his past columns and point out the glaring errors.

But he won't, because that would be research. Pass another beer, Joey.

This article appeared in the 19 October 2001 edition of The Crusader, on page 13 (third page of Features section). The inconsistent "Comments on the Passing Parade truck" graphic was mercifully absent again.