Dear 100 Hour Board Readers and Staff,

My freshman year at BYU I discovered two wildly funny sources of entertainment and procrastination: Divine Comedy and the 100 Hour Board. As I left on the customary two-year hiatus from normal life, I made a pact with a friend that we would do one of two things when we got back: try out for Divine Comedy or write for the 100 Hour Board. As all who know me in real life can attest, I'm not that funny—just loud. So my first semester back I applied and got accepted to write for the Board. It has thus been my honor to write for this quirkiest of institutions ever since.

As much as I'd like to make a quiet exit, I can't leave without thanking all the 100 Hour Board readers for making the Board as cool as it is. I really think that the readers, not the writers, are what makes the Board smart and funny. I've laughed at your crazy and intriguing questions for two and a half years now, and I just want to say that it has been a privilege to write for you. I confess that in the past I have frequently complained about readers asking stupid questions or not doing their own research. But the truth is that the Board readership in general is one of the most intelligent and witty segments of BYU. Thank you for your questions, your corrections, and your humor.

But the real reason it'll be hard to leave the Board is the writers. When I first joined, the writers would get together once or twice a year and no one ever knew what everyone else looked like most of the time. But as an ever-evolving entity, the 100 Hour Board eventually changed so that I not only knew who the other writers were, I counted them as some of my best friends and favorite acquaintances. Without exception, my colleagues are intelligent, funny, and great company. I respect and admire each of them very highly. At risk of being overly dramatic, I say to all the Board writers: "I think I shall miss you most of all."

This semester was a rough one for the Board, but it once again proved itself more resilient and adaptable than anyone ever thought possible. And it survived, as it always will as long as people like information infused with humor. The 100 Hour Board has a good home now and it's in good hands. I'm glad I get to leave while the Board is in great shape. I've been a writer for most of my time at BYU, and I even filled in as an editor one time while the real editor was on vacation. But now I look forward to resuming the role I had six years ago—a reader.

Warmest regards,

-Benvolio

Electronic mail

For the last few weeks I’ve been having trouble getting emails. A couple people told me they sent me an email and I never got it, but I chalked it up to the inevitable unreliability of email in general. But recently at work I’ve sent out some urgent emails to people several times, and they never responded. This morning I was grumbling about how unreliable people are, and I checked all my email accounts to see if they had responded. After checking my Outlook Web Access, I checked my two Yahoo accounts, my three Hotmail accounts, and my three Gmail accounts. I finally thought, “Maybe it didn’t get forwarded from my BYU account,” so I went there.

YOU HAVE 113 UNREAD MESSAGES.

What?! Why didn’t they forward to my normal account like I told it to? I spend the next 3 hours digging through all the messages I was supposed to have received weeks ago, cursing the stupid Basic Email system for ruining my life.

The moral of the story: BYU cannot develop a good email system to save our lives.

P.S. To everyone whom I did not respond--I don't hate you. I promise.

Last show

Ambrosia, the lovely and kind person she is, invited all the writers to the Divine Comedy rehearsal in the JSB auditorium on Thursday, the night before their year-end best of show. My initial reaction was to decline the invitation, because I have two major papers staring me in the face. But both the deadlines got pushed back a few days, and I asked myself, “When will you ever again have a chance to see how these funny people work their magic?” The depressing answer was “never again,” because I’ll be long gone before they ever do another show. It actually reminded me of the night before my last final my freshman year. I was studying for the exam and my friends said, “Come out and play!” I declined, and then they said, “But it’s our last time to do stuff together.” And they were pretty much correct; we were going home in the next few days. So I threw my biology notes down and stayed out until 4 a.m. with them instead. (I also slept through half of my final, but that’s another story for another day.)

So Kassidy and I went to the run-through and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. For years I’ve said that Divine Comedy isn’t as funny as it used to be. And maybe that’s true; I’ll never know if I was just easily amused or not. But what I do know is that the Divine Comedy cast is way funnier when they’re just being themselves. I’d seen most of the skits before, and they were mostly solid comedy, but I laughed the hardest when they ad-libbed or just plain made up stuff. Stuff like “biznatch” won’t ever make it into the real script, but it was priceless in the practice. I eventually started keeping a running tally of everyone who made me laugh out loud. (Joel deservedly edged out Dave in the end, but Alex got honorable mention for constant hilarity.) Perhaps the most rewarding part of all was to hear a few of my own jokes from the 100 Hour Board end up in the skits. Not that they plagiarized—their material is all original—but I was just pleased that I said something funny enough that it would independently end up in a DC skit.

So after the show we chatted a bit and talked about what additions we liked and what we thought could get cut. I was extremely flattered when Joel said he liked the stuff Kassidy and I write—he did, after all, win my laugh contest. But when all was said and done, I looked around and half of my freshman friends were there at the show too. They don’t even hate me yet, for the most part. I was just glad I could be there. I honestly can’t think of a better way to procrastinate my capstone paper.

Bus stop

I was an idiot yesterday. I know, I know—those of you who actually know me in real life are thinking, “You’re an idiot every day.” But I was really stupid on Wednesday. I was sitting in class and it was absolutely pointless, so I left half an hour into the class and took off. I walked over to the bus stop and got on the bus and sat there pleased with myself for getting out of the class. Except that the bus went straight when it was supposed to turn, and I realized (a little late) that I was on the wrong bus. I had accidentally boarded the Orem shuttle, and I definitely do NOT live in Orem. So I pulled the cord for the next stop, but it was a while before the driver let me off, so I had a nice hike to make. I suddenly found myself on the wrong side of campus from where I live.

I couldn’t take the bus in the opposite direction, because it had just passed by, so I started walking. I figured I might be able to catch the real bus I was supposed to take if I went back to the closest bus stop. So I started walking, and just as I came within sight of the bus stop, I saw my bus pull out. So much for that idea. So I walked all the way home, and got there just about the same time I would have if I had stayed for my whole class. Good job, genius. You’re a smart one.

Man, I miss this place sometimes.

Fanatics

The other night The Redhead and I were watching Law & Order: SVU. I prefer the original series, but SVU is a pretty decent drama. In the first few minutes of the episode they had surrounded an apartment building and some fugitives were holed up inside. After a minute or two they stormed the building and found a bunch of dead children and biblical quotations written on the walls of the apartment. “Oh, no,” I thought, “it’s one of those episodes again.” Sure enough, the rest of the show proceeded to tell the tale of a radical Christian cult involved in murder, child rape, fraud, and a variety of crimes.

The show itself wasn’t bad. It had some interesting themes like brainwashing and the Charles Manson-eque idea of controlling other people that were rather intriguing. But it also did a very good job at painting Christians as raving lunatics and fanatics that would use their misguided beliefs as reasoning for terrible crimes. That kind of thing annoys me. It seems like people actively participating in religion are one of the few segments of society we can still make fun of. Nerds, minorities, and disabled people are off limits. Overweight people too. But religion? That’s completely open season. And by no means is Christianity the only world religion open to this criticism—I’ve seen similar television shows, movies, and books take the same cheap shots at Islam and Judaism.

I guess the really interesting question is how did it get to this point? 200 years ago national leaders took great pains to avoid prejudice against all persons of different religious beliefs. Separation of church and state was intended to protect the right to believe what you want. But somewhere between 1787 and 2005 the ideal of “separation of church and state” came to mean that you couldn’t believe anything at all. Don’t get me wrong—there are some silly (and occasionally tragic) acts committed in the name of religion. But the mainstream media apparently doesn’t feel the need to avoid stereotyping. Why should the media worry anyway? They’re just a bunch of fanatics anyway.