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Old GDT Articles

And other stuff I wrote as an RIT student

Here lay all my public articles.  Most of these articles were written for Gracies Dinnertime Theatre, a satire rag concentrating on the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY.  I have some unpublished stuff, along with things I wrote for other sources.  This won't be as obvious right now -- I won't be showing any of these other articles for some time.  The only reason is because my other articles aren't as easily located as my GDT works.  There were also be some images here and there.  You can think of this as my non-technical portfolio.

A word about quality.  Spelling and grammar will vary across articles.  I have three reasons (excuses):
1. I write my stuff and then submit it to the editors.  I don't get the edited document back.  I could rip the text from the published issue, but that would be too tedious.
2. In the absence of an existing article, I had to quickly throw it together from other sources.
3. The article was never published, and hence was never edited.  I try my best to fix these up, but I'm not too skilled at it.
4. Some errors are introduced when loading the original Word document into OpenOffice, and exporting to HTML.  If you see bizarre strings of letters, that's probably a conversion error.  My bad.
5. I often screw things up on purpose.  The best example is from my Smackin Higgins articles.  If you don't believe I screw things up on purpose sometimes, look above.

Formats can also vary.  Most of my GDT work has no paragraph indents.  All items that would have been indented are buffered with spaces.  In short: spaces between paragraphs, spaces between rapid dialouge.

Onless otherwise stated, all works listed below are copyright 2003 Adam Preble.  All rights reserved.

My Portfolio of Things Not Necessarily Technical
 

Title	Date	Description
RIT Physicists are Freemasons	Spring 2001	This was my first article. GDT was having a little contest to get reader submissions.  I suppose it worked out -- I got a prize for it, and they got a writer out of the deal.  I took poured my hate of the physics department into this.
Who Could You Beer for Student Government President?	Spring 2001	I wanted to nominate a can of beer to be student government president.  This is the first article that uses the Inconspicuous Can of Beer.  It eventually got a comment from the leaving SG president.
The Inconspicuous Can of Satan	Spring 2001	I got some mail about the beer article.  We didn't know where one of them came from, but we were pretty sure it was all silliness.
How to Write a Letter	Spring 2001	This is how you complain at RIT.  This introduces Smackin Higgins.  The style was liked so much that I used his writing in the future.
RIT Takes Action Against Pleasant Weather	Spring 2001	If RIT had the power, they'd burn babies for fuel, and blot out the sun.
Help Wanted	Spring 2001	I couldn't get a co-op at the end of my sophomore year.  This is where I vent my frustrations.
Project Pink Book [Part One]	Spring 2001	This is like Project Blue Book, but with girls replacing UFO's as the center of investigation.  Although it's not stated, the point of the article was to debunk the existence of females.
[Mock Report from Army Training Manual]	Spring 2001	The image was a cover for GDT one issue.  It came from an army field training manual.  I tried to poke fun at it by writing a mock book report on it.  It didn't get published, but I decided to show the text and the image together.
Advertisement for RIT Masturbation Condoms	Spring 2001	This was a bogus ad I put in the "Happy Flower Issue." It gets laughs from people outside of RIT.
Antigone Spoof	Spring 2001	I had to study Antigone for my Writing and Literature II class.  I had already beaten this play to death when I was in ninth grade.  This was what I submitted for my final report.  I also put it in GDT for the "Happy Flower Issue." Damn, half the stuff in that issue was mine.
Freshmen Engineers: This is the Way Things Are	Fall 2001	Cynical rant about the girls at RIT.  It started out as a everything/nothing rant, but I managed to make it funny (thank God).
Afghanistan -- Update	Fall 2001	Really, I just wanted to do the armpit picture.  Here was my commentary on the war in Afghanistan.
GDT Anthrax Letter Prank	Fall 2001	Here's my anthrax letter prank to GDT.  It didn't come out too well in the poor print resolution.  This is the cleaner version.  I had to outline the text a little to make it more obvious in print.
RIT Professors Irritated by Students Pestering	Fall 2001	I had gotten what I considered an unfair share of bullshit in the past few quarters from professors.  I tossed this together to vent it out in a sarcastic way.
Construction Notices	Fall 2001	RIT had been sending out almost daily messages about insignificant construction around campus during the summer.  This continued into the fall.  What I did was right three short blurbs that were to interrupt an otherwise normal issue.  Adam Fletcher, our layout editor, did the job perfectly.  A normal article would suddenly get interrupted with my construction notice, and then resume.
The Bushpass Filter	Fall 2001	My political commentary at G.W.  I am still under the impression that one can filter down most modern political speeches into a series of innocent giggles.  Nothing of real substance is being said.
The Inconspicuous Can of Beer Strikes Back!	Fall 2001	I brought the Iconspicuous Can of Beer out of retirement.  The article was enjoyed, but didn't get any comments like when it was first introduced.
Smackin Higgins Reporter Rant	Fall 2001	Smackin Higgins complains about a recent Reporter rant.  It was later revealed the editorial was more of a troll -- something to get the school's attention and anger.  It backfired on the editor, really.  He got the attention, but it was from people screaming at him to resign.  Here, I criticise the editor for kind of assuming GDT's style.
Miscellaneous Letters -- November	Fall 2001	Here's a GDT letter, and a comment about my professor rant mentioned earlier.  Double entendre's abound.
No Cooperation from Co-op Employers	Fall 2001	I was still getting screwed over in my search for a co-op.  This was before I had random luck with a job at Intel in Folsom, CA.
Random Copyright Babbling	Winter 2001	I don't think this was published in any way.  We were having some debate about copyright.  I started drafting this, but wasn't sure if it was worth following through.  Here it is, but don't bother disputing this with me.  I don't think I even agree with myself here, if I had a point to begin with. PS -- This is crap.
I am Jealous of Players	Winter 2002	My friend Corey seems to be the lady's man.  A random IM conversation inspired the article.
Urban Myth Composition Exercise	Winter 2002	I took some urban myths off of Snopes and tried to cram as many of them into one story.  It was a nifty practice, but the story isn't too funny.
I am Jealous of Players (Counter-argument)	Winter 2002	There was a huge letter about my players article.  Once again, this shows my most random stuff gets the most responses.  Here I respond in turn.  I was pretty fond of this one.
The Custodian Conspiracy	Spring 2002	One day during lunch at Intel, I joked that the janitors are the ones that actually do all the work around there.  After hours, they take over and finish all our problems.  The story spun off from there.  It seemed to be a hit, and I hope to put out a series in the same setting.
Project Pink Book Part 3: The California Files	Spring 2002	Another project pink book.  This is from California, in an attempt to prove that girls don't exist anywhere.  For anybody in engineering at RIT, this can sometimes seem true.
The Happy Happy Hippy Story	Spring 2002	Here I combined my upbringing in the Hudson Valley with my experiences on the Pacific Coast.  A bunch of 60's burnouts revive their hippy pass in a road trip from the Woodstock area over to San Francisco.  They run into problems on the way down Route 1.
RIT Pedestrian Study	Fall 2002	I've noticed that people are having a harder and harder time walking coherently.
SHAQ ATTACK CAFFEINE ARTTICEL	Fall 2002	This is a non-sequiter, meant to derail an otherwise short and serious issue.
The RIT Game Room is a Pool Hall	Fall 2002	I heard the DDR machine in the RIT arcade got removed.  Actually, most of the games there were removed.  Actually, all of them were removed.  To take up space, they added this ESPN Sportscenter lookalike students could use to tape their own Sportscenter shows (or something).  I thought it was stupid really -- I prefer using my imagination with things that are flexible.  The Sportsdesk is a little too restrictive.
I Am Addicted To Neverwinter Nights	Fall 2002	I wouldn't call it fan fiction.  I was more commenting on how much that damn game was on my mind when I should have been working.
Four Ways to Choose Your Tombstone	Fall 2002	Never published and incomplete.  This is a commentary on RIT multiple choice tests.  I feel most times the answers are vague, or even incorrect.
Cure for an ITCH	Fall 2002	This was meant to be a silly article about stress causing engineers to explode.  I get some flak from feminist friends insisting the cocksucking references would turn an already unstable person into a rapist.  Riiiiiiiiight.  Also, the footnotes were a bitch, particularly the footnotes' footnotes.  Blame Irving Washington, my coauthor.
Smackin Higgins letter responding to GDT attack	Fall 2002	One of our long time readers wrote in to tell us a prior issue was mostly crap.  Smackin Higgins counterattacks.  Unfortunately, his letter was long and not as interesting as his past arguments.
A Short Treatise on Students, Lectures, and Professors	Fall 2002	Serious rant about my professors.  This seems to be an annual tradition.  In retrospect, I understand why I was getting frustrated, but nobody really cares about my complaints.  Anybody can complain.
The Drone's Gonna Get You!	Fall 2002	Picking on the army's UAVs.
Sinfonia Da Requiem	Fall 2002	This was my sarcastic response to all the comments I got when I went to a classical concert with another man.  Everybody jokes that I must be gay or something (not gay).  This wasn't meant to be a flame on homosexuals, but more preying on homophobia and being cultured.
A Delightful Scat Story	Fall 2002	I needed to write something about poop.
Our Parents Hate Us	Fall 2002	The Reporter asked some visting parents about our generation.  The responses were typical, but I felt like evening the balance as much as I could.
Climate Survey Spoof	Winter 2002	RIT was sending out a survey on diversity on the campus.  I felt the survey was a joke, in that: 1. all professors took it, but only a handful of students were allowed to look at it. 2. Any surveys with similar results were to be removed.  In short, only the outliers would be considered in the tally. I came up with a few questions, in the hope that my fellow writers would answer them and add inventive comments in the free-answer portion.
TEH Part 1: Arrogance, Inc.	Spring 2003	I'm reusing characters in an ongoing story about RIT nerds.  This demonstrates the close-mindedness of nerds in general.
TEH Part II: The Quest for More Bandwidth	Spring 2003	This comments on how bandwidth is hogged on the residential network.  We have two OC3's for our use, yet we manage to bog it down serving warez every once in awhile.
TEH Part III: Divine Intervention	Spring 2003	A heavily sarcastic statement about the quality of Microsoft software and their technical support.
TEH Part IV: Intelligence, Beauty, and Sanity: Pick Two	Spring 2003	Last article of the year.  TEH Part III was not printed because it rehashed the old "no girls at RIT" jokes.  Ironically However, that article had nothing to do with it, while this article was all about that.  It continues the series, and introduces the fucked-up female character.
TEH Part V: The Time Capsule	Spring 2003	Unpublished.  This article mentions burying computers under the ground randomly around campus.  It is a novel idea that nerds will enjoy.
TEH Part VI: The Day Deoderant Died	Spring 2003	Kind of a commentary on the hygiene of some students I have encountered in the past . . .
The Revised History of Urinal Mints	Summer 2003	Written for a class, and put here for humor factor.

Last modified: 07/20/03