Dear Pennzoids,

They closed the robot museum in Japan. Well, temporarily, but still. Britney lost custody of her kids. A three year old was lost for 11 days in the Amazon jungle – and survived. And over in the UK, a peacock “sexually attacked” a blue Lexus because it thought it was another peacock. And it was gay. Because blue peacocks – as opposed to brown peahens -- are males. Baronet Sir Benjamin Slade tried to charge his insurance company 4,000 pounds (that’s something like 5 million bucks, going by the current exchange rate for our sucky dollar) for the damage done by his feathery friend. No, we don’t know what a Baronet is – we figure some sort of cross between a Baron and a Clarinet.

Seriously, the world is nuts. Why can’t Penn be that nuts? Why is there nothing going on here? The most exciting thing that happened last week was that half the student body enrolled in Penn Alert. (Don’t worry too much – it’ll improve the curve when the other half is gone.) Sure, Eric writes in this issue about how it’s not so bad here at Penn, but that doesn’t mean it’s not boring the hell out of us lately. Where’s the latest Amy Gutmann scandal we all thirst for? Where are the high rise sex photos? Where’s Dean Stetson when we need him? Not that we enjoy exploiting other people’s misery – much – but, honestly, with midterms and papers around the corner, we need something other than Facebook to waste our time on. Anne and I have both tried to escape into our childhoods for inspiration, as you can tell from our pieces this week. Tim plans to drown himself in a month of novel-writing. Jackie goes on the Home Shopping Network, and Jun tries to decipher the English language. Basically, these are our pitiful attempts at making life a bit more interesting for ourselves and our readers. For better or worse, at least it’s something to do.

Penn students, make us proud over these next two weeks. Do something news-worthy. You even have Fall Break to work with – don’t let that go to waste. It’s a perfect time to plot some grand conspiratorial scheme involving spray paint, streamers, toilet paper, and the dueling tampons. But you didn’t get that idea from us.

Enjoy, mischief-makers. We support you 100% -- unless you get caught.

Sincerely Yours,

Shira Bender

Editor in Chief