Abridged
Summer, 1997
On April 11th, I participated in a pie-eating contest. The object of this particular competition was to be the first person to finish eating an entire lemon meringue pie, crust and all.
I hate lemon meringue pie. Especially the crust... and the lemon... and the baked whipped cream. But I ate that pie. Three times I almost puked. I ate that pie. Twice my picture was taken. I ate that pie.
People were starting to finish. "Hurry up," I was told, "You can still get third!" I hurried. I ate that pie. When I looked up, one of the judges told me I had won third place. Third place was for points. I was psyched.
I went up to my room, and took a shower. Then I returned to my dorm lobby to watch the next competition: Jell-O Twister.
"Sorry," someone told me, "You placed fourth." No points.
I've put my rage aside, however, and focused not on the competition itself, but rather on the media's coverage of the event. The day after the contest, my face adorned the cover of the Syracuse University daily newspaper, the Daily Orange.
The photo had been taken by Emilie Sommer, a staff photographer for the DO. That picture is reprinted here, to the right of this letter. It's the picture everyone saw.
Unbeknownst to many, though, there was a second photographer on the grassy knoll, snapping away. Brad Horrigan, Phlint 3A Phreelance Photographer (and my next door neighbor), took the picture that appears on the left. Brad was dissappointed that Emilie's picture showed up in the DO, because they are in the same photography class and she received extra credit for having her picture plastered all over campus.
Whose picture was better? I can't say. But you can. Just fill out the following form and click submit to vote on which picture you think deserved to immortalize me. Please, only one vote per person, we want to keep this fair.
No more votes, please Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about Sham. This issue is the last issue I'll be putting out this academic year. It's been eight months since I hooked up my first modem, and this is where I am now. I'm proud. Sham has become an institution amongst people who know me, as well as a few of you who I don't know (I'd love to hear from people who aren't on the mailing list. How did you find Sham? What do you think?)
Issue 5 marks the premiere of "Emeril's Web Page." In the future, this will become as popular as "Metallus' Link Page" (Which received over 200 hits during Issue 4's reign), but I don't plan to push it until after July when my server space increases and I am able to activate the sound page. Check it out now, though, you should be pleased. You'll need frames, but once you see what I've done, you'll see that it's worth it.
Other features in this issue include a new "Captain Scurvy" page ("The Disney World Special"), updates to the BrakOS on "Metallus' Link Page," new poems from myself and Kevin Davis, and updates to the "Orange Crate" (more of my floormates have published pages).
This summer will see only two major changes in Sham. Emeril sound will be added in early July, and, in mid June, "Sound Bytes" will feature a review of the Tibetan Freedom Concert in NYC, which I am attending, and which will feature the Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, and some guy named Michael Stipe who I'm not familiar with. Stay tuned! (On the subject of Tibetan freedom, I haven't abandoned my support of the Boycott of Chinese goods; Milarepa's server hasn't been responding correctly, so I removed their logo.)
That's about it for now, except that Sham recently rocked Gautam's ass in accesses, according to stats here. As this page is published, I am ranked 40 in accesses at S.U. Gautam is at 54. As he is no longer a threat, my next challenge goes out to Josh Wardell, currently ranked 32. Be warned, Josh, you're next.
As always, feel free to send me anything you'd like to see published in Sham. There's always a good chance It'll happen. With all that out of the way, it looks like this summer will be great. I'll be able to see my girlfriend Jessica almost every day; and, of course, I'll once again be working at Deer Lake. And then there's cheerleading camp...
