Woe – “It’s Like the Feeling You’d Get if the Super Bowl Were Preempted by Antiques Roadshow.”
Whoa! Thanks to the every-witty "Daria" for the title.
My cause for woe? I received the Nonmember e-TrueBlue alumni newsletter from the University of Michigan today. It didn’t even come on a Friday like it’s supposed to! I guess this is the way the Alumni Association is trying to tell me that I’m not special anymore, so I’d better renew my $55 year-long membership right now! I might miss out on some exciting benefits! Like football tickets!
No thanks.
Let’s peruse this, shall we (perfect way to kill time that I should be using to, you know, work)?
*Michigan is the "Hottest School for Greeks with Brains." The MSNBC article tells me that "about 15 percent of undergrads go Greek, which students say helps them find a friendlier community within the vast student population (23,000 undergrads)." Hmm, what a nice way to say Rent-A-Friend. Don’t get me wrong, I know a few graduated Greeks who are very kind and intelligent. However, if this is the best that Michigan can come up with for the Hot 25, then I am severely disappointed. Why not "Hottest School for Sponsor-whores!?" Yeah, I keep on harping about that, but it still gets me.
*Alert to all alums! The Association is looking for "Chicken Soup" stories so that a special "Chicken Soup for the Soul" Michigan edition can be created. "Did a University professor change your outlook on life? Did you make the friend of a lifetime in the dorms? Was your life changed by a U-M alum?" Huh. I don’t know about you guys, but sappy stories just don’t make the cut for me. How about "Snark for the Michigan Soul?" Funny, hugely ironic stories about things that happened to you while at Michigan. That’d be much more fun, and stories like that are so damn entertaining.
*The other stories are about a study on how religious beliefs affect health (though I could’ve told them the results of that by just looking at my 92-year-old Catholic grandma); the Athletic Department has teamed up with Mott Children’s Hospital to raise money for a new children’s and women’s hospital (my family already gives to Mott – they took care of me as a kid, though I don’t remember any of the details); and ROSE BOWL packages, people! How can you be a dedicated alumnus/a if you don’t go to the frickin’ Rose Bowl!
I wonder if the member e-TrueBlue was any different? The link indicates no, but there must be a reason why I’m labeled as a nonmember. I feel so . . . insignificant.
But I’m still not going to shell out $55 a year for fluff pieces and links.
Did you really mean $55 A MONTH?! That is obscene, if true. That’s only slightly less than my phone bill.
I get an e-mail from them once a month or so. I think it’s called e-true-blue (or something like that). To be honest, I probably would look through it, but it always comes formatted for html and I of course am trying to read the thing in pine, so I usually just delete it. (In fairness, I generally will delete any html-formatted e-mail I receive, unless it seems incredibly important, because they are nearly impossible to deal with in pine, and certainly rarely worth the effort.)
I also get e-mails from the Denver alumni group. As far as I can tell, their activities mostly consist of donning obnoxious UM regalia and taking over a downtown Denver bar every time there’s a football game. Might be fun, if I had more time. And more school spirit. And knew more people. And didn’t mind starting to drink beer at 10 am on a Saturday. (Yes, even I have my limits.)
I like “Snark For The Michigan Soul” as a book idea. The person who runs the AAIO blog would have to write a chapter. I could write a chapter about 1201, or maybe the museum. You could write one bemoaning the fact that you never went to Dominick’s as an undergrad. And then we could get SJ to write one, but tell her it is “Chicken Soup” and she needs to write the sappiest thing possible, for its unintentional comedic value. She can even illustrate it with crayon drawings.
“Um, OK. I can write about my dog! M-E-T. As long as you agree that it will say that this chapter was written by PROFESSOR…!”
Oh gosh, thanks for pointing out that mistake. No, it’s $55 a year if it’s been more than three years since you graduated. You could still get it for $25, but I’d have to pay yearly or buy a lifelong one (which is in the hundreds).
e-TrueBlue is supposed to come weekly, and it used to come on Fridays. I guess they switched to Mondays, but I didn’t see it until today. I can read the HTML (I have to use that goddamn mail.umich.edu to log in), but they always provide a link so you can read it properly formatted. But believe me, this thing is never worth the effort.
I used to get e-mails from the *Toledo* alumni group. WTF? I live 15 minutes from Ann Arbor and an hour away from Toledo! I then unsubscribed from that and got shuffled into the Greater Detroit group. I think the women’s alumni group in Ann Arbor is trying desperately to keep me off of their list. ;) Maybe they’re smart and figure I’d endlessly mock them?
Oh, there are always 3pm games, so you’d be drinking beer at 1pm. Not too bad!
I nearly lost my Starbucks on your chapter ideas, especially the SJ one. I think that chapter alone would sell the book to a publisher!
“SJ, Paul! EsssssssJay!”