This is almost too surreal, and I hardly believe it myself, but… I have found the missing compubookie article…
Before I left work today I received a voicemail from the UC desk. The message told me that there was a letter addressed to me in the Sweepstakes mailbox and though it was addressed to me, I would need someone from sweepstakes with me to pick it up. Curious, I stop by the UC and find Josh in the Student Activities office. The mailbox turned out to already be empty and the letter was attached to some parking passes I had to pick up anyway (thanks Kaycee).
The Envelope was adressed:
To BAA/CMUbuggy
Ben Matzke
Inside was a single page double sided printout with the Compubookie 2013 Article.
I am still trying to figure out if this is actually happening, but here’s what was written on the page:
Compubookie 2013
This spring has been a tough one for all teams involved. Look for excitement in the chute due to the lack of practice and the quicker than normal ramp up of speed by most teams.
Lets jump right into the predictions:
The women’s races will see five A teams and one B team in the top 6.
Starting off at 6th place will be the women of Spirit A. The PiKA women will barely edge out Spirit with a better downhill performance, good enough for 5th place.
At the line in 4th place, we will see SDC B with one of their many fast buggies. A strong women’s push team will place the SigEp women in 3rd place. Next, the 2nd place trophy will be taken by Fringe A, once again falling to a stronger SDC.
SDC A women will catapult one of their quick buggies to another 1st place finish.
10th place for men will belong to CIA A with their moderate speed and comparatively weaker push team. Next we have Fringe who will skate into the 9th spot with their B team.
Following Close behind will be Spirit with their B team. Spirit has been looking stronger than ever in both pushing and the freeroll. SDC’s dominance as of late in the sport of buggy will see their C team slide into the 7th spot for the men’s races.
Finishing before SDC C will be Spirit A with a 6th place finish. Expect Spirit to improve on their performance from recent racedays with a better roll and a quality push team. SDC B will finish well ahead of Spirit A for a 5th place finish accounting for one of SDC’s three top ten teams.
The 5th place trophy will go to Fringe A. Fringe will see a lower finish than in years past due to the absence of Bonsai on the course and their apparent lack of organization as a team this year. Expect PiKA to finish at a respectable 3rd place with their new small buggy and average A team pushers.
SigEp A with their impressive downhill performance and strong push team will edge out PiKA and Fringe for the second sport on the leader board.
Ultimately, no one will challenge SDC A with their polished buggy, push team, and knowledgeable mechanics. SDC will take home the 1st place trophy for the second year in a row.
As always, I will see everyone at the races, but you will not see me.
Predictions:
Men’s:
- SDC A
- SigEp A
- PiKA A
- Fringe A
- SDC B
- Spirit A
- SDC C
- Spirit B
- Fringe B
- CIA A
Women’s
- SDC A
- Fringe A
- SigEp A
- SDC B
- PiKA A
- Spirit A
The Field:
SDC: It’s about time they add a third win.
CIA: Are you compensating for something with your B1R?
Fringe: Where are your buggies, it’s time to start rolling.
PiKA: Tiny buggy…tiny push team.
SigEp: Taking it up the chute higher than normal.
SigNu: If your buggy was the size of your chapter you might have a shot…for Day 2.
SAE: better at painting lions.
Apex: Congratulations for getting your training wheels off.
ROTC: Stick to drones.
Spirit: You won term 2, doesn’t really matter you’re still going to lose.
AePi: Who?
Editorial Update: The Buggy Alumni Association has no interest in promoting commentary about members of the buggy community based on race, religion, sexuality, old tired reputations, or anything else unrelated to the sport. We love buggy and so do the students participating in it; that’s what matters. We won’t republish any such content in the future no matter what long-standing moniker claims authorship. – S. Swift 4/17/13
The page is now in the hands of the Tartan, who I assume will make their own post. I was sure to take pictures of the page before I handed it off.
Enjoy while I figure out the difference between reality and insanity…
Jillian says:
This does not seem up to par (wit-wise or grammatically) with what compubookie has produced in past years. Is there any way to know for sure if it’s the real thing and not a wanna-be? Not to be spreading conspiracy theories or anything! It just seems…questionable.
Spud says:
The compubookie mother board must be fried
bordick says:
Compubookie must be getting old. He’s regressing technologically and witologically.
felmley says:
I dunno, to me this seems like more of the same. Could easily be Da Man, I mean, Da Troll we know as CB. I’ve now seen over 25 of these; expecting high wit from Compubookie is never rewarded. It’s usually just about like this: favors the winner, fairly accurately handicaps the rest, challenges the other teams with jibes. Only recently has he/she/it added more overt innuendo, i.e.: Sig Ep. Referring to second semester (if I read it correctly) as “term 2” would make him an older alum, IMO. So I’d say this is legit.
McCue says:
I don’t get the CIA joke. What’s B1R?
I assumed the Term 2 thing had to do with Barack Obama. Spirit and all. (Hey, not my joke.)
Ryan says:
This is B1R
http://cmubuggy.org/gallery/2012-2013/Spring-Rolls—March-24/SpringRolls-20130324-00002
It’s a wooden buggy built by one of CIA’s mechanics.
Rachel says:
B1R is the name of their wooden buggy (as mentioned below). The joke is its name- b1r, spelled out as b-one-r. get it?
jymotion says:
2edgy4me
Stratis says:
I don’t think this CompuBook-alike ever saw (or heard about) buggy in the 80s or 90s. Spirit is “looking stronger than ever in … pushing”? Really? And that gives them a 5th place prediction?
the cook says:
do they let people into CMU who write like this?
Eric L. says:
Yes. We’re called engineers.
Aileen says:
I had to spend a semester last year reading undergrad engineering statistics reports. This is probably better than average engineer writing skills.
Evan Moss, Spirit Chair says:
So given that this is an experience meant for the young minds participating in it, why is there not a line drawn as to how far the old folks can go? If you joke about my team being predominately black behind closed doors, that’s fine. But why is it ok to insult the diversity of my team publicly? I am very much offended by the underhand insult because it undermines the mix of cultures and backgrounds that Spirit has worked to create. How soon before nigger slips out of someone’s mouth when identities aren’t hidden?
Sam Swift says:
I agree Evan. I think there’s value in a culture that is informal enough to allow off-color statements which contribute to humor and make interesting observations about the world, but this isn’t that. Great racial/cultural humor is easy to find but to be funny and to be worthwhile, you gotta bring something to it in addition to identifying groups and expecting people to laugh. In the past 5-10 years the person or persons who write as “Compubookie” have been falling further and further short of that mark.
I don’t think that “Compubookie” actually has anything against Spirit in particular. You’ll notice reading back that making fun of teams for being Jewish, gay, or female are also popular themes. I think it’s just a case of 12 months not being enough time for the author to come up with anything creative or interesting to say. We keep paying attention to what “Compubookie” says so he/they keep doing it.
A bright point is that this community has reacted consistently negatively to it each year. Comments about how much Compubookie sucks far outnumber anybody impressed with his wit or insight. But it is a problem that we mutter about it being inappropriate and disappointing each year, and then give it the respect of putting it on this site and in the Tartan the next. To that end I have crossed out the “The Field” section of the column and added a message explaining it. I hope you agree that’s better than just removing it since I think your reaction and a discussion here does more to reject it than just erasing it. Thanks for saying something.
egladdin says:
You’ve done something really great here. Challenge the Buggy “traditions”, make the community inclusive; if we keep taking steps like this that might just allow buggy to survive for another 90 years.
Thank You Sam.
SigNuSi says:
Agreed, would like to second the opinion. Compubookie used to be a way of firing teams up for Sweepstakes, at the Zoo I used it as “let’s go prove him wrong” material. However, within that respect, Compubookie(s) of years recently past have been making references that a number of us have begun to find inappropriate on a level that goes beyond team razzing into something darker, something that a number of us chose not to accept. One thing to call my push team a bunch of pasty slobs who couldn’t take Hill 1 without chasing a donut, another thing to cut into race.
Raceday preview’s like 50 times better anyways.
Zatchmo says:
Well, if I’ll be the lone dissenting opinion…
Just for what it’s worth, it’s always been troll material, it’s always been a shot at the lowest common denominator. My problem with it is as much as I don’t find it particularly clever, normally, as anything else. But I do think we should keep things in perspective. Honestly, I find it as pretty lighthearted stuff (AEPi/CIA here, so I say that as a cheap jew and a habitual loser). I guess we, as the alumni association, can take the moral stand here, it just seems like a silly use of effort in comparison to things that would actually advance the sport.
Sam Swift says:
Don’t worry, it wasn’t much effort, and we don’t face too many moral quandaries as an organization so I’m not worried about fatiguing.
Zatch says:
Can’t let Compubookie have a monopoly on excessive snarkiness, huh?
Shafeeq says:
Did something get edited out, or am I missing something? I don’t care much for Compbookie’s progressively cheapening sense of humor, nor do I have any idea what he thinks, but I don’t read his joke as being about Spirit’s buggy team being predominantly black, but that Spirit (of which the buggy team is a part) has, in its own words, “the primary mission is to promote African-American awareness at Carnegie Mellon University.”
There’s no way to explain why Spirit is Spirit (and not, say, Fringe) without bringing up race, there’s no way to explain why AEPi is AEPi without bringing up religion, and no way to explain NROTC without bringing up … sailors.
So far as I have seen, buggy as a sport pays attention to how fast people are and not what they look like.
Sam Swift says:
I didn’t remove any text, just crossed it out. I agree that nothing in particular was scandal-level offensive, but that being generally and consistently unpleasant without offering anything of value is below the bar for our site. I don’t care if Compubookie continues to exist, but the Buggy Alumni Association is better than that; content we publish promotes the sport and its participants. For all we know, it might have been sent to us because the Tartan had already said, “no thanks.”
Zatch says:
That was not the case, no.
TommyK says:
Especially when there’s plenty of classier trash talking that could be sent Spirit’s way … Like why does the Spirit website claim “Along with booth is buggy … the event that SPIRIT reigns and rules” … shouldn’t it be in past tense?
and … “We have been on top every year.” … except for the last 15.
Could also propose nicknaming Spirit … I like “The Texas of Buggy” since it has the most DQs (Dairy Queens) or go with the obvious sports analogy “The Bulls of Buggy” (dominant in the ’90s …)
the Pope says:
it is not like the cb really went out on a limb with his/her predictions.
What could have been discussed but wasn’t: How exactly does one know which ze/aend wheel is about to shed a tire? How is this impacting fringe and scd? How well will spirit resist the temptation to take the prep beyond the limits they have found? ( clearly they know how to juice and heat, they won on old sbd red lead wheels back in the 80s and those alumni are still with us).
Will Motley says:
Hey Pope, yeah, those alumni are still with us… but have a drink with one of us. There are a couple of screws missing!!!