The Deserted Bandwagon

Author: MATT KUNZWEILER

So I finally moved off campus and into an apartment in town. I did it for one reason: to escape the wrath of BannerWeb, which is a threat to Liberty and our very way of life.

Anyone who's watched a sci-fi movie (not that I'm "into the genre" - don't judge me) knows that in the future, the computers will go apes and enslave humanity. Today, BannerWeb already has such potential. Imagine what this big brother program could do if it developed a mind of its own, its own sick morality and totalitarian bloodlust: If your grades fall, BannerWeb will turn off your heat; if you don't pay a parking ticket, BannerWeb will deactivate your access card and leave you hypothermic and clawing at your dorm entrance; if BannerWeb doesn't think you're taking enough PE classes, it will disable the elevator in your dorm so you must burn calories trudging up the stairs; if BannerWeb notices you viewing online porn, it will notify your parents via email; if BannerWeb, while routinely tapping your phone line, overhears mention of alcohol, it will notify its favorite henchman, the new liquor inspector; if BannerWeb does not approve of your iTunes playlist, it will replace it with the complete works of Kraftwerk (the most logical and soulless group of the 70s techno-pop movement); and if you are ever audacious enough to curse BannerWeb during a brutally slow and frustrating round of class registration, it will automatically transfer you to McHarvard Community College Online.

I assure you, BannerWeb is capable of all these things. It has a very strange sense of justice/humor.

So, when I moved off campus and checked my BannerWeb account, I discovered to my delight that I had moved one step further from its ever-extending grasp. Under "Spring Housing Information," downtrodden BannerWeb reported: "Sorry, Housing Information Not Available for the Current Term" (and curiously capitalized like a song title…).

Now BannerWeb doesn't know where I live and it no longer controls my electricity, water and computer. This means that when the Revolution comes, I may be spared - though when BannerWeb reads this in the online edition of The Campus, it might begin plotting against me. It still has my social security number.

Or perhaps I'm losing my grip on reality, since this is the second consecutive week I've devoted an entire column to personifying an inanimate entity. (Last week my column was considerably more lighthearted, as I recounted the rollicking joviality of my good pal, Carlo Rossi, whom, by the way, I recently witnessed in the local grocery store soliciting himself to a beverage-perusing deer-eyed student. "Hey, you," Carlo shouted from the shelf, "the two of us are the perfect match. You got little hands, I got a little handle. Is it destiny?" That's classic Carlo for you. Classic Carlo.)

Carlo jokes, but BannerWeb lusts for disaster.

In the unlikely event that I haven't lost my grip on reality, take this one piece of advice: if you live on campus, don't play online chess. By playing online chess, you allow BannerWeb to watch, to analyze your moves, to study how you think, to find the holes in your logic, to learn everything about you so he can crush you when the Revolution comes. Accept it and cut your losses.

Who else remembers the good old days of registering with MARS?