6 I The Behrend Beacon
Pop vs. soda: which one will come out on top
1 : FICIld.Illps :IJw ihr. .01114\ haAc been it.-,tett oAef man\ topic.
but tic\ ci ,onooovirsv intimmint2d telocit% a, the one
hoween carbonated hot:mgt.., ~ otlti or pop. It is a topic that
most people ,a 1 (yllllOll on and thes iNneralls do. No other
pointless cariies so much sseqfht between two friends.
The ninntinf drink is generally ts..fi.;iiirial. Not just legions of
the countis hut es en dilletem pints of the state. There are neat Is . 1 00
Facchook dedicated to their support for pop/soda or hatred of
people who do not folios\ their train of thotn2ht
Pichrend ',indents sectn to he esenls split On their thotn i .fhts on the
subject and it appeals iiai thew ale more than just the two sides to this
argument. Ilk . quotes has e been separated location ol
the person quoted and the flank., hase been concealed to protect
friendships.
I nc HMI \ C oIICICII tip this \vas a pop kid. now I'm soda .
It's (ink because I think pop is just had music
It would seem as 1110112.11 out of state students iiifee in. far as the use
of the word soda. hut their reasoni n g hchind it is a little different. One
student nom , i/ona said. - Pop is the most just:n[lc woid ewer, hut
soda is all I his student ielcrred to carbonated hes crages such as
Coke. In Mall\ Southern and Western states. C\ CrVlllifig is called
('oke. At a te,tatuant sou ssunld order a Coke and the waiter or wait
ress would then ask what kind of Coke sou wanted. A student from
un with signing
In order to educate as well as
entertain readers. to the right is a
sentence in sign language
fun phrase that you can sign to
your friends. so try to figure it out
On vour own, or Goiwle search the
alphabet and uncover this hidden
little gem. Enjoy
Review: The final broadcast comes to and end, or does it?
I was lookin . g. iiround un May tor a special edition cop\ 0 1 a film
alread l)\‘ nI vv high \y,l\ rendered 01 - I'.olete ith the release of this new
version... I hate it when the\ do that) when I \tumbled upon a unique
little Lent that happened to come up in the search result.. It wa. a VHS
tape in - tail' Londition, which was totally unremarkable in and of
ith the c \ecption oh it, tithe: The I B loo d ( (o f Ilk rh e
Beginning.
Such a ..omplicated title intrigued me. lot it contradicts all toms (il
common sense I I-snow ol l'onsideving other classic films that spun oif
into countless sequels. I figured that this one must have quite an inter
esting history. Lven the Byer-popular "Revenge of the Nerds'' series
only ever made it up to /1.1 . .Ve01s it/ Lore. This one had to he good.
Looking up i/ O final Thmidc,i)/ On IMDB.com was a hust. For all
the countless hints of ohscurit \ they have in the film database. this
particular one was not listed. Now. I really was intrigued. flow could
a movie that made it through six sequels not he listed' I was deter
mined to find out mole. Atter an hour or so of (;000e and Yahoo
searches. I finally managed to dig up a copy of a review of the film
itself. and sonic of its background. the site itself was not online: I had
Top five of the week...
111 Bell R1111114111(1
himi()i
A 16 1 r
do if ,
Tv*"
w , 4 rw i a 0 . 6 f,
us NJ 41c 6" mew
• Alob■ ti
00" At . 0 w 6
mi Z AK* ■ tie
B 1 alike Sharkey 111
photo cditol
3
•
Everyon
needs a h
five now
then, espe
you, so en,
HUMOR
Ne \\ York, simply stated that. "Pop is a sound, not a noun. -
Other students have been working on their response to this debate in
L!icitt cletail
"According to the Oxford English Dictionary, 'pop' is an efferves
cent or carbonated drink originally associated with ginger beer or
clianipagne. Although it now refers to a "non-alcoholic fizzy drink,"
the colloquial term is considered an actual word in the English lan
guage. Therefore, if the Oxford English Dictionary deems it an actual
word, who arc we to claim that it isn't? Who are we to say that it
should he "soda?
Many people like to claim that soda is the correct way of labeling
Pepsi. Dr. Pepper. Mountain Dew, etc. Well, unfortunately. you are
rong. Why are you wrong? Because the British say so. No one goes
against the British in a lingual debate. England is home to
Shakespeare. Lord Byron, Jane Austen, Margaret Thatcher. Winston
Churchill and J. K. Rowling: all lyrical geniuses. The Brits refer to
Pepsi as "pop - according to both the OED and personal experiences.
Coincidentally, our founding fathers were British. Therefore, our
founding fathers said pop. The history of the word soda does not
directly relate to the soda that denotes Pepsi; it refers to chemical ele
ments and different medicines. So, therefore, by calling your Dr.
Pepper "soda - . you are actually claiming that you use drugs...
The same student continues with, "As a result, I myself prefer to call
my Dr. Pepper pop: not strictly to clarify that I'm not a druggie, but
also to emulate our founding fathers and the British, because no one
argues with the British:*
to find a copy of it through Archive.org. The site had gone down short-
Iv after publishing the copy of the review. Stranger still, the magazine
that published the review hack in 1978 also went out of business short-
I\ after the issue was released.
The article offered a history of the Final Broadcast series. The orig
inal film was not. in fact, created in the United States. The original
Final Broadcast was created by a Belgian filmmaker named Frederic
Olcou Jr.. who ironically died shortly after making the film.
Apparently. when screening it for the first time, the projector bulb
mysteriously heated up more than it normally would, and shot out of
the projector booth, landing straight in the back of the head of Olcott,
melting part of his brain, killing him instantly. The matter_was hushed
up, and the film was released in the Belgic 111 (three nof being the
number of screens, but rather the number of employees working there
at the time). The film was a minor success, and brought the attention
of American entrepreneur Phil Wallace IV. Wallace who
"Americani/ed - the film, adding in more gore. cheesy special effects,
and cut out around four major plot elements to keep the American
audience's attention. The film was a success, and Wallace was com
missioned for a sequel, which he quickly produced at half the cost.
with twice the budget. The sequel, The Final Broadcast II.• Lex
Returns, took all the audience's favorite moments from the first film,
, :: ,,w3l.
1 -:•':„.'l.figgiiiillt
H.,,,„„:„.,..,.:,,,.:,,,,,.,„,..,.,,,,,...
Likc a inicl2et at a urinal vou should always he on your toes
STARTS
100 PM
• FREE
FOR PENN
STATE
STUDENTS
S L 7 OR
)I\if
While the OED contains an origin of the word, people do in fact
argue with the British; it was the American Revolution. It guaranteed
freedom of religion, government, and not using Cockney Slang.
Webster's dictionary disputes the Oxford edition. So who is right?
One student from the Pittsburgh area felt that they had solution. "I
like to call it pop because soda is too long. It is two syllables, you don't
need that many to describe something you drink every day. Pop
sounds more exciting. it is an example of Onomatopoeia and soda is
not exciting. Soda sounds like the name of a flower. One that I would
just want to forget about and not smell. I am completely against it. It's
'sodapopism'. There are other beverages out there such as Dr. Pepper,
Cherry Pepsi... I like to keep it broad keep it realistic."
In this argument it seems that there is never any headway made.
Some say pop is the name of a Rice Crispie, others just can not stand
the word soda. As it turns out, there is a happy medium, and the dic
tionary excuse proves everyone wrong. Searching "soda pop" returns
what the drink actually is. So no one is correct, just too lazy to say the
whole word. As for those who call things Coke there really is no hope.
The truth is that this will be argued over for years to come, but argu
ing over what you want to call something is pointless. If people can
not even agree on something as simple as this, how could a serious
issue ever get solved? Just take the politicians way out of the argu
ment and make your drink selection by what it is actually called. In
doing so, you ensure that your selection will be correct, the server will
not be offended and contaminate your drink, and you won't lose any
friends.
and exploded them into the entire second film. Brief nudity was
included as an added bonus, to make up for the uninspired ending to
the film. The third through fifth films basically kept up the same for
mula (with the exception of The Final Broadcast 4, which disregard
ed the roman numeral trend and involved absolutely none of the orig
inal characters), with the addition of full frontal nudity, a midget side
kick named Bobo, and some questionable uses of warm ketchup. By
the sixth film, The Final Broadcast VI: Lex's Legacy, Wallace had
become so rich he decided to have the main character die in the film
to successfully bring the series to a close. The public forgot about the
series entirely, until 1977. when filmmaker Henry King VIII was
inspired to revive the story line and create another sequel. This movie,
The Final Broadcast VII.• The Beginning takes place in the events pre
ceding the first film, and has none of the originacharacters (not even
the actor Bruce Cartel] as "Lex," who remained the only consistent
character throughout the series, sans fourth).
Harold Spiltz was brought in to play a youthful "Lex" whose par
ents are killed by a group of Storm Troopers (which later inspired
George Lucas when he went on to produce Star Wars). Lex then trains
in the use of Tai Quan Do Jo Mo Fo to one day grow and battle the evil
forces 0f...
You know what, now that I think of it, this movie sucked
The Alumni Conspiracy
http://www.alumni.psu.eduiaboutusiplani
ENfIl
1. An increasingly larger non-University Park student and alumni
body resulting in a lack of common Penn State experiences.
By Jerry Pohl
assistant humor editor
There are few things more important to
me than my friends pornography and
comedy to name a few, but the last thing
I'd want to do is put my friends in dan
ger. Since several of my friends have
graduated, and are now considered alum
ni, I decided to take a look at Penn State's
alumni website. While browsing, I came
across the Penn State Alumni Council's
Strategic Plan at
www.alumni.psu.edu/about_us/plan/
I was worried when I found that on the
top of their list of the top seven threats to
umm was me
just me, everyone at
Behrend, and the other
branch campuses too.
The site says that by
being students at
Behrend, instead of
University Park, our
existence is resulting in a
lack of common Penn
State experiences. By
attending Behrend and
not getting the Penn State experience, I
was putting my alumni friends in danger.
Having a uniform experience is the
most important part of college life. How
will I conform to the real world if my col
lege experience pollutes me with rich
individual experiences? I need to do and
see the same things as everyone else to
get the most out of my education. Why,
by even writing this article for the Humor
Page of The Behrend Beacon instead of
for Penn State's humor magazine,
Phroth, I am only adding to the crisis.
What will happen when I tell people I
graduated from Penn State, and they ask
me something about the good times in
the HUB, or that big Daily Collegian
article, or that feline themed footballing
team? What am I supposed to say? "I
went to Behrend?" They won't know
what that is because they had the correct
experience, which does not include
Behrend.
No one successful has ever had an
experience which deviated from their
peer group. Individual experiences are
By attending
Behrend and not
getting the Penn
State experience
was putting my
umni friends i
danger.
life, marketing each other with the com
forting predictability of a tray of sweets
made by the greatest invention of man,
the cookie cutter.
The clear threat I pose to my Alumni
brethren...er...step-brethren, is that I am
apart from them, instead of a part of
them. I vow to no longer be a part of the
problem. I proudly proclaim: THEY
ARE...PENN STATE.
Friday, April 13, 2007
©Go
what keeps us apart and causes
prejudice and war. If we all had
the same experiences we'd be
hard pressed to find reasons to
hate each other; we'd manage
though. Unlike primitive cave
men, we can do better than indi
viduality. We have the glorious
plethora of mass media to give
us pre-approved, focus-group
researched input; full length
commercials for a profitable