March 31st, 2006
Planet Xavier
#1,011
Shut down
I can’t believe it! St. X shut down Planet Xavier!
This morning, I got a letter in the mail from St. X, asking me in no uncertain terms to “cease and desist”. Who’da thunk that you would get a C&D letter without having violated copyright?
Here’s the cruxt of the letter:
The St. Xavier High School administration has determined that “Planet Xavier” (“the Web site”) has contributed to the continued misuse of school resources by encouraging students to use services such as Xanga, MySpace, Facebook, YTMND, the Encyclopædia Britannica, and Google.
Despite the IT Department’s valiant efforts to curtail the use of these Web sites, your Web site has served as a loophole, through which students have exchanged non-Jesuit-appropriate comments and, worse, non-curricular thoughts. Thus, we feel it is our duty as educators to ban the use of this Web site and thereby help students regain the immaculate grades they once received before they were introduced to the Internet.
We trust you agree with our belief that the constant abuse of computer time for “blogging” and related activities directly leads to rapidly declining grades. Persuant to this, we ask that you cease and desist, and furthermore ask that you not attempt to revive this Web site and instead devote his time and resources discouraging the practice of “blogging.” We are confident that you will respect our decision to close your Web site and obey our directions, considering the virtues of “Men, Women and Children with, about, above, across, amid, among, around, at, behind, below, beneath, beside, by, for, from, in, into, of, off, outside, over, to, toward, under, until, within and without Others,” AMDG and magis to which you swore under your breath as you were handed your diploma.
To which I say: you handed me my diploma in the mail.
Imagine my intense frustration once I realized what they had done next! Before bed, I happened to open up pX, only to find that exact same excerpt on my own website, with only a few minor changes in wording and a lot more boldfaced text.
I can’t believe they would go through such lengths to persue these “non-curricular activities”, and I especially can’t believe that they would trespass on the property of someone who’d already graduated!
Needless to say, I’m miffed.
7/21/2007 @ 10:07 PM
Minh’s Notes
1.) Fall off seat. 2.) Laugh.
I was on the plane and away from the keyboard for most of April Fool’s, so my prank will just have to wait until next year. In the meantime, some of this year’s best.
4/ 1/2008 @ 4:10 PM
Minh’s Notes
Snow?
The lucky folks back home in Cincinnati appear to be having a snow day in April, according to my self-aware program that automatically updates Planet Xavier to reflect the latest school closings.