Combat Zone

Following the success of Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp, who has attempted to fund a permanent colony on Mars by turning the whole process into a reality television show, the University of Puget Sound’s science departments have turned their whole teaching philosophy upside down. Lansdorp, who began his ascent to fame by selling shares in his wind-harnessing energy company, will raise six billion euros by following the “contestants”-turned-colonists through their training and eventual mission launch. His Facebook page has already attained 8,000 likes and the initial YouTube video advertising his plan...

Spring break found the University of Puget Sound campus flooded with mobs of noisy high school students scampering around asking for directions to Wyatt Hall and loudly yelling at each other. The University was playing host to a local high school speech and debate tournament. As this will be reccurring at least twice a year for the foreseeable future, the Combat Zone has compiled a list of how to identify—and therefore avoid—these people. A) Nine times out of ten they will be wearing incredibly ill-fitting suits that make them look...

I don’t care what they think they saw. I only know what I lived. I could feel their stares. How achingly they tried to cover their jealousy with disapproval. All they saw was a couple making out on the dance floor—the first couple to make out on the dance floor. I suppose we can’t really blame them, much like you can’t blame someone who has never let themselves learn to love coffee. All they taste is the bitterness, and all they feel is the social pressure to drink. As a...

In a deviation from the kind of stories that we usually publish at The Combat Zone, we’ve decided to give you something completely ridiculous, the cold, hard, absolutely factual truth! No, but seriously. All true. Over the past several weeks, we here at The Trail have noticed a lot of confusion regarding the mysterious appearance of signs bearing Japanese names underneath the cherry trees outside of the S.U.B. Some letters merely question the purpose of the signs while others demand their immediate removal, with reasons ranging from a general aversion...

Junior Nyan Fosling was expelled from the University of Puget Sound earlier this week after a lengthy investigation involving serious allegations of plagiarism, academic dishonesty and intellectual property theft. Reports began as early as six months ago, when a professor anonymously communicated with officials that one of their students was showing strange, clichéd behavior, without explaining to anyone what he was doing. After a long process of comparing and analyzing these behavioral patterns with notable published works, authorities officially charged Fosling with emulating several well-known characters, shaping his own life...

University of Puget Sound junior Juan Peal has become a renowned fashion icon on campus, and it’s all thanks to Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a program meant to foster financial support for young artists, whether it is to record their first album or pay for art supplies. People post their cause online by city and anyone who visits the website is allowed to donate to causes. Previous successes include funding the Blue Mouse Theater to go digital and the smash science fiction/comedy film Unidentified Flying Assholes. Juan, on the other hand,...

Hey you. Remember me? Remember Saturday night? There you were. There I was. There we were. Three years of muted romantic tension built to a head.  I didn’t know you and my housemate were so close. Clearly not that close—he plays for the other team. But close enough to find the two of you tangled amongst the many bikes our house has amassed. Your lips were stained burgundy with cheap wine. I wanted to taste those lips, to know the exact vineyard in Australia that had so delicately warped your...

Last week the University of Puget Sound Diner debuted its newest Asian station success, ramen. Students lined up out the door on Sunday, a line amounting to more customers than the Asian station has had since its inception. The ramen came with many different meat and topping options that left students foaming at the mouth. Little did the students know the ramen was the first in a long line of changes at the S.U.B. Based on the highly successful results of having students roll burritos for their peers, the administration...

The University of Puget Sound administration has gone to great lengths this last year to update our national image as a prestigious Liberal Arts academy of learning and multicultural awareness. Already, the elimination of that handicapped-accessible ramp behind McIntyre, the proposal to drop the “University of” from our name, and the use of silver iodine to disrupt cloud formations have been prime examples of Puget Sound’s commitment to be taken more seriously by the academic community. However, one large obstacle still needs to be overcome. The University has begun looking...

Puget Sound students and administrators were left puzzled and stunned after attending famed comedian Bill Cosby’s recent school-sponsored talk. “I mean, I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe a joke set of some sort,” junior Hannah Weitz said. “But that?” Events planner Jerry Garcia expressed a similar befuddlement. “What the s**t did I just watch?” Apparently, rather than following the school-approved script of knock-knock jokes and memories from Kids Say The Darndest Things, Cosby took the time to share with the audience his passion for haiku poetry and nude...

As the University of Puget Sound celebrates its 125th year, we here at The Trail have this opportunity to look over the history of University of Puget Sound (or The Puget Sound University as it was known from 1890 to 1903, the College of Puget Sound as it was known from 1914 to 1960, the Make-Believe-Harvard-of-the-West-When-Stanford-Isn’t-Looking University as it will be know from 2014 to 2025 and the University of Phoenix Online, Tacoma Annex, as it will be known from 2025, until the return of Galactic Overlord Xenu in 2134)....

By VONNIE KEATSGUTS Recently, large water bottles were banned from sale on campus, beginning at a later date. You know, the gigantic ones which say Puget Sound on the side. The bottles were introduced in 2008 with the onset of the Great Recession. School officials were unsure if tuition and federal funding would be enough to keep the school afloat, so, following soda manufacturers’ lead, the school embarked on the greatest scam ever: bottling and selling a product they give away for free from every tap, toliet and urinal on...