Baratunde R. Thurston '99 is a philosophy concentrator in Lowell House. His column appears on alternate Tuesdays.

It's me again your loyal truth-teller, and I have some heavy news to drop on you folks today, so prepare yourselves.

Life is a scam.

Now before you write me off as just another insane Harvard kid who was accepted simply for his ability to prove Fermat's last theorem backwards in tongues, hear me out.

It's all a lie!! I can't take it anymore! The 1 a.m. party curfew, the no-fly zone, the Teletubbies, ahhhh!!!!

Sorry, had to get that out.

Seriously, if life is, in large part, the sum of our experiences and language, then we are in trouble. hereby present a list of scammage. See if you agree with my judgments.

Item one: ice in restaurant drinks.

Verdict: scam!

Those of you familiar with the movie "Reservoir Dogs" (which should be everyone since you all have that stupid poster with the triangular standoff on your walls) will remember the oft-cited restaurant scene in which Mr. Pink reveals his disdain for tipping. He hates it. I too have a restaurant peeve: ice in the drinks.

We've all noticed it. When you order alcohol, you get a pure full glass. That's because alcohol is poison and kills you. When you order soda (not "pop" you midwestern freaks), you get a pure full glass. That's because soda is glorified sugar water blended with dye #735a, also known as poison which kills you.

But order somethings non-lethal like juice, and what lands on your table is an iceberg in a cup with a shot of Sunny Delight.

Once at a restaurant, I thought I'd outsmart the staff and request no ice. The waitress asked me if I wanted her just to bring out the bottle. I leaped at the chance, and was flim-flammed again. The "bottle" was a Lilliputian eight ounces!

Item two: daylight savings time.

Verdict: scamboni.

"Spring forward, fall back." We've been programmed blindly to go along with this jingle since birth. Just who are we saving it for? I'll tell you who. It's that stinkin Slobodan Milosevic and the bourgeois oppressive regime that is the McDonald's Corporation. Stupid "happy" meals are ruining the country.