Massey College Alumni Association--links

Massey College Alumni Association

Alumni-Site-Related Links That Don't, For Whatever Reason, Belong in the Index Above

This page provides links to "seasonal" alumni pages that will really only be of interest to people at certain times of year. At the moment, Tigger's Holiday Songsheet and It Was a Wonderful Night Before the Massey Bull Stole a Christmas Carol are here.

College-Related Links

I have updated this section to reflect the fact that many of the old links are seriously outdated or no longer work. Massey does sort of need to shore up its web presence, methinks.

Massey College's main site can be found here. It even has an alumni page, albeit a slightly vague one.

This site is dedicated to the Massey College choirs (the general choir and the chapel choir). It includes the general choir's schedule, a list of the year's chapel services, a F.A.Q. page, and recordings of pieces sung by the choirs of yesteryear (yep...Age of Aquarius is one of the featured songs).

Yes...Massey has a Wikipedia article. It's true that its only mention of the alumni involves Preston Manning, but otherwise, the entry is quite informative. It even includes a link to "Tax Returns for Master and Fellows of Massey College, Canada Revenue Agency."

Massey does not merely have a Wikipedia article; it also has a wiki of its very own. People have sort of forgotten about it, but it has been there since 2008, and people shouldn't be afraid of editing it. In order to access it, you will have to sign up, which you can do by supplying the "secret password" (hint: it's the name of the architect we should all be remembering, properly capitalised but with no spaces between the first and last names).

Massey alumna Laurel Damashek has put together this Massey-themed photo-sharing page. If you would like to check it out, just click and view...or, if you have photos of your own you want to upload, click and register. Any questions regarding this project can be forwarded to Laurel here.

[CAVEAT: This site is currently out of commission, as Massey's new IT guy has disabled the old massey.utoronto.ca server. However, I am leaving the information here in the vain hope that the Bull, like King Arthur, will someday return.] The Massey Bull is Massey College's satirical publication; it comes out a wildly varying number of times a year and mocks most aspects of the College community with great enthusiasm. In 2003, the Bull made the transition to the Internet, where it has happily remained ever since. The archives for 2003-06 are available here; the Chronicles of the Elvis (which are hosted by the Bull) can be found here.

[CAVEAT: Like the Bull site proper, this one has vanished as well.] In January of 2008, little satires on the (already satirical) Bull began appearing in the Massey foyer. This page provides links to whichever mini-papers are available online and lists the names of the rest.

This site no longer exists, but I am leaving the button here as a sort of anguished cry of despair to the good folk on the Massey Clothing Committee. Why was there no Massey Clothing in 2009/2010, O Clothing Coordinators? Can you not see the single tear sliding slowly down my cheek? Alas!

This site was set up in September 2006 to deal with discussion resulting from the controversial appointment of Margaret Somerville as the 2006 Massey lecturer. The site can, however, be used for discussion on any issue. If you wish to introduce a topic, please contact Andrew House or Andrew Eckford, who will post the topic for you. If you wish to comment on an existing topic, you can do so without assistance. You may post anonymously, but please consider signing your name to your comments. Mr. House and Mr. Eckford ask that you keep the conversation civil and avoiding descending into flame wars. [UPDATE: This site exists, but it has not been used since 2006. Visit it if you wish to be enlightened as to what the cool kids were arguing about in 2006.]

Alumni- and Junior-Fellow-Related Links

This is the professional/personal/etc. site of composer and Massey alumnus Craig Galbraith, who currently serves as director of the Massey College choir. The site includes samples of Craig's work and details of his professional and personal doings. Craig has also--to the extreme gratitude of many, many people--put together an amazing list of reliable freeware (go here): he provides links to sites that will allow you to download programmes in the areas of security, word processing and publishing, Web design, graphic design, music notation, system utilities, CD- and DVD-burning, recording...you name it, he's got it. In fact, the Massey Alumni site owes its existence to Craig.

The Green Majority is a weekly Toronto-specific environmental news hour on CIUT 89.5 F.M. The show strives, in the words of its creators, "to inform listeners about the environmental events that affect them, with emphasis on municipal, provincial and national issues, and to connect listeners to their environmental communities." Junior Fellows Jordan Poppenk (producer and host), Scott Hansen (engineering correspondant and host), Letitia Henville (arts correspondant and sound technician), Sapna Sharma (science correspondant), and Simon Watson (theological correspondant) are involved in the project. The show's website is comprehensive and informative and includes options to download episodes.

Pro at Cooking, a comedic Internet cooking show, is a Pure Pwnage spin-off involving the surly Dave (both his real and his character name), who is not a Masseyite but does play poker at Massey occasionally. Also involved in filming and producing the show is Massey alumnus Davin Lengyel.

Pure Pwnage, which is the brainchild of (among others) Massey alumnus Geoff Lapaire, is an extremely popular satirical Web-show that professes to showcase the "life of a pro-gamer." The show may at first glance seem to be geared mostly towards fourteen-year-old gaming addicts, but it actually has a little bit of something for everybody: gamers, those who laugh at gamers, film buffs, perpetual losers, and even simply people who appreciate good satire. We recommend starting with the earlier episodes and going from there; Episode 2, "Girls," is especially enlightening as regards gamer lingo and culture. Pure Pwnage is now a TV series on Showcase; you can find links to the episodes via the main PP site.

The Short Cellar is alumnus Matthew Sullivan's weekly wine column in Precedent magazine (available both in print and online). Mr. Sullivan explains that his column "is about trying to build a wine cellar from the ground up in order to win the war against sobriety not just today, but long into the future."

Massey alumna Lori Waters serves health professionals and publishers who need to communicate complex scientific or biological information. Waters Biomedical is a professional medical illustration service that works to present information visually in a variety of media.

The Massey Blogosphere

Martin Evans is a former Massey Senior Resident whose blog, Idle Thoughts, focuses on US politics. Though he started the blog only recently, in January of 2007, he also links to opinion pieces that he wrote as early as 1974.

Kem is a former Massey Junior Fellow. Her blog, Kem's Utterly Merciless Guide to Essay Writing, exists mostly to terrorise undergrads into not writing garbage. Kem started blogging in August of 2007. (Her real name is not Kem, but at the moment, she would rather remain semi-anonymous as far as Google is concerned. You can probably guess who she is, anyway.)

Ester Macedo is a former Junior Fellow. Her English blog, Ester's Blog, has a Portuguese equivalent, Blog da Ester. Ester has been blogging since July of 2006, though she has switched addresses since then. If you do stumble upon her old blog, don't stop there; follow the link to the new one.

Other Random Links Chosen By Kari Because She Likes Them

Yes, well. Why should we include a link to Piled Higher and Deeper, a comic about the futile, hopeless lives of a bunch of Stanford grad students who survive mostly on ramen noodles, spend inordinate amounts of time dealing with the sadism of their advisors, and never quite seem to finish their dissertations? 'Cause it's all fiction, right? Right?....................................Right?

Ah, the Internet. How would we procrastinate without it? This site allows one to play Boggle online against a bunch of strangers. It is surprisingly addictive and has aided Kari in her noble quest to spend way, way too long finishing her dissertation. (The game has actually been renamed "WordSplay," but as it no longer comes with a useful little image, I'm leaving the button as it is.)

Ever wondered whether it might be possible to reenact The Shining in thirty seconds...with bunny rabbits filling all the roles? Wonder no longer. This site hosts the "30-Second Bunnies Theatre Library," wherein one may view such films as Rocky, Scream, Titanic, Star Wars, Brokeback Mountain, and Alien--plus many, many more--in bite-sized, bunny-saturated chunks. The concept possibly sounds a tad bizarre, but trust us: these are some funny wabbits.

Okay, okay. So this is really a Kari kind of site. It's still one of the best things ever, and it deserves to be read by everybody, everywhere. "Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog" is, in fact, the blog of Geoffrey Chaucer, a fourteenth-century English poet who 1) was a very funny man when he was alive and 2) is apparently just as hilarious now that he is dead. The blog is written in a mild and perfectly comprehensible version of Middle English, and it deals with such subjects as pirates, superheroes, forbidden love, the heroism of King Richard II, plagiarism, and John Gower's status as a wanker. Chaucer also offers a staggering selection of wonderful T-shirts for sale (be sure to click on "view all products"; the first page contains only the most popular of Chaucer's sixty-odd shirts). A book based on the wise words of the Chaucer blogger (with scholarly apparatus, even) will be published in May of 2010.

If you wish us to add your own link to the list, please send the URL, a brief description of the site, and (if you like) a tiny image that embodies the site's essence to kmaaren@gmail.com. If you choose not to send a tiny image, let us know whether you are all right with us stealing one.