“During fall quarter I just had to get acquainted with Northwestern and make friends who will come to the city with me,” Chad explained.  “Next quarter I’m going to go to the city for sure!  Well, maybe not winter quarter, actually, because it’ll be cold.  It gets really cold in Chicago, right?  But after that for sure.”

Chad said that by the end of freshman year she hopes to eat dinner in Chicago at least once a month, go to four concerts, a play, three museums, explore Boystown, get her nose pierced and sneak onto the roof of a skyscraper at midnight.

“I’ve had a lot of work in my engineering classes, but I think I can learn to manage them enough to make some trips down to the city.  I mean, I have to go; I wrote about how awesome it would be to be so close to Chicago in my admissions essay!”

As of yesterday Chad was heard saying that she was still under the impression that the L ride down to the Loop would take “30 minutes, tops.”

In related news, Medill sophomore Brad Jansen said Tuesday that he, too, swears he’ll get around to going to Chicago to have some fun sometime in the next two and a half years.

“Everyone on Facebook was talking about signing up for Dance Marathon, I thought I would give it a shot,” he said. “They mentioned something about thirty hours, and like, come on bro, I knew I could easily beat that time.”

MacMillan’s friends noticed that something was unusual about his preparation the night before the race when instead of fueling up on carbs and getting his gear ready he begged them to “teach him how to Dougie.” Other runners were similarly confused when Clarence began practicing the Macarena in the designated stretching area. One participant in line for water even overheard the freshman asking for a six-pack of Busch Light, saying, “Come on, guys don’t dance sober!”

Adler began the marathon by awkwardly moving his feet and bobbing his head, the go-to mating call of seventh-grade boys. He proceeded to do the jerk, Cotton-Eye Joe and kick-line for ten minutes. About a quarter-mile in, MacMillan casted an invisible fishing rod, attempting to reel in a bystanding girl on the sidewalk.

Eventually, the Northwestern student was stopped by a fellow runner, Chicago resident Brian Burbank. After the situation was explained, MacMillan blushed and walked away, ending his valiant effort.

“Suuuuuuuch a freshman,” Burbank remarked.  

“We are excited and overjoyed to have Theo Epstein join us as the newest member of our organization. It has always been a priority for us to find people who have had success in the past, pay them an exorbitant amount of money, and have them underperform year after year.  We feel that Theo will be able to provide all the heartbreak and radio talk show fodder that Cubs fans need for the foreseeable future,” explained Cubs owner Joe Ricketts.

In 2004, Epstein led the Red Sox to their first World Series championship in 86 years, a feat Cubs fans call bush-league compared to their current 103 year drought.

Epstein however, took the high road in describing his previous accomplishment.  “It is a fact that more New Englanders died in the 86 years between Red Sox championships than there were casualties in World War II. That makes the Red Sox drought, which I ended, deadlier than Hitler and the Plague combined.”

Critics of the Cubs signing claim that the team faces the same risks that the Red Sox faced shortly after they signed Epstein, which include boosting attendance, ending their cherished losing streak, and becoming relevant in the baseball world.

Steve Bartman, a hero to hundreds of thousands of Cubs fans criticized the move. “Can you believe the risk Ricketts is taking in signing Theo? While I am sure in the long term he will continue our losing ways, we run the risk of actually winning a championship in the meantime.  If we win, that bastard will have ended a combined 189 years of losing tradition. Even the French haven’t lost for that long!”

Sources in DC report that the Washington Nationals, who haven’t made the World Series since 1969, are already in line to sign Epstein after he leaves the Cubs.

“Where the fuck was Central Park?” asked 26-year-old Tony “The Tony” Margarita. “And why the hell did they not give out cigarettes at the water station?”

“Fuck your mother,” he added.

Other New Yorkers complained about the modest times most Midwesterners ran. Several felt they received way too much elbow room, that it was uncomfortable to have people actually looking in their direction, and that the race was not as long as the New York Marathon.

Some people, including Milos Antic, the first place finisher from Africa, were happy the New Yorkers were there.

“Having so many New Yorkers in the race motivated me to run faster because I wanted to get as far away from them as possible,” said Antic in a phone interview. He did not have time to be interviewed in person as he was on his way to his second marathon of the day.

Chicago Marathon officials promise that they will try to be more accommodating to New Yorkers for the 2012 Marathon by sending them down narrower streets, raising the entrance fee, and hiring actors wearing Red Sox hats to fall behind them at every stage of the race.

10-month-old Sophie Czerwinska, the young lady in question, was reportedly enamored with the 46-year-old lawyer, who has been close friends with her father Victor since grade school and has been having an affair with Victor’s wife Elaine for the past 14 years.

“It was love at first sight!” Steinberg exclaimed giddily from his penthouse office. “She just has this… spark… and this energy that I haven’t had in my life since her mother turned 30! Forget about my icy bitch of a wife!” Steinberg laughed, referring to his doting wife Anne, a Ph.D. in fine art and the mother of his three children.

“True,” Steinberg conceded, “Sophie’s tastes may be slightly unrefined, she may be a babbling idiot, and she may burst into tears whenever she doesn’t get her way, but God help me, she’s just so cute!”

Despite the presence of a binding Non-Disclosure Agreement, documents obtained exclusively by the Northwestern Flipside detail a Notice of Intent, sent by Steinberg to Victor Czerwinska listing the confidential details of his future courtship. In exchange for Sophie’s hand in marriage, Steinberg has promised:

• Not to make advances upon Sophie Czerwinska until “well after her fourteenth birthday”.
• To refrain from disclosing any information of a personal nature obtained from dealings with Elaine Czerwinska including, but not limited to, the size of Victor Czerwinska’s penis.

As the Czerwinska’s reception wound to a close, Anne Steinberg was asked how she felt about her husband’s blossoming relationship with the young girl.

“I hardly see her as a threat,” Anne stated simply. “My relationship with Jakob has the force of true love to back it, and I know that no man in his right mind would give up demonstrated intelligence and true depth of character for such blatant vapidity, even if she is 45 years younger than me.”

“I only hope that spending some time with Sophie will encourage Jakob to spend more time with our children!”

“Shut up, Anne,” Steinberg added, posing for photos with Sophie as his wife nervously sipped at her fourth glass of wine.

Largely unknown to commoners, this university is credited to starting nuclear warfare (and is subsequently blamed for the failure of worldwide nuclear disarmament). Residing in the “hearty” south side of Chicago, the University of Chicago has recently furthered its rather “uncommon” application.

Nix nearly fainted among glancing at the envelope. It had the word “Congratulations” written in bold. “My parents made me apply there,” said Nix. “I went on a tour there. I can only describe it as a black hole of emotion. I left campus joyless, pale, and trembling.”

Fortunately for Nix, the enclosed letter informed him of his rejection. “I was so relieved,” added Nix. “The thought of hanging out with UChicago kids for four years wanted to make me enlist in the army.”

Starting this year, only rejected applicants will receive the big congratulation envelopes. Accepted applicants will receive small, discrete letters. “We thought we’d change our notification system this year,” a UChicago admissions officer told The Flipside. “Too many students were disappointed when they opened our congratulation letters to find that they had been accepted. This new system is more appropriate given the overwhelmingly common emotional response.”

It will be some time before he hears back from Stanford, but Nix hasn’t taken his UChicago rejection harshly. “Regardless of where I end up, I know I’ll still be sane four years from now.”

“I’ve got these Olympics, and they’re fucking golden,” explained Blagojevich. “Almost as golden as a vacant senate seat…or my haircut.” Blagojevich went on to explain his reasoning behind the seemingly ingenious plan. “Chicago sports fans are used to waiting for things,” said the ex-governor. “I mean, look at the Cubs. They haven’t won the World Series in over 100 years. In any other city, people would start following soccer.” The city, says Blagojevich, has the patience to wait at least another four years, if not another four decades.

César Maia, mayor of Rio de Janeiro, the winning city, refused to acknowledge the purchase to The Flipside’s reporters. “There’s no evidence of corruption here in Rio. Our politics are as clean as our streets. Make sure you put something in your article about how no one gets kidnapped here. Crime in Rio is just an urban legend.” It seems obvious that Blagojevich speaks the truth. Chicago’s elimination in the first round of the voting process reeks of corruption, as does the fact that Rio de Janeiro is already hosting the World Cup in 2014.

“I didn’t just give this up for fucking nothing,” added Blagojevich. In return, Chicago has purchased one of the world’s largest festivals, known as “Carnaval.” Rio may have the summer Games in 2016, but the city of Chicago will be partying down Michigan Avenue twice a year for seemingly no reason. And you people thought traffic was going to suck because of the Olympics. Shame on you.

Mayor Daley was on hand for the IOC’s arrival. “We’ve been planning this for a long time. We have to put a lot of time and money into this; we’ll try to impress the [committee] as much as possible. It will pay off in the long run.”

Daley’s plan was to showcase the city from its beginning, while staying away from “certain areas.” The tour started with some of the buildings that survived the Great Chicago Fire and continued downtown. The group proceeded to look at many of Chicago’s sports and theater venues before heading north.

The IOC was scheduled to see Wrigleyville on Sunday. The group, however, insisted that it had yet to see what Chicago’s south side had to offer. “I did everything I could to persuade them that seeing that side of town was unnecessary,” noted Daley. “They insisted…unfortunately.”

The committee members arrived on Chicago’s south side in the early afternoon and were on their respective planes by the early evening. “We saw a lot of things,” said one IOC member. “Really, too many things. Lots of despair and, well, sadness. I can’t have the entire Olympic community, the world for that matter, frolicking in these streets. 2016 isn’t happening in Chicago, that’s for sure.”

Mayor Daley plans to annex the south side of Chicago to the state of Indiana. Hopefully, says Daley, Chicago will be half as big and then that half will get to host the Olympics. Legislation is currently underway.