Last Week On the How ‘Bout Them Lemons Newsletter

After receiving a threatening ransom note from the Supercomputer locked away in the abandoned Ol’ Horsetooth Lighthouse, the team of lemonade salesmen/business/man-children known to themselves as the How ‘Bout Them Lemons staff and to the public as “those people who throw lemons at passersby while screaming about ‘The Great Gatsby’” packed up their lemonade stand and made their way back to their place of work to save their long-lost friend, Dakota James.

This Week On the How ‘Bout Them Lemons Newsletter

Whilst carefully hand-juicing our (and your mother’s) lemons earlier this week, we got to thinking: “Who is Dr. Supercomputer?” A troubled soul? A chill in the night? A fellow wanderer? A simple, all-powerful computer in a lighthouse?

All of these felt like viable possibilities, and yet we felt utterly in the dark. So it is with great pleasure that we dedicate this week’s newsletter to exploring the (electronic) man, the (technological) mystery, the (way cool, but vaguely threatening) Supercomputer.

The Dark Ages

Doctor “Doc” Supercomputer was born in 1983 to two loving IBM employees in Kalamazoo, Michigan. They loved him as much as two nerds could, updating his software, cleaning his keyboard and pretending not to notice when he rebooted himself in the middle of the night. One day when he was 16 months old, they even hooked him up with a new printing machine. It was a simple computerhood, but it was good.

Totally Phat 1990s

Here’s the 4-1-1 about D-Supe’s teen years. PSYCH. He don’t wanna talk ‘bout that. No one does. Bounce.

The Somber Early-2000s

For Dr. Supercomputer, the early 2000s were home to his two largest achievements: 1) the earning of his PhD in Contemporary Feminism Relevance in Pop Culture, and 2) his most well received practical joke ever: crank calling that dive bar for the last time before inventing caller-ID.

The Extremely Somber 2010s

After the rising popularity in iPhone and Android sales, Dr. Supercomputer quickly faded into irrelevance, which was not something he was programmed to handle. Dr. Supercomputer, like so many great doctors and supercomputers before him, spiraled into a neurotic existential crisis from which he emerged with only two thoughts on his mind: murder and satire. After eliminating all one of the Ol’ Horsetooth Lighthouse employees, Dr. Supercomputer set himself up in the atrium and began printing Fort Collins parody news.

After three years of printing page after page of humorous parody, Dr. Supercomputer was found by 27 highly-maintained, lowly-esteemed illiterates who called themselves the Hall Monitor-Herald. Taking the printed articles as truth, the group began submitting each, week-by-week, to the Rocky Mountain Collegian, Colorado State University’s #2 daily newspaper, right behind the Bathroom Beat, the news column posted weekly to the Alison Hall toilet seats. Some say the Hall Monitor members are still out there, stealing printed, biting satire incognito or maybe … running a lemonade stand?

Next Week on the How ‘Bout Them Lemons Newsletter

The staff of How ‘Bout Them Lemons confronts Dr. Supercomputer, naked and covered in lemon squeeze.

Tune in next week.

How ‘Bout Them Lemons is run by Lauren Funai, Niles Hachmeister, Chris Vanjonack and Andrew Walker. They were once voted 2007’s 2nd hottest satirical writing staff. Send your lemonade-related news to thehallmonitorherald@gmail.com. We can’t keep this going.