Correct me if this has changed, but I believe there's an essay option as
well. Would any one care to volunteer a prompt?

For example:

"-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Dinosaur essay
Date:   08 Mar 2010 15:06:33 -0500
From:   [log in to unmask] (Andrew N. Mertens)
To:     DMC@Mac



Can I please be taken off this list now?

Dinosaurs are Awesome
By Andrew Norris Mertens

        Dinosaurs are awesome for many reasons. One reason is that their
name means terrible, powerful, or wondrous lizards in Greek, according to
my friend Wikipedia. That is bad-ass.
        Also, though this is little known by "mainstream" science, all
dinosaurs had cannons on their back. They were made of pure awesome, which,
as you know, has a half-life of 100 years, so there is no trace left in the
fossil record. Awesome people like myself, who are descendants of the
dinosaurs, have vestigial cannons adapted for lifting, rather than
blasting, purposes. They are called guns, or "biceps" by hoight-toity
doctors like Noah Harwood, and mine are huge.

        Another reason they are awesome is they were the largest tetrapods
to ever roam the earth. One day, God decided that dinosaurs were getting so
large they were starting to rival his own greatness. No matter how many
protein shakes he knocked back or marathon Bowflex sessions he put in, God
felt like he would never have the glut definition to rival the massive
hindquarters of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. So, 6,000 years ago, he created a twin
pair of unstoppable hunting machines, Adam and Eve. They were fast enough
to run a sub 4:00 mile and smart enough to invent blankets with arm holes,
and God was angry enough to unleash them upon Dinomanity. Guess what the
Dinosaurs did? They ate them, (alongside a forbidden apple to make sure
they had a balanced diet.)
        God decided to exploit their one weakness, their lack of opposable
thumbs, by sending a massive meteor towards earth. The president of the
United States Of Awesomeness, President Tomflynnopterus assembled a crack
team led by Brucewillisaur and Benassfleckipleridon to fly to the asteroid
and implant a nuclear device in its core. Unfortunately, without opposable
thumbs, they were unable to grasp the detonation device, and all the
Dinosaurs died.

        But their eventual extinction does not belie (belay?) their
awesomeness as hard boulderers and fast and light alpine climbers. Recent
phylogenetic evidence suggests that the most recent common ancestor of
dinosaurs of the climbing order, dmcia, Warrenhardingosaurus, was a
diminutive forager who subsisted on whiskey and copperheads scavenged from
prehistoric feeding station, or "cafeterias" around Yosemite Valley. When
large, lumbering Touristasaurs, invaded the valley during the warmer months
the Warrenhardingosaurus would escape by "climbing" up the side of the
valley walls. There is current debate among dinosaur experts about whether
this is the first example of climbing, or just an ancestral proto-climbing.
On one hand, the dinosaur could scale rocks of similar steepness of later
species, albeit at a slower pace. But on the other hand the
Warrenhardingosaurus's climbing style left scars on the rock, and, as
anyone with a scientific mind knows, that is not Pure.
        Purity would come to define later lineages of climbers, who
eschewed the advanced technology created in Thayer during the golden age of
dinosaur climbing, such as cams, oxygen tanks, and endothermy.  Two
lineages of climbersaurs existed at the time of dinosaur extinction,
Boulderocerus and Fastandlightalpineopteryx. Current studies show that they
devolved from their technologically advanced ancestors into simple,
unintelligent creatures, but into two very different niches.
        Boulderocerus, a troglodytic creature evolved to live in the small
caves under fallen boulders, lost the use of metal tools, instead relying
on the massive tendons in their phalanges. They live in a nesting habitat
made of two types of grass, one woven into a mat they fall on and sleep in,
and another type they light on fire and inhale. When threatened by their
natural predators, Obligationosaurus and
Dontfailoutofcollegejamesquadr**inoptera,
they quickly scamper up the side of the boulders using their overdevopled
forearms, their religious belief in Purity, and their incredible weight
saving adaptions (including vestigial calve, pectoral, and brain muscles).

        Fastandlightalpineopteryx, moved out of Yosemite valley and into
the high mountains to avoid its natural predator, Woman. Varieties of
woman, including Alicebradleysaur, prey on Fastandlightalpineopteryxes
because of their high fiber and Carhartt content, essential in a balanced
diet. Fastandlightalpineopteryx survives on a diet of Gu, spindift, and
angst, and is one of the few known organisms not to require sleep.
Furthermore, to survive in the harsh climate of the mountains,
Fastandlightalpineopteryx has evolved several quite amazing adaptions,
including a fear of society, a religious belief in Purity, and a powerful,
if misguided, belief that climbing the Cilley Barber Route on Katahdin car
to car in TWO DAYS will increase their reproductive fitness. Also, in a
weird phenomena, Fastandlightalpineopteryx easily sheds its appendages,
with the help of frostbite. Scientists think this is to help with weight
savings, but the weight saved is canceled out by the mass of their heavy,
blackened, misunderstood hearts.

        And that's why Dinosaurs are awesome. Can I be taken of the list
now?

P.S. Further papers will investigate the bizarre, sexually dimorphic mating
competitions between male and female Katieandcodyopterx, the strangely
simian proportions of Fenjaminosaurus Rex (could he be the missing link?),
and the absolute evolutionary perfection of the Mertenseratops.

"
(also, there's a probably a link at the bottom this blitz that says "click
here to unsubscribe"?)


On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 10:06 PM, Nicholas Gottlieb <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> Sorry, there's a minimum 19 times asking policy before you can be removed.
>
>
> On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 10:04 PM, Max A. Hannam <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Can I please be taken off this list please (2nd or 3rd time I've asked)
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> -- Nick Gottlieb
>