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The Mac Weekly

The Student News Site of Macalester College

The Mac Weekly

The Student News Site of Macalester College

The Mac Weekly

Senior Spotlight: 1504-Loko

Clockwise from top: Caitlin Bixby, Andrew Hansen, Mallory Howitt and Jeff Kaplan pose in their ambiance filled bathroom.  Photo by Sara Staszak ’14
Clockwise from top: Caitlin Bixby, Andrew Hansen, Mallory Howitt and Jeff Kaplan pose in their ambiance filled bathroom. Photo by Sara Staszak ’14

The residents of 1504 Grand Ave.—Andrew Hansen ’14, Jeff Kaplan ’14, Mallory Howitt ’14 and Caitlin Bixby ’14—play a lot of Pokémon, dumpster dive, and are trying to sample all of the Four Loko flavors out there, all while living in a ruleless house. The natural housemates were united under one roof this year and spend a lot of late nights cuddling with each other and competing to see who can grow the best facial hair.

So, I hear you guys have a name for your house as a collection of people or as a house entity or… what is it? Andrew Hansen: 1504 Loko.

Mallory Howitt: Jeff wasn’t here over the summer, so he doesn’t know that.

Caitlin Bixby: It kind of started as, we were all sitting around and-

MH: Except for Jeff.

CB: Except for Jeff. And it was with a bunch of other people too, and were like ‘What stupid name we can give our house, what’s really tacky, and really like wow, we’re college kids. I think it was Mallory who said it, we’re 1504 Loko.

AH: Now I can go on record.

For other students who are looking to name their house, what advice would you have?

AH: Put loko after it.

MH: Puns. Puns.

CB: Wordplay.

Jeff, how do you feel about not having been here for the… christening?

MH: Apparently he didn’t really know about it.

Jeff Kaplan: I didn’t know about it. It was a little unfortunate, actually. However, I think we can make up for it by drinking lots of Four Loko.

AH: That was our plan-

MH: We tried. It’s so disgusting.

AH: Yeah our plan was to get all nine flavors of Four Loko, and each weekend we would sit down all as a family, and instead of having family dinner we would family-share our Four Loko.

CB: It didn’t happen.

MH: We did too.

AH: No, we did it three times, but one time we drank it but somebody accidentally recycled the can, so we need to get that flavor again.

MH: That was the pink lemonade.

AH: The pink lemonade one, because we needed to get all of them to make an ornament to hang on our front door.

JK: Ok but we should still need to do that, then.

AH: We’re still going to do it.

CB: So gross.

What’s your favorite flavor?

AH: Well, we’ve only tried two, and they were both very bad. But we graphed them, remember, we were going to graph the flavor.

CB: When you were trying to figure out flavor to- We were trying to keep a chart.

AH: Like the time evolution of the flavor. How the flavor changes over time.

MH: The flavor kind of changes. There’s like an after taste-

How many Game Boys are there in the house?

MH: I think three but one of them doesn’t work, right, three Game Boys?

CB: I have a DS.

AH: I have yours, oh shit ok, lets count.

MH: you have one in your bedroom too.

AH: I have Caitlin’s and I have a purple one that’s one of my friends from home. It does work it’s just kind of shitty. And you have

MH: And I have one.

AH: And then you have one and you have a DS.

MH: I also have a DS.

AH: You have a DS.

MH: I have a PSP but that’s different

AH: So even despite the fact that Jeff doesn’t have a Game Boy, our Game Boy to person ratio is very high. Are there any other house rules other than Andrew and Jeff not playing video games on school nights?

AH: Ummmm… pretty much anarchy.

JK: We’re pretty lassiez faire.

Do you have any pets?
AH: Ah, another sore spot. shit.

MH: Cat-lin.

JK: You keep scraping these scabs open, there was a cat

AH: Caitlin and Mallory secretly tried to get a cat

MH: It wasn’t a secret

AH: Secretly tried to get a cat while I was working in Olin Rice and they failed.

JK: What? It was a secret?

MH: Jeff was there.

JK: This was secret?

CB: Ok, yeah, you were there. We sang Frank Ocean.

JK: Oh, yeah yeah. yeah we did.

AH: There was an ad in the Daily Piper for a cat. but I don’t think we made the cut

JK: Yeah cause we…

CB: No cause they, we weren’t serious enough.

AH: It’s a sellers market for cats.

MH: So just know that we’ve been wanting, we’re looking for cats.

AH: I’m no econ major, but it’s a sellers market for cats. [laughs] and for landlords to sell their houses.

MH: So true.

What would you name the cat if you had one?

CB: Isn’t it Jeff Junior?

MH: Yeah, we were going to name it Jeff junior.

AH: Cat.

CB: But he didn’t like it but that’s what we wanted to do

MH: We would have done it anyway. it would have stuck. Would that have been confusing for you [to Jeff]?

JK: No, I would have been really happy, because I would have probably taken the cat.

MH: No.

JK: I would have probably like secretly moved the feeding bowl into my room.

CB: This is why we can’t have the cat because we’re all going to try to like be its favorite.

MH: Maybe we should get four cats. Jeff junior, Cat-lin junior, Mallory junior, Andrew junior.

CB: I guess we also don’t call each other by our real names.

You have a signature drink?

AH: Oh, at Cafe Mac, yeah.

JK: Why would you have a signature drink? I knew you had a signature bagel sandwich.

AH: Ok so you fill up like the bottom inch of the cup with peach cocktail.

MH: Mmmm, that stuff is good.

AH: Then from there up to like half way with lemonade. then split the difference of the rest with like 7-Up and iced tea and put a little bit of grape on top.

JK: Float grapes on top.

MH: What’s it called?

AH: The…ok, the purple Andross.

[Laughs]

AH: It’s really good. You gotta get the ratios right.

JK: Can we make an alcoholic version of that?

AH: We can absolutely do that.

MH: I have a story about Jeff finding things. One time I walked into my room after work and there was a spatula on my bed and it had a cursive note from my secret admirer that said I heard you wanted one of these, and it was from Jeff. And he found it in the yard.

Do you use it?

MH: Yeah we’re using it.

JK: It was really dirty then I cleaned it.

MH: It was quite clean when I acquired it. He just walks home with stuff all of the time.

JK: Yeah pretty much.

What’s the best and/or craziest thing that’s happened to you guys as a house?

CB: Andrew’s birthday was pretty intense. The speech was probably the highlight of this house. Everyone gave a speech about Andrew and then Andrew gave a speech about, like, every individual.

MH: I wasn’t there.

CB: You were there!

MH: Well I was in my room.

JK: And then the strobe light was on and Motley Crue was played, KISS was played.

AH: Obligatory Bohemian Rhapsody.

CB: That’s kind of a house tradition when we have a house party.

JK: When we have a house party and there isn’t heavy metal being played, that’s a really abnormal experience.

Does everyone agree to that?

AH: Agreement isn’t necessarily a value that we adhere to.

JK: Anarchy, ya know?

You play a lot of Super Smash Bros…

AH: I tried to teach Jeff the advanced techniques [for Super Smash Bros], but Jeff has this defense mechanism where he just makes fun of me and makes it seem like I’m super obsessed with being good and don’t like to have any fun. But really he’s just upset because he’s getting his ass whooped. But he’s improved a lot.

JK: Andrew’s just salty because he’s basically a robot. You know what, Andrew doesn’t love his Pokémon. He’s that trainer who doesn’t love his Pokémon.

AH: I put Pikachu in the box because he sucks ass! He doesn’t level well, everyone knows that.

MH: That’s the point of Pokémon Yellow!

Do you guys love your Pokemon?

CB, MH and JK: Hell yeah!

JK: More than Andrew.

Who’s your favorite Pokémon?

MH: Are you asking about our favorite starter or our favorite Pokémon?

Favorite starter

JK: I’m definitely Charmander.

CB: Bulbasaur.

MH: Squirtle!

AH: Really?

JK: And Andrew is Pikachu.

AH: I hate Pikachu. No Pikachu is fine, great, just not later. Snorlax. Am I right? Really great Pokémon.

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    Joshua DickensSep 10, 2019 at 3:42 pm

    Awesome site you have here but I was curious about if you knew of any community forums that cover the same topics discussed here? I’d really like to be a part of group where I can get feed-back from other experienced people that share the same interest. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Thanks!

    Reply
  • T

    Tim MurraySep 5, 2019 at 3:29 am

    Hi dear, me and my mom are as well watch funny movies but after I finished my homework

    Reply