Kevin: Roast Beef

In this day and age, one where we have options galore (especially when it comes to food), why would anyone willingly eat ham? I mean, it’s okay and all, but it doesn’t even come close to roast beef. The way that smoky slice of tender beef exudes its divine flavor is like none other; it’s like tasting God himself. Granted, a rather unhealthy God, but God nonetheless. Every bite taken from a slice of roast beef is a religious experience, where I find myself one step closer to heaven, and one step closer to obesity.

Felipe: Mark Hamill

There are two types of people that know who Mark Hamill is. There are the ones that remember him as Luke Skywalker back when he was a cheerful young lad on the set of Star Wars back in the ‘70s. Younger generations, though, know him as the voice for the Joker from a lot of cartoons and video games. But did you know he was also Fire Lord Ozai from Avatar? Or Skips from Regular Show? Not to mention about 50 other roles! I mean, seriously, the guy’s a voice acting genius. The voice is strong in this one.

MC: Jon Hamm

A god amongst men, Jon Hamm’s looks and charm make it perfectly OK to cheat on your wife and drink 3+ bottles of whisky a day. He is so awesome, his name sounds like ham, but with an extra “m” at the end. It’s not John Ham. It’s John Ham-m. A smooth “mm” in the end, like a smothering hug on a cold Sunday night. It’s almost like a song. Jon Hamm. Even better: “Jon Hamm” in Jon Hamm’s voice. I bet he smells like hamm too.

Michael: Hamlet

Not again, not another story about a young prince trying to avenge his father’s death. Really, Shakespeare? Of course, Shakespeare probably invented that storyline, since, let’s be honest, what didn’t Shakespeare invent? He created the portmanteau “eyeball” and expressions such as “in a pickle” and “brave new world,” amongst others. The king of classic Brit Lit. can be blamed for the countless hours IB Students (ha, not me! …yet) spend scrutinizing and ogling seemingly incoherent texts all written in iambic pentameter. During his life, Shakespeare was perceived as a heretical writer, defying all writing norms with his purported informality and double entendres. That gets me thinking though; if Shakespeare was a supposed informal writer, what about the other writers during his time? What novel ideas haven’t we been exposed to? Oh, and my other major concern is: how do we, described as the most inarticulate generation as of to date, compare to these writing leviathans? What about the future?

Bella: Hamtaro

When I first heard out about this month’s “Category Is” theme, I couldn’t help but think about our lovely hamster, Hamtaro (not because he’s tasty, don’t get me wrong) from the TV series. As Japanese media companies began to run out of choices of cute animals to star as their mascot, Shogakukan decided to settle on this delightful rodent. Hamtaro is a domesticated hamster owned by a ruthless owner called Laura. Whenever his master is out of the house, he flees to his other fellow hamsters, the Ham-Hams. Together, they scheme a plan to escape the evil wrath of the humans by plotting a rebellion. Unfortunately, Shogakukan had to keep it PG-13, so they resorted to make Hamtaro a happy-go-lucky character that set out on fun adventures to make new friends. Yay!

Editor’s closing statements:

That’s it for this month’s “Category Is” on ham… in which nobody wrote about ham. Really? That’s like eating beans without rice, or shaving your beard with a toothbrush. My section seriously disappoints sometimes—they know all about voice actors, real actors, old English dudes and anime hamsters, but they can’t write a single word about ham? All right, I guess I’ll give it a go:

Kevin: Ham

Ham… Mmm… Ham. Ham is so hammy I could just hammer some ham into my ham-craving stomach! Actually, no I couldn’t. No one really craves ham, do they? I guess there really isn’t much to say about ham. Disappointing. The only truly interesting thing about ham is Bill Bailey’s brilliant quote, “I’ve got ham, but I’m not hamster.” I’m not really sure what that means, but we’ll leave it at that. Ham.