My grandmother used to say “The future’s uncertain, and the end is always near.” Well, old Granny passed away before she could see the dawn of corn-powered automobiles, but essentially, it looks like she was right. How? Well, a few years ago Dutch farmers discovered that ethanol – a yellowy juice made from squashed corn – could be used to power their Volvos. At first most of the free world leaped to the logical conclusion that they were nuts. But now a ton of thirty-something investor folks have made a killing investing in corn.

On Sunday researchers at the Bell Davis Institute in London announced that they had drunk about five glasses of ethanol at an Institute hazing event. Although the original intent of the hazing event was to “weed out undesirables,” Glen Baxter-Higman, the Institute’s reclusive chairman told insiders, “That ethanol clean blew my mind.” The very next day he ordered his footman, Haines, to “make sure we’re well-stocked for our next ethanol party.”

Ethanol drinking seems to be outpacing wine-drinking in other circles as well. Hinterland College in Seattle was the scene of an ethanol party on Tuesday. Sister Carline Salazar said she “found twenty discarded ethanol canisters” outside Klagmar Hall, one of the oldest buildings on the University of Seattle. “It appears that some of the freshmen took it upon themselves to siphon the dean’s hybrid,” she noted