Crazy Thursday & Krugerpalooza Friday

The past Thursday and Friday were just insane! I think its just best to describe some of the things that ended up on my camera in order to capture what happened these past few days.


Robot Eager 

Mike Trombley and his engineering friends had to make a robot for a battle bots competition that is part of their class. Late Tuesday night at 2 am I encountered the robot making crew in the 2nd Prentiss Lounge just piecing wires and making a lethal robot. It was at that point where Mr. Trombley and myself explained the Tartan High School Legend that is Eric Eager. They were inspired so much by his legend status that they decided to name their robot after Hot Pants (another high school legend of people on the team) and Eager. I'm please to announce that Eager has prevailed and took first overall in the tournament on Thursday. Congratulations Eager.


What happens at Block Party...stays at Block Party.

Thursday night was also the massive Block Party thrown by IRHC. At Block Party I apparently got fake married to two ladies, which in part makes me a fake polygamist.

Friday was Krugerpalooza on WSU Campus. One huge massive party in which state dignitaries and elitist moshed it up and jammed out in honor of the library being named after President Kruger. Thursday evening Rick, Brandon and myself made Krugerpalooza shirts for the occasion. Can't wait for next year's Krugerpalooza!


KRUGERPALOOZA CREW!


Jared at the Kruger Library on Krugerpalooza, the mosh pits were crazy.

Later that evening the P-L Ping Pong tournament was held in the Ping Pong Stadium/Laundry Room of my dorm hall. I arrived in my ping pong uniform but was eliminated in the first round with a score of 21-4.


Ping Ponging it up at the Prentiss Lucas Ping Pong Tournament.

Bushism: "But if you've been laid off work, you're 100 percent unemployed, and I worry about it." -Green Bay, Wisconsin; September 3, 2001

Link of the Day: Bush was a cheer leader!

Look what I spotted on campus Friday afternoon, I need to contact the scientific community about this find. A rare species roaming about:

An Iowan Wennes in its natural habitat.

Kruegerpalooza Baby!

Kruegerpalooza 05 baby! 

Friday is Kruegerpalooza here at Winona State, where our Library is being named after our retiring president Darrell Krueger. You can read about Kruegerpalooza here. The administration has gone to the extent to encourage professors to cancel classes so students can attend the ceremony which starts at 11 am. But I for one will not be able to make the ceremony due to a quiz, but I'm thinking about making an appearance just for the refreshments. The Governor himself will be on hand for Kruegerpalooza! Maybe he'll start the party with a rousing speech on higher education and his secret plans to one day turn WSU into a state run casino! Kruegerpalooza shirts will be made for the special occasion and worn by select cool people around campus.

Speaking of Libraries and naming them after people, there was a special task force that comprised of myself and other concerned students to name the library after Minnesota baseball great, Kirby Puckett. A great deal of concern came about when Krueger called students ignorant after a student New U referendum that decided 5 to 1 against the proposal. So concerned with this, it was decided that the library should first be named after Kirby Puckett, so technically speaking this Friday would be the second naming of the WSU Library. The naming consisted of myself running full speed at the right hand library entrance and jumping as high as my white person skills will let me to place the new library sign.


Hollywood was right, white man can't jump.

It's estimated that the Kirby Puckett Library existed for about 17 hours.


Kirby Puckett Library

While we are on the subject of libraries, the No on the New U rally was a very cold event, literally. At one point snow began to fall, but the New U Weather Machine could not deter the students who were there to speak against the man!


No on the New U Rally

Bushism: "Drug therapies are replacing a lot of medicines as we used to know it." -St.Louis; October 18, 2000

Link of the Day: Star Wars Stormtropper on HotorNot.com! Brandon and I encountered this man while bored and cruising around HotorNot.com, everyone please rate him a 10 because I think he sure has some balls to post a picture like that for the ENTIRE INTERNET to see.

Look what I bought!

The hooker I bought for $.50....from the Homies machine at Wal Mart.

NO on the NEW U RALLY

My cool chalking on Monday night before the evil rain came and ruined it. 

Today the NO on the New U Rally is being held at 1:50 pm in front of the Library. I encourage everyone who is reading this now who goes to WSU to attend and show the administration, MnSCU, as well as the rest of the great state of Minnesota that our voice will not be muffled.

Why should I care about the New U aka "The Winona Experience"?

Right now as it is proposed, the New University plan will increase your tuition $1000 over the next 4 years starting next year. But what specifically is being funded from the possible tuition increase? As of right now, there are no specific documents produced by the New University Committee that show money from the New U fee being allocated towards specific programs, in other words no line item budget has been made or drafted. In high school, when my district proposed a levy, one of the first things that was drafted was a specific budget showing where the money from the levy would be going to, this is not the case for the New U plan. From my own personal experiences in the past year here at WSU, for each student who learns about the New U plan for the first time, a number of questions or concerns expressed by that student can not be answered. A number of the ideas or programs proposed under the New University plan are not even completely worked out and still considered under "development stages." Our administration wants to raise our tuition for programs that are just mere ideas from brain storms instead of concrete plans or proposals. Some of the New U initiatives are just frivolous and will do nothing to improve students. For example, for a New U proposal regarding the building of an Experiential Learning Institute, a paragraph is dedicated to proposing a kitchen to be used by faculty in this building.

“To support the community building aspect of the ELI, the workgroup believes it is important that the facility be equipped with kitchen facilities that will enable users to make coffee, to prepare and serve snacks or even lunch, or to host pot-luck meals. Food provides a great way for people to come together and talk informally about their work. Our study of best practices indicates that the most successful learning communities met around meals and the most informal idea generation takes place over a shared cup of coffee. We believe that in the new ELI, the coffee must always be fresh, strong and available (for a nominal fee), and that users should feel free to bring their lunch and browse the library. This means more than a vending machine, but less than a cafeteria. In this regard, kitchen space in the existing Alumni House serves as an ideal model. [The work group recognizes that this aspect of the ELI function may require negotiations with the current food-service contractor, Chartwells.]” Page 8, New University Proposal ELI Plan

They want to raise your tuition and then use some of the funding to help build a kitchen! I know my biggest concerns in improving WSU isn't lower tuition or smaller class sizes, its making sure there's plenty of kitchens around campus where people can pay a nominal fee for coffee, that right there is what higher education is all about.

In the past year the Student Senate has held two student referendums, both of them voted overwhelmingly against the New University plan. One of the referendums even produced a record in voter turn out. One would think that when students oppose the New U plan 5 to 1 that the administration would realize a huge concern and help address the problem, but instead WSU University President Darrell Krueger said that “Ignorance was allowed to vote (in the student referendum)." Source: Winonan 3/23/05 Students voiced their opposition against something they feel is not right, and they are called ignorant.

Today's rally is a good opportunity to tell the administration, MnSCU and the rest of the state that enough is enough and we do not want to pay $1000 for something that is vague and will have no benefit to all students at Winona State. Hope to see you there!

No Women! (A Weekend in Pictures)

No, I'm not anti-woman but I encountered someone who was during the adventurous weekend. Check it out yo!


The Hockey Monkey at the Guster Concert 

The opening act for the Guster concert on Friday night was a band called The Zamboni's. They are a hockey oriented band that writes and play songs only about hockey while performing in hockey gear and jerseys. After standing in line for the front row area for about an hour and a half to be welcomed by The Zamboni's was nothing but a huge disappointment that at the time pissed me off. But in retrospect of the concert, they were kind of funny. What other bands can say they have The Hockey Monkey?

After The Zamboni's played, we've decided that we needed to get out of the front row area after being invaded by a cranky sea of 16 year old estrogen. Brandon at one point was poked in the ass by one of those high school girls who attempted to move him away from her in order to see the stage. The outer area of the gym was cooler because you can see all of the drunks playing around and random spurts of marijuana smoke billowing from the masses. Carbon Leaf was a good band, then after them Guster finally performed.


GUSTER

When the concert was done I found a Chris Roos roaming the streets of Winona. I took the kid to ZaZa's for a late night meal. After eating, Chris felt like pretending to be a police officer and stopped the oncoming traffic that was about 4 blocks away in either direction just to make sure I crossed safely. Thank you Officer Chris!


Officer Chris playing traffic police

On Saturday the court yard of campus was invaded by the city wide Earth Day Celebration. I stopped by to check it out and came across Rick working at the Winona County DFL booth. DFL is the term for Democrats in Minnesota, it stands for Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. There's no difference between Democrats and a DFLer, the name is just tradition. The DFLers had a miniature donkey on hand just hanging out. So as next year's Vice President of College Democrats, I took my picture with it for next year.


Democrat donkey!

Saturday evening I went bowling with Ken, Ashley, Pete, Cassie and many others whose names I can not remember. While bowling a bunch of extremely intoxicated people emerged from the bar to dance in the bowling alley part of the building to start dancing to a 50 Cent song. Ken decided that they looked like they were having a lot of fun and decided to join them.


Ken bustin a move with the drunks at the bowling ally.

When we were done bowling, Pete took us out to Perkins where we encountered another drunk individual as we were leaving the restaurant. The man walked in holding a beer, and saw my anti-W button (can be seen in the picture of me and the donkey). After shaking my hand the man was very please to see my button. First thinking he is a fellow anti- George W. Bush fan he drunkard then said "Dude, you rock, anti-women man!" I considered his current physical condition and decided not to correct him for he might become irate and attempt to fight me, so I replied "Yeah, right on." Then he looked around and noticed the females in my group and said "No offense to the women though, but anti-woman man! That's awesome!" The drunkard was later asked to get rid of his beer because alcoholic beverages are not allowed in Perkins, the man then chugged the rest of his beer in front of the waitress.

Sunday seemed like a good day to practice some golfing around campus. I might go more into that one in future entries.


Sunday putting on campus.

While at Perkins on Saturday night a brilliant idea entered my cranium, I should create a children's television character! So I came up with "Lucky the Cigarette Smoking Lizard." Lucky will be featured on the new children's show on PBS called "Lucky's Funky Colored Smoking Jacket sponsored by Philip Morris Company." The show will have Lucky teaching kids the horrors and dangers to your health caused by smoking as well as basic numbers, all while Lucky himself chain smokes and casually drinks heavy liquor through out the show. Now the true ultimate but yet subliminal mission of the show is to teach kids the concepts of irony and contradiction, as well as to think critically of your elders and to not trust large corporations. Blue's Clues watch out, there's a new children's TV star in town and he'll buy cigs for underage kids as well.


Lucky the Cigarette Smoking Lizard

That was my weekend in pictures. A lot of stuff happened, a lot of great ideas were developed as well as special operations going down too. Now back to the harsh reality of Monday. Happy Monday everyone!

Bushism: "I have said that the sanction regime is like Swiss cheese-that meant that they weren't very effective." -Washington DC; February 22, 2001

Link of the Day: Miracle of Modern Medicine. Thank you Pat Dunlay for this one!

I'm Rick James!

In Mississippi a candidate for the Hattiesburg City Council, Rick James, has been experiencing some problems in keeping his lawn signs around. In a classic example of having a wrong name, Rick James' campaign for the city council has receive some national press from a bad situation he is facing. College students in the area have taken an estimated $600 worth of lawn signs. You can read the full article here. This guy better win.


Random pictures from the week because Jared is too lazy to write today:

My altoid tin grave yard. 


Bishwas lost a lot of weight this week from all the stress.


At the NORML 4-20 area, tie dying shirts.

The lady I am talking to is trying to explain how tie dye works and where to get it. I made some pretty cool shirts actually. Possibly going to wear one to the Guster concert Friday evening. Brandon and I are on a mission to get front row! I also bought some brownies and cookies from the 4-20 table for their fundraising "Baked Sale." They really know how to make some brownies.


Look what I found!

Fencing Club's newest member!

Bushism: "Actually, I-this sound a little West Texan to you, but I like it. When I'm talking about-when I'm talking about myself, and when he's talking about myself, all of us are talking about me." -Hardball, MSNBC; May 31, 2000

Link of the Day: Winona High School students are ruining society as we know it with their... um, buttons?!

Tobacco Companies don't target children! That's crazy talk.

A 1936 holiday magazine ad for Lucky Strike Cigarettes. Santa is saying "Luckies are easy on my throat!"

Four Twenty!

Today is April 20, better known as 4-20. The day most celebrated by marijuana enthusiasts across the world by smoking the thing they love best. Little do people know that there is a special person involved with this holiday, and that is Weed Santa.


Weed Santa at a shopping mall with a follower and this smoking canine friend, Killer. Have you been good for Weed Santa this year? 

Just like his counterparts the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, Weed Santa brings joy to all of the good little boys and girls through out the world. On 4-20 Eve night, Weed Santa visits children all over to bring them good cannabis for a successful 4-20 day.

Since Weed Santa is little known through out the world, I decided to explain 4-20 Eve by adapting "Twas the Night Before Christmas" by Clement Clarke Moore and change it to "Twas the Night Before 4-20 Yo." Instead of the story taking place in the home of a rich man and his family, it takes place in a 1968 Volkswagon Bus that is parked in a Wal Mart parking lot in small town USA with a couple and their weed dealer friend living out of the van.

Twas the Night Before 4-20 Yo
Adapted by Jared Stene from "Twas the Night Before Christmas"

Twas the night before 4-20, when all through the van
Not a creature was stirring, not even an ant;
The stockings were hung by the dash with care,
In hopes that Weed Santa soon would be there;
The dealer was nestled all snug in sleeping bag,
While visions of Benjamin’s danced in his head;
And mamma with her bong, and I with my bowl,
Had just settled down for a long spring night high,
When out in the parking lot there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my seat to see what was the matter.
Away to the glove compartment I quickly hid my stash,
Rolled down the window and threw up my hands.
The street light on the breast of the asphalt
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects around,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature green sleigh, and eight tiny tie dye reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Cannabis.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
"Now, Dre! now, Snoop! now, Marley and Buffet!
On, Clinton! on Willie!, Chapelle and Blitzen!
To the top of the roof! to the top of the Wal Mart!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the van roof-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of weed, and St. Cannabis too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my hand, and was turning around,
Down the sun roof St. Cannabis came with a bound.
He was dressed all in hemp, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of weed he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a dealer just opening his pack.
His eyes -- how they're blood shot! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was dry,
And the beard of his chin was as white;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the THC contaminated smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook, when he coughed like a bowlful of jello.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old grower,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the sun roof he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, he drove out of sight,
"Happy 4-20 to all, and to all a good-night.
Now where’s Krispy Kreme, I’m hungry."

Bushism: "But I also made it clear to [Vladimir Putin] that it's important to think beyond the old days of when we had the concept that if we blew each other up, the world would be safe." -Washington DC; May 1, 2001

Link of the Day: National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws