Oktoberfest Mayhem

After a relaxing fall break and a short week of classes, UNCLE EBENEZER and DJ RIDDLE hit the main quad last Friday to check out Oktoberfest.

In an apparent effort to make the festival more like its German namesake, the Duke University Union instituted a number of changes this year. Among them, beer on points was added, while the perennial favorite sumo-wrestling was dropped. An event organizer was overheard commenting that "drunk kids in fat-suits are simply accidents waiting to happen...and I don't even want to get into the Nan versus Deb LoBiondo match of 2001. Plus too many people thought that 'fat suits' were insensitive. Who knew that they would be offended by 'big-boned suits' also?"

Fortunately for all, many classic Oktoberfest features, dating back to 13th century Bavarian festivals, such as plastic rock climbing walls and foam jousting, were left intact. The event also featured an appearance by the Blazing Sea Nuggets creators still selling copies of their book. Apparently the collection of comics, "Goodbye, Farewell, and Quiet You" should have been entitled, "We graduated, but we spent too much time making a book to bother with getting a job."

Later that night, we were planning to go to the step show, but were stopped by the metal detectors at the door. We went around to the back door and knocked, but for some reason no one heard us. Instead we headed to Midnight Madness, where we waited in line for 15 minutes and ended up sitting one row behind some freshmen who had been in line for 10 hours. We laughed as the freshmen chanted "Let's Go Duke" while watching a video of the 2001 National Championship game, and as the pep band broke into the school song we quickly taught them that the proper lyrics are not, in fact, "Beat State."

We saw Kristina Johnson, Dean of the Pratt School of Engineering, at the football game and chatted with her about the recent decision to expand each class by 50 students. She told us that the move was a part of the administration's plan to continue killing Duke's social scene. Apparently, Perkins Library has scrambled to add subscriptions to Electronic Gaming Monthly, The RPG Times and SysAdmin Magazines, but suspiciously dropped their subscription to The Atlantic Monthly.

While Dean Johnson was not really concerned about Duke's slide from a number five ranking in U.S. News and World Report to the number fourteen ranking in Atlantic Monthly, Nan was overheard attributing the lower ranking to Atlantic Monthly's heavy reliance on each school's beef patty thievery rate in the calculation of the rankings.

As UNCLE EBENEZER and DJ RIDDLE were so helpful with the evaluation of the Annual Review process earlier in the semester, Eddie Hull decided to consult us on the plan to revamp student perceptions of Edens Quadrangle. Initially we suggested simply not responding and hoping students forget about it after a long weekend, as this seems to have worked for Nan already this semester.

However, Eddie Hull is not a lame-duck Director of Residence Life and Housing Services, so he demanded ideas. Anthony Vitarelli did not help the matter by proposing that "the drainage ditch could be a nice centralized area." In that case, perhaps the dumpsters could be rented out as social space. Our other suggestions included adding a zip line from Edens to Chick-Fil-A, making Wojo the Edens RC, and providing Segway scooters for all residents.

In the end the administrators decided to stick with their tried and true, always-successful methods of increasing non-alcoholic programming, bringing in bands to play on the drainage ditch to a crowd of five and providing 10 boxes of only extra-large free T-shirts.

If that doesn't work, they plan on just changing the name of Edens to Main West and confusing everyone during housing picks.

UNCLE EBENEZER and DJ RIDDLE think the real solution is to just move all the academic buildings closer to Edens.