BY BARBARA ANDERSON Have pudding, will travel We've all seen those contests--"send in umpteen product codes from boxes of Krunchee Krackles and receive a FREE set of WonderWidgets!"--but let's face it: How many of us actually bother? Meet David Phillips, aka "the Pudding Guy." Phillips, a 1988 alumnus and civil engineer in UC Davis' Facilities Services, parlayed $3,140 worth of Healthy Choice pudding cups and other Healthy Choice products into 1.25 million (yes, that's million) frequent flier miles. He's been in all the papers, including the Wall Street Journal and the London Times, and on the "Today" show. In a recent interview for the campus's faculty and staff newspaper, Dateline UC Davis, Phillips revealed that he learned to calculate odds by playing blackjack during his undergraduate career here on campus and that some of his current job skills came in handy for the Great Pudding Caper. He used spreadsheets to track and plan all the details: How many cups of pudding were needed for a ticket to Aruba? 300. How much pudding will fit in a Mercury Villager? 3,456 cups. Lest you think Phillips will have to declare "overweight baggage" when he uses those miles, fear not. He didn't eat all that pudding himself (though he says his kids got tired of it); in a canny move that benefited both him and those in need, Phillips donated much of the food to the Salvation Army, which agreed to peel and return the labels to him as the food was used. Let's see, now; 1.25 million miles . . . that's about 50 trips around the world or some 1,000 round-trip flights to NYC or 16,200 ditto to Fresno. Mascot wars If you think it's tough reviving an old mascot (as UC Davis did just last year), imagine the pressure to come up with a brand-new one. That's what's going on now at embryonic UC Merced, which recently asked grammar school kids to submit ideas for a mascot to represent the 10th campus. The winner will receive a $16,000, four-year college scholarship. In his Jan. 17 column in the San Francisco Chronicle, Steve Rubenstein revealed some of the suggestions made by a group of fifth-graders: the black widow spider (not much less glamorous than the banana slug, it was pointed out), the electric eel and the cow (hmmm). The favorite of Ron Goble, UC Merced's contest coordinator, is the fairy shrimp, a microscopic animal that lives in vernal pools at the site of the new campus. "The Merced Fighting Fairy Shrimp," he's quoted as saying, trying it out for sound. The story had a small sidebar, in which Rubenstein described the current UC mascots thusly: "BERKELEY: Golden Bears--The first campus, the first bear and the best bear. DAVIS: Aggies--Just spent $40,000 to design a new Aggie logo with a cut-off horse's head, like the one in the Godfather. IRVINE: Anteaters--inspired by anteater in the 'B.C.' comic strip, it defeated Eagles, Unicorns, Golden Bears (not again) and Seahawks in a 1965 student election. LOS ANGELES: Bruins--Upstart copycat bears, dubbed 'Bruin' because the true bears already represented Berkeley. RIVERSIDE: Highlanders--The Highlander is actually another (guess what) bear, but this time it's wearing a silly blue Scotch plaid. SAN DIEGO: Tritons--son of Poseidon, with human head and fish tail that makes for difficult open-field running. At least it's not a bear. SAN FRANCISCO: Position Vacant--Lab Rats and Syringes won votes in 1998 non-binding poll. SANTA BARBARA: Gauchos--The Gaucho, a South American cowboy, edged out the Roadrunner in 1934. SANTA CRUZ: Banana Slugs--the Banana Slugs, a student favorite, defeated the administration-backed Sea Lions in a 1986 vote. Voted best mascot in the nation in 1992 poll conducted by National Directory of College Athletics." Any Aggies out there want to make Mr. Rubenstein an offer he can't refuse? Seminars we wish we'd attended ENTOMOLOGY: Cooperation with nonrelatives--wasps and cellular slime molds. Hey! Those are my relatives! PASSING TIME 75 years ago "Entries to the Mary Had a Little Lamb contest are starting to come in. Word has been received from Yuba City that they have a girl who is one of the most beautiful in that part of the state and who they feel will be one of the strong contenders for the first honors. Accompanying her will be a lamb that was sired by the ram the Prince of Wales took to England on his return trip. Although the lamb is a very high class animal, it is expected that regardless of how classy he may be he will not detract from the attractiveness of the young lady." -- The California Aggie, April 1, 1925 50 years ago "The W.S.S.F. drive is sponsoring an Ugly Man Contest and, to use the words of the famous S.F. junk dealer, 'We got 'em.' No women may enter; they gotta give the boys a chance." -- The California Aggie, April 13, 1950 25 years ago "Two UCD professors told a Senate committee Tuesday that faculty drinking clubs should be outlawed from college campuses because of their bad examples to students. . . . Bozzetti and Rada cited unfavorable public image of the university, the health hazards of alcohol, university property damage caused by drunkenness, and intoxicated professors in classrooms as critical reasons to pass the measure." -- The California Aggie, May 8, 1975 *