By Barbara Anderson
Hot footin' it
Among the Experimental College's winter quarter offerings was the fire-walking seminar, which offers participants an opportunity to walk over 1,200-degree coals. The instructor's name? Heather Ash.
No rebellion here
Notice posted on the Summer Sessions bulletin board: Juvenile Delinquency has been canceled.
Now if they can just do something about those body piercings. . .
We like chocolate! Yum-yum-yum!
The five best-selling items in the 56 candy vending machines on campus are . . . May I have the envelope, please? [Insert drum roll here.]
#1: Snickers (are you surprised?)
#2: Peanut M&Ms (but we hate the blue ones; don't you?)
#3: Mike and Ike and Hot Tamales (a tie, and the only non-chocolate items in the winners' circle)
#4: Plain M&Ms (see #2 above)
#5: Hershey's with Almonds (and you can forget those Sweet Temptations, Mr. H; they'll never replace the real thing)
Paul McCann, Marriott's manager of vending operations, says that even though people say they want healthy food choices in the vending machines, chocolate still sells the best. Say! How about chocolate-covered bananas in those machines?
Nature abhors a vacuum
On page 13 of this issue there's a picture of the Memorial Union caught with its walls down. Not only was it chilly in there, but the dust raised by the construction clogged the transmitter of radio station KDVS, leading to that old nemesis of broadcasting, "technical difficulties," shutting down the station for several weeks. The thought of all that wasted bandwidth was too strong a temptation for Mark Chang, an electronics hobbyist and former UC Davis student. Thus the rebirth of Davis Live Radio, a pirate station Chang started several years ago on another frequency. The current incarnation--all 10 watts, emanating from Chang's kitchen "somewhere in Davis"--presented such free-form programming as the sounds of someone eating and call-in segments from areas as far-flung as Lake and Covell boulevards. The "Roving Reporter," reportedly a listener favorite, featured a DJ who took a cellular phone into downtown Davis and persuaded passersby--including the driver of an ASUCD Tipsy Taxi and patrons of the Jack-in-the-Box drive-through window--to talk "on the air." KDVS returned to the airwaves Feb. 15, pulling the plug, so to speak, on Chang's station. But stay tuned . . .
When all else fails, punt
You'd think The Wall Street Journal would content itself with reporting on the bull market and how to make a million, but during last fall's football season, in an experiment apparently designed just to see if it could be done, the paper attempted to obtain that most closely guarded of all documents: the football playbooks of UC Berkeley, UCLA and our own UC Davis Aggies. They were unsuccessful. Per the paper, "[Aggie head coach] Bob Biggs could tell you the meaning of 'Solo East Wing Trade Z Sail, Fake 53 294 Y Switch,' but then he'd have to kill you. Wouldn't he? 'First of all, I wouldn't give it to you,' Biggs said of the details of the Solo East Wing--a play-action pass--or any others from his playbook." Stan Nosek, UC Davis' director of administrative services, tried to be more helpful to the paper, offering its representative a seat in the press box so the team's sets and formations could be "observed firsthand."
Rights for lefties
The battle between right and left isn't confined to politics. In lecture halls and classrooms all across campus, left-handed students struggle to take notes on desks designed for right-handers. Frustration and cramped arms led second-year students Mike Rose and Marc Thomas to form the Lefty's Rights Association, with the stated goal of changing the way left-handed people are treated at UC Davis. Seems that some major lecture halls have no left-handed desks at all; the classrooms that do have them have very few. Lefties have to get to class early to grab one, sometimes resorting to kicking their right-handed classmates out of a lefty seat. The California Aggie reported in November that the group held a party at which all guests, regardless of hand orientation, were required to do everything with their left hands for the duration of the evening.
Reddy Kilowatt goes to college
That last brown-out you had at your house may have been caused by the students in the UC Davis dorms. OK, not really, but electrical use for the on-campus residence halls has increased by more than half a million kilowatts over the last decade. In 198384, dorm residents used 3,966,600 kilowatt hours of juice (and that's not counting Primero, since torn down); in 199596, those same dorms used 4,600,000 kilowatt hours. Roy Benson, assistant director of student housing, says that a number of energy conservation measures have been adopted, and that dorm rules allow only one refrigerator, one microwave, one coffeepot, and no toasters or hot plates or similar devices. Must be those CD players, VCRs, computers, televisions, blow dryers, answering machines and other basic necessities of student life. (And do you mean to tell me they don't allow espresso machines? Almost like doing hard time.)
PASSING TIME
75 years ago
"A wireless concert may be heard by the many visitors at the University Farm Picnic, which will be held at Davis on April 29. Arrangements have been made for the erection of a powerful radio receiving instrument, together with a loud speaking attachment, so that everyone may clearly hear the concerts and other numbers.
"Many people are interested in this new invention and those interested may secure information from a competent instructor in charge of the radio set."
-- University Farm Agricola
April 20, 1922
50 years ago
"Reviving a hundred-year-old tradition from the annals of early California, Aggie Pony Express riders . . . will gallop to Berkeley with a personal invitation to Picnic Day for President Robert Gordon Sproul. . . . A horseman will leave the Davis campus early Friday morning with the message from the student body. Relay riders will continue the invitation by way of Suisun-Fairfield, Benecia, Walnut Creek and across the hills directly to Sather Gate, where the president will be waiting."
-- The California Aggie
March 27, 1947
25 years ago
Classified ad: "For sale: Double bed. Excellent condition with lots of experience. $40 or best offer."
-- The California Aggie
March 3, 1972
Illustrations by Paiching Wei
