The Spin

Archive for November, 2007

Freshman with a guitar plays at a MGMT 100 event … In other news, Penn has a Rhodes scholar

Simeon McMillan

Some of the Ivy League dailies need to get their priorities straight.

You know things are messed up when you win the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship and isn’t a featured story on the home page of your very own college newspaper.

(Insert picture of Rhodes Scholarship winner Joyce Meng…oh wait, there is no picture online)

There either must be some serious haters out there running papers across the Ivy League, or the Rhodes Scholarship isn’t quite what it used to be.

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Could this be the end of the “101″?

Morgan Hennessy

General introductory courses here at Penn can be some of the toughest in the curriculum. The “econ scream” is a testament to that. And anyone who has suffered through Chemistry, Biology or Physics 101 will tell you — it wasn’t fun.
These courses are designed to provide students with a broad foundation of knowledge. Classes are large, curves are usually prodigious, and breadth takes precedence over depth.

Some schools are trying to change this. At Cornell, for example, professors have suggested amending the biology curriculum to rid it of large introductory classes and instead offer 5-6 smaller, more specialized classes.

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A: Won the Tournament of Champions in 2007

Nick Barr

Q: Who is Celeste DiNucci?

Jeopardy fans rejoice: Penn’s own Celeste diNucci won the Tournament of Champions over the weekend, beating out some smarmy Canadian by $401. Celeste is a PhD student with the English Department, and her dissertation is on Shakespeare.

The road to glory was paved with some tough questions answers. Just to get to the finals, Celeste had to edge out her sizable opponent in a rare tiebreaker:

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Tips from another frigid Ivy

Lindsey Stull

Over at Columbia, apparently they’re not indulging in enough casual sex.

When I first read that blog entry, I thought it was a slightly confusing, laughably bad attempt to persuade Columbia girls to spread their legs a bit more often. Rereading, however, I found several morsels of truth that could’ve been written by any sexually frustrated Quaker.

Most guys here are woefully incompetent with women while the females themselves are viewing every hookup against the historical arc of their lives.

and just as accurate,

If you want to experience some pleasure then do it. Live in the moment! Can’t sex simply be fun? Maybe the idea is a little revolutionary for our activist student body.

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YouTube + UA = YouFail

Dan Brickley

It’s been a while since the UA’s first YouTube debut, when the all-powerful ninja, Jason Karsh, took center stage. Yesterday, the UA was so kind as to send a link to the newest video to each class listserv. This time Karsh (who makes sure to remind all viewers that he dressed up as a ninja) and several other UA members share the spotlight. Pay close attention now, and be sure to note the talking bus.

Forget rape, crime, and Lee Stetson, it’s time to ’superman that ho’ on YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTube.

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We’re not saturated yet!

Nick McAvoy

coffee

It’s about time.

I have good news for those of you who thought there weren’t enough places to buy coffee on campus. The pleas of the visible caffeinated minority at Penn were finally heard about a month and a half ago, with the opening of a brand new Starbucks at 34th and Chestnut St.

It’s perfect for when it’s too inconvenient to make it to Wawa, Bucks County, McDonalds, Williams Café, Café Prima, Mark’s Café, the other Wawa, the other Starbucks, Au Bon Pain, Così, the coffeepot in your room, or the other other Starbucks.

As for me, I’m content to leave the list of things I need to function at food, water, air, sleep, and shelter.

P.S. – Did I miss anywhere?

Condom history: a vegan’s nightmare

Lindsey Stull

Condoms. Furry, intestinal, animal-derived little sperm-catchers. Wait, what?

condoms

For those with too much spare time (or a burning desire to learn about archaic methods of birth control), a new book has come along that innovatively allows one to waste time and read about weird sex without even touching the computer.

The Humble Little Condom: A History, by Aine Collier of the University of Maryland. Because you can probably work it into a paper somewhere, and apparently the creative synonyms are worth the price of the book.

Reading about condoms made from intestines and lead kinda makes you appreciate the new-fangled kind, huh?

It’s not easy being homophobic…

Morgan Hennessy

“Despite this discomfort, I will continue to press on as one of the last beacons of strength and morality. That may sound too pompous for the rather insignificant matter at hand, but courage on any level is hard to find these days. Political correctness, a weakening morality and lack of courage are suffocating our once-great nation.”

Sounds pretty serious … that is, until one realizes this guy is defending his right to scream “NOT GAY.”

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ENGL137: SCRABULOUS

Nick Barr

I’m not really the Facebook type. My “UPenn Friends” list barely tops 100. My wall doesn’t get much play. I link to my posts, but only because my editors make me.

And when Facebook introduced all those applications, I got kind of overwhelmed and pissed off. One time I got a notification that someone thought I was sexy, but to see who it was I had to install the “Sexy Application.” Forget it, I thought. I can’t deal with that kind of cockteasing.

But just when I was about to disable my account, along came Scrabulous. Created by the brothers Agarwalla (network: India), it’s basically an un-investigated copyright infringement on Scrabble. Scrabulous is pretty popular — it boasts about 500,000 daily users.

nsb

But the real question is, does it make you smarter?

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omg, im-ing rox!

Dan Brickley

Remember the good ol’ days of middle school? I fondly recall spending all of lunch period telling Susie how much I hated Ms. Igivesomuchhomework or how totally awesome the next school dance was going to be. Then I’d rush home and get on AIM so I could tell Susie just how much more I actually hated Ms. Igivesomuchhomework now that I was home.

Of course, I wouldn’t just have one conversation at a time. To quote my fellow blogger, any number of AIM windows less than 5 could be considered “weaksauce.”

Thus, nostalgia swept over me as I read this article about the good old days…

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