- Considering that I (and I’m guessing you) have never heard of Colombian singer Juanes, the fact that this dude has managed to touch of an international controversy involving a country he’s not even from is pretty freaking amazing. Juanes, who I’m told is a 17-time Latin Grammy winner, is staging a "Peace without Borders" concert in Havana, Cuba as a platform for speaking out about change on the Communist island.
- Bad news hit the Cyprus Rhodes campus this week: it was the annual dry weekend for all fraternities and sororities, meaning no alcohol in any way, shape or form. Everyone took a slightly different approach to the challenge, with Casey ending up right in the middle of the no-alcohol fun quite by accident. After Pan-Hellenic president/witch Katherine announces dry weekend, Casey’s under-her-breath comments lead to her being called out and subsequently giving a speech about how Pan-Hellenic should give sororities other alternatives to have fun if they are banning alcohol for the weekend. Since Casey seems to be the one with the ideas, Katherine puts her in charge. That means Casey a) sets up a “progressive” evening in which each house has a fun activity (karaoke, a drunk driving simulator, etc.) and b) is assigned to do sober patrol with a member of the IFC (fraternity council), which turns out to be none other than her ex (one of them anyhow), Evan Chambers. The progressive evening turns out to be somewhat successful, as the karaoke and house-to-house party idea works fine. However, while on sober patrol, Casey inadvertently get high by eating a pot-laced brownie at the Psi Pi house and spend the rest of the evening - well, acting like stoners do. They chow down on salty snack foods and whipped cream, sit on the floor on the bathroom and sniff beauty products and have meandering, goofy conversations. Their stoner act plays out at the ZBZ house, which is also the backdrop for the ongoing tension between ZBZ president Ashleigh and her ex, Fisher. He’s still working at the house as a hasher, despite Ashleigh’s best attempts to run him off, and the party brings the tension to a boiling point. Despite promising not to get in her way if she meets a guy she likes at the part, Fisher can’t help but do just that to Ashleigh. She’s finally had enough and yanks him aside for a not-so-friendly chat. The result of the talk, aside from her punching him, is Fisher finally agreeing to quit. But after a heart-to-heart with Casey the next day, Ashleigh decides that she was too hard on Fisher and offers him his job back. He accepts, but clearly these two are on their way to getting back together. Relationships - at least with girls - aren’t the problem for Rusty, who is dealing with the reality of being dubbed “Anchor” by his engineering program peers because of getting a C on his organic chemistry midterm. Even roommate Dale is in on it, admitting that he too has been using the Anchor nickname for his pal (“Nerd on Nerd hazing is what Cappie terms it). To make the undesirable moniker go away, Rusty takes Dale’s suggestion of finding a faculty member to sponsor him for an outside research project. When his advisor, Dr. Hastings, turns him down for sponsorship, Rusty is at a loss. It isn't until Cappie inadvertently tells him that his mail is still coming to the KT house instead of his apartment that Rusty figures out what to do next. While sifting through his mail, he comes across an invitation to a book signing for Dr. Larson, another member of the engineering faculty. Cappie offers to tag along to the book signing mostly for the open bar, but also to be Rusty’s wing man as he looks to find a professor at the book signing who will sponsor his project. When the two of them arrive, they find Dale already schmoozing professors and brown-nosing, which is no surprise. While Cappie decides to hit on a few cute engineering students he sees, Rusty tries to talk to Larson about sponsoring his project. Dale informs him that Hastings is a “tough get,” but Rusty tries anyhow. He fails on his first attempt, just as Cappie is shot down by the girl he hits on. They put their heads together and decide that they need their wing man to be successful, so Rusty plays Cappie’s wing with the engineering girls and manages to make Cappie sound smart and interesting enough for one girl to take an interest. However, when Cappie returns the favor, Larson explains that he’s already agreed to sponsor Dale’s project. Rusty and Cappie confront Dale about stealing Hastings from out under his friend, so Dale reluctantly concedes that Rusty needs the help more and agrees that he should still ask Larson to be his sponsor. The third time is a charm, sort of, as Larson agrees…..to allow Rusty to be an assistant for Dale on his project. Rusty ultimately turns down the offer, but his boldness with Larson inspires Dr. Hastings to give him another shot and agree to sponsor Rusty’s project. The last story of the episode involves Calvin and roommate Grant, whose girlfriend comes to visit. That’s a stunner because Grant is homosexual, but clearly his girlfriend has no idea. She senses something is up, but Calvin knows he can’t be the one to tell her. Instead, she invites Calvin and his “special someone” on a double date to celebrate Grant’s birthday and he ropes Rebecca Logan into going with him. She’s willing to do so because she wants Calvin’s help mending fences with Ashleigh for kissing Fisher, so the double date ends up at Dobler’s, where the conversation finally wanders to a place where Calvin ends up admitting he’s gay and Grant decides to break the news that he is also. Honestly, this wasn’t a great episode, as it didn’t have a ton of humor (aside from KT members Wade and Beaver posing as academics to crash the open bar at the book signing) or a lot of interesting drama, so I have to say it was the weakest episode of the season so far, but still fun to watch (although no screen time for Rusty’s gal Jordan)………….
- I feel confident in saying that Facebook should never be the cause of any major controversies. It’s a site where people log on and take stupid quizzes about their favorite breakfast cereals and who they are secretly in love with, not a forum for debates and issues of substance. But when you live in the Middle East, I suppose that almost anything can be the trigger for a major controversy. The reason this involves Facebook is because the site has been faced with the challenge of whether to allow residents of the Golan Heights to list Syria or Israel as their home country. The debate over which way to go on the issue actually sparked fears about an anti-Facebook cyber-war, but the site has averted disaster by permitting both options. I suppose that sort of thing will happen when two groups have spent the past 42 years battling to the death over a piece of land, as Israel and Syria have when it comes to the Golan Heights. The area is Syrian territory that was captured by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967 and been internationally classified as Israeli-occupied territory since then. Yet until Facebook’s recent change, users in the Golan Heights could only choose Syria as their country of origin or else leave it blank. How to react to that if you’re Jewish? As with any group feeling wronged or disenfranchised on Facebook, the answer was simple: start a Facebook group.
- Have a bunch of used, old electronics sitting around that have fallen into disuse as you’ve upgraded to the latest technology? I don’t, but I’m told a lot of you do and so I pass along this bit of info. Internet start-up Gazelle.com, which launched in 2006, may have a solution for your problem. The company pays cash for used electronics -- ranging from LCD TVs to video game consoles and cell phones -- and then either resells or recycles the items. Using their services is simple: just log onto the site, answer a few questions about how functional your device is and Gazelle calculates how much it will pay for the item through an algorithm that uses price data culled from primary and secondary retailers like eBay and Amazon. Selling your old laptop or iPod could net you a few hundred bucks, maybe more. At this point, the company still isn't turning a huge profit, but it hopes that will change soon. “Customers pay a premium for the convenience of having us sell the item for them," said spokeswoman Kristina Kennedy. On average, Gazelle accepts about 30,000 electronic devices a year and pays for shipping by sending customers a box for most orders. The item eventually lands at Gazelle's Boston office and is then evaluated by one of the company’s 75 employees. Also, for the tech stupid among us, they delete any user files that haven’t already been erased. The entire process typically takes four days or less, at the end of which the device is either recycled or sold off to secondary retailers, wholesalers or refurbishers. Kennedy estimates that about 90 percent of the 75,000 items that Gazelle has received have been resold, with customers netting an average of $100 per device. The operation has its genesis in the environmental spirit, as co-founder Israel Ganot was inspired to start the site after a local retailer said it would charge him $10 to recycle his old BlackBerry. Things were slow in the beginning, but now Gazelle is growing by 100 percent each quarter and took in more than 10,000 products in August alone. Now their primary competition appears to be consumers’ laziness and unwillingness to spend a few minutes sifting through their drawers and closets to fish out their unused electronics……..
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