A couple days ago, Columbia played host to an erotic cake competition (or should we say “compeTITion?”). Scroll through to see some of the dirty, dirty deliciousness that you missed out on.

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Like this, but a magazine

Personally, we think it’s better when college magazines start blogs. But you know those NYU kids.

From the Observer:

NYU Young Media War Rages On: The young folk of NYU Local—the pirate NYU news publication/blog, as opposed to the officially-mandated NYU publication, Washington Square News—is going to wage further war on its rival by putting out its own print publication. It’s going to be called NYU Local Magazine. The scrappy youths at NYU Local have sold us on it as follows:

It’s going to be a mix of guides to life at NYU (A guide to smoking pot in your dorm room written by a former R.A.), some long profiles of NYU students and New Yorkers (Rapper Cakes Da Killa), and there’s some servicey content of stuff that we think NYU students need to know (Where you can drink with and without a fake id). Essentially, now we’re the most exciting print publication at NYU too.

So head on down to Bobst (that’s their Butler, which we are apparently allowed into) and pick up a copy. Or just get your fill of NYU hate from celebrated New Yorker Fran Lebowitz:

I don’t love NYU. I didn’t hate it before. I just never thought about it. It’s not of interest to me. And it really should be stopped from being called NYU, because it really has nothing to do with New York…The worst thing about being around these people, about these students, is overhearing their conversation. For that alone, I walk around my neighborhood in a constant rage, thinking I want to say to them: No, no you’re not. NYU should move out of New York.

The four horses of the SSOL apocalypse are on their way! Hurry up and register for that class that you thought you didn’t want to take but turned out to be full of unknown knowledge (or just full of easy homework assignments), as it’s the last day to add courses. Also, if you just don’t get MusicHum, drop it quick, as it is the last day to drop Core classes.  Don’t forget that amidst all of this dropping and adding, you still must be registerd for a minimum of 12 points and that today is your last chance to uncover a grade for a course taken Pass/D/Fail.

As you decide how much time to devote to sleeping this semester, keep our high stakes competition in mind!

Vintage SSOL via Wikimedia Commons

Rubik's Cube: intuitive for smart people

It may be counter-intuitive that a state’s Governor would file his taxes late. After all, public officials are role models, right? Not so in New Jersey, where Chris Christie will file late for the second year in a row. (WSJ)

It’s pretty intuitive that the words and phrases we use all have a history. This weekend, you’ll be prepared to expound on the etymology of a word whose history may surprise you. (Slate)

Legal concepts are often counter-intuitive. (corporation = person?) So it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that Mother Nature is on her way to being granted rights. (Wired)

It’s very intuitive that people don’t spend much time reading signs on garbage cans. The MTA very smartly figured this out and decided to go with fewer words and bigger pictures on their “trash receptacles.” (NYT)

Columbia will begin construction on the Campbell Sports Center by the end of April. Advocates for Inwood Manhattan, a community group, are concerned by what they see as the rapid approach of construction. (Spec, DNAinfo)

Enigmatology via Wikimedia Commons

Which side would Adam Smith be on?

Undergrads apparently. The battle has begun to determine, once and for all, whether economists or politicians will rule the world IAB. The Economics Society and Political Science Students Association are going head to head right now in full out warfare, capture the flag style, fighting to the death in Riverside Park. The winner gets to take home an “amazingly ostentatious” trophy. Cute guys!

Stylin’ via Wikipedia

These goats are competitive.

Thanks to the Common App switch, Columbia may be the second most selective Ivy this year, after only Harvard. This has purportedly scared Harvard and Princeton into reinstating their early admissions plans. (Daily Beast, Harvard Crimson, Daily Princetonian)

Columbia students, representing the Student Global AIDS campaign,  plan to protest House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s speech at Harvard.  (WaPo)

A centrist Democratic president just announced that he’ll give the commencement address at a prominent university in New York City. Sorry POTUS project, it’s just Clinton and NYU. Also, Emma Watson is reportedly considering transferring to a prominent university in New—yeah, it’s NYU again! (NYULocal)

Construction is underway at 101st and Amsterdam, the new home of Warique Peruvian Kitchen, a restaurant specializing in Peruvian food. No sign of a menu, but traditional Peruvian dishes include “aji de gallina (a milky, spicy chicken stew), ceviche, and papa rellena (stuffed potatoes).”  How will this affect Flor de Mayo? (The College Critic)

The continuing and brutal violence in Libya has been on everyone’s mind. One Columbia student spoke with NBC News about the terrifying experiences of his friends and family in Libya. (NYT, NBC)

Caprine competition from Wikimedia Commons.

Photo via Wikipedia

Barnard’s Director of Public Safety Dianna Pennetti informed the community this morning that Frightening Animals were spotted on Columbia’s campus this morning.

They weren’t hawks.  They were coyotes.  In front of Lewisohn.  Who says we’re too urban?

Full email after the jump.
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Submissions to Bwog’s Costume Contest are rolling in. Before we pick a winner, check out our favorite entries so far, and rate them yourself in the comments.

Patrick Londen as the Hamburglar. (more…)

With Halloween being on a Saturday, it’s as if everyone got a do-over with their costumes tonight. So there’s no excuse: send us your best costumes to bwog@columbia.edu by midnight tomorrow, and hope for yet another piece of candy. 

Oh, and apparently Daylight Saving Time ends tonight? Not cool. Not cool at all. Never mind, we’re idiots; tonight’s the night when you get an extra hour (not when you lose an hour). Spend it wisely.

Oh sure, you may be a fan of Cribs or Pimp My Ride, but nothing really screams “pimp me” like a bookcart. At least, so say the runners of Unshelved.com, who have just concluded their third annual “Pimp My Bookcart” competition. Continuing our university’s fine winning streak, this year’s first place prize went to the employees of Butler’s Rare Books and Manuscript Library, who turned their bookcart into a hot dog cart. We’re hungry just looking at it, and so were the judges: “We rarely agree on anything as easily as we did in giving this cart first prize. Succeeds in all of our judging categories!”

You can see a rearview of the “hot book cart” here, and you can also see the ingenious designs it beat.

Hurry! From 6-9 tonight, the Blue Key Society hosts a competitive, campus wide Spelling Bee in the Wien Lounge.  ROAR, LION, ROAR! [Results after the jump!]

For almost every student, Spellcheck is an indispensable tool. Thanks to Bill Gates and his brainchild, Microsoft Word, the once tedious process of editing a paper for spelling errors has been reduced to a series of simple clicks. But then, there are those other students…

Yes, at Columbia,  there is a strange breed of students whose spelling capacities surpass those of that supercilious dancing paper-clip icon. These students spell with natural confidence and verbal intuition. Their vocabularies are so rich that while Spellcheck may flounder over obvious Greek derivatives, like, dialogism and phyllophyllin, Columbia’s superior strain of spellers can easily tackle any word.

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Mad nostalgia for the mid-90s is standard by now, and unsurprisingly many Bwoggers have devolved back to their 9-year-old selves, reveling in the joys of Nintendo 64 and Mario Kart in particular. Though our early Karting experience was largely a tale of character-building losses to nimbler-fingered cousins, we have trained a bit among ourselves and have stoked a more robust sense of competition (future adversaries at Blue Key Society’s spelling bee should be wary). Bwog hereby invites all fellow nostalgics for a Mario Kart tournament next Friday, April 4th, on Ruggles 6. If you have deluded yourself into thinking you’re game for the challenge – or if you just want a sweet photo of yourself in video gaming action, accompanied by a putatively funny/punny caption, published on Bwog – email bwgossip@columbia.edu. Suite number and time details will follow.

Competitive cooking came to Columbia this afternoon.  Read on to see who proved their culinary capacity and who fell short.

Coinciding with the premiere of season four of Bravo’s Top Chef, the Hartley-Wallach Living and Learning Center hosted their own cooking competition this afternoon.  The first Annual LLC Iron Chef Competition pitted fellow Hartley-Wallach residents against each other.  Thirteen teams of two faced off to decide who could whip together the most sophisticated and savory dishes.

At the commencement of today’s events, the LLC Iron Chef Committee unveiled the secret ingredient: Rice Krispies. The organizing committee of the LLC Iron Chef incorporated a special ingredient into the competition’s parameters both as an homage to their titular predecessor, Iron Chef, and also to unify the different teams’ dishes with common ingredient.  The teams were then given twenty dollars and three hours to come up with an entrée and dessert of their own creation.

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In preparation for the storming of NYU, a few Bwog editors and other interested parties will be gathering tonight at La Negrita on 109th and Columbus to sharpen our skills before going big time. Trivia goes from 8:00 – 10:00 with a two-drink minimum. Swing by at around 7:45 if you want to get in on the action.

In which the Battle of the Spicies comes to a satisfactory conclusion, as narrated by Armin Rosen.

I was drunk as fuck the first time I encountered the Spicy Special at 109 Gourmet Deli–but then again, who isn’t drunk as fuck when they first encounter the 109 Spicy Special? Plenty of establishments cater to a more sober, discerning clientele, but the shitfaced among us will always settle for the 109’s signature stomach-churner: a disgustingly delicious combination of cajun turkey and pepper jack cheese, at any hour of the day (between 2 and 5 in the morning), and in any state of mind (drunk). The Special loses a bit of its mystique during the temperate daylight hours, although if you crave for liquefied cheese atop an anemic slice of tomato and some oddly-spiced deli meat on a Wednesday afternoon then I guess you could eat one sober just for curiosity’s sake.

The deli itself is nothing special (although I’m told it’ll deliver cigarettes right to your dorm, which pretty much gives you an idea of what kind of a place this is), but the Spicy Special— the culinary embodiment of many a wasted Thursday, Friday and Saturday night—certainly is.

Which is why I experienced a feeling similar to that of a die-hard Cat Stevens fan upon hearing the Flaming Lips’ blatant rip-off of “Father and Son” when I saw that another of my favorite corner delis had started serving a spicy special of its own. (more…)