Olympian Garners SBP Title, First Floor of Davis to be Converted Into a Half-Pipe

The main lecture room of Carroll Hall was thrown into disarray on Monday night as a surprise candidate cinched the win and secured the position of Student Body President. Surprise write-in candidate Kazuhiro Kakubo, a transfer student from Japan, fist-pumped for all to see after being declared the winner. Hogan Medlin was not available for comment, nor was he spotted at the revelation at all. It was explained later that Medlin was unable to attend the event, as he was having Chris Bakke’s head surgically removed from his shoulder.

Medlin looked cheerful after the successful removal. Photo credit DTH/Lauren McCay

After he moved to the runoff, having Bakke’s head attached to his shoulder seemed like a good idea to Medlin, who later told us that he was unable to shake the “Bakke angel-devil syndrome” and proceeded to have the head removed.

An addition of some surprise pomp and circumstance caused the revelation ceremony, which usually lasts about 45 minutes (42 minutes too long, if you ask us) to run longer than usual this year. The eliminated candidates all received personalized consolation prizes and engraved plastic trophies, harking to the third-grade mentality where “you’re all special” and “everyone gets a prize.”

If you're still trying to uncover our identity, look for us walking outside a picturesque, faux White House backdrop, probably in similar questionable '70's attire.

Nash Keune received the “Rosie the Riveter (and fellow ginger) Propaganda” award . Even after being knocked out of the runoff, the article about his campaign on the Daily Tar Heel website is still the most commented. It takes real strength of character to maintain that level of ridiculous for that long.

The award for “Most Creative A-Frames” went to Monique Hardin. We personally found the puzzle piece-shaped wooden blocks to be quite charming.

Cheesy nature background? Check. Seemingly difficult sweet-looking trick? Check.

“Most Likely to be Confused for an Olympian” goes to Greg Strompolos. If he went to the CVS and bought some of that cheap fire-engine hair dye, he could probably be passed off as a body double for Sean White!

Last but not least, Shruti Shah, Medlin’s opposing runoff contender, walked away with “Most Valiant Attempt to Retain Humor on Campus”. Her bold attempt to repaint and restore the Narwhal castle did not go unnoticed, as the happy narwhal was left in its place on the side. However, in reference to our last post, yours truly Woodward and Berstein have uncovered the mysterious current abode of the Nash-tle. It’s lying in pieces in a dumpster. As we suspected, another member of the UNC chapter of Bad Boy Records was the notorious B.I.G. culprit. Deanna Santoro, managed to strong-arm Shah by threatening to file a lawsuit against overuse of funds or something equally ridiculous. Probably like a tax on narwhals, a la King George III.

**Let us stop you here. For those of you who believed us up until now, stop believing. Congratulations is due to Hogan Medlin, Student Body President for the 2010-2011 year!! Olympic snowboarder Kazuhiro Kakubo is not a student at UNC, but he has been called the “bad boy” of snowboarding so we think that’s enough to give him a little position at UNC. Maybe he and Greg can compare notes on getting some sick air.

Back at the ranch, (does anyone say that anymore?) there’s trouble brewing. The Daily Tar Heel, along with the esteemed Edit Board, reported on the egregious mistakes made by Pope Gillooly and his “vatican council” of the BOE. We’re not really sure who knows what’s going on now, though, because of the clarification and correction added to the DTH article from the Depressing Shit We Already Knew Desk. What we were able to surmise from the article was that Hodson ruled against the plaintiffs because she didn’t want to deal with any other cases (11 this year already) – we smell a cop out.

While the plummeting economy is still affecting students’ minds, it seems to now be taking control of their corporeal actions as well. Yesterday in the Union Gallery, a student was spotted vigorously shaking a tin box of change in the faces of fellow studying students. He validated the brash clanging by saying it was for his Dance Marathon fund (therefore, in efffect pulling the “cancer card”.) Even though DPS was not called to the scene, it is still in debate whether or not this action should be categorized under solicitation or panhandling. Campus officials, willing to overlook the incident because it’s “for the kids”, have found themselves in a predicament as this excuse runs rampant to validate underage drinking and general belligerence.

Finally, in a galaxy far, far away from Chapel Hill, Fashion Week is in full swing, and funny shit is going down. First,  the very demanding ice-queen editor of Vogue have to stand in a line to get into the Diesel show. We think the bigger question here should be… since when does Diesel get their own slot at Fashion Week and and why are people clamoring in line to get in?

We love the charity and overall idea behind “We Are the World 25 for Haiti”, we’re just not so sure about the guest list. There were artists we hadn’t heard from in forever, like Mary J. Blige, Josh Groban, and Adam Levine. That was all well and good until they brought in the teeny-bopping Mickey Mouse II club of Miley Cyrus, Justin Beiber (estimated age 4) and the Jonas Brothers. Auto-tuned T-Pain along with Weezy helped make up for it though, along with oh-so-random rap in the middle section just to make sure there wasn’t too much triumph in one song.

If for some reason you aren’t following us on Twitter yet, be a sheep and go on and follow us! @dailytarhole

Chapel Hill Dubbed the “New Roswell” as Alien Activity Removes Large Apparatus from Central Campus (and Funny Link Sunday!)

The few students who ventured to campus today were surprised to discover a stark void as they crested the hill on Polk Place and stared at the strangely naked edifice of Louis Round Wilson Library (yes, that is its real name). The silhouette of makeshift turrets and pictures of narwhals that defined the “Nash-tle” were nowhere to be found in front of Wilson, leaving authorities at a loss as to the whereabouts of defeated candidate Nash Keune’s narhwhal-themed A-frame fortress. Detective/BOE Chairman Peter Gillooly does not keep office on weekends and was therefore unable to be called to the scene, so students should not expect to find a chalk outline where the castle used to stand.

How does something so large disappear so suddenly? Answer: teleportation.

Little is known about the disappearance of this beacon of jollity, which retained its whimsical narwhal drawing on the side after being transferred into the possession of Shruti Shah, who has been officially endorsed by Keune.

There was no evidence left at the sight; we ruled out an Indian attack after the word “Croatan” was absent from the marble steps of Wilson. (For those of you out there who don’t happen to be North Carolina history buffs, this is what we’re referring to.) This travesty of a disappearance can only be added to the likes of Jimmy Hoffa and Amelia Earhart on the ever-growing list of “Things That Mysteriously Disappeared”, which has garnered its own corner of the Wikipedia Universe.

We have contacted Wikipedia officials, however, regarding the fact that the great TUPAC SHAKUR did not make the list of suspicious deaths/mysterious disappearances. How do things like that happen?

Given the similarly mysterious circumstances surrounding the disappearances of both the Narwhal Castle and Tupac Shakur, as well as Hogan Medlin’s campaign’s enormous street cred, our investigative reporting team has been led to conclude that Team Hogan is actually a reincarnation of Bad Boy Records.

Team Hogan has found their niche in the music industry.

Someone call the pop culture police!

But seriously, we would really like to know how Bad Boy 2.0 managed to make off with that cumbersome contraption. Did you do it Trojan-horse style and put rollers on it? Or did you perhaps enlist the help of Xtreme sports extraordinaire Greg Strompolos and tie a bunch of skateboards together? Oh wait, that’s unlikely, since Greg also endorsed Shruti.

And Nash's castle was brought into Troy with a great rolling of wheels.

Or did you finally utilize the alien sector of the campaign group to beam it up, abduction-style? These people would back that theory up for sure, despite the fact that they have one of the creepiest URLs ever. Ever.

So where are you, Nash Keune? We’re still convinced that Nash and Co. have figured out some way to make the Nash-tle reappear in the most inconvenient spot on campus. David Copperfield will probably show up to help, too.

Administrators were left speechless upon discovering that the Nash-tle had been beamed in front of the door of the Chancellor's office.

Speaking of things in places where they shouldn’t be, how about some booze and a racetrack? Wait, that makes perfect sense. Oh, you weren’t talking about that Longchamp, you were talking about this Longchamp.

Ladies, ladies, ladies (and maybe gentlemen too), head on over to Perez’s palace of gossip to check out the new Kate Moss-approved line of alcohol transport units…by which we mean Longchamp bags.

They’re sleek (actually kind of lumpy usually), they’re stylish, and they’re sack-like enough to hold more than a fifth! A recent study found that 8 out of 10 of these “alcoholism-enabling” bags found in a classroom will have Burnett’s in them. Hey, who knew habitual intoxication could look this good?

For those of you who already downed all the alcohol you had stashed in the Longchamps you already had, probably to celebrate our favorite holiday besides National Gum Drop Day (which is tomorrow), here’s more of our take on Saint Valentine’s Day.

We noticed a disproportionately large number of joggers out on this glorious, sunny Singles Awareness Day. Why, you may ask? Because jogging buddies are actually the poor man’s psychotherapist. Provided, of course, that you have the lung capacity to keep chatting about your romantic woes for an hour. Usually one buddy does and one doesn’t, creating the pseudo-therapist/yapper dynamic.

And to the solo joggers, we don’t think Raleigh Road is a great place to improve your dating situation. You probably don’t want to go out with the rando who offers to pick you up on the side of the road and treat you to a romantic Valentine’s dinner.

As for the obligatory holiday song, this is for you people who haven’t spent the day listening to “Bad Romance” or anything by Frank Sinatra. Our favorite cynical song for February 14th is this fabulously twisted remix of “Use Somebody” by the Kings of Leon.  Taking the title literally, AC actually raps about using someone’s body. Do you think the Clefs could work this one into their repertoire? The “You using me, I’m using you, so baby who’s the tool?” line might diminish their sorority girl cred though.

As promised, here are your links for funny link Sunday, and one of them involves a Duke bash – what could be better? And you thought we didn’t love you…

1) Here’s the Dook sucks link of the week, and it makes us want to root for Dartmouth.  At first we thought this was from SNL or something due to the fact that the Dartmouth girl looks like Jimmy Falon in drag, but no, it was the real Alex Trebek! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aeCIrGywIo

2) A pair of U.S. speed skaters nab the silver and gold after a double Japanese trip-up near the finish line in Vancouver. If we could only get GM and Chevy to pull this move against Toyota and Honda, our economy would be good to go. http://www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-news/n/news/afp-news/short-track-speed-skating–korea%27s-lee-wins-1-500m-short-track-gold_277216LP.html

3) In case you were wondering, fellas, Snookie has revealed that she might actually qualify as a midget. We did some calculations and determined that the missing Narwhal Fortress is equivalent to approximately 2.52632 Snookies.  (That mean’s she’s 4′ 9″!!!! Do you understand how incredibly pint-sized that is?) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCU4r53nZfQ&feature=PlayList&p=C54EBD4F209C3007&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=108

4) There’s also no way that Wendy Williams is actually a woman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1A_sxzuBDU.

5) BBC, how could you do this to us? http://arbroath.blogspot.com/2010/02/misery-bears-valentines-day_14.html

6) An appropriate song for all you optimists on this festive day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRYNYb30nxU

7) Last but not least, this picture of Tracy Morgan is just sheer hilarity. http://gawker.com/5465321/were-still-waiting-for-the-answer-to-cop-outs-greatest-mystery

Environmental Studies Students Show Fleeting Interest in SBP Race

Students and faculty in both the Environmental Studies and Environmental Science departments were pleasantly surprised to hear that Student Government had taken an interest in the problems posed by runoff, students reported Wednesday.

Environmental studies professor Greg Gangi reported feelings of excitement and hope upon reading Wednesday’s Daily Tar Heel headline, “Medlin, Shah Move to Runoff.”

Dr. Greg Gangi, affectionately known as "Gangifish" to his Coral Reef Ecology students.

Traditionally, the intricacies of point source and non-point source pollution are of little importance to Student Body President candidates due to feelings that such issues are beyond the realm of Student Government. Gangi, however, hoped for a brief moment that this year would be different.

Unfortunately, as Gangi read the first paragraph of the article, the half-smile fell from his face. The article was in fact a description of Tuesday’s election results, which have necessitated a runoff election on February 16.

The results were announced at 11:06 PM Tuesday night, after a room full of nervous candidates and staffers sat through the tedious and at times awkward “portfolio” piece produced by Carolina Week.

“It was like, come on, nobody wants to hear how successful your speech therapy sessions have been,” one frustrated campaign staffer said of the laughably exaggerated enunciation employed by many Carolina Week correspondents.

Adding a further touch of absurdity to the tense situation were the words “CONDOM OLYMPICS” emblazoned in colorful letters on the whiteboards behind the podium in Carroll 111, where the results were read.

Knowing how to properly inflate a condom is key to understanding safe sex. Yes, this picture was in the DTH. Photo courtesy DTH/Margaret Cheatham Williams

According to a weak attempt at humor in Wednesday’s DTH, “Wallet rings took on the form of Olympic rings Tuesday in the Student Union, as a group of about 15 students competed in a variety of condom-themed challenges.”

We’re still not sure what this had to do with Carroll 111, but it provided a nice backdrop for the rest of the proceedings, which were carried on with the usual unnecessary pomp that accompanies Board of Elections officials with long titles, pantsuits and a really intense briefcase containing the election results.

The article went on to state that the Condom Olympics “provided students with an exercise combining competition with sexual education.” An exercise? Really? We can think of another physical activity that might combine condoms and sexual education and competition. The New York Times already sort of beat that one to death though.

However, some campus authority figures are taking proactive steps against the sexual…er, liberation advocated by the creators of the Condom Olympics and the drunk UNC students interviewed by the NYTimes: the Davis librarians have retaliated by removing the doors on the sixth-floor-Davis study carrels.

This snow monkey enjoys hot tubbing in the natural springs of both the Himalayas and the Appalachians.

Yes, that’s right, the powers-that-be at Davis, in efforts to crack down on library sexy time, have swept the doors right off their hinges and squirreled them away in some obscure closet/fluorescently lit secret passageway in that awful brick prison. (Not kidding, the guy who designed Davis is also famous for designing numerous correctional facilities.)

Well, resident library freaks, you’ll just have to move on up to the tenth floor, which was already endorsed by Playboy as one of the best spots on campus to get it on. Unless, of course, you’re into exhibitionism, and if so, you know where to find us.

On another note, students across campus were thrilled that last night’s snow storm was timed such that it ruined our desire to go out on Friday but will melt in time to ensure that we don’t get out of class on Monday.

Much to our dismay, Chapel Hill’s lack of consistent snow is also preventing the town from qualifying as a viable snow monkey relocation center. Nepalese villagers have been denying our mail order requests for about three years now, citing Chapel Hill’s “temperate” climate as the determining factor. Customs laws, apparently, were not an issue.

UNC Down in the Dumps While the Rest of the World Has a Snow Day

Students who had anticipated two solid nights of partying this week did not get what they expected. Celebrations were scheduled for Tuesday to mark the end of election season and its accompanying annoyances, and most students planned to spend the next evening reveling in the glory of our superiority to Dook.

Unfortunately, none of that really panned out. Luckily, the DTH’s Depressing Shit We Already Knew Desk was there to remind us of the low morale on campus with their enlightening article entitled “Franklin Street Quiet After Loss.” To make matters worse, everyone we know above the Mason-Dixon line has been out of class for five days or so thanks to the snowpacalypse.

The Depressing Shit We Already Knew Desk was “straight on fireeee” Thursday, publishing yet another uplifting and informative article entitled “Recession Affecting Young People’s Minds.” This gem opened by telling us, “The current generation of college students lack confidence in its financial stability and other key areas due to the ongoing recession.” Wow, we had no idea.

Shruti Shah, however, still went out pretty hard on Tuesday night. Shah, who will be competing in next Tuesday’s runoff election, was spotted at Top O’ around 1 AM. Shah and her campaign staff were reportedly chatting it up at the bar with Christian Lander, the author of the hilarious and hugely successful blog-turned-book, Stuff White People Like.

Number 7 on Christian Lander's list of Stuff White People Like: diversity.

Lander, who sources say is just as funny in person as he is online, was so impressed with Shah’s platform that he decided to officially endorse Shruti Shah for Student Body President. Maybe he and Oprah will come to the Student Inaugural Ball?  Do they have one of those here?  They must.  We have a Student Attorney General, for God’s sake!

Hogan Medlin’s campaign, meanwhile, has devised some creative ways to ensure good communication between Medlin and his campaign staff. As revealed in the front page photograph in Wednesday’s DTH, Medlin’s campaign manager Chris Bakke has had his head surgically attached to Hogan’s shoulder!

Oh hey, Chris Bakke.

“It’s just a different ball game this year,” one Medlin staffer said. “Yes, it might mean surgery. But it’s crucial that we be able to keep in contact with Hogan at all hours of the day.  Sometimes, you just have to make a few sacrifices.”

In case the DTH version didn’t do it for you, here’s a pie chart of the SBP election results. By the way, our endorsees for Senior Class Officers, Jiz and Lustin’, were, according to the DTH, “tapped.” We think that means they won. Congrats!

Break me off a piece of that.

We picked the creepiest pictures we could find. Nothing, however, parallels the creepiness of Akon’s new hit “Nosy Neighbor.” (Thanks for introducing us to this, FratMusic.com.) Since when is voyeurism up there with bling, bitches and blow in the hierarchy of acceptable hip-hop topics?

Akon further weirded us out by referring to underwear as “drawers” in the song. Who says that? And no, Akon, you don’t get poetic license; you’re not a poet.

The hand of the four-year-old who drew our graph and the election results have at least one thing in common: they’re a little shaky. Not only were students overwhelmed with choices when they found out they could select their own voting districts, but the bigger mystery yet to be solved is the case of 300 missing ballots.

Detective/BOE Chairman Peter Gillooly was called to the scene, only to find the Board of Elections office littered with flying papers after students had filled them out and shoved them under the door. (Paper-under-the-door is the BOE’s very accurate plan B in case the online voting system has a hiccup, which happened Tuesday.) Disappointed students still bitter about last year’s real presidential elections lamented the fact that there was no button for them to vote for Giuliani.

Detective Gillooly presented the list of usual suspects, with ITS taking the top slot. ITS representatives were last sighted waggling the blame finger in the direction of the BOE office. In the midst of this quarrel, Gillooly assumed his second day job as Pope Peter IV, hoping divine intervention could quell the dispute. Students of UNC have been advised to be on the watch for white smoke coming out of the chimney of the BOE office, signaling a resolution has been made.

Oh, okay, you were an extra in Angels and Demons.

ITS stated later that they did not understand the issue with the elections, citing that the election software ran just as efficiently as their other magnum opus, the ONYEN email server.

That’s it for now. Sorry we failed on Funny Link Friday, but we will be resurrecting it as Funny Link Sunday. Failed rhyme schemes are better than almost alliterations anyway. And “Overheard at UNC” will be back with a vengeance as well.

DTH Lightens Things Up with Ludicrous Front Page Panorama

We still don't understand why you guys agreed to this.

Today’s Daily Tar Heel added yet another masterpiece to its portfolio of ridiculous and unflattering photographs, juxtaposing them with the same poorly-lit SBP candidate headshots that they ran last week, in case we had forgotten how bad they were. We weren’t sure if they were going for humor in the track start photo or if they were just trying to redeem the horrible pun in the accompanying headline (“Race to the Finish”). Either way, Nash Keune’s game face gave us a good laugh.

Getting ready for the 100-yard Nash

With this photograph, the DTH also succeeded in deceiving its readers as to what Shruti Shah’s actual ethnicity is. This is at least the second photo they’ve run in which she appears distinctly Asian. We’re not sure where this falls in the realm of political correctness and nonpartisan journalism, but there has to be some rule against changing someone’s ethnicity.

Chairman Shah?

As we write this, the creator of one of our favorite blogs, Stuff White People Like, is speaking in the Great Hall of the Union. Yeah, we didn’t know about this either.  Thanks, DTH, for relegating the article to page 3 so you could run that silly photograph.

Traditionally, the editorial board of the DTH is responsible for advising the student body on which candidate to pick, and the rest of the paper’s staff remains militantly impartial. However, the University Desk ran a piece today telling readers how to vote. Oh. Oops. It was actually just a giant box explaining how Student Central works, in case readers had somehow made it through their many semesters at UNC without ever using the site.

Much like yesterday’s story “Student Elections Voting Based on Personalities”, today’s headliner was evidently also written by a staffer of the Shit We Already Knew Desk. It assured readers that the SBP race is, in fact, an election: “But it will end today like any other election season – with a vote.” Thank god. Given the antics of the campaigners in the pit, we were afraid the Board of Elections had gotten lazy and decided to determine the winner based on who can shout the loudest, à la ancient Sparta.

Actually, for some, today might not end up with a vote because the Board of Elections has managed to screw it up again, compounded by what appears to be a chronic inability to take responsibility for things: “It’s out of my control…I have nothing to do with it,” Board of Elections Chairman Pete Gillooly said in a DTH online article posted this evening. Let’s just hope this guy is never your baby daddy, given the outstanding sense of accountability he clearly has. Plus, your spawn’s last name would then be Gillooly. Sa-weeeet.

Awww, look how cute Jiz and Lustin' are!

In the midst of our thorough research and arduous deliberations regarding our Student Body President endorsement, we totally forgot to endorse a pair of candidates for Senior Class Officers. Given their sweet rap video, this was a no-brainer. However, since we take ourselves so seriously, we think it is our duty to go ahead and make an official endorsement of Lustin’ and Jiz for Senior Class Officers. In case you’re not dyslexic, that’s Justin and Liz. Justin Tyler. Liz Deane. Not to be confused with other candidate duo Justin (Webb) and Tyler (Aiken) who are apparently out to steal Justin Tyler’s identity. The Board of Elections should have a rule against that or something.

The election results will be announced tonight at 11 PM-ish in Carroll 111. All will be revealed as the candidates and their campaign troupes sit in uncomfortably close proximity to each other. (Cue the, “Well hey, I never expected to see this group of people in one room together!” jokes.) We look forward to testing the mettle of our ability to pick a winning candidate, but if we didn’t, it’s cool. We would simply join the illustrious company of the Young Democrats, who have managed to endorse a losing candidate every year since 2005.

While you’re waiting with bated breath, you can take your mind off things by playing this thoroughly amusing game, the object of which is to help Tiger Woods elude his golf club-wielding wife. Also, if you get hungry, we just found out that you can cook eggs in the microwave. We don’t know about you, but we think this is nothing short of revolutionary. Apparently Alpine does it all the time to make Good Morning Campers.

Speaking of which, check out this Good Morning Camper on crack/steroids/growth hormones. We can’t even begin to imagine how high you’d have to be to think of this. It’s like Jimmy Dean yacked all over chicken cordon bleu.

A Taco Bell cheesy double beef burrito wrapped in a Jimmy Dean sausage log. What the hell is a sausage log?

His name is Howard.

If you can’t tell by our Facebook default, weird-ass animals are our jam. So, naturally, we were thrilled that a chinchilla was elected as president of Costa Rica today. I hope she can be friends with our chinchilla!

Okay, this chinchilla, Howard, actually belongs to a friend of ours, but we plan to kidnap adopt it soon.

Costa Rica shares the DTHole's passion for small rodents. Above, Laura Chinchilla, Costa Rica's president-elect.

Finally, if you are still looking for a ticket for tomorrow’s Dook game, look no further than this ad on craigslist.com from a guy in need of a fake girlfriend to introduce to his parents and attend the game with them (pictured below). Yes, this is for real. No, we’re not sure why the phantom girlfriend has to be a vegetarian.  Also, since, according to the NYTimes, all the girls in Chapel Hill are so easy, why is this guy having so much trouble? GO HEELS!!!!

P.S. In case you were wondering whatever happened to the Haitian child-snatchers

Shah-Winfrey Campaign Wins DTHole Endorsement

First and foremost, if it is after 7 AM on Tuesday and you are currently reading this post but have not yet voted in today’s elections, please do so by clicking here, logging into Student Central and clicking the “Vote Here” link in the bottom left corner. Yes, we know a lot of you think Student Government is a joke (believe us, we wouldn’t exist if it weren’t so funny), but you must realize that by not voting, you forfeit your right to complain. And that would suck.

Also, if you’re a dues-paying member, you can vote in the Campus Y’s Co-President elections here or in person at the Y.

You aren’t the only ones who are sick of navigating the treacherous sea of A-frames and screaming campaign staffers in the Pit. And if the icky weather causes you to actually get sick, remember current Student Body President Jasmin Jones’ words of wisdom, spoken at this year’s campaign kick-off meeting: “Get your gloves on and your multivitamins out…For real everyone, take your multivitamins. I’m serious.” (By the way, recent studies have found that taking vitamins actually does nothing for your health. You get an “A” for effort, though, Jasmin.)

Come to think of it, some of the signs are also looking a little worse for the wear. Cheap plywood + a maintenance crew that has no idea how to deal with snow = crippled A-frames.

One cast-off A-frame, a causualty of the past few weeks' unseasonably snowy weather.

This sign might not be resigned to such a warped existence if its creator had simply invested in more weather-resistant plywood.

The huge letters’ fluorescence and the staffers’ enthusiasm, however, appear undiminished by the winter. And Tom Kuell, Imma let you finish, but those are Thomas Edwards’ letters. I see you.

But back to the, er, important issues. If you feel completely ill-informed about this election and picked up this morning’s DTH hoping to gain some useful knowledge about the candidates only to find this surprisingly well-written article from the Depressing Shit We Already Knew Desk, then you’re not alone.

But fear not, we here at the DTHole are committed to helping you make an informed, intelligent decision this election season. We read (alright, skimmed) all six candidates’ platforms, including the 680-page Narwhal Manifesto. We also attended as many of the forums as we could stomach.

After all this research, we figured, hey, if all these random organizations (Computer Science Club? Seriously?) get to endorse a candidate, why shouldn’t we?

We hoped to base our decision on the questions and answers we heard at the DTH forum, which exists because, as Editor-in-chief Andrew Dunn explained, “We feel like it’s important to have a forum that’s not tied to any particular agenda or group – that’s open for any student to come and voice their questions.”

However, after about ten minutes, we fell asleep, and were thus left to evaluate the candidates based on the question they happened to be answering when we woke up. The question was, of course, “What is your favorite party song?”

Greg, we think it's awesome that you do some modeling on the side for gourmet eatery A Southern Season. Why wasn't this more heavily publicized in your platform?

GREG STROMPOLOS:  “One More Time” by Daft Punk.  Okay, legit.  But at the boUNCe forum, he cited “Party and Bullshit in the USA” as his favorite song, which sucks because the “A Milli/Party in the U.S.A.” remix is actually wayyyy better. Inexcusable.

At the DTH forum, Greg emphasized his multiculturalism by saying several times, “My high school spoke 52 languages.” Shit, our brick prison of a high school never said a word to us! So jealous. This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “if walls could talk.”

The only person we can think of who shared this experience with Greg is this kid named Harry Potter, who spent many an intense night pacing the halls of Hogwarts while the walls whispered to him in Parseltongue. Maybe Greg’s high school’s 52-language repertoire included Parseltongue too.

MONIQUE HARDIN: “Party in the U.S.A.” by Miley Cyrus.  Again, the Weezy remix is better. We’re also afraid that Monique is just too delicate for the job: in her campaign photos she appears to be holding on to the Old Well fountain for dear life…was it really that windy that day, Mo?

Don't let go. Don't let go. Shitshitshit.

NASH KEUNE: Tchaikovsky’s The Year 1812, Festival Overture in E flat major.  Yep, Nash’s pick, according AP Style, is so pompous that it gets italics and not quotation marks. Word. We can’t endorse you because you pose too much of a threat to us, and we don’t want to spend the next year watching you steal our thunder. But if you lose, can we have your A-frame fortress?

SHRUTI SHAH: “Everybody Dance Now” by…Shruti didn’t know who sang this.  Just in case you all were wondering, it’s actually “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” by C+C Music Factory.  Shruti also demonstrated her stellar pop culture knowledge at the boUNCe forum, when she said her favorite song was “that song ‘Replay’…by I think his name is Lyaz?”  It’s Iyaz. Way to go. Have you heard of a little series of movies by the name of Star Wars?

HOGAN MEDLIN: “United States of Pop 2009″ by DJ Earworm. This is the musical equivalent of a politician who tries to be all things to all people. It is a mashup of every single top 25 song from this past year. Talk about overstimulation. But it’s really fucking good.

JOE LEVIN-MANNING: “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga.  Joe Michelle Gellar, sorry, Joe Levin-Manning had a solid, if slightly cliché favorite party song, which incidentally inspired us to award him third prize…keep reading.

We then spent hours carefully deliberating and considering this information before coming to a decision about whom The Daily Tar Hole would officially endorse for the 2010 UNC Student Body President election. However, we didn’t really like any of these songs, so we decided, fuck criteria. We instead made our decision based on a single, all-important criterion: Which candidate is the fewest degrees of separation away from Lady Gaga?

Shruti Shah gets the endorsement because she is only two degrees of separation away from Lady Gaga. Shruti is pictured here in 2005 next to The Big O, after receiving the Keeper of the Dream Award, the kid’s version of the Freedom Award, which Oprah received that year. Yep, no big deal. Flanking them are just some nobodies: Paul Rusesabagina, the original hotelier of Hotel Rwanda; Tracy Ellis, Diana Ross’ daughter; and civil rights activist Ruby Dee. You couldn’t Photoshop this if you tried. Oprah, of course, is buddies with Lady Gaga and apparently shares her taste in eye wear.

ONLY TWO DEGREES OF SEPARATION FROM LADY GAGA!! Definitely SBP-worthy.

Hogan Medlin was our runner-up, due to his friendship with fellow Clef Hanger and American Idol alum (not to mention UNC alum) Anoop Desai.  To the left of this hilarious snapshot of Hogan and Noop Dawg is a photograph of Anoop and other Season Eight finalists Adam Lambert and Matt Giraud. Not surprisingly, the outlandish Lambert and Stephani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (Lady Gaga’s real name) like to party together.

Three degrees – not too shabby. Glambert is such a connector!

Joe Levin-Manning was the second-runner up because he chose “Bad Romance” as his favorite party song.

Dogged though we were in our stalking investigative reporting, we couldn’t find any links between Our Lady of Gaga and any of the other candidates. However, if any candidate can prove a closer link to Lady Gaga (meaning you have a picture of yourself and her) send the photographic evidence our way, and we will happily retract our endorsement in favor of the closer connection.

More importantly, if you’re that close with Lady Gaga, why the hell isn’t that the backbone of your platform? And why isn’t she coming to Memorial Hall instead of Duke’s LDOC?

And finally, we have to point out the hilarity of the fact that we are endorsing the same candidate as Justin Crowder of The Carolina Review: http://crdaily.com/2010/02/sketches-of-our-sbp-candidates/. Clearly, this (i.e., being in agreement with The Carolina Review) happens to us all the time, especially when it comes to things like reproductive rights and health care reform.  Let us savor this moment of harmony!

This just in (another irony!): The DTH actually agrees with us too!! http://www.dailytarheel.com/content/shruti-shah-sbp. Copycats…

Nationally Known Journalists Come to Chapel Hill to Make Fun of Students

Chapel Hill played host to journalists from two of America’s most well-known news sources this week. Ira Glass of NPR’s This American Life and Alex Williams of The New York Times both paid visits to campus, evidently with the shared goal of poking fun at the trials and tribulations of life as a UNC student.

Ira Glass, a self-proclaimed fan of the DTH’s kvetching board, reiterated how pathetic it is that someone at our school had never heard of Star Wars, calling this lack of pop-culture exposure “beyond homeschooling.” He hit on another sore spot, eliciting an awkward silence when he unintentionally pointed out that our basketball team may or may not currently rank in the top 50.

"Wesa got a grand army. That's why you no liking us meesa thinks."

The New York Times, meanwhile, succeeded in creating an exaggerated portrait of Chapel Hill students, in which all girls are hopelessly devoid of self-respect and all boys are Chauvinistic pigs. Alex Williams, who splits his time between reporting for the Arts Section and the Stating the Obvious Section of the Times, discussed the “new math on campus,” i.e., the 60-40 female-male ratio that is about to rear its ugly head for Valentine’s Day.

Williams took a leaf out of Tucker Max’s book, venturing out to several Franklin Street bars to “do research.” Given their questionable sobriety, most of the interviewees were surprisingly well-spoken. However, Williams did manage to tease out a few gems and then insert them into his article with little to no context. Our favorite take on relationships at UNC came from junior Emily Kennard, who was robbed (or should we say “cheated”?) of her dignity by Mr. Williams’ sneaky reporting.  Clearly, this is an accurate representation of all Chapel Hill girls’ sense of self-worth. Thanks for that, New York Times.

Matthew Garofalo gave an equally flattering impression of boys in Chapel Hill, saying, “You don’t have to work that hard…You meet a girl at a late-night restaurant, she’s texting you the next day.” We weren’t aware that Time-Out and B-Skis were hot spots for picking up the ladies.  Thanks for the tip, Matthew.

Is it really that easy, Mr. Garofalo? Insert cat-related sexual innuendo here.

The Times article was accompanied by an eight-picture multimedia section, which was really disconcerting to flick through due to the absence of Facebook tags. The slide show also revealed that Deep End and P.T.’s have apparently invested thousands of dollars to improve their lighting since we were there last weekend.

The glorified Facebook album, sorry, “multimedia show” depicted two sophomores fratting chatting it up at Bob’s. We’re sure they were reminiscing about their respective gap years, which are usually to blame for the abundance of 21-year-old sophomores at Bob’s.

Finally, the article ensured that every female reader is super excited and optimistic about Valentine’s Day, pointing out that “Thanks to simple laws of supply and demand, it is often the women who must assert themselves romantically or be left alone on Valentine’s Day, staring down a George Clooney movie over a half-empty pizza box.” Alex Williams, don’t pretend you won’t be spending the evening of February 14^th with some Pokey Sticks and the ER box set DVD. Also, way to rip off Professor Byrns’ “Economics of Love” Valentine’s Day lecture.

That’s it for today, kids. Look out for our Student Body President endorsement tomorrow, which will evaluate the candidates on only the most relevant and serious of criteria for carrying out the duties of the office. Oh wait, three more things:

1) A lovely kvetcher once asked “Who do I have to blow to get into the kvetching board?” Well here’s your happy ending, sort of. The DTHole is starting an overflow kvetching board, which we will publish about once a week. So, if your kvetches just weren’t kosher for the DTH, send them our way: dailytarhole@gmail.com.

2) Props to Liz Deane and Justin Tyler for getting creative with their campaign for Senior Class Officers. Their parody of Juvenile’s “Back That Ass Up” music video turned us into absolute ROFLcopters and actually made us want to vote for them. It’s almost as good as the Throwback Rap playlist on fratmusic.com.

3) Finally, we just had to call this person out on the most ridiculous license plate we’ve ever seen. Don’t get us wrong, we aren’t jealous Clef Haters, but this is just heinous. Actually, maybe we are jealous of whoever has such a dedicated stage mother. (In case you can’t tell, it’s a grey Porsche Boxster with a “Carolina Mom” decal and the words CLEF MOM emblazoned across the license plate.)

P.S.  Apparently Gawker is on the same page we’re on: http://gawker.com/5466193/the-dance+card-problem-college-girls-outnumber-college-guys-misandrist-chaos-ensues?skyline=true&s=i. And as for Alex Williams, at least he has the good sense to call these girls “sorority women” while he unabashedly paints them as bimbos.

P.P.S.  In reference to yesterday’s post, those are the actual celebrity matches we got from FaceDouble.com.  They wouldn’t be funny if we had picked them ourselves.  Joe Levin Geller?  You can’t make that shit up.

Student Body President Candidates Resist Facebook Doppelgänger Craze

This year’s batch of Student Body President candidates is taking a conscious step toward combating stereotypes. Despite the commonly held conception that it takes an exceptionally unrealistic, narcissistic and delusions of grandeur-plagued person to pursue this office, none of the candidates have succumbed to the recent Facebook doppelgänger trend.

Over the past week, thousands of teenagers and young adults all over Facebook have changed their profile pictures to photos of celebrities who are inevitably far better looking than they are. Tragically, the chosen celebrity often bears no resemblance to the awkward college student.

At the moment, all six SBP candidates have official campaign photos as their Facebook defaults. Many of these photos feature slogans, color alterations and considerable Photoshopping.

Undoctored and unflattering photos of the candidates can be found on the Daily Tar Heel website.

“I mean, it just doesn’t do anything for someone’s image to point out how much hotter, say, Jake Gyllenhaal is,” said one campaign manager who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “We’re all about highlighting the positives and sweeping the negatives under the rug.”

Daily Tar Hole investigative reporters took the liberty of Facebook stalking the candidates to see what kinds of photos were featured on their profiles. We submitted several of these travel snapshots, contrived campaign photos and cRaAAZay pArTay piXxXxxxx to FaceDouble.com, a website designed to help desperate nineteen-year-old girls find prettier versions of themselves.  Here’s what we got:

Joe Levin-Manning had the funniest result, hands down. According to the magical doppelgänger generator, he is a dead-ringer for none other than Sarah Michelle Gellar of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Cruel Intentions fame.

Greg Strompolos bears an uncanny resemblance to one of our heroes, comedian Sarah Silverman. Too bad his witticisms at the forums aren’t quite up to her level yet. Actually, it’s probably a good thing that they aren’t because we were already peeing our pants listening to Nash Keune talk about invading Iran with narwhals.

When we fed it Shruti Shah’s picture, the face recognition software came up with some random hair gel victim who was a child actor in Road to Perdition. Maybe he has both Indian and Jewish heritage too? Or maybe we accidentally uploaded Greg Strompolos’ picture.

Given the small African child Hogan Medlin was clutching in his old default, we expected to get either Brangelina or Madonna. But his doppelgänger (other than Roy Williams, as his “Photo Gallery” would suggest) is the fabulous Miss Britney Spears!  (Disclaimer: that caption came with the picture.  Since when is Britney Spears an author? For that matter, since when is she literate?)

FaceDouble.com thinks Monique Hardin could pass for John Krasinksi. We think Jim would approve of Office (ha, ha) hours in the Pit, too.

Though we were hoping for Tilda Swinton à la The Chronicles of Narnia, Nash Keune’s face proved to be quite the doozie for FaceDouble.com. There were no matches! This only seemed appropriate for this year’s most “atypical” candidate. (You have mastered the art of understatement, haven’t you, Daily Tar Heel? Or maybe you’re immune to satire?)

By some lucky accident, however, Nash’s Facebook picture reminded us of another celebrity, er, politician. It took us a while to put our finger on it, since the resemblance was really subtle, but we finally realized that his picture looked a lot like those posters Barack Obama had two years ago. What a coinkydink!

And last, but not least, don’t think we’ve forgotten about you, DTH staff! In our Facebook stalking of past and present SBP candidates, we came across evidence that two high-level editors had broken their own rules of not fraternizing (i.e., appearing in Facebook pictures) with candidates. Below is a picture of Editor-in-chief Andrew Dunn, Managing Editor for Online Sara Gregory and 2009 SBP candidate Ron “Take Down the Terminator” Bilbao. If this isn’t fraternizing, then we don’t know what is. According to an email sent to DTH staffers, any reporter caught committing such an egregious transgression would be off the paper!!!

In case you didn't know, they are dating. (see 4/3/2009 entry)

Since the President and Vice President are clearly unfit to lead, what is the DTH’s equivalent to Speaker of the House? Would FaceDouble.com come up with Nancy Pelosi if we put in University Desk Co-Editor Kevin Kiley’s photo?

Until next time, keep it real, DTHolers. Friend us on Facebook (our doppelgänger is a striped possum). And, if you’re interested in narwhals or enjoy Noam Chomsky, check out Nash Keune’s 680-page platform.

P.S. And now we’re going to play…find that kindergarten error in the DTH. At some point over the last five days or so, the copy editors at the Daily Tar Heel demonstrated that they don’t know the difference between “effect” and “affect.” First person to spot it and email us wins a prize!