The Shailesh-tival

If you started college in the 90s then you surely remember the old UNIX email accounts the university gave you. You’d login to your server with telnet and use pine to check your email, and it was all text-based.

If you were also part of a tiny secret society, you also dutifully updated your ‘.plan’ file. The ‘.plan’ file was a text file in your main directory where you’d add a personal message and maybe even a message for a few of your friends. You’d also check your friends’ ‘.plan’ files with the ‘finger’ command. For instance, my email address was ingale@students.uiuc.edu, so another person could potentially read my ‘.plan’ file by typing ‘finger ingale’. Read the rest of this entry →

Today’s Daily Illini has an article about the closing of the Burger King on Green St. in Champaign, IL. The Burger Kind was a part of the heart of campus and right in the middle of the Campustown bar scene — a nice stop during a drunken stumble home.

It was our destination during almost every meal during initiation week, where we’d get carryout whoppers and eat them at home while we got dru-, er, cleaned the house.

It was where MiLo and I met the loves of our lives, one of whom proclaimed to me that she hated every male in the world except for me.

And who could forget the scores of drunks who thought they were oh so witty when they changed the “Angus Burgers” sign to read “Anus Burgers” on their walk back home.

Of course the service was terrible. It was a running joke amongst my friend that it was impossible to go in the estalishment and walk out within 15 minutes with food.

And now for that last reason, the Burger King is closed. Many people have commented that they avoided that place because the service was so poor. I’ve personally found that I avoid just about every Burger King now — and its not that I avoid every fast food establishment.

This latest closing once again reveals the changing face of campustown. What used to be a long line of McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s is now Noodle’s and Company, Chipotle, Starbucks, Za’s, Q’doba, and so forth.

It’s not that I’m against any of those places, or that I’m some anti-corporation nut, but it is sad to see a unique piece of campus dissapear. For so many years we used to joke about the abandoned sporting goods store. They opened for business about once a year and sold only things that were made in the 80’s, it seemed; I bought a Jom McMahon poster there. When they finally did close down, they took their entire inventory but left a copy of the book, “How Wal-Mart is destroying America” in the window. What? Wal-Mart’s destroying America by being open for business and keeping regular hours where people can shop? Ouch, how does the small guy compete with that. Now that store is a Potbelly’s, with a Starbucks next door.

What’s worse, I don’t think students will ever find the need to discover some of the quirky off-campus establishments like the Courier cafe, and God forbid, Dos Reales, probably STILL the bext Mexican Restaurant I’ve ever been to.

Truly, it is a sad day for the students at the University of Illinois. Where will they go for their crowns now?

Read the full article at The Daily Illini website.

I was just reading the Daily Illini’s (campus newspaper at the University of Illinois) police blotter and I found some interesting news:

A 22-year-old Burr Ridge, Ill., man has been identified as the suspect who committed multiple offenses at the Triangle fraternity house, 112 E. Daniel St., on Saturday.

According to a police report, the man dragged a couch to the house’s volleyball court and set it on fire. He was charged with disorderly conduct, trespassing and criminal damage to property.

Wow … We had some cool things happen when I was in school, but … wow.

Yesterday Trevor and I went to East Lansing to watch the Illinois – MSU basketball game. We got to the arena about half an hour before the game and took our seats.

MSU’s arena is really nice (probably the nicest arena in the Big Ten), but I think their fans have been a little spoiled by the teams recent success. The arena never got particularly loud, except maybe till the 4 minute mark of the 2nd half. Worse yet, whenever the Illini fans in the upper deck started the ILL-INI chant, the MSU fans did nothing to drown us out.

At OSU a couple of weeks ago that was never the case.

I will say, however, that Michigan State fans are the most respectful and knowledgable fans in the Big Ten.

Trevor and I happened to be sitting right next to three other Illini fans, so that just added to the fun.

Anyways, the Illini were trailing by one at halftime, when we got to see the infamous halftime show. Roughly 20 middle aged men with beer guts came out wearing wife beater shirts, small green shorts and holding folding lawn chairs. One other man dressed just the same but wore a hat and yelled out military calls at these 20 men. Together, the men marched single file around the court a few times and did some bizarre motions with their folding chairs, similar to what you’d see a soldier doing with their rifle. This went on for roughly 10-12 minutes and the crowd simply stared at this halftime show in confused amazement. Some comments from the people around us:

• “Someday I’m going to be 70 years old and I’ll be sitting on my couch with my wife and my mind will wander back to this, and all of a sudden it’ll make sense.” – Me
• “I’ve been going to Michigan State basketball games for 50 years and I’ve never seen anything this bizarre.” – MSU fan in front of us
• “They should give the 2 points just for the halftime show.” – Me (Jamar Smith hit a 2-pointer at the end of the first half to give us a 1 point lead. The refs reviewed the play and originally said the basket counted. Later, they decided he didn’t take the shot in time)
• “No one is going to believe this when I tell them about it. I have to take a picture.” – Illini fan sitting next to us

After doing some research, I found this information about the halftime show:

What could be funnier than a group of Dad’s marching down the street with black socks, American flag boxer shorts and white tank tops? How about barking out cadence like: “She don’t know and I don’t care, I’m wearing yesterday’s underwear.” Or “All our wives say we are lazy, our laying around just drives them crazy”. Many people jump out and hand off a cool malt beverage to our group. We perform twice as hard for those people. Why wouldn’t we?

They have a website at http://www.lawnchairdads.com/.

I guess the embarrassing part of the whole situation is that, as it turns out, these guys are from Illinois.

Anyways, Illinois won the basketball game. After the game Trevor and I were driving around the MSU campus and joking about going to the Triangle house.

Right then, we drove right by the Triangle house, so we decided to pay them a visit. We rang the doorbell and one of the brother’s answered the door. It was their spring break, so the house was pretty empty, but the one brother decided to give us a tour of the house. We saw the main living areas, basement, kitchen and got some information on the house. Then, he decided to show us a room, so he opened up one of the doors and the person inside screamed, “Oh God, Nooooooooo!”

There was a confused silence for just a moment, but then the brother giving us the tour inquired, “Are you looking at porn?”

And the other MSU Triangle brother replied, “Yeah … sorry, I thought the door was locked.”

We closed the door and hurried away and continued on the tour. When we got to the next part of the house on the tour, there was an awkward moment of silence before anyone said anything.

Trevor and I went out to grab some food with 2 of the MSU Triangles. Since these brother’s were so nice to show us campus, we decided to buy pitchers at the bar. The waitress came by and I asked if I could buy a pitcher. But apparently this place doesn’t sell pitchers. They do sell ‘buckets’ of beer. Now, most of the time when you think about buying a bucket of beer, you think of an aluminum pail, with lots of ice and 6 12-oz. bottles.

I asked the woman if I could mix beers in the bucket and she gave me a blank stare. She said I could but that would be kind of wierd. At this point I was confused.

“What’s wrong with mixing beers,” I asked.

“Well nothing, I guess. It’s just I’ve never heard of anyone doing anything like that.”

At this point I am really confused so I just decide to stick with one beer, and I order a bucket of Newcastle.

A few minutes later the woman comes out with our bucket. Imagine a bucket you’d use to wash your car. Now imagine filling that bucket with beer straight from under a tap. Yes … the beer was poured directly into the bucket, like mop water.

Then we also got a pitcher that we used to scoop out the beer, a rag to wipe down the pitcher, and some glasses to pour the beer from the pitcher to the glass.

We drank a bucket of beer.

I think I need to do a lot of growing up. FAST. You won’t see me in Champaign for a long long time … Well at least 3 weeks or so.

Hmmmph.

On Saturday night, the Illini trailed the Arizona Wildcats 75 – 60 with 4:00 remaining in the game. The instanity that ensued will likely have a permanent place on my TiVo and is something I will not soon forget. Read the rest of this entry →

Last Thursday my phone starts ringing at roughly 11:30 PM. I’m ready to go to bed but I pick it up. Its Trevor, and he has an extra ticket to see the Illini in the NCAA tournament in Indianapolis on Saturday and he’s offering it to me. I agree to go and we decide to all meet up in Champaign. Read the rest of this entry →