Along with room draw numbers coming out today, I finally saw Carleton’s new Northfield option policy. With the new dorms going into use next year, I think everyone expected a reduced number of students receiving Northfield Option, but as someone who doesn’t pay much attention to the inside politics of Carleton, I was surprised by how thorough and restrictive the overhaul is. The two main points: only 100 students get to live off-campus and the 100 golden tickets are alotted just like a normal campus room (the person with the highest room draw number can draw in up to four other people with them in Northfield).

What do you guys think about this? As a person with no personal stake in this, it seems fair to all except those juniors who chose to live off-campus this year and assumed they’d more easily get Northfield Option their senior year. With this change, it seems there will be at least a few kids who were living off-campus but will be denied their request for next year. What will they do with all their junk from their houses!!?

-Alex Sciuto

Anyone who’s been reading our print edition this fall is probably familiar with The Carl’s thwarted campaign to preserve Carleton College’s giant cement penis, spearheaded by humor editor Matt Pieh.  (Those who need a refresher, please see the October 10 and 24 PDFs.)  The dong is long gone, as Carleton students know, but it appears online commentators are only beginning to acknowledge the bravery of Pieh and activists like him.  Last week on local blog Locally Grown, Griff Wigley described his the destruction of the penis and linked to our magazine (http://locallygrownnorthfield.org/post/6595/). On November 21, First Time Caller, Longtime Listener–a blog based out of my own mother’s hometown of Buffalo, NY–linked to the Locally Grown piece (http://firsttimelongtime.wordpress.com/2008/11/21/friday-links-20/).  The members of Save The Penis didn’t ask for internet stardom, but they deserve all the accolades they’ve received.  And maybe, just maybe, the next penis will be saved because of their example.

- Greg Hunter

Teal Corn #1 (by Mag/Rao)

1. Stalkernet photos with view counters.

More to come…

- Dan Sugarman

There are two notable Carleton gossip blogs floating around cyberspace, and I’d like to share my thoughts on them. First is Knights Nights. It takes its format from gossip girl, referring to people as “B”, “S”, and “D”, but who the heck are these people? Do these letters correspond to the names of people here or did the blogger keep the GG initials? The people don’t seem interesting enough for me to recognize who they are; therefore they probably aren’t interesting enough to be gossiped about. I’m not interested in some stranger’s friendgroup. I want real gossip about interesting semi-strangers.

Second is Bald Spotted. It obviously has the cleverer name, but more notable is the writing. It’s everything you want in a juicy Sunday brunch sesh, with tidbits that are usually enough to clue you in to the identities of the people but can be deciphered with a little bit of Stalkernet. Some of the information is lacking a desired specificity and most puns and monikers have yet to really develop, but it has come a long way content-wise in just a week. The good thing is that the gossip is about a range of identifiable personalities canoodling, breaking up, and doing the walk of shame all over the greater Northfield area.

One thing the two blogs have in common is that the templates are heinous. If I want to see gossip online, I don’t want to look at a puke green background, light blue headlines, and grey visited links. It’s disgusting. And I recognize that blogger template – someone chose those hard-on-the-eyes colors and thought to his or herself “Stellar job, this looks great.” I don’t even want to go into the hawk silhouetted against a sunset header banner thing, but really, guys, those are the templates you chose? From now on, I want anyone creating a template for a gossip blog to imagine Tim Gunn looking at it. He would scowl, castigate you with his $3 words, and move the heck on. You would feel foolish, and well you should.

The main thing, though, is that Carleton absolutely does not need more gossip. As much as no one wants to admit it, Carleton is already a more expensive version of high school. Since these blogs popped up, I’ve found myself gossiping more and I’ve heard more on a daily basis. Gossip is punishing enough with word of mouth alone, and if an incident is embarrassing enough you’re going to hear it in due time anyways. Just like hearing something through the grape vine, some stories are bound to be false. It’s only a matter of time before someone really gets hurt. As bad as it is, gossip happens, but I am certain we do not need the internet to speed up the process.

- Allie Schwartz

I know you’re all wondering what exactly goes on in The Carl office during layout. Well, here’s what goes on.

Executive Editor Alex Sciuto

Executive Copyeditor Beatrice White

You didn’t hear it from me first, but there are a few old iMacs now on the fifth floor of the library. It’s the perfect place to put a computer. Private and out of the way, a great place to get lots of work done and do lots of work getting nothing done.

-Alex Sciuto

Part of what will hopefully be a running series in which I record a pithy–potentially trite–observation from the previous weekend of partying.

This week: accidental eye contact.

We all ignore people at parties who we actually know. It would take Herculean levels of affability to glide through a room and make your presence known to every classmate, hallmate and partner-in-crime out there. So who you find yourself talking to at parties is usually the product of a booze-fueled wandering that ends when you see someone you know reasonably well.

But the more memorable conversations–begin triteness here–are the ones that you would never predict having before the party, and these often begin with accidental eye contact. Not the eye contact you make with someone whose attractiveness makes you idly drawn to them from across the room, but the eye contact you might make with someone when you’re walking towards the punch bowl, and, “Oh, hey, what’s up?” — “How’s your term going” — “What classes are you taking?” If you have anything to say, it should move from these introductory signifiers by its own conversational logic. One ten-minute version of these and it was a good party. Do it twice, and it was a great party. Three times, though–I don’t know. You should probably haved stopped talking to people you barely know and hung out with your friends.

-Dan Sugarman