Adventures in Politics

Yes gang, for some odd reason, some of our PS admins decided to get involved in politics. Well, really only one got involved in the actual politics - a few others just helped. That one admin being myself, running as VP of the SU at CBU alongside Jonjon Collins as Presidente. Why did we decide to do this? Because we’re dumb, that’s why. Plus, it makes for a heck of a pictorial adventure... one that could change the very world. Let’s see how it all begins.

Our campaign began humbly with the construction of some fine posters made of fine paper. Woo! Boring start to an article with ‘adventure’ in the title!

Here’s our posters, all finished and being hugged by Jonjon, mostly on account of the fact that it took a long time to actually get the damn things done. Not as long as we actually planned, but still - a good many hours. However, nothing could be done with these posters until the following Tuesday. As soon as it was Tuesday. I’m talkin’ 12:00am. Midnight madness. Woo.

I actually got to school that Monday at 8:30am and then proceeded to wait for Midnight Madness to begin. It actually wasn’t too bad. However, around 5pm, I found myself the only person in the entire university. It was kinda boring for a while actually. I had Dave’s DS to keep myself amused though. Mario Kart is pretty wicked.

After a while, people showed up and we partied fairly heartily before the Madness began, up in the station.

And if you need proof to whether or not we actually ‘partied’ - here’s our party pizza. We partied.

We also played what has to be one of the best boardgames of all time. I won’t get into the whole thing, but it is a Napoleon Dynamite game where you have to make an animal out of 2 animals in like 25 seconds. Good times.

And here is our wicked cool team. Team Collins-Thompson. We’re all ready to begin the Madness at 11:25 or so... which pissed off the other teams because their teams weren’t nearly as ready or cool. Sucks to be them.





And here’s all our lovely teams, all waiting in their spots to throw up our poster crap. Unfortunately, we all got kicked out by those teams that were late/unwicked, but whatever. Look how diligent they are anyways!

Just before midnight all kinds of stupidity broke out. All kinds. Things you didn’t think people could actually be capable of, but there ya go. Midnight Madness changed my opinions of what “stupid” meant. Same with ‘whiney’.

After midnight finally came, we were able to put up our posters. And the stupidity continued. Stuff even worse than the stuff before 12am. It’s as if people some how became dumber. So dumb that the girl in charge of the whole thing had to say, over a megaphone, “Please - do NOT push people off their ladders” and “DO NOT steal from other people.” 5 year olds need less clear rules.

Despite all the stupidity, up our banners went, with relatively no problems.

Only one injury that I know of too. This is Kevin Lionais’ arm. I dunno who clawed him, but whoever it was - they meant business. Kevin’s loss will be remembered in world history. I dunno why, but it will be. Seemed somehow patriotic.

After the posters went up, it was time to do some group arts-and-crafts. We decided to make some flyers to put on tables as little standees, and so the folding and taping was underway by the time I got back from poster looking (which is pretty much all I did that night... I took it easy, dawg). I’m pretty sure Clayton had just gotten back at this point from following a treasure map that Andrew made that looked like one of Billy’s paths from the Family Circus. And thus the maps we were given served a purpose.

Nothing else happened on Tuesday really. Everyone came to the school and wondered what pixies had decorated their cafeteria in crappy homemade slogans. Really weird, colour-blind pixies, I guess. That’s always what I assumed.

Come Wednesday, it was time to get really political! Xtreem political, as it were. First debate, comin’ at you like a mo-fo. Werd. We dressed up. No one else did. Another indication of who’s wicked and who isn’t. If you need help, we’re the wicked ones. Yay!

Here’s our closing remarks at the debate. Evidently I kick so much ass, that Jon decided to pray to me as his new god. Makes sense to me. It’s cuz I had the same pin as him, I imagine.

Over the next few days, lots of politics happened. Another debate, handing out flyers, answering questions, doing the whole class-room-discussion-tour thing, another debate (this one with a completely retarded format) and some other stuff. It’s a lot of work doing this kinda thing if ya didn’t know. I think we were doing okay throughout it all. I don’t think there were any questions that came up that stumped us, and we were incredibly charming and awesome. It’s actually impressive how awesome we were, while still maintaining our regular activities including playing road hockey, in a blizzard, against a professional hockey team. Also, I should say, I’m a wicked goalie. Totally wicked. Same as me in the elections. Totally wicked. Basically right now I’m just trying to make this paragraph long to make up for the fact that I haven’t taken any pictures over the past few days. I just kinda got tired of it. Also, I got into Ctrl-Alt-Del comics. They’re pretty good/nerdy. But anyways, I think that’s enough paragraph to compensate for the lack of pretty pictures. On with the subject at hand!

Election day finally came along, and it was long and boring. Very long, and very boring. To kill some time, we decided it was time to get some pre-emptive celebrating done, so we went off to Smitty’s for some grub.


There we all are. Jonjon looks particularly presidential/dictatory in that pic. I think he was practicing. Either way, this was a fun way to kill some time.



In the time there several smaller accomplishments warmed us up for our eventual victory. Erin ate a pickle (apparently for the first time ever...) and I made the Bat-symbol using nothing but a used plate and some ketchup (the lettuce and fork are purely incidental).

Our meal concluded, it was time to head back to the college and await the closing of the polls. There they are in all their distant, fuzzy glory. Vote you precious voters. Vote to your heart’s content!

And here he is - the very last voter of this year - our very own Joel! You remember Joel! He went to thePS picnics and whatnot. Many have claimed he is actually the long lost love-child of Brent and Dave which is actually kinda gross. But yeah, he does look just like both of them in different ways. Anyways, he voted last and thus we got a picture of him. Jonjon went to shake his hand, but the camera was being a bastard and didn’t want to record the soon-to-be famous moment in history.

At 8:00pm the polls closed and it was time to take down all our campaign posters and crap. It actually took very little time for us to do this because a) we had far less posters than most of the other teams and b) we had Clayton go berserk and tear down all the posters in a violent rage. We did so by saying ‘Biology is for chumps and sissies.’ Evidently the one way to get to Clayton is to taunt him like a 5 year old.

After the polls were closed it was time for the super-long and annoying task of counting all the damn ballots. We had Dave as our scrutineer, which meant he had to watch people count for about 4 hours or so. We had to go wait in the Pit (our campus bar) and wait. Oddly, the campaign wrap-party was also on the same night as Pit Idol (yay for rip-offs of bad ideas), and instead of canceling it, they simply had both at the same time. And thus the annoying evening got even more annoying. So many songs done badly... and by the guys running it (only like 4 people actually got up to sing). If you run a karaoke show, you should at least be good at it. Oh well. Johnny Cash hates them and so do I. But, to try to ignore the party/karaoke, we did what we could.

Jonjon, Clayton, and Amy all played a game of ‘Seafarers of Catan’ - a totally non-bar oriented game. Take that ‘the man.’

Myself, Erin, and Brent on the other hand decided it would be best to watch the Olympic Winter Games which consisted of speed-skating, skeletons, hockey, and figure skating. Mostly figure skating actually. I’ve never watched so much figure skating while listening to people ruin ‘Jackson.’ But yes, we pretty much separated ourselves from the party with the occasional mingling for appearances. Maybe that’s why we didn’t end up winning the election.

Oh yeah - we ended up not winning. Not even close. Wow did we ever not win.

But yes - the 730 or people out of 3400 or so people had spoken, and they voted for... someone who will eventually cause the SU to be lost in a tragic barbeque fire. It’s tragic really. Democracy just doesn’t work.

And so goes our probably only ever adventure into the realm of politics. It was a fun ride. Up until the end. The end kinda sucked, actually. Kinda really sucked. But oh well. Now I can go back to being a jerk to whoever I want instead of trying to be a nicer jerk. It’s easier that way.