Every year, Homecoming leaves us with a taste of … disappointment … in our mouths, whether it be from football flops, midterm season or something else. But you can at least always count on a variety of campus events every Homecoming week to sweeten that taste (which is kind of like sour apples) just a little bit. So with that in mind, read below the jump for a somewhat-officialistical schedule of Homecoming to-do’s.

Tuesday

*Acts on Sproul from noon to 1 p.m. on Upper Sproul Plaza. Sounds pretty generic: “Come and watch your fellow student groups as they put on a showcase of their culture and talents.”
*UCRC Fashion Show at 7 p.m. in the Heller Lounge. Hmm, we’ve seen Cal fashion shows before and … well,  let’s just say they weren’t nearly as interesting as other shows.

Wednesday

*Acts on Sproul again. Same time, same place, same Bat channel.
*UCRC Colloquium at 8 p.m. in the Alumni House. We hope this is different from the 6 to 8 p.m. event scheduled at the Alumni House, at least on the Homecoming site. Because that one is invite-only, and we don’t like invite-only events … when we don’t get invited. Oh, poo.

Thursday

*Acts on Sproul. Again.
*Dance and Casino Night! 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. at the Alumni House. We’ve never been, but it sounds intriguing to say the least. Dress is semi-formal, Cal ID is required, admission is free, plus there’ll be a drawing for amazing prizes like katanas Kaplan courses. Oh wait, it was way cooler when we thought samurai swords were involved.

Friday

*UCRC Homecoming BBQ at 6 p.m. in Spieker Plaza.
*UCRC Homecoming Rally at Haas Pavilion, right after the BBQ at 8 p.m.
*Star Trek. Get excited.

Saturday

*1868 Cal Avenue Fair from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Memorial Glade. The official description: “a variety of student groups showcase the diversity of the Berkeley campus by providing guests with food, games, and entertainment before the homecoming football game.” Pray tell how does that showcase diversity, exactly?
*Free ice cream from Fenton’s, same time same place as the above. Mmmm.
*Football.

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Student Homecoming [Site]
Earlier: Homecoming: The Book: The Movie: The Blog Post

First, the Sushi Social at Alumni House on Tuesday. Boasting both sushi and socializing, but delivering neither. OK, so we got there 40 minutes late because we had class, but this was no excuse for the decimated trays and the awkward remnants of mingling that ensued. The fallout from a sushi war, the dismembered and indistinguishable remains of fish parts didn’t resemble even a distant relative of sushi and the five or so people in a cluster in the corner didn’t quite constitute socializing. It looked like everyone else had the same reaction to free eats: get in, feign interest, get sushi, get out.

The Dance and Casino night on Thursday, probably the largest (and most generous) of the Homecoming events kept it classy with endless platters of various breads and cheeses, but because of “funding issues,” only one iPod shuffle (come on, not even a full-sized iPod?) was given away, along with other prizes conveniently wrapped up in cellophane. We asked them what was inside but they claimed not to know, leaving us to wonder whether the prize was just the cellophane itself. After racking up almost $10,000 in faux dough and some glory at the Blackjack table, we were forced to stay the entire duration of the event in order to collect our prize at the drawing. Four hours later, we walked away iPod-less, despite putting over 10 grand in tickets all into the iPod drawing box. At least we got to spend some quality time reliving our high school days on the dance floor (ah, the days of the high school formal, how we don’t miss thee).

We should have known the Fenton’s ice cream giveaway on Friday, which promised “gallons and gallons of free ice cream” to be given away, was too good to be true. Picturing ourselves carrying away gallons of various flavors of ice cream and wondering how we’d refrigerate them, we were shocked find that the reward for waiting in the 20 or so minute line wrapping almost all the way to Doe library was a teensy plastic cup of ice cream, about the size of those sample cups at Yogurt Park. Apparently the gallons were to be distributed amongst a bazillion plastic cups. Right. Not willing to wait this long in line even for Space Mountain, we turned to the free coffee table nearby for consolation. Cup in hand, we were sternly told that the beverages were only for Alumni. Oh yeah, that’s why we have Homecoming.

Guess we’ll have to wait a few more years for that cup of coffee. And so concluded a less than impressive week of giveaways. We’re guessing the economy’s probably behind this somehow. Well, at least the old people, er, Alumni, had fun, we hope.

Image Source: Mc-Q under Creative Commons