A: Pure, unadulterated awesomeness.  Seriously, the sheer fabulosity of it all damn near killed us.

Never mind that the Golden Gate Bridge and Lombard Street are actually in San Francisco, rather than in fair Berkeley where the makers of Vaaranam Aayiram laid some of their scenes.  We’ll let it slide–but only because the song is a fun-filled montage of flirtatious sightseeing, and the romping grounds for the protagonists’ developing love obviously can’t be confined to one measly side of the bay. Or something. The subtitles cut off when the music starts.

Anyway, for those of you who need a little more intellectual stimulation to tickle your fancy, there’s also this:

You can fast forward to about the 5:00 mark if you want to skip straight to the Berkeley bits, but we wouldn’t recommend it, as you would miss out on a snippet of  some kind of poignant family drama.  So, yeah.  In conclusion, several enthusiastic thumbs up.

*Durant Food Court, if you want to be P.C. And lame.

Thanks for the tip, victoria149.

Vaaranam Aayiram (Part 8 ) w/ English subtitles [YouTube]
Vaaranam Aayiram (Part 7) w/ English subtitles [YouTube]

Inspired by the Big Game breathing down our necks, the Clog decided to peruse The Stanford Daily and found an alumnus of ours riding Berkeley pretty hard.

Howard Loo, who attended both Stanford (B.S. 1997) and Berkeley (J.D. 2003), decided to bash Berkeley students for their rendition of the national anthem in an Op-Ed article. He cited students for their lack of respect for our nation on account of alterations to the national anthem.

After reading the article, the Clog had a nice laugh at Loo’s expense. Somehow in the middle of his blind patriotism, he mistook the harmless exuberance of Cal fans as a ploy against the nation and Stanford. Searching for meaning in every word should be left to close readings of Thoreau—replacing the word “red” with “blue” does nothing to change the spirit of the Star-Spangled Banner.

Along the way of eloquently arguing his point, he made several remarks that caused the Clog to question Boalt’s admissions panel. First off, this is by no means a new tradition. To the Clog’s knowledge, Berkeley students have been singing this version for years now.

Guess Loo never got around to attending a sporting event during his time at Cal—he was too busy reminiscing about Stanford’s dorm life. Seriously though, he needs to get out more.

Loo also made sure to clarify issues that have been in the dark for years.

I was appalled, disgusted and shocked by the concerted efforts of Cal students to disrupt the singing of our (both Stanford and Cal’s) national anthem.

Really Loo? Do we actually share the same national anthem as Stanford? All this time we thought they were busting out “O Canada” down on the farm.

To close, Loo encouraged Stanfordites to remain classy and not stoop to level of Berkeley students. The Clog is guessing that in his bible, peeing on the opposition’s grass and making band formations in the shape of penises is the respectful thing to do.

Go Cal! Don’t stop singing now!

Image Source: Aselman under Creative Commons
Op-Ed: Cal fans sink to a new low [The Stanford Daily]

Well, not anymore. We came across this really cheesy “campaign” video of our NEW ASUC president, Van Nguyen, singing his heart out for all of you.

First, we have to say that the video up there was posted a day before this year’s elections, which took place April 11-13, if you didn’t remember. And second, just over 1,000 people have seen this (let’s just say) non-flattering video of President Nguyen.

What would have happened if the entire student body saw this video of Van? We really don’t know. Would it have affected the outcome of the election? Maybe. But who wouldn’t want to vote for a guy who sings his heart out for the ASUC? BTW, Van should totally send the video to American Idol.

But Van isn’t the only one to make a fool of himself.

Here’s another video from CalSERVE, this time it’s their celebratory video, after they defeated -evil- Student Action in this year’s elections.

Let’s just say that since the party is in power now, they should get a new camera guy and maybe they don’t need to hold hands in a circle anymore.

We also wonder if they got inspiration for the music for the video from the Critical Mass guys. Eh, probably not. They are associated with the ASUC.