Over the past couple of days, we noticed a crop of port-a-potties that sprouted at various points along Telegraph Ave. and wondered why they were there. Were they an attempt to use reverse psychology on the trademark Telegraph piss smell? Or were they simply harbingers of some upcoming, traffic-blocking, semi-pointless-but-still-kinda-cool Berkeley event? The suspense was killing us.

This morning, we got our answer as the day dawned, bright and clear, on the first of three LastSundaysFests that will take place this summer. The two remaining aptly named LastSundaysFests are scheduled for Aug. 30 and Sept. 27–days which astute calendar interpreters will recognize as, well, the last Sundays of their respective months.

As far as we could tell, the event is basically like a summer version of the Telegraph Avenue Holiday Street Fair, plus a bounce house and minus a Santa. So, you know. It all sort of balances out, we suppose.

LastSundaysFest on Telegraph [Website]

Nerdy recent Berkeley grads, don’t skip town yet! Leave it to San Francisco to host something as geekily absurd as “the world’s largest robot competition,” a.k.a. RoboGames 2009. And from the looks of things, it is exactly what it sounds like.

The RoboGames begin this Friday, June 12 and rage the whole weekend long. read more »

If you’re still in Berkeley right now, it probably means you’re up here for the long summer haul. It probably also means a sizable chunk of your friends are no longer in the area and you’re starting to realize your Saturday nights are looking a little more lonely than you anticipated when you signed up for this whole “summer” thing. Actually, now that you think about it, so are your Saturday days.

Well, this weekend your luck may change–er, if you consider not being bored witless getting lucky. Here’s what’s up: read more »

Last Thursday marked the last day the Daily Cal published on its summer schedule. You can expect a whole new slew of news pieces, columns, movie reviews and sudoku (because seriously, who does the crossword?) starting a week from Monday.

But that doesn’t mean we’ll be gone! The Clog will still be around this week to keep you up to date with all the (ir)relevant tree-people news, facebook updates and other nonhappenings of a Berkeley summer (that is, while it lasts).

And for the summer students—good luck on finals!

Image Source: cwirtanen under Creative Commons

Did you spot the last-day squirrel? Friday marked the last issue of spring semester production for The Daily Californian.

Starting next week, the Daily Cal will be available every Monday and Thursday. Summer production ushers in a new crew of editors:

Editor-in-chief: Bryan Thomas
Managing editor: Tamara Bartlett
Night editor: Laura Macarthur
News editor: Angelica Dongallo
Sports editor: Andrew Kim
Arts and entertainment editor: Louis Peitzman
Opinion editor: Victoria Tang
Photo editor: Nathan Yan
Clog editor: Patrici Flores
Staff representative: Salgu Wissmath

Sorry, but you gotta deal with Patrici for yet another semester (what a drag, right?).
Image Source: Daily Cal
Changing of the Guard [Daily Cal]

Summer is the peak season for awkward greetings. It’s time for your college self to exchange handshakes, hugs, ass slaps, pounds and scissor kicks with all of life’s peripheral people. But how the hell do you handle the uneasy salutation sessions?

On the one hand, it pays to be gregarious and charismatic. On the other hand, if you were gregarious and charismatic you wouldn’t be going to UC Berkeley. Don’t worry, though. The Clog is here to help with every last lame interaction.

1. Guy You Once Smoked Weed With In the High School Parking LotBest to go with the standard “stilted white guy side-five-and-fist-pound” routine. This time-honored suburban tactic may present some problems, though. What if the dude chooses not to pull away for the pound? What if he leaves your pound hanging? What if (God forbid!) you miss the pound? What then? Oh Lord, what then?

   Don’t worry. Just chuckle if something goes awry and spark a fake conversation about how “crazy” everyone was back in the day.

2. Vacuous Acquaintance Friend-of-a-Friend GirlDon’t embrace her Abercrombie bedecked exterior unless she’s doing one of those conveyor belt hug things with your friend group. She’s forced the issue at that point. But what, if after hugging your whole crew, she actually snubs you (would that be a “snug”?)? Um, in that case, we don’t know what to tell ya. The bleak reality of your self-esteem getting kicked in the nuts is too much for mere advice to heal.

   Just be warned that if you get snugged three times over the course of your home visit, God may give your virginity back retroactively. And a kitten dies every time that happens.

3. The Stench UncleAs “Arrested Development” has exhaustively taught us, flesh and blood is an important thing. Unfortunately, at scorching family barbeques, that combo can sometimes smell like shit. Take this scenario:

   Your sweaty, drunken Uncle Compost is waddling up to you. He’s got that look in his eye. It says, “Let’s talk about your prospective career choices while I interrupt you at point blank range!” But before Captain Avskunkular subjects you to that, he must push his stinky man-musk deep within your pores. He won’t be satisfied until the squeeze of the hug allows his smelliness to lay eggs in your soul. What we’re saying in a roundabout way is, pre-empt the man with a firm handshake. And wash that hand.

4. Ex-Prof Who Can’t Remember Your NameWait, this is an issue at our institution? You should be so lucky to be remembered enough to get name-forgotten.

   Anyway, a firm handshake should suffice in this case as well. The ultra firmness of the shake should convey the following: “Thanks in part to your superb guidance, I have evolved into a better gripper.” Then laugh and say something about how you were so “crazy” back in the day. And casually mention that you learned more from the Happy Happy Man.

5. King Midas of PessinusThanks to Dionysus’s liberal wish granting, greeting Midas has become a bigger pain in the ass than ceaselessly schlepping a boulder through a minitar’s colon. You learned from the time your drunken buddy tried to hook up with Medusa: Things that can turn you into solid objects should be avoided at all costs.

   But still, Midas means well and it isn’t right to offend him. Just a week back, he graciously offered you the chance to housesit the palace during the month of Mamakterion.

   So what to do if the king of bling is a bit tipsy and tries to give you a Hellenistic Handjive? You’re well advised to throw the Vacuous Acquaintance Friend-of-a-Friend Girl at him and claim that she’s a sacrificial offering of thanks. Or you can pretend to be on your cell phone and just ignore him.

   (Honorable Mentions on The Archetypal Awkward Summer Greeting List: Evil Twin, Father Who Didn’t Hug You Enough, Naked Grandmother, Fashionista, Old Creepy Middle School Gym Teacher, Jehovah’s Witness, Jay-Z, rodent, abstract concept, Allison Stokke)

With Summer Session C starting Monday, the Daily Cal is getting ready to welcome the new influx of students. You’ll find the 2007 Summer Orientation Issue inside Monday’s paper.

It’s exciting. We’re excited.

We mean, we haven’t been posting less for no good reason. You’ll see.

We actually think that midterms suck in general, but when they’re in the beginning of June, when our brains were just finally getting nice and mushy after finals, well, that just feels like an especially poignant kick to the crotch. It’s painful. It’s rude. It can result in infertility (okay, not that last one).Somewhere between the horrors of moving and (hopefully) going out and doing some of those “summery” things that normal people (who don’t work for the Clog) get to do, you find yourself needing to read 220 pages of Freud and Adler and Rogers and everything else having to do with the theoretical basis for personality . . . but it’s so damn nice outside.

Possibly to keep the Session A folks from feeling too left out from the normal joys of sunshine and happiness, the Summer Sessions staff sent out an e-mail today reminding everyone that “the beginning of Session B (June 11 – August 17) (is) fast approaching.” Now the Session A people have someone else to commiserate with over the Main Stacks closing after 6 p.m.

Obviously, there are some nice things about Summer Sessions, like not needing to overload yourself with 20 units of astrophysics all through the rest of the year or being able to go study somewhere incredibly bad ass. For those of us who aren’t insane rocket-scientist-type majors and are staying in this summer-time ghost town, the main advantage is that it gives us something to do other than working low-stress jobs, playing Mario Kart, lounging in the sun, not getting up until two in the afternoon . . . wait a second, why in the name of fuck are we doing this?