CUAssassins, ESC's finely crafted squirt-gun war, is returning to campus next weekend. Although we don't have a web link this time, VP Kim Manis wrote in to inform us that registration takes place next Friday and Saturday (February 15th-16th) on the ramps at Lerner.

The games begin on Thursday, the 21st. It's $20 for a team of four to play. It's not an event to miss -- unless you enjoy feeling safe and relaxed. And who does, really?

Two months after hundreds of kids set out for their one crack at stealth warfare, one team has emerged alive: C-Unit, composed of MCPants (Max Czapanskiy, SEAS '09, also with the most kills), Der Meister aus Deutchland (Luis Quinteros, SEAS '09), Doublestuf (Oriana Isaacson, C '09), and PollockandLoad (Alex Rudnicki, SEAS '10, who, for the record was supposed to be PolackandLoad). The two fencers, Czapanskiy and Rudnicki, had a legacy to live up to. Flush with victory, they and Quinteros sat down to relive the war.

Bwog: What have the last 55 days been like, and how do you feel with it having ended?

AR: Stress. It was just stressful.

MC: He just moved into our suite after a certain period of time.

LQ: He's just been living there and sleeping in Max's bed. Showering there, everything.

AR: I did lead a normal life. I went out every weekend, pretty much, but it was just heightened paranoia.

MC: The worst thing was someone was out running, and you could hear them behind you. You would just freak out and slam your back up against a wall.

So you [Quinteros] got killed earlier, right?

LQ: I was the second one dead.

MC: Luis really came through for us. That one weekend. Everyone on disavowed, right?

LQ: My whole team was gone, for two days, it was just me.

MC: Because we had a fencing tournament then. Ivies, right?

LQ: The night they got back, I happened to run into Rob Trump on my way home, through the falling snow. I immediately recognized him, I knew he was on the disavowed list, so I just walked up behind him coolly and shot him.

You are a snow killer, aren't you?

MC: Yeah, he got you [Bwog] ten minutes later...that morning, he got two more kills, four kills in 14 hours, and that kept us off the disavowed list.

Was there a gradual ramp up in tension as the numbers dropped?

AR: Yeah, I think so. When it got down to the top third, it felt like the game was ending. Everybody was after you. When the game got down to the top ten, even though there were less people, it felt like someone was going to be around the next corner.

1) Finding the Columbia search engine less efficient than manually locating wanted pages? Google through all of the columbia.edu pages here. It works like a dream.

2) Cents and insensitivity: Moneycontrol India asks whether Indian students may be deterred from studying in the U.S. following the massacre at Virginia Tech. Columbia's cited.

3) The beacon of hope and UN Millenium Villages frontman, Jeff Sachs, may be drinking from a quarter-full glass. In this BBC lecture, the future looks bleak.

4) CUAssassins...is over! The Commissioners write, "The game lasted a whopping 55 days, but congratulations are in order for team C-Unit for coming in first place, team OB GYN Kenobi for coming in second place, and Agent MCPants of the team C-Unit for assassinating 17 of the rest of you."

Less than a week after the start of CU Assassins,169 of the 240 agents have fallen, with more soon to come. Dissapointingly, the death reports show few exotic locations. Probably the closest to an exception is this all-caps report:

Deceased: Red Devil
Time of Death: Tuesday, February 27 at 09:39 AM
Location: A GATED COMMUNITY
Summary of Death: THE BOURGEOIS KILLER WILL NOT STOP UNTIL EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU BLOOD, SWEAT, AND SURPLUS-VALUE SUCKING VERMIN ARE WIPED OFF THE FACE OF THE PLANET.

For a show of equality, however, another killer eliminated a more helpful member of society

Deceased: Havarti
Time of Death: Thursday, February 22 at 11:48 PM
Location of Death: St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital
Summary of Death: After I infiltrated St.Luke's posing as Agent Havarti's friend, an unsuspecting doctor led me through the ER straight to my victim and even pointed him out to me. I made certain my target and approached for the kill. He now joins the ranks of those he had so kindly attended to as a volunteer. Oh, the irony.

The "Commissioner" of Assassins sends notification that you can't get your espionage on just yet:

Agents:

Due to the fact that we ran out of guns (despite having ordered enough for everyone) and the fact that no establishment in Manhattan seems to carry squirt guns in the month of February, we have been forced to delay the start of the game until THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22 at 9 P.M. You will be unable to log into the website until that time. Should you have any questions or concerns, please e-mail back.

-The Commissioner

Registration for the annual Engineering Student Council-sponsored water pistol-fest begins tomorrow, and Bwog's getting excited. Teams of four will compete for group fulfillment, eternal glory, and undisclosed amounts of cash in the "espionage game" that will surely bring out the chemical, mechanical, or biomedical (etc.) engineer that's somewhere (very) deep inside of you.

Don't let ESC's strange slogan -- "Death. From. Behind." -- turn you away, for the Assassins lore you hear is nearly all true (someone was once killed in Washington, D.C.). All of you Mavericks have just a few more hours to search for your respective Ices. Then grab your cloak, your dagger, your confidence - the fun begins on Monday.

P.S. - Check out Chris Beam's '05 coverage of people acting pretty nuttily during CUAssassins here.

-JDC