Young Will Leonard's report on the 12s' Met excursion contained a Shocking Revelation, namely that John Jay Dining Hall would no longer be using trays.

We called Dining just a few minutes ago, and the helpful woman on the phone confirmed that yes, there are no more trays. Apparently, this is because of "environmental concerns" -- not having trays means you don't have to wash any trays, she pointed out -- and noted that many other universities were following suit.

Our second series during Orientation is called "Bi-Partisan Dorm Reviews." The series seeks to show both the pros and cons of living in whatever residence hall that you (hopefully) chose. For non-freshman housing, we did reviews of many upperclassmen buildings during the Housing Lottery, which you can see here. First up is John Jay. As always, feel free to add your own pros and cons in the comments.

John Jay is one of the two all-freshmen dorms, with just over 400 rooms. 90% of those are single rooms (of 110-120 sq. ft.), a stat that stands in stark contrast to freshman housing at most other schools. It's this heavily-single setup that determines most of both the upsides and downsides of life in John Jay.

PROS:

• The single gives you privacy that few other college freshmen have. You'll come to appreciate that privacy.
• No need to ask your (randomly assigned) roomate to let you study.
  
• The presence of the main dining hall and JJ's within the building lets you walk to breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late night meals in flip flops. Even in January.
• The prevalence of singles facilitates hall interaction, which many John Jay residents maintain makes floor friendships easier.
• The proximity to Hamilton (where almost all the Core classes are) allows quick trips to class. Bwog's done it in three minutes.
  
• The roof of John Jay gives a fantastic view, though it has no railing whatsoever.
• You might get a floor lounge with a relatively new TV and a foosball table.
• The security desk has a very high wall, making it easy to bring anything in.
  
• The John Jay lounge is a great quiet place to study (and gets wifi).
  (Read more...)

UPDATE 10:03 PM: Fear not, commenters once fearful that our hero had up and left us forever. Tipster (and upcoming Senior Wisdom profile) Nat Gale has just spotted Hawkmadinejad and snapped a photo that we're pretty sure Dining won't be postering around John Jay.

Astute and protective tipster Jon Hill informed Bwog that he had noticed a poster outside the entrance to John Jay Dining Hall that features the likeness of campus hero and bird-about-town Hawkmadinejad.

It seems that Dining Services has taken tipster-generated photographs of our hero from the Hawkmadineblog and has reproduced them to advertise dining plans. Though why Dining thinks that particularly bloody photos of a hawk devouring a squirrel on a grassy knoll will convince students to sign up for a meal plan is beyond us.

While the bottom-most Hawkmadinejad on the poster does have a speech bubble that reads "Have You Seen My Blog?", Dining Services doesn't credit the photographs as the masterpieces of photographer/French Department administrator Isabelle Chagnon.

Prolific Bwog tipster Jon Hill has just notified Bwog of an enchanting electrical set-up in the bowels of the John Jay laundry room that would put the efforts of the Disneyland electrical parade to shame. In the carefully crafted email seen below, it appears that the entirety of the dorm's laundry machinery is hardwired to a single electrical through a delicate line-by-line connection of increasingly snarled extension cords. Note shocking (!) image to the right.

This perhaps flawed electrical set up is coupled with recent reports from CUIT's head of information security of phishing attacks made on Columbia Cubmail accounts. It seems emails from Nigerian princes asking you send money in order to receive your lottery winnings might be of questionable intent. This led some Bwog editors to wonder about how safe are we really? If we're not safe in the John Jay laundry room or on the interwebs, which places does that leave us? Barnard? Bwog thinks not.

Both emails after the jump

A Bwog tipster recently piqued our interest with a note about the latest happenings in Columbia's oh-so-fabulous (wink wink) on-campus dining scene. A recent email from Housing and Dining below reveals that Columbia students need not wait any longer to satisfy their cravings for a whole lox of Kosher foods. So get your fill today!

The new and improved Kosher Deli is now open. It's conveniently located just inside the lobby of John Jay Hall and it's perfect for a quick meal on the go. Use dining dollars, flex, or cash for a delicious sandwich, salad, side dish, or snack.

Hours of operation:
Monday - Thursday, 10:30am to 3:30pm
Sunday, 10:30am to 6:00pm

Enjoy!

Sincerely,
Dining Services

Bwog begs to ask the question: How many city Health Inspection demerits did this fine Columbia dining establishment receive?

Seeking comfort after my tragic, yet beautifully reported assassination, I decided to attend another ESC meeting last night. Alas, no comfort; but a merry time discussing school on-goings was in store.

The Alumni Affairs and Professional Development Representative affirmed Columbia's first implementation of the Recyclebank program. But one engineer expressed concern about abuse to the Recyclebank's honor code, citing incidents of students weighing themselves in place of recycled material. ESC's Gateway-tested solution? "Don't worry about it," explained the representative. "People will start to feel guilty after awhile." I quickly made notes to myself to A) weigh myself that night and B), never, ever feel guilty about it.

Our Student Services rep announced Health Services' new Did You Know campaign, which aims to once and for all inform us about what Health Services does. I couldn't help but think of NBC's The More You Know PSA campaign. And, akin to NBC's effort, Did You Know is likely to fail in both reviving John Stamos' career and teaching me what I need to know about my changing body. Which worries me, because my mom says I can't keep calling her about that stuff.

If you need some respite from frantic cramming tonight, head over to John Jay lounge from 8-10, where a tipster tells us that the SEAS First Year Class Council will be hosting a "hot chocolate study break." They'll also be announcing the launch of their new website, www.seas2011.com.

Oops... hope we didn't steal your thunder, freshman engineers!

A few tipsters have sent Bwog links to a website called EveryBlock. Users can search by zip code or address to find out all sorts of neat things about a neighborhood like elevator malfunctions, construction work violations and grossest of all: restaurants' health code violations.

Kitchenette scored a moderately upsetting 14 points, the most nauseating of which was "food surface not washed." Other points came from the failure to "post signs" or have a working thermometer.

An impressive 29 points were awarded to Subconscious. Apparently they're still serving NYC-banned trans fat, among other things.

But today's big winner is John Jay. During its inspection at the end of January, John Jay Dining Hall racked up a positively baller 32 points for everything from inadequate lighting to "food not protected from contamination" to mice.

In comparison, Hewitt Dining Hall only had 9 points of violations, the most egregious of which were "flying insects" and the cryptic "Other/Employee in separate smoking room."

In which ex-freshman Parker Fishel imparts his first-year dorm wisdom.

Carman

There is a magnetism about Carman that tends to polarize its residents.

There are some that are fiercely loyal to the residence hall, almost to the point of confrontational. They will hear nothing of the overflowing trash bins and it's resulting stench, nor the overpowering debauched bacchanalia of the place. To them, this is just the ambiance and you couldn't get a better I'm in New York City! Freshman Year! No Parents! Let's Party! vibe anywhere else in the city (well, okay, probably at NYU, but those damn hipsters would never admit it).

The other sect of Carman's residents begin to reveal themselves progressively throughout the year, though never to fellow Carman-ites who would take the slightest hint of negativity as high treason. These are the kids who find the whole scene kind of, well, grotesque. You'll find them nesting in Butler, Lerner, anywhere that isn't Carman and when you ask them where they live they say "Carman" with reluctance.

But hey, to each their own.

I would, however, like to leave you with my favorite Carman anecdote. One Tuesday night, I was going up to a friend's on the 6^th floor to borrow an air mattress. In the elevator was a girl who looked a little weirded out; I soon found out why. On the floor of the elevator was a piece of toilet paper with smeared excrement on it (to put it nicely). I can't say whether this in particular was a common occurrence, but I can say that it was gross. Needless to say, I took the stairs back down.

A tipster squeals:

"Food Expo at John Jay Dining Hall!

Chicken Nuggets!

Cookie Accosters!

Free Naked Juice!

Hurry!"

That's all we got. And accoster's not in the widget dictionary.

First-year Class Council candidate (and incumbent President) Mark Modesitt is going through some rough times. He has been accused of being a "rapist" in that most literally indelible of media - Sharpie marker on his dorm room door.

Modesitt (as will be revealed in a Spec article Wednesday morning) has contacted Public Safety to launch an investigation, naming specific students as potential culprits, and his John Jay floor attended a mandatory meeting about "hate speech."

As response, some of those whom Modesitt mentioned as suspects have created a Facebook group to protest what they call Modesitt's false accusation, quoting a letter that those students claim they were sent by Public Safety and a self-written disclaimer. To wit: "WE JUST DON'T LIKE TOOLS ABUSING PUBLIC SAFETY OFFICIALS FOR THEIR OWN PSEUDO-POLITICAL AMBITIONS AND BLAMING US FOR ARBITRARY BULLSHIT."

Not all of the members of the group are under investigation for the incident; indeed, as of this writing, 48 students had been invited to join the group, including several '10 Class Council candidates, as well as Modesitt himself. For the record, the three students who admitted to being under investigation either have been cleared of responsibility for the writing by Public Safety or expect to, claiming no involvement. Modesitt's door has also been sanded down.

UPDATE, 3:20 AM: A Bwog reader points out the "Related Groups" of the Facebook group for the accused and their sympathizers. They include "Shit Is Sooo Real: An Ayn Rand Tribute"; "Critique of Pure Douchebaggery"; and the most politically correct of all, "If you ask a retarded question in philosophy class, I'll rape you afterward." None of those under investigation are members in the latter group.

ALSO: Comments on this post have been preemptively disabled, at the direction of Bwog Management, because of the sensitive matter of the post.

AND, 9:35 AM: Spec is calling the incident a death threat and talks to Modesitt and several of the accused. Check it out.

-DPD

The presence of spices and flavor threw a couple visitors for a loop, as did the plethora of flags hanging in the dining hall. I'm not really sure what countries they were; I'm not really sure if they knew what countries they were. If I recall, there was an Armenian flag, and that is definitely a white country. Ultimately, along with the informational brochure provided by the Black Engineering Society of Columbia, the meal lived up to the hype and left me feeling strong, black and proud.

Well, friends, it seems that John Jay is infested with much larger, much blacker, much furrier pests than those of yesteryear—those being the famed bedbugs. Bwog recently received several pictures of pestilence countermeasures deployed throughout John Jay and the cafeteria's back room.

Bwog also speaks to its janitors on occasion. Last time, Bwog asked what the evil smell emanating from behind Bwog's broken stove was; the janitor suggested that there was perhaps a dead rat back behind there, in the electronics—yes, a dead, stinking rat which had wriggled its way into a cozy nest of wires and nearly gutted the whole suite with cleansing gas-fueled fire. Supposedly, this isn't something to raise eyebrows over, these days. Bwog knows its janitor wasn't raising his.

In other housing news, the 12^th floor of EC should be ashamed of itself. Housing and Dining reports that fourth incident of 'careless cooking' has been declared by the FDNY, which, in Bwog's opinion, is probably beginning to think Columbia students are conspiring against it. At least, this time, they haven't published the suite number. Bwog speculates that this this omission is intended to slow the formation of a fifth column of anar-cookery specialists.

Thanks to tipster Yadira Alvarez for having her camera phone ready.

Move in day
at John Jay...

Bwog has been a little obsessed with trays lately. So obsessed we've started traying around with scissors. It is the only artwork we've done all year, and it's only cool if you know about the OBEY Giant and F. Shepard Fairey's phenomenological campaign of aimless propaganda, now a brilliantly whorish exercise in mass merch production.

Actually it's kinda cool even if you don't know about that.