A Bwog classic, Campus Corners is returning from a two year hiatus -- for one day. Here, we bring you some of Columbia's less crowded study spots, if only to get you to leave Wien's warm embrace for a couple minutes.

Getting into the computer science lounge isn't easy. Last year, every undergrad was sent an email with a picture of a balding, middle-aged man in a tweed-patched jacket. As it turned out, this still-unidentified pseudo-intellectual (at whom nobody would have batted an eye were he teaching databases) didn't work at Columbia. His job was to walk into the CS building and steal computers.

Since the day that those security camera photos first circulated, admission to the computer science department has required special swipe access. Two swipes after 5 PM. Three swipes for a special windowless room where it's always 52 degrees, but never mind! Because behind the second door, if you're walking behind a gullible or easily distracted programmer, is the computer science lounge.

Or so claim some senior bio majors evacuated from the building a few minutes ago. They say that their professor told them to get out as soon as they smelled smoke coming from one of the upper floors--other students stood around in puzzlement, and few of the evacuated seemed to be enjoying the all-too-brief break from their academic pressures. "I'd rather be working," an Earth Science professor told us. "Fresh air is highly overrated."

The Bio majors, who were interrupted mid-lab, agree. "Cells are dying," one of them said gravely. A panicky grad student echoed her concerns: "I need to get back. What the fuck?" she exclaimed--thankfully for her overworked, engineering ilk, the building was reopened just a few minutes ago, although nobody could else could give a solid explanation as to why it was evacuated in the first place. We'll have more details as soon as they emerge.

Update: The building services guy at the 119th St. entrance tells Bwog that Mudd was evacuated due to a lab fire on the 3rd floor. The fire didn't spread, but the man said that the university doesn't take any chances as far as chemical conflagrations are concerned. Most reassuring!

Meanwhile, a cop car ran aground on a parked SUV at 119th and Amsterdam, and as of a half-hour ago police were routing traffic through Morningside Drive. The two incidents aren't linked...we don't think.

-ARR

Manhattan poll takes calculated, er, "responsible" stance on expansion: city's "success...difficult to absorb". There's always Bounty.

Mudd to get greener (does that mean less muddy, or more?)

Police rubber-stamp 11-block strike walk...

...but in opinion, we find self-conscious Iraq caution, and the same message with a lot more braggadoccio...plus, to top it all off, love is slaughtered by science. With V-Day and the aforementioned strike looming, we predict such selections will stay the course.

Overheard in the Carman elevator, a first-year host talking to a prospective student:

"We don't really go into the city that much, but there's a great bar scene on campus right across the street. And if that's not for you, there's great campus life too--in Mudd, there are Halo parties and everyone gets on the same network and just LAN all night! And there's a Scrabble club. I think the world's 3rd best Scrabbler is in it. You just have to get involved, there are lots of opportunities."