Bwog doesn't have the cash to "pimp your room," and we certainly don't want to raid it and then date you. So we bring you our semi-weekly feature, the "Cribs-esque" Room Hopping, continuing with...

For Priya (left) and Maddie (right) both C'09, walking past the trash bags collected from many meals at Hewitt, on the way to their dorm in the sticks on Claremont Avenue is worth it. "You feel like you can leave school and go home," says Priya.

She's probably right. Home of the "Third Cultural Alliance" special interest community, Suite 62 enjoys all of the fruits of the post pre-war apartment-style building: hardwood floors, a sizable kitchen, and soft pastel walls. In exchange for this prime housing, Columbia's requires the house's seven residents to host one "cultural" event each month. Last month they held a salsa-dancing workshop, but this month "We're going to have to stretch it for Christmas," says Maddie. "It's a gingerbread house-making event."

Bwog doesn't have the cash to "pimp your room," and we certainly don't want to raid it and then date you. So we bring you the semi-weekly feature, the "Cribs-esque" Room Hopping, continuing with...

It may be a brownstone on 114th street, but don't walk into the sorority EAT (Sigma Delta Tau) expecting Animal-House-caliber mayhem. Don't expect to hear the high pitched cooing of girls in pajamas having pillow fights. And certainly don't expect to smell that effluvia of sweat, beer, and vomit that always says "Go Greek!"

"It smells very much unlike the frats, which smell like death when you walk in," said Rachael, one of the lucky fourteen residents of EAT's brownstone. "We're a clean bunch."

Rachael (above, right) and her roommate Maxie, both C'09, say they are so glad to live in a clean-smelling (boy, does it smell clean!), wood-panelled, wood-floored brownstone, complete with a large and comfy living room, big screen TV, full kitchens, dining rooms and fireplaces. The house also has its very own laundry room, but Bwog was forbidden to enter it, since it is used as the 61-member sorority's "Chapter Room." "Only sisters are allowed in," Rachael says.

With such a nice house, the temptation to entertain and throw parties is great. But state brothel laws prohibit them from doing so. At least the law in New York defining women living together with alcohol as a brothel is not as prohibitive as brothel laws in in Winston-Salem, where Rachael says, "six women with their feet off the ground is considered a brothel."

Bwog doesn't have the cash to "pimp your room," and we certainly don't want to raid it and then date you. So we bring you the semi-weekly Thursday feature, the "Cribs-esque" Room Hopping, continuing with...

Kyle (right) and Jesse C'09 say they are glad to be out of the "beehive" that was John Jay.

"My room was like a shit-hole last year," says Kyle. "I decided to clean up my act this year."

Clean their Nussbaum double is. And perhaps one of the most tranquil, artistic, and creative spaces on campus.

"We have no flatscreen TV to show you," Jesse says, "but we have paintbrushes."

Art on every wall (much of it graffiti) reflects their politics as "thinking human beings as opposed to not thinking," Jesse says.

They've even painted their refrigerator.

Bwog doesn't have the cash to "pimp your room," and we certainly don't want to raid it and then date you. So we bring you the semi-weekly Thursday feature, the "Cribs-esque" Room Hopping, continuing with...

Ellen and Ashley C '09 admit their newly painted jungle green Ruggles double has brought them closer together in a special way.

"We sleep like a married couple that doesn't have sex," Ellen says. She may be referring to the side-by-side set-up of their twin beds, but the two have certainly reached new levels of intimacy, even attaining that oft-celebrated sentence-finishing stage of friendship:

Ellen: We have breakfast together on the terrace. Ashley got a Waffle iron.
Ashley: I got a waffle iron...
Ellen: We watch UPN 9 together.

No matter if your quarters are nestled deep within the shaft of McBain, or if your pad flies high in the penthouses of EC or Sulz, your bedroom and its contents are sacred. Every technological gizmo, throw pillow, and Scarface poster has been plugged in, consciously tossed, or hung meticulously, with merciless self-disclosure and the core elements of feng-shui in mind.

Bwog doesn't have the cash to "pimp your room," and we certainly don't want to raid it and then date you. So we bring you a new feature, the "Cribs-esque" semi-weekly Thursday Room Hopping, starting with...

Cory and Sean (left to right), a tag-team pair of first-year track and cross-country stars, respectively, delighted in taking Bwog on a tour of their 214 square-foot LLC paradise -- complete with subwoofer speaker system, 32-inch high definition flatscreen TV ("That's money!" says Sean), and wireless router.

"The women flock to 8A11 like the sparrows of Capistrano," Sean notes.

"Yeah, they say, 'Oh, your room is so pimp!'" adds Cory, in falsetto.

When one sits in John Jay Lounge for any significant length of time during housing season--and there is nothing else that Bwog would rather do--it becomes evident just how big a calculated mindfuck the entire thing actually is. Tensions run high, futures are decided, relationships forged and broken--all to the soothing strains of Josh Groban on loop and the celebratory glow of blue balloons and tablecloths. The room selection whiteboard is embellished with flowers and butterflies, as if trying to disguise the columns of zeros that extinguish the hopes of seniors wanting to spend their last year in good housing. And over it all preside housing and dining staff in sweaters and suits, beaming welcoming smiles, saying we're here to serve YOU.

How comforting.

Money quote:

Girl on the phone: You just dropped to general selection. Thanks for telling us, because were were just here for 15 minutes waiting for you.
Turning to her friends: Wow, I was like, I don't think you really need housing then. That's so whack.
A few minutes later: I'm Latino, so I probably should have just gone to her room and set it on fire.

Update as of 1:40 PM
GONE:
All of East Campus, Hogan, one- and two-bedrooms in Watt, two-bedrooms in Woodbridge, four- and five-person suites in Ruggles, four-, five-, and six-person suites in Claremont.
YOU STILL HAVE A CHANCE WITH:
Studios in Watt (26), one-bedrooms in Woodbridge (21), eight-person suites in Ruggles (12), seven-person suites in Claremont (9).

2:50 p.m.
Girl to her female friend in line: "I'm actually glad we're not in Hogan, I wasn't really into the idea. My ex-boyfriend lived in Hogan."
Friend: "Wait, didn't he graduate like two years ago?"
Girl: "Yeah, he did, but there's still, like, sex in the walls."

3:12 p.m.
Four guys in a huddle, blocking the door:
"Where the hell is he?"
"I dont know, I've called him seven times in a row!" says the nervous one, dancing around like he has to pee as he punches his cell phone buttons angrily.
"He's blowing this off to play Halo, you know he is."
"Dude, we really should have had that intervention with him freshman year."

3:20 p.m.
The triumphant return of Josh Groban. While Housing Services did replenish the Famous Amos supply for today's customers, it seems like changing the CD would have just been too much.

3:29 p.m.
Group of friends leaving John Jay lounge after making their decision:
Girl: "We should have just waited around for regroup."
Boy: "Nah, we did the right thing, regroup is for pussies."

UPDATE AS OF 4:00 p.m.
6-person EC suites gone
doubles in EC gone (but 21 exclusions remain)
4-person suites in 47 Claremont gone

Just one left: 5-person suites in Ruggles and 47 Claremont, 6-person suite in 47 Claremont

The Josh Groban CD is still playing. The Bwog had a huge 12th grade crush on him. So lame.

Reasons to come by John Jay Lounge even though you're not in group selection:
1) You have a whiteboard fetish.
2) You have a light blue table skirt fetish.
3) Famous Amos cookies have been for too long not a part of your life.

Boy to his future roomate: "We should work out more. We can set up mats in our room and wrestle."

Related:
A: Where's he living?
B: Hogan.
A: Yeah. He's gay like that.

A boy looks at the whiteboard and says with increasing panic: "What's W-T-T? What's W-T-T?!"

Update as of 2:45 p.m.:
4 person EC townhouses gone (but plenty of 6 people ones left)
2 bedroom apartments in Watt gone
47 Claremont untouched

Bwog correspondent Yelena Shuster reports from the group selection frontlines in John Jay Lounge.

Josh Groban's Closer CD sets the tone for today's first housing selection. The operatic singing seems somewhat appropriate.

"I'm surprised Columbia's giving away free stuff," muttered a frustrated member of a four-person group, in reference to the bowls of Famous Amos and Naked Juice offered in John Jay lounge.

"Whatever, I'm not taking chances with this shit," said a weary-eyed girl who came 20 minutes early for her appointment.

Room Selection Update as of 11 a.m.:

Two four-person EC townhouse suites left out of six.
Seven four-person Hogan suites left out of thirteen.
Five Three Watt two-bedroom apartments left out of eleven.
Two bedroom Woodbridge apartments gone.

More impressions after the jump.

Dear Bwog,
A wise man once said, "You're not hardcore unless you live hardcore." Even the fact that I'm quoting Tenacious D should give it away - I'm the least hardcore person to ever exist, ever. I'm politically lukewarm; I like whatever music my roommate likes; I can barely put pepper on my food, let alone Tabasco. You're a ballsy site, Bwog, so how did you get that way? How do you develop some taste, or a backbone, or one single opinion?

Please like me,
Bland Ambition

Blandykins,
You've no reason for shame. Many of the strongest opinions at our age are simply affectations adopted for purposes of identity, a la middle school, or emergency outlets for Howard Dean inspired passion after that great man has passed [relevance].