Bwogger Sara Vogel points us in the direction of the Housing website, where there is a list of all summer dorm renovations. "We cannot guarantee projects or timing," it warns. Anyway, we are excited!

• Three lucky apartments in Woodbridge (right) are getting an environmentally-conscious makeover, complete with Energy Star appliances and lighting and Forest Stewardship Council-certified furniture and flooring. 

• McBain's getting a new elevator and it -- along with the existing elevator -- is going to be remodeled after the "sleek" new elevators in Hartley.

• Oh, and remember last summer when the north side of Ruggles was renovated? Kind of? Oh good, because the south side is currently undergoing the same renovations "to replicate the same look and feel as the rest of the building."
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Last night, Bwog attended the penultimate performance of the CUplayer's performance of Neil Simon's Plaza Suite. Read on to see what you missed if you didn't make it.

The high ceilings and picture windows of the Wien Lounge perfectly recreated the elegant atmosphere of Neil Simon's Plaza Suite. Although Melanie Silver's stage design could not have been more appropriate, the choice of Simon's play in three acts seemed less appropriate for an undergraduate theater production.

In Act One: A Visitor from Mamaroneck, Jason Resnikoff and Masha Kamenetska play Sam and Karen Nash, a conventionally unhappy middle age couple, who have come to suite 719 for their 24^th wedding anniversary. Attempting to extract some tenderness out of her husband's severe retorts, Kamenetska's bubbly performance is painfully contrasted against Resnikoff's sedate resignation. Resnikoff's furrowed brow and gravelly pitch suit Sam's perpetually dour mien, but his performance is best when he laces his cruelty with humor. Similarly Kamenetska plays an excellent peppy house-wife, but she adds depth to Karen's seemingly shallow anxieties when she hisses, "What can I do, Sam? I'm attached to you!" The fine acting showcased here successfully draws out the conflict buried within Simon's script: What does one do with life or love when it becomes boring?

Hurry! From 6-9 tonight, the Blue Key Society hosts a competitive, campus wide Spelling Bee in the Wien Lounge. ROAR, LION, ROAR! [Results after the jump!]

For almost every student, Spellcheck is an indispensable tool. Thanks to Bill Gates and his brainchild, Microsoft Word, the once tedious process of editing a paper for spelling errors has been reduced to a series of simple clicks. But then, there are those other students...

Yes, at Columbia, there is a strange breed of students whose spelling capacities surpass those of that supercilious dancing paper-clip icon. These students spell with natural confidence and verbal intuition. Their vocabularies are so rich that while Spellcheck may flounder over obvious Greek derivatives, like, dialogism and phyllophyllin, Columbia's superior strain of spellers can easily tackle any word.

You may have been wondering what happened the Wien Food Court, which closed last fall, and which had served juniors with bad lottery numbers greasy Chinese food for many years. It's been revamped to house Columbia's favorite health promotion program, along with Health Services' administrative offices, which moved in last Friday.

You no longer need to wander around Lerner 7 looking for stressballs, condoms or health information. Just stumble on down from your Wien double anytime from 9 and 5, Monday through Friday, and check out the new office, complete with columns, a new coffee machine and yes, free condoms.

Wien residents may have noticed catered goods and earnestness currently occupying the first floor lounge. The cause celebre is a buffet dinner to mark the completion of successful year of a conference of acronyms aplenty: CIRCA, is the Columbia International Relations Council and Association, and they hosted the Columbia Model United Nations Conference and Exposition, or CMUNCE, which is pronounced like the novelty pet.

There were 362 high school participants in this year's conference, which differs from typical Model United Nations conferences because the committees are not UN-based. Jon Hollander, CC '10, explain that this gave organizers the freedom to create more interesting situations. One example from this year: The Israeli committee was instructed to purchase weapons from the plastic gun-toting Mafia committee. "The weapons were to fight the Arabs," said Hollander. However Israel inexplicably wound up entangled in a Middle Eastern drug ring, and "the Mafia kidnapped Israel instead."

There were nearly 80 Columbia University students who organized the conference and one from City College. "He's dating someone from Columbia," Scott St. Marie, CIRCA's treasurer, explained.

For four days, the high schoolers and organized capitalized on what was described as a copious fake-blood supply, took turns riding a broom-turned-horse ("Everyone rode that horse this weekend," said St. Marie), and used fake guns to their advantage. The one rule? According to St. Marie: "Don't touch the delegates; you can't touch the high school students." Andrew, another organizer, walked by and made air quotes with his fingers. "Touching," he laughed.

Hollander and Maria Insalaco, CC '09, cited this year's CMUNCE as the most successful in its seven year history. "Should we tell her about the door?" Hollander asked Insalaco under his breath. "No, Hamilton facilities will just find that out," she answered.

- JNW

I mean, even monkeys can do this, I told myself. Riding a bike can't be that hard--and besides, I'm so good at the stationary ones in the gym! But after 45 minutes of ball-bruising, shin-banging fun, my body would tend to disagree.

Each time I tipped over when I started to pedal, I realized just how nice those stationary bikes really are. When I'm in Dodge, I feel like I could have a leg chopped off and beat Lance Armstrong. Out in the elements, the tiny drainage inclines seem like a mountain course requiring minute weight shifts so subtle and complex that I felt like my internal gyroscope must be either missing or fundamentally out of whack.

This year, Bwog's doing a better job of getting to every student production and telling you about it. There's still one more night to see the King's Crown production of The Real Inspector Hound.

When a cold gust ripped through Wien at the play's most tense moment, everyone looked around for the wind machine — meanwhile, the King's Crown crew moved quickly to close the lounge windows against the storm that was building outside. Tom Stoppard's popular work of meta-theater, "The Real Inspector Hound," lucked out as a result of more than one fortuitous coincidence on Friday night. During an early pause, a few confused Wien residents wandered onto the balcony, leading more than one member of the audience to crane their necks back and wait for dialogue from the rafters. At the same time, the real cast was lurking outside the windows, keeping PrezBo's private security detail awake next door.

For the record, due to the frantic nature of the play within "Hound," I found myself writing most of my notes while the critics were dictating their long, overwrought columns to each other. So any particularly awful turns of phrase must have made their way into this post by osmosis.

In other news, Wien residents awoke to a cordial email from Housing & Dining today, apologizing for the shut-down of the building's food court. In its place, Health Services and friends are moving into the arena (perhaps adding to the onslaught of mental institution jokes about the building).

As a gesture of reconciliation, Dining Services is offering Wien residents "$5 FREE DINING DOLLARS" to use on campus at their favorite venues. The email also states that the typical sandwich at Cafe 212 costs $5.95. At least there's the candy corn?

See the cheery dining advisory after the jump.

As if merely residing there wasn't bad enough, Wien inmates may be subjected to room searches this coming Friday...if stolen furniture isn't returned to the dorm's lounge. Offenders will be subject to the Dean's Discipline process - yes, the very same punishment handed to those determined to be the worst violators of university rules during the Minuteman stage-rush incident. The euphemistic but ultimately threatening notice (complete with warm and fuzzy language about violented "sense of community") is reproduced below the jump.

In other news, two guys in the figure skating costumes worn by Will Ferrell and Jon Heder in the upcoming film Blades of Glory were spotted taking promotional photos with students on Low Plaza this afternoon. "They do not love their jobs," reported our tipster.

-CJS

So, what the eff is going on in front of Wien? Last we checked, it looked like Mars after some misbegotten NASA craft crashed into the ground. We speculate that is has something to do with the boiler? Hopefully Wien-ers won't have to hire a human rights lawyer this time.

Also, according to informant and Bwog staffer Sara Vogel, our fascination puts us in good company:

"Someone in my CC class said he saw former President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel staring at this battlefield-esque construction site. He came back three hours later, and Vaclav was still there, asking questions about the site, entranced!"

The scene:

This just in from Elizabeth Mooers: Wien courtyard as set of film-noir at night...

This year's dorm themes make Bwog want to live in all of the dorms at once!

East Campus' Diverse and Tolerant!: Most Cuddly

Continued after the jump!