Big Ups & Backhands

Welcome back to Big Ups and Backhands, where we think snow on Tuesday was a cruel, cruel April Fools’ Day joke.

Big Ups to the Adams Center for stepping aside and letting Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign handle ticketing for the presidential candidate’s free rally on Saturday. Tickets went quickly, but those who attempted to get tickets early on were successful. The wristband system must not have been used. 

In honor of Sen. Obama’s upcoming visit to UM, we have created a new honor: Barackhands, which go to his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. The senator from New York claimed this week that “Barack can’t win.” She must have been referring to a game of bowling, because there’s about 20-some-odd states that would disagree.

Backhands to Barry Anderson, the former Monte who now entertains fans of the Chicago Bulls as the team’s lovable mascot, Bennie, for shooting T-shirts out of a T-shirt gun at Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics in a Tuesday game. S’pose you could, technically, with perhaps a hint of sarcasm, without malicious intent, say that Bennie/Barry is the latest Grizzly to go out and shoot someone.

Wild octopi are apparently quite wild, and thus earn Big Ups. They’re so wild, in fact, that a study at the University of California at Berkeley went so far as to call them kinky. The male Abdopus aculeatus octopus guards its mate – with whom they will have sex just once before dying – by strangling would-be suitors. We can think of some other uses for those eight tentacles – in the boudoir…

Ah, foiled again by MSU! Jane Goodall will give a lecture at Montana State on April 28, thus the city of Bozeman deserves Backhands. As any veteran of Anthro 101 knows, Garry Kerr has been working for years to bring the monkey expert to Missoula. We imagine he’s going apeshit right about now.

Big Ups to the New Kids on the Block for hanging tough and deciding to get back together and release a new studio album. In a world totally devoid of cheesy lyrics and hop-scotch-esque dance moves, there’s definitely a void for them to fill. Assuming the members, who are all creeping toward 40, don’t break their hips. 

The University of Texas at San Antonio gets Backhands after news broke that it aped its new honor code from Brigham Young University’s. So the doctrine that warns against plagiarism, as well as other ethical no-nos, was itself plagiarized. You can’t put a price on that.

Self-inflicted Backhands to the Kaimin co-ed softball team – Team Kaimin – for getting blasted in its 2008 intramural softball premiere. We led early, before a second-third-fourth-fifth inning collapse ultimately spelled doom. Most of the time “d-o-o-m” spells doom, but for Team Kaimin, it was the collapse … and really big dudes on the other team.

Season record: 0-1.

Check back next week for an update (hint: if we’re not 1-1, we’ll be 0-2).