In Date Lab Rat, Anna Bank (editor-in-chief, hopeless romantic) bravely experiments on herself with each week’s installment of the Washington Post’s Date Lab, where the Post tries–and often fails–to fix up applicants.

Looks like the Date Lab team’s strong showing last week was just dumb luck after all. This week’s installment is a complete flop, both in terms of the duo’s romantic prospects and the amount of enjoyment you’ll get from reading it — it’s pretty much a tutorial on how not to set up a successful blind date. But then, that’s why I’m here.

First of all, I don’t know if Date Lab is running low on applicants or if the Post’s matchmaking team overestimated the daters’ appeal. He thinks he has a good sense of humor (who doesn’t?); she says she’s D.C. because she gets “annoyed by tourists who don’t stand on the right when going down Metro escalators” (more like she’s D.C. because she sounds like a witch in a major paper). There doesn’t seem to be anything in either of their questionnaire answers to suggest that they would make a particularly good pair, other than her stated preference for black guys, and that’s not much to go on.

Unsurprisingly, the sparks don’t fly: she’s not attracted to him, he thinks it’s lame that she doesn’t want to order free wine , she freaks out when he puts his arm around her for the photo. He’s nice enough to give the date a 3 out of 5, while she returns the volley with a damning (and weirdly specific) 1.9.

Rating: I’m sure this could be worse somehow. There were no acts of physical violence or outright psychological warfare, but after last week’s turnaround, DL slump is back. I’d give it a 1.

Chances of Success: Are negative numbers allowed?

I didn’t think much of GUSA President Pat Dowd when he was running. Neither did the Voice editorial board, which endorsed his opponents. With GUSA Summer Fellows coming together so soon and his pretty good response to our latest crimes, though, I’m feeling better about his reign.

Things will change, though, and probably for the worse. It’ll be hard to keep track of whether Pat Dowd’s better or worse than we expected him to be. That’s why we’ve come up with the Dowdometer, a device to measure whether he’s exceeding (admittedly low) expectations. So far, things are rosy. But who knows what next semester will bring?

Along with the numerous Public Safety Alert emails you’ve been receiving lately, you may have noticed a message from GUSA about their “Campus Safety efforts.” If the text of the e-mail seems familiar, that’s because it’s copied-and-pasted from the GUSA Campus Safety Watch Facebook group President Pat Dowd created recently.

Since, as the message declares, “a ‘business as usual’ approach to campus safety is failing to meet the needs of our community,” GUSA is soliciting recommendations and promising to present them to whoever DPS Director Darryl Harrison’s successor is. As of 12:30 a.m., the Facebook group, though boasting 295 members, has only 5 wall posts and 1 discussion post. Dowd told me via email that he has received over 20 student responses in the six hours since the campus-wide e-mail was sent out.

The missive also encourages students to join the Facebook group, saying that “By joining this group, you are sending a clear message to the administration that campus security it [sic] a major concern for you as a Georgetown student.” Does joining a Facebook group really constitute active participation in campus life, though? Surely there are more substantive ways of conveying your concern about safety issues than clicking the “Join this Group” button.

The open meeting VP for Student Affairs Todd Olson and VP for University Safety Rocco DelMonaco held Tuesday evening was pretty sparsely attended, even for study days. There were approximately 50-60 audience members, about half of whom were faculty or staff members. “Where are all these ‘mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore’ students?” someone sitting near me asked.

There’s also an interesting side note for any avid GUSA followers out there: back in the presidential campaign, during the debate hosted by The Hoya, Dowd distinguished himself from the other candidates by arguing that campus safety was not GUSA’s purview – “Safety is not a GUSA issue,” Dowd said in the debate.

After the jump, Dowd explains why he’s mucking around in safety now, the adorable Brian Kesten makes an appearance, and Rocco DelMonaco needs GUSA like jam needs toast.

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The Corp has taken to running the 1st floor of the Leavey Center like its personal fiefdom, with all the restrictions of free speech that entails. Thursday night I noticed several fliers on the bulletin boards near Vital Vittles and the Leavey elevators with this article (link currently down) from the Columbia Spectator about Collegeboxes’ failure to return stored items on time to Columbia students. Later that night, they were gone.

Expecting the hidden hand of the Corp’s Student Storage behind the fliers and Collegeboxes behind the takedown, I emailed Corp CEO Jesse Scharff. His response was surprising: the Corp didn’t put the fliers up, but they took them down because they thought it reflected poorly on them. If someone wants to tell students about Collegeboxes’ seemingly significant problems, the Corp shouldn’t stop them just because it might reflect poorly on them.

After the jump, Scharff’s email and a conspiracy theory I’ve been working on.

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In our new recurring feature Date Lab Rat, Anna Bank (editor-in-chief, hopeless romantic) bravely experiments on herself with each week’s installment of the Washington Post’s Date Lab, where the Post tries to fix up applicants using a secret formula known only to journalists. This week’s installment comes a week late because of problems isolating the case study.

After a recent run of failed fix-ups, Date Lab decided to introduce a new gimmick this week, hoping for a better match or at least some humor value. The trick–having a monkey select the two daters instead of using the Post’s “expert” matchmaking team - was just plain dumb, and given the pair’s similar questionnaire answers (they’re both company project managers and say that there’s either a 99 or 100% chance that they’ll talk to stranger in a bar, although maybe all Date Lab contestants say that), I’m guessing this primate wasn’t given many potential daters to choose from.

Stupid monkey tricks aside, though, this is a pretty high quality edition of Date Lab, and a good intro if you’re new to the feature. Both daters are attracted to one another, which is always fun to read (DL connoisseurs know that the most cringe-worthy sensation is reading a match where one person’s feeling it and the other completely isn’t.) The girl manages to pull off a semi-slick venue change by asking if he wants to go somewhere to watch a basketball game, and the night ends with kisses and text-message follow-up.

Rating, using the DL 1-5: 4. 1 point docked for the gimmick, but as goes Date Lab, so goes my week, and I love when things work out.

Chances of Success: 4. He’s already scraping off expired parking stickers so she won’t get a ticket, completely skipping over the infatuation phase and into domesticity, which makes is seem like this could last for a while. But they both claim to be more sarcastic than they let on during the date, and it’ll be interesting to see what happens when the claws come out.

Photo from Flickr user Little Brown Monkey

Someone’s in trouble with DPS 

Until the events of this past weekend, LXR had been a relatively quite dorm this year, with few problems larger than the lack of hot water during my morning shower. This week, however, things have changed drastically as DPS officers make the rounds several times a day, banging on doors and handing out safety violation notices.

Residents now face door checks during which officers walk through the halls trying to open each door (similar to what Sunday morning’s intruder did), reprimanding those students who have their doors unlocked. One officer, who knocked, hesitated briefly, and then proceeded to open my unlocked door himself, told us that these demands have come from the “administration”.

I recognize the need for increased dorm security, but I don’t think that it should come at the expense of student privacy and peace of mind. The citation slips which have been left on numerous doors in LXR make me feel uncomfortable in my own home; I used to feel reasonably safe in LXR, but now I just feel constantly annoyed.If the administration wants to increase security in East Campus, I think they should, but they should not try to place the onus entirely on students by implementing these checks.

If I leave my door unlocked and someone steals my computer, that’s my fault, and I accept responsibility for it. But if an outsider manages slip into the building, I should not be held accountable for ineptitude of campus security.

- Lynn Kirshbaum, Photo Editor. Photo by Lynn.

Tom Wolfe is not pleased with your rebuilding efforts

Today is the one-year anniversary of the fire that ripped through Eastern Market, the District’s premier farmer’s market. DCist reflects on reconstruction delays affecting the Market, while City Paper’s Jason Cherkis says “I’ll hit Whole Foods instead. Thanks, though.” Last year, the Voice ran a cover story on Eastern Market after the fire.

All this talk about Eastern Market can’t convince me it’d be too much of a hassle to get groceries from there instead of at Safeway.

-Will Sommer, Blog Editor. Picture by Emily Voigtlander. 

The District’s Department of Transportation has partnered with Clear Channel Outdoor to bring Smart Bike, North America’s first bike sharing program, to DC. Starting next month, program members will be able to borrow bicycles from ten locations around the city for a maximum of three hours at a time. Membership costs $40 for the year, a comparatively small sum for unlimited transportation use during a time of oil price increases.

But the limited number of rental stations may not make this the most convenient mode of transportation for many in DC, especially Georgetown students. The closest Smart Bike docking points to Georgetown are in Dupont Circle and at George Washington University—yes, they get their very own station at Foggy Bottom.

If Georgetown can’t manage to secure a Metro station, you’d think we could at least get some free bikes. To learn more, check out Smart Bike DC online.

- Lynn Kirshbaum, Photo Editor. Photo of Paris bike share from Flickr user rekha6.

Vox Populi’s kissing-cousins at The Hoya’s blog The Saxa recently made a bold move to divide their blog between regular news (Leavey421, in subtle homage to The Hatchet) and sports news (TheHoyaParanoia). But the Saxa’s editors have something else in store for us: a terrible, terrible pun. From Google Reader, an administrative post reveals as-yet-unmade third section:

Leavey421
- The Newsroom
TheHoyaParanoia
- Sports
Hoya Gonna Vote For?
- Election 2008

It replaces the crime blog, Hilltops and Robbers.

-Will Sommer, Blog Editor

People on the southern part of campus (Village A, New South, that sort of thing) heard a circling helicopter from around 12:30 to 1 this morning. The helicopter was beaming down a search light. Hoping for more Georgetown crime, your intrepid blogger followed the light until the woods on Prospect. I’m betting there was an accident in the Potomac. Anyway, I hit up MPD and will be back with the results later today. Ideas on what the helicopter was looking at?

-Will Sommer, Blog Editor