NEWS AND CULTURE FOR THE STUDENTS OF KWANTLEN POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY

THEVOL. 05ISSUE 0210.02.2012

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WHY IT’S TIME TO ENDWHY IT’S TIME TO END CRAM JAMCRAM JAMGreat eventGreat event??or or money down the drainmoney down the drain?? pages 4-6 pages 4-6

KWANTLEN

NEWS

The Runner RoundupA brief run around the latest news from Kwantlen and beyond.

Playland on the students’ dime: Playland on the students’ dime: it’s a civil rights issue!it’s a civil rights issue!

On Saturday, Sept. 29, KSA staff, volunteers and elect-ed officials took a trip to Vancouver’s Playland amuse-ment park. According to Tony Chiao, KSA director of finance, the trip was meant as a thank-you to the KSA staff for all the hard work they put in over the first few weeks back to school.

The KSA held a volunteer-only event in June, but this time decided to extend the invitation to paid staff members and elected officials.

“This time around we were thinking, ‘maybe we should invite staff as well, since they’ve worked for the KSA so hard, we should give them an equal opportu-

nity to just like relax and enjoy,’” Chiao said.According to Chiao, the outing included 4-5 staff,

4-5 volunteers and 8-9 elected officials. Tickets cost $22.75 each and each person was allotted a $17.50 food allowance.

“A meal at McDonalds will be around six to nine [dollars] depending on what kind you choose. If you just wanted fries it will be cheaper, if you just want a burger, it will be cheaper.

“There’s different combinations.”(Chiao was interviewed Friday, before the event

took place.)

New B.C. advanced education minister to focus on trades, not tuitionJohn Yap, who is also the minister for multicultural-ism, took over the advanced education portfolio in early September as part of a major cabinet shuffle by Premier Christy Clark. He replaced Naomi Yamamoto, who had held the position since March 2011.

In an interview with the Canadian University Press, Yap made it clear that he is intent on ensuring more trades training is available at post-secondary institu-tions.

“If I were to sum up the focus in the short-term, it is to ensure we have the facilities and programs to do trades training.”

This aligns with the Liberal government’s prom-ise to prioritize job creation. Yap said there should be about a million job openings in B.C. in the next ten years, with 43 per cent of these requiring some trades training. Beefing up trades training programs and fa-

cilities now will help to train the workforce for those job openings.

When asked about the province’s increasing depen-dency on tuition to fund post-secondary institutions, he said now is not the time to reduce dependency con-sidering the economy. B.C. is the province increasing its dependency on tuition at the fastest rate in Canada.

And as for other tenants of affordability — in trades or otherwise — Yap thinks the current system is afford-able enough, so long as the tuition cap of 2 per cent remains in place.

“We’re confident that with the caps on tuition fee increases and the supports that are provided by stu-dent aid programs, whether it’s bursaries or grants or student loans or scholarships — we’re making our sys-tem of colleges and universities accessible for British Columbians.” — MICKI COWAN — CUP B.C. BUREAU CHIEF

BEANA_CHEESE/FLICKR

The Runner | www.runnermag.ca page two | October 02, 2012 | vol. 5 issue 02

BOMB

NEWS vol. 5 issue 02 | October 02 2012 | page threewww.runnermag.ca | The Runner

I SARAH SCHUCHARDASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

Hundreds of Surrey Kwantlenstudents were evacuated from classes Monday, Sept. 17, after a suspicious object was discovered on campus by a Kwantlen staff person.

Kwantlen’s security ordered the evacua-tion of part of Surrey’s campus around 8:20 a.m. on Sept. 17.

The object turned out to be not an explo-sive, according to Surrey RCMP media rep-resentative Sgt. Drew Grainger.

“It was not a pipe bomb. It was a piece of pipe; no bomb,” he said. “We’re trying to determine if possible how it got to where it was and if there’s any threats associated with it, which we have not determined yet.”

“There were no threats,” said Joanne Saunders, Kwantlen’s director of market-ing and communications, in a telephone interview with The Runner. “It was not like someone had called in and said it was a bomb. It was just a suspicious piece that was found.”

Surrey RCMP treated the unidentified

object as a potential pipe bomb, when re-sponding to the incident, according to Saunders.

As students were being evacuated out of the two buildings the surrounding build-ings at Surrey campus were unaware of the potential threat.

Ben Redhead, a faculty of arts adminis-trative assistant who works out of Cedar building, recalled there being no urgency to the event as he returned to his office and found out about the potential bomb.

“As I came back... a woman who I had never seen before, I assume she was staff, told me I couldn’t access the hallway,” said Redhead. “That’s how I found out I couldn’t come back to my office. I went to the dean’s office and I had been working out of there and then somebody [had men-tioned] it was a bomb. It was just kind of word of mouth.”

When questioned by The Runner as to why students were not advised to avoid campus, Saunders explained: “It wasn’t affecting the whole campus and we only had a portion of campus closed off, so there

[were] many, many students still attending class that morning.”

The mysterious object was found in the parking lot behind Kwantlen’s receiving dock just west of Birch building. Both Birch and the southern part of Cedar building were evacuated and taped off.

As a safety precaution, police deployed their explosives disposal unit to Kwantlen. “[They] brought out their robot, which has the capability and technology to assess and also remotely detonate anything that is sus-picious,” said Grainger.

Three explosions were heard on campus, as the RCMP made sure the fragments of the object weren’t dangerous.

By 2 p.m., police had left the scene and Kwantlen students were let back into cam-pus.

According to RCMP official Grainger, police officials taped off part of the school at 8:20 a.m., while Kwantlen informed stu-dents via Twitter at 8:51a.m. Messages up-dating students of events were displayed on Kwantlen’s emergency warning video screens at around 10 a.m.

Kwantlen evacuated after bomb scareRCMP says suspicious object was only a pipe.

RCMP Explosive Disposal Unit workers used an automated robot with controlled explosives to destroy the suspicious item. JEFF GROAT/THE RUNNER

NEWS The Runner | www.runnermag.ca page four | October 02 2012 | vol. 5 issue 02

KSA

Cram Jam spending(and attendance) down

2012 costs = $26,000 (est.)attendance 100-350 (est.)

KSA

NEWS vol. 5 issue 02 | October 02 2012 | page fi vewww.runnermag.ca | The Runner

+$135,336 expenses

-$7,354 revenue =

$127,982

2011Jay Sean

Pretty Boy, Carol Cox

2008Sloan

Daniel Wesley, Ten Second Epic

+$91,050 expenses

-$14,195 revenue =

$76,855

2009Danny Fernandes

Destineak

+$44,828 expenses

-$5,135 revenue =

$39,693

2010Karl Wolf

Lamar Ashe, Heatwave

+$40,024 expenses

-$9,433 revenue =

$30,591

I SAMANTHA LEGOMATT DIMERA

Spending for the Kwantlen Student As-sociation’s (KSA) annual back-to-school Cram Jam concert was way down this year. Costs plummeted by nearly 80 per cent from last year’s net of $127,982 to an esti-mated $26,000 in 2012. The KSA was unable to provide a final tally before The Runner’s deadline.

The concert took place at the Surrey campus on Thursday, Sept. 13, with events starting at 3:30 p.m and running until 11 p.m. Unlike last year, there was no headlin-ing performance.

“This year, instead of having an inter-national artist, we have local bands. We’re trying to promote local artists and different kinds of performances to satisfy different students’ needs,” said Tony Chiao, director of finance for the KSA.

Several cultural presentations by ab-original and South Asian performers were followed by Vancouver-based rock bands Pedwell, Within Rust, Atom Atom, Grizzly Bones, and Cruel Young Heart.

The KSA saved a substantial amount of money using local artists, but the lack of both advertising and a big-name headline did little to draw out the student popula-tion. While costs were down, so was the at-

tendance. According to Amrit Mahil, the KSA’s

Surrey campus representative and director of student life, at certain peaks there were 200 students in the audience and another 150 in the beer garden. Arzo Ansary, direc-tor of external affairs placed the peak num-ber at 95. Runner reporters who attended various parts of the concert, counted far fewer attendees, estimating the total to be around 100.

“People were not there the whole time, but they were there a bit and they left,” said Mahil.

He argued that the event was a good use of student’s money.

“If you consider the population of Kwantlen, we hardly spent $1 per student,” he explained. “So we tried to come up with something new for the students and I hope they enjoyed it.”

Chiao attributed the lacklustre atten-dance to a lack of promotion and suggested that a Thursday concert would have been problematic for students with Friday class-es.

“We tried our best. We had volunteers going to all of the campuses and distribut-ing [leaflets] and we had the posters up as soon as possible,” explained Mahil. “That was the first time we had the rock bands [and] it didn’t work that well.”

All four members of the KSA executive committee agree that this year’s event was a qualified success.

“Well first of all we didn’t get revoked by the university which is a good thing and the city of Surrey allowed us to hold it, so overall I would say that’s a success,” said Chiao.

In 2011, mainstream artist Jay Sean per-formed off campus at the Royal King Pal-ace banquet hall in Surrey, playing a show that ended up costing Kwantlen students 150 per cent more than the original $50,000 budget.

The 2011 concert was unexpectedly moved off campus, after city officials re-voked the necessary permits and the uni-versity sent out a mass e-mail declaring Cram Jam to not be a university sanctioned event.

According to Mahil the KSA worked more closely with the university in the plan-ning stages, holding occasional meetings for progress updates and providing a spon-sored shuttle that brought students from other campuses to the Surrey campus.

As for Cram Jam in the future, Mahil notes that since this one was not as success-ful as hoped “[The KSA] will come up with another idea next year. We will try to en-gage as many students as we can and [learn from this year].”

“It was a mutual effort from the KSA and [the] university,” says Mahil.

Christopher Girodat, the KSA’s director of student services, said this year’s organiz-ers faced new challenges.

“I know that the brand of Cram Jam needed to recover from some events from last year,” he said. “I think that put some obstacles in our way in terms of seeking sponsorship and in terms of making people believe the event would be something they would want to be at.”

When asked if he thought the event was a success, Girodat answered that “it de-pends on what you mean by a success.”

He explained that logistically, things went well, but “in terms of marketing and attendance, I think that’s where the event fell short.”

Girodat said the actual attendance num-bers didn’t meet the KSA’s earlier estimated projections of 1000 students.

He suggested that the event “may need to be reimagined” in the future.

Ansary said the KSA learned a lot of les-sons from this year’s event.

“How do you plan something this big while not having the experience in plan-ning something this big?” she asked.

KSA executive suggests the event may need to be re-imagined in future years.

EDITORIAL The Runner | www.runnermag.ca page six | October 02, 2012 | vol. 5 issue 02

EDITORIAL

EDITORIAL DIVISION:

Co-ordinating Editor / Jeff Groateditor@runnermag.ca / 778-565-3803

Culture Editor / Max Hirtzculture@runnermag.ca / 778-565-3804

News Editor / Matt DiMeranews@runnermag.ca / 778-565-3805

Production Editor / Antonio Suproduction@runnermag.ca / 778-565-3806

Media Editor / Kimiya Shokoohimedia@runnermag.ca / 778-565-3806

Associate News Editors / Sarah Schuchard / Vacant / Vacant

Associate Culture Editors / Tabitha Swanson / Vacant / Vacant

Associate Features Editor / Vacant

Associate Opinions Editor / Vacant

Associate Photo Editor / Vacant

Associate Sports Editor / Vacant

Associate Art Director / Vacant

Associate Copy Editor / Elizabeth Hann

CONTRIBUTORS: Samantha Lego, Chris Harcus, Hannah Ackeral

Cover Photo: Max Hirtz

BUSINESS DIVISION:

Operations Manager / Vacant ops@runnermag.ca / 778-565-3801

Offi ce Co-ordinator / Victoria Almondoffi ce@runnermag.ca / 778-565-3801

Arbutus 3710/372012666 72 Ave.Surrey, B.C. V3W 2M8www.runnermag.ca778-565-3801

The Runner is student owned and operated by

Kwantlen Polytechnic University students, published

under Polytechnic Ink Publishing Society.

Vol. 5, Issue no. 02October 2, 2012ISSN# 1916-8241

Why it’s time to end Cram JamWhy it’s time to end Cram Jam

LETTERS@RUNNERMAG.CA

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?>>>>

ITHE RUNNEREDITORIAL

Another semester is well under way, an-other class of students has settled in to the Kwantlen community, and another dismal failure for the KSA’s Cram Jam event has come and gone. Say goodbye to tens of thousands of students’ dollars vainly spent on an inflated concert that no one ever at-tends – or worse, knows even takes place – every year.

This year, a selection of indie artists hit the stage and wowed the 30 people who were in attendance. We thank the artists for coming out to play for us, we really do. And we thank the KSA for trying so damn hard to create a place for Kwantlen bond-ing. Our school is notorious, even among current students, for its horrendous student apathy problem, and it’s commendable that someone cares enough to try and fight the monster.

But the fact is, Kwantlen students don’t give a shit about anything, especially if you put it on a poster and hang it on the sanc-tioned postering spaces. No one sees it and no one cares to. It’s just another thing to avoid on the way to the parking lot.

Even though students deserve to have free events in the interests of creating com-munity, it costs a lot of student money to hold Cram-Jam-size events.

Every year, a fresh-faced group of elected

KSA officials tries their hand at holding this complex event and every year it’s the same. The Cram Jam name has a long history with scandal, whether it’s over-spending, dis-mal turnout, or a logjam of scheduling and planning issues that never get resolved in time. Stop it.

The KSA ought to focus on holding smaller events that narrower niches of the Kwantlen community might be interested

in attending. How can we as students be expected to take part in events as big as Cram Jam when we barely even know the other students in our department?

We need to hold small events success-fully before we can even dream of pull-ing off Cram Jam. Baby steps. A vibrant Kwantlen community is not something to be attained simply by throwing money at it.

Very few people actually came to this year’s Cram Jam event. MAX HIRTZ/THE RUNNER

Big budgets and embarrassing attendance don’t mix — Cram Jam doesn’t need to be “reimagined.”

(seriously though, please write us a letter. We’ll publish it. We promise.)

CULTUREwww.runnermag.ca | The Runner page seven | October 02 2012 | vol. 5 issue 02

LOCAL MUSIC

FILM FESTIVAL

ITABITHA SWANSONASSOCIATE CULTURE EDITOR

Looking for some great new films to titillate your senses and stir your emotions? Well look no further. From Sept. 27 until Oct. 12, the Vancouver International Film Festival, or VIFF, will be celebrating its 30th year. Created in 1982, VIFF is a yearly non-profit cultural extravaganza that shows top films from around the world. According to their website, VIFF is among the five largest film festivals in North America. With films from over 80 countries, there is something for ev-eryone and anyone to enjoy.

Alan Franey, the director of VIFF since 1988, shared his insight on how the films differ this year compared to last in an inter-view with The Runner. According to Franey, “The films are radically different. The thing for us is every year has a completely differ-ent flavor because of what’s happening in the world, what’s on filmmakers’ minds, the styles that people are using, and of course, there has been a lot of transformation in cin-ema because of digital technology. It’s excit-ing times we live in.”

With the increasing pace of digital tech-nology, one might think it would be hard for festivals like VIFF to keep the same pop-ularity and attendance rate as they have in the past. Ellie O’Day, the director of media for VIFF disagrees: “People who are seri-ous about film... will definitely want to see it on a big screen. So, I think that is the one element. The second element is… a lot of people just like to have their hands on stuff, and in the case of a film, its like sitting in a room full of people watching the same thing and sensing other people’s reactions. There is still a social aspect to watching film

I HANNAH ACKERAL

A prominent member of the Vancouver mu-sic scene, Tim the Mute, is gaining notori-ety for his soon-to-be-released Single-Sided Singles Club. The singles will be released monthly over the course of the year, mak-ing a grand total of twelve albums for sub-scribers.

The series, released on Tim’s DIY label Kingfisher Bluez, pays homage to the some-

that a lot of people really appreciate. And you might think that’s a generational differ-ence, but it’s really not. I’m really surprised how many younger people still feel the same way, that there is really a difference to watching a performance on your computer and watching it in a room full of people, whether it’s a live performance, standup comedy, a concert, or whether it’s a film. There is still that social element of taking part in it with other people. And no mat-ter how the technology changes, I still think that there is a very strong element to that.”

Local bands to be featured on 7” singles

There’s something for everyone at this year’s VIFF

The Monkey King -- Uproar in Heaven 3D is one of several animated fi lms playing at this year’s International Film Festival.

The festival has an average audience of about 1,200 people every year and hopes to expose more people to the joys of film in the coming years. There are many film festivals around North America and Canada, though they do differ in some aspects. According to O’Day, TIFF in Toronto is of similar size, but the glitz and glam is on a whole other level. In Toronto, they focus more on the actors, and in Vancouver, they want to focus on the actual making of the movie, so they show-case the directors. After most shows, they have a Q&A period where the majority of

the audience stays to hear what the direc-tors have to say.

Both Franey and O’Day agree that fes-tivals like VIFF encourage people to try things they might not have tried had they come across it on their own. “All cultures have cinema. It’s not like the opera, or some other specialized music festivals; it really includes so many different kinds of people: young, old, English speakers and non-Eng-lish speakers. It’s a great way to get to know your city, and I hope that continues in the future,” Franey said.

times underappreciated Vancouver music scene.

“Whether or not they break up next year or they go on to be famous,” Tim explained, “it’ll be a good representation of bands in Vancouver right now.”

Instead of creating a compilation album, which would given listeners all the songs at once, the Singles Club gives each song and artist its own spotlight. Not only do the artists get to have their own individual

records released, but the audience is pre-sented with a new track monthly to devote their attention to. There is also something more appealing about a 7” -- the audience knows they aren’t getting any filler, just the concentrated efforts of the artist.

Despite the focus on Vancouver bands and handy perks like free pick up from Dandelion Emporium for locals, the inter-est in the series expands beyond the West Coast. There have been international sub-

scribers, and the first single -- Dirty Beach-es’ “Elizabeth’s Theme” -- has already been premiered on Pitchfork.

“People seem to really care about the Vancouver scene right now,” said Tim, add-ing that he felt the series was a point of pride for the musicians involved. With only 250 subscriptions available of the hand-numbered records, this series also appeals to serious vinyl collectors, who are a grow-ing music industry force.

CULTURE The Runner | www.runnermag.ca page eight | October 2 2012 | vol. 5 issue 2

LOCAL MUSIC

Thee Ahs: An Ahverview

IELIZABETH HANNASSOCIATE COPY EDITOR

Cute is a double-edged word. Isn’t it? Origi-nally derived from the word acute, meaning among other things “sharp or penetrating in intellect, insight or perception,” cute has come to mean merely something like “ap-pealing and delightful.” And that’s at the best of times – at worst, cute means some-thing like “mincingly pretty or clever, pre-cious or affected.” As one can imagine, it can be a mixed blessing for something to be called cute – especially when that some-thing is a rock band. After all, isn’t rock ‘n’ roll supposed to be an outlet for everything that isn’t appealing and delightful and pret-ty and precious and affected? Well, the an-swer to that is – it depends on who you ask. Thee Ahs, an up-and-coming Vancouver band, have managed to combine garage-rock toughness with a rare quality – a cute-ness that is truly unaffected. The results are something that demands a second look, and

a closer listen. Let us discuss the cuteness first. Thee Ahs – guitarist Sarah Lowenbot, lead vo-calist Davina Shell, drummer Marissa Hol-mes, and bass player Ridley Bishop – are all well under the age of twenty-five, and they sound like it. They perform wearing heart-shaped sunglasses. Thee Ahs’ latest EP, Thee Ahs Ahtack!, was recorded on hot-pink vi-nyl. It featured a hand-designed sleeve (by Sarah Lowenbot, who’s the group’s art de-signer as well as their guitarist) with a pic-ture of a cute little girl on it, a girl who looks like someone you’d doodle in the margins of your high-school English notebook dur-ing a dull class. Davina Shell, the group’s chief songwriter, writes songs with titles like “Onion in My Pocket”, and “Strange Little Scene” – songs that, in their fragile lyricism have been compared to the songs of noted cutemeister Jonathan Richman – and the group’s most effective work to date is a speeded-up cover of a girl-group ditty from 1963. The members of Thee Ahs have

even admitted a fondness for that sticky-sweet bubblegum queen Britney Spears – an unironic fondness.

At this point, admirers of serious music – and fans of good red-blooded rock – may be gearing up to dismiss Thee Ahs as a pack of piffle-purveyors. But if they did dismiss them, they’d lose a good thing: Thee Ahs are a whole lot tougher, and smarter and certainly stranger, than their cute and cud-dly image would suggest.

So, some strange little facts about Thee Ahs. One, they released their EP, Thee Ahs Ahtack, on a Spanish record label, 7 Ietepulgadas Records, and the EP comes with Spanish-language-only liner notes. And the cartoony record sleeve for that EP, the blonde, bouffanted little girl is sticking her tongue down the throat of a much older man. Nymphet imagery is surprisingly common in Thee Ahs’ work. One of their songs is called “Too Young for You”, and the cute heart-shaped glasses they wear on stage serve as an homage to the ones Sue

Lyon wore in the 1962 film Lolita. Thee Ahs’ lyrics may seem sweet at first blush, but you just have to scratch the surface to uncover their secret strangeness and melan-choly. The hook to the twee-titled “Onion in My Pocket” is the repeated phrase “When I start to cry/Nobody asks me why...” One of the new songs on Thee Ahs Ahtack! carries the weirdly suggestive title, “Ooh They’re Inside Me.” And of all the creamy, sugary girl-group songs from 1963 that Thee Ahs could have covered – “I Will Follow Him,” “Be My Baby”, “Our Day Will Come”, etc. – the ditty they actually chose to cover was the deeply obscure, startlingly catty and honest “Sour Grapes”, by (but of course!) Aus-tralian performer Patsy Ann Noble. Thee Ahs’ other musical influences are equally strange, and much tougher; they admit to being inspired by The Pastels, Teenage Fan-club, The Pixies, and The Smiths.

Thee Ahs’ sound is something much more than cute. On songs like “Onion In My Pocket” and the aforementioned “Sour Grapes”, the guitar chords race forward like wild horses, with Sarah Lowenbot and Davina Shell’s thin, tough voices and Marissa Holmes’s shambolic drums racing after them. Bassist Ridley Bishop defends Thee Ahs’ shambolic wildness as intention-al, worthy and necessary. “We hate slick sounds,” he has remarked in conversa-tion, “We want to sound like we’re torn up by the roots.” When asked how he would define Thee Ahs, Bishop explained, “We generally think of ourselves as black bub-blegum pop.” This last phrase marks Thee Ahs as part of a noble tradition indeed – ac-cording to rock ‘n’ roll Apocrypha, The Sex Pistols’ infamous Svengali-manager Mal-colm McLaren defined punk rock as “dirty bubblegum.”

So what’s next for these double-edged cuties and black bubblegummers? At the moment, Thee Ahs are planning to release their second full-length album, which they recorded in February. They under-took their first cross-country tour in July, and are still channeling the inspiration from it into new material, perhaps for their third album. In the meantime, you can buy their E.P Thee Ahs Ahtack! at http://www.7ietepulgadasrecords.com/.

PHOTO COURTESY KATE ROBIN

The future of Vancouver pop – it may be cute, but it isn’t harmless.

CULTUREwww.runnermag.ca | The Runner page nine | October 02 2012 | vol. 5 issue 02

FUN STUDYING

IMIA STEINBERGTHE MARTLET (UVIC)

Brain candy: The right types of tunes to study to

Study Status: Well, that five-minute break lasted nearly an hour, and there’s no way you can do the entire assignment tonight, but you can finish most of it. Probably.

Details: It’s a fact: as soon as you need to focus on schoolwork, you’ll discover a new TV show, musician or other fun dis-traction. All you want to do is immerse yourself in this new love, but you can’t — you have midterms to study for. So your new obsession sits just out of reach, posi-tively dripping with all the fun you’re not having right now. And it knows you’ll give in; it’s a simple matter of time.

Recommended Tunes: Open your music player. Which album or artist do you automatically select, devoid of con-scious thought? That’s the one.

Possible Side Effects: Complete de-nial. You can still work while listening to this album. For sure. Except for this one part, because it’s amazing. And the next two tracks really deserve your full atten-tion. After that, back to the books — you promise. You can stop any time you want to.

Study Status: Your blood is now 52 per cent coffee, and your economics text-book needs some existential whimsy.

Details: This post-rock subgenre takes its cues from progressive, ambient, mini-malist and experimental musicians. With few lyrics and a lot of slow build, post-rock can put you in a relaxed-yet-focused state of mind.

Recommended Tunes: The Campfire Headphase by Boards of Canada is exqui-site electronica that pulls double duty as study aid and obscure music snob fod-der. The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place by Explosions in the Sky is fantastic as well.

Possible Side Effects: Prolonged ex-posure can cause depersonalization, star-ing contests with the nearest wall and long, strange trips through Wikipedia articles. If you find yourself contemplat-ing the black dwarf fate of the Sun, abort mission. Harsh that mellow. Do not walk towards the light.

Study Status: Needing a little motiva-tion, but still on schedule.

Details: A film’s soundtrack is ex-plicitly tied to the events onscreen and plays a large part in connecting you to the story. The score alone can transport you back into a specific headspace, and you can begin to feel like the star of your own action movie. Suddenly, finishing that biology assignment is a matter of life and death; without it, the Avengers can’t win against the Cylons and Darth Vader will crush the rebellion. They’re counting on you. You can do this. Yes, Tony Stark wants a fist bump — wait, no, you’re still in the library. Turn that imaginary high-five into a muscle stretch.

Recommended Tunes: The How to Train Your Dragon soundtrack is brilliant-ly energizing; for a real fist-pumper, grab the score to the first Pirates of the Carib-bean film.

Possible Side Effects: Having flash-backs to the films you love leads to YouTube clips of your favourite scenes, followed by, “I’ll just watch the first 20 minutes,” followed by, “Does the library have popcorn? Because this trilogy needs popcorn.”

Study Status: Fresh and eager. This year will be different; readings done on time, no last-minute cramming, and all A’s, baby.

Details: Classical music is fantastic for studying; no lyrics, interesting com-positions and not too distracting. Plus, it’s easy to find online — Musopen.org has hundreds of recordings from differ-ent composers available to stream and download.

Recommended Tunes: Bach’s Gold-berg Variations are lengthy and unob-trusive, providing hours of lightly in-teresting background noise. Any and all Romantic-era piano pieces work, too; after that, there’s always Mozart.

Possible Side Effects: Remember those horrendous piano lessons as a child? Spine straight, chin up, hands lightly floating above the keyboard? Well, you do now.

VICTORIA (CUP) — In the spirit

of a new school year, here are

the best types of studying music

for your first assignment of the

year. While other lists may group

items by era or subjective quality,

this is helpfully organized in

order of your study status: from

determined and alert to panicked

and caffeinated.

The Baroque-n Record The Film Score The Forbidden FruitThe Ambient Post-Rock Intelli-Rave

Electro-hip-hop duo LMFAO has recently announced that the group is going on hiatus in order to pursue separate solo careers. When giving reasons for the

hiatus, LMFAO explained that after six years of making music together, the duo wants to take a break in order to “free up our minds.”

POP CULTURE

CULTUREpage ten | October 02 2012 | vol. 5 issue 02 The Runner | www.runnermag.ca

Culture RoundupYour monthly review of pop culture – from the amusing to the irreverent.

LMFAO splits in half

Yes, this is Dog’s new showSon of anarchy murders landlord

Fans of A&E’s Dog The Bounty Hunter who were disappointed by the sudden cancellation of the show will be glad to know that Dog will soon be back on TV with his new show simply titled

Dog. The show will follow Duane “Dog” Chapman and his wife as they travel across America pro-viding guidance to up-and-com-ing bounty hunters.

Sons of Anarchy actor Johnny Lewis has recently died in a bi-zarre murder-suicide incident. The actor allegedly beat his 81-year-old landlord to death before murdering and dismem-

bering the landlord’s cat. When two men tried to investigate the landlord’s screaming, Lewis at-tacked them with a plank of wood, climbed onto the roof of the house, and allegedly fell on

to the pavement below to his death. Police have speculated the actor was on PCP or meth-amphetamines at the time.

STARS

PROCRASTINATION vol. 5 issue 2 | October 2 2012 | page elevenwww.runnermag.ca | The Runner

It’s your month, Libra. Make it special. Buy an ex-

tra carrot the next time you go to Safeway. Build

yourself a snowmobile and drive it into a baby

lamb.

VIIIIIIRRRGOOOOOOO!!! VIIIRRRGOOOOOOO! VIRRR-

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! VIRGOOOOOO! VIRGG-

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

You know what almost rhymes with Capricorn? Candy

Corn! Halloween is coming. Stay safe...

The moon and stars are on your side this month,

Mr./Mrs. Sagittarius. Keep up the good work, and

you’ll do well. Or you’ll fall into a well.

Pay attention to Siri this month. She misses you.

She misses the way you used to whisper into her

ear. She misses that thing you used to do in the

mornings where you’d... well, nevermind.

Call your parents. They’ve been worried about

you. They’ve been worried about a lot of things.

Like head lice, for instance.

There are two fi shies in the image above. There are

three different sizes of Red Bull. Two plus three is

nine. Nine minus sixteen is eight. Ring any bells?

It looks similar, but it’s not. It’s completely different.

Keep this wisdom in mind next time you’re feeling

blue. The Hulk doesn’t care. He just doesn’t.

The hawk that has no feathers cannot sing its song

until the full moon rises over the beaten farm pig.

Seriously!!!!!

Are you still reading these horoscopes? Good.

Goooooooood. Nothing else to say about that.

CAPRICORNDec. 22 - Jan. 20

SCORPIOOct. 24 - Nov. 22

SAGITTARIUSNov. 23 - Dec. 21

CANCERJune 21 - July 23

VIRGOAug. 24 - Sept. 23

LIBRASept. 24 - Oct. 23

TAURUSApril 20 - May 20

GEMINIMay 21 - June 20

ARIESMarch 21 - April 19

AQUARIUSJan. 21 - Feb. 19

LEOJuly 24 - Aug. 23

Go home, Scorpio. You’re drunk. Don’t say that.

You don’t mean that. Please stop saying that.

Lightning! Rainbow Skittles! Smurftastic!

Oh boy, are you in trouble. You are in so much

trouble. Kidding! I can’t think of anything else to

say. You’re in trouble. I wasn’t kidding.

PISCES Feb. 20 - March 20

Chief Returning Officer | Corey Van’t HaaffKwantlen Student Association | Cell: 778.388.0141 | Email: kwantlencro@gmail.com

www.kusa.ca /electionsFor the full notice of polling for the KSA by-election, visit

october 23 – 25, 2012Each voter must show a valid Student ID to receive a ballot

Cast your vote on

By-Election PollingTuesday, October 23, 2012, 10 AM – 6 PM

Surrey – Surrey Main AtriumRichmond – Richmond Rotunda

Langley – West Building Library Hall

Wednesday, October 24, 2012, 10 AM – 6 PMSurrey – Surrey Main Atrium

Richmond – Richmond RotundaLangley – West Building Library Hall

Wednesday, October 24, 2012, 10 AM – 4 PMCloverdale – Main Atrium (by the KSA

office / across from the cafeteria)

Thursday, October 25, 2012, 10 AM – 4 PMCloverdale – Main Atrium (by the KSA

office / across from the cafeteria)

Ballot CountingThursday, October 25, 2012, beginning at 6 PM

Surrey – Cedar 1140

KSAnotice of polling

BY-ELECTION

ADVERTISEMENT The Runner | www.runnermag.ca page twelve | October 2 2012 | vol. 5 issue 02