The OhVarsity! Roundup: Volume 1

In an effort to inject a little fun into a stressful basketball season, we’re kicking off a new weekly series called The OhVarsity! Roundup. Here’s the premise: All three members of OhVarsity! get a maximum of 500 words to talk about whatever they want, regardless of its relevance to UC. Simple enough?

SPENCER TUCKERMAN:

I saw Pixar’s Coco on Saturday. I feel there are three things that bear mentioning:

First, a Bearcat fan. As I’m sure many of you know by now, I live in Columbus. I see a fair number of UC fans around here, but it’s still rare enough that it catches my eye when I see somebody wearing Bearcat gear in public. Guys, I think I saw the world’s most depressed Bearcat fan at AMC on Saturday night after the Shootout. The kid looked like he had seen a ghost. A true thousand-yard stare walking through the lobby. Something to behold. I’d have given a hearty “Go Bearcats” if I weren’t positive this kid would not have so much as flinched. It was upsetting.

Second, a line. Obviously I sneak candy into movies. I’m not a saint. However, I also like to treat myself to some popcorn and drink so large you could serve fried chicken in the empty cup like Colonel Sanders. (I have the diet of Augustus Gloop, but that’s for a different time.) On Saturday, I took part in the world’s slowest concession line. The man running the register could not have been moving any more sluggishly if he tried. When my girlfriend and I finally got to the counter, I quickly ordered. As the guy at the cashier waited on my popcorn, he started some small talk, asking what movie we were seeing. You ever have those moments where suddenly everything clicks? This was one of those moments. Upon hearing that we were seeing Coco, the next nine words out of his mouth were “I had a very close relationship with my grandmother…” So, the moral of the story is: I’m too impatient, and this guy loves small talk and his grandmother.

Third, a Disney short. If you’ve ever seen a Pixar movie, you know they’re each preceded by an animated short. These are typically very good, and they often win Oscars. If you pay attention to movie news, you know this isn’t the case with Coco. Coco is preceded by the worst thing of all time — a 21-minute Frozen Christmas special. I understand Frozen is popular. I’ve never seen it. If it’s anything like the heaping pile of waste this was, I don’t care to. I kept thinking it was over and then the little snowman would start singing again and my blood would boil. How on earth parents with small children make it through a two-hour movie after 15 minutes of previews and 21 minutes of a straight-to-VHS Christmas special, I’ll never know.

Anyway, go see Coco. It was fantastic.

MATT ALLAIRE:

I’ve been wanting to write about this topic for a few days now but didn’t know where to put it, so here it goes: The Dr. Pepper Challenge sucks. Not for the reasons you’re thinking. I think the way they have it set up is to purposely humiliate some poor kid on national television with millions watching. How? By putting the Dr. Pepper trash can way too close to the contestants, to the point where they can shovel pass it into the goal. Here is the dilemma that creates:

You either have to A) look like an idiot on national TV, looking like you have no idea how to throw a football, but walking home with potentially $100,000, or B) throw a football like a normal human and saving your pride over the money. I’ve flipped on this issue like 30 times in my head over the last few days, and I’m still not sure what I would do. Given the current rules and amount of money, I would 100% be throwing the ball with a chest pass, since it is more of a contest to see who can get off the most throws than who is better at it. THAT BEING SAID, I probably would value my pride, since I have an ego bigger than Spencer’s forehead. But that’s a LOT of money. And I realize what I’m saying makes no sense and I’m just talking in circles, because I genuinely have no clue what I would do.

The least I can do is offer a solution — move the cans back another 10 yards, and make the openings slightly larger. That way you can still have an equal success rate and the kids throwing the footballs don’t look like idiots. Oh, and did I mention the kid who loses gets $25,000?? TWENTY FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR LOSING. I get these are kids who probably need it but c’mon. Make em earn it. I realize I’m a huge asshole you don’t have to tell me.

Given the current rules, what would you do? Tweet at @OhVarsity or @AllaireMatt and let me know. I’m genuinely curious, since I have absolutely no clue what I would do.

ALEX APYAN:

It was reported this week that the great and powerful NASA sent commands to the Voyager 1 spacecraft, the only manmade vehicle flying (and existing) beyond the edges of our solar system, testing thrusters that hadn’t fired in 37 years to extend the vehicles life expectancy as it hurtled into the empty vastness of space. The commands worked, proving that nerds rule, and Xavier sucks.

Space exploration on a global scale, while not having the feeling of Space exploration when we went to the moon, or even during the Shuttle Program, is plowing ahead at full speed. For Bearcats, it’s sort of like how the Huggins period is this pinnacle era of success we look back to even though the program is alive and well. We’re just waiting for that next truly monumental moment that makes even those who have no interest in what we’re doing say “Holy crap”.

The Voyager 1 was launched in 1977, back when the Atari was first released in the United States and Elvis Presley last walked the Earth. Much like video game consoles and music, space exploration has progressed. Today’s space exploration centers around a few main categories: manned spaceflight (me and the folks), unmanned spaceflight (see: @SarcasticRover), and the Kepler Mission (the search for habitable planets). NASA does a TON of other stuff, so don’t be fooled into thinking its just me and my dudes. Unmanned spaceflight is a bit of a broad category, encompassing everything from the Martian rovers to Juno to the New Horizons missions venturing out to the edge of our solar system. Not to mention the James Webb Space Telescope, destined to replace Hubble. This new telescope will be like upgrading from flip phone to an iPhone X (or Samsung Galaxy for you people). Deep space imagery is one of the things that mesmerized me into pouring over math homework for most of my childhood, and here I am. I am super pumped for this mission. The Kepler Mission is a very specific mission of the Kepler telescopes attempts to identify planets that could support life. The mission’s findings are extremely promising in our search for and mission to understand life, and every discovery has a feeling of “what if” that comes with it.

While manned spaceflight feels dead to the casual citizen, the ISS has continued to perform science continuously, improving life on earth while preparing us to venture further into space. We are flying resupply vehicles to ISS and performing spacewalks on a regular basis. Commercial spaceflight is taking off, with SpaceX, Boeing, and Sierra Nevada having NASA contracts to ferry astronauts to the ISS. As these efforts accelerate, NASA is gearing itself back towards deep space missions. A lot of my friends at JSC have been transitioning to ops development for the new Orion vehicle, but what’s more, recently we’ve acknowledged internally the Deep Space Gateway and how we’ll be transitioning our experience from ISS into these next missions.

Standby for more words.