"What's with today, today?"-Empire RecordsI've been asking myself that very same question a lot lately. This has been a very, very odd year so far. I felt like we have just gotten up here and we are almost halfway through. Here's a little recap of the Twilight Zone that has become Brandeis University in the fall of 2004.

The year started with University President Reinharz apparently breaking his arm in a motorcycle accident over the summer (reports unconfirmed) and parties being broken up before they even started on Labor Day weekend.

It just snowballed from here.

Look at flag football. There were a lot of rule changes, but the strangest of all is that there is to be no more physical contact. It's bad enough that most of the sex lives here lack physical contact, but now they have to take it away from football? That's like trying to take alcohol out of a bar or music out of a concert; they will be people there, but it's not going to be a lot of fun.

Speaking of sports, the great order of the universe was reversed in October as the Red Sox beat the Yankees. This is like Wily E. Coyote catching the Road Runner, tying him up, and then cooking him on a rotisserie. If you are not a Yankees or Cardinals fan and you live on this campus, you suddenly became a full-fledged lifer into the Red Sox Nation (whose "membership cards" are being sold on the Red Sox team Web site). It's now the "popular" thing to do to cheer for the Red Sox. I'm a Yankees fan so I sit at the other table in the cafeteria with the computer nerds.

Speaking of cool things to do, voting became the "in" thing. For months I couldn't watch an episode of the Real World without P. Diddy or Dave Matthews interrupting my viewing pleasure to tell me to vote. My relatives called to make sure I voted. With my Lance Armstrong Livestrong bracelet and my absentee ballot, I was starting to feel like I made up the coolness point I lost for not being a Red Sox fan.

Referring back to the Brandeis sex lives, this year's dance has been changed from "Screw Your Roommate" to "Screw Anyone." And when I think of the name "Screw Anyone," I think of a giant orgy breaking out at a sex party at the Playboy Mansion. Well we do have a quasi-mansion by Walgreens, but why do I get the feeling the next Girls Gone Wild video will not be Brandeis Students Exposed?

If I were a freshman this year, and I even in the least bit liked parties, I would probably want to transfer. Eight-Minute Dating lasts longer than some of these parties. I was at a party this semester where there were almost a dozen Waltham cops breaking it up. Then one followed me on my walk home (it happened to be raining) to see if I was going to another party. If I were a tax-paying resident of Waltham, I would strongly urge the chief of police to resign.

If you thought the off-campus parties were being broken up quickly, you've never been to an on-campus party. It doesn't matter if you register it, you don't register it, you are all 21, no one is 21, or if you have people drinking in your suite-you will get the party broken up by either the Campus B-Po (also known as the Brandeis Police) or some overzealous community adviser. The only thing to be thankful for is that being written up for having a party on campus is like being hit by a knuckleball; it may sting but it really doesn't hurt that much in the end.

The worst part is that the only Brandeis-sponsored drinking party, Modfest, disappeared from the Brandeis campus, only to make surprise return in the freezing cold of December. They said that one of the reasons they were going to cancel Modfest is because the residents of Waltham are complaining about the noise. Did they not know that there was a college down the road when they bought their houses? What did they think was going to go on in a college town-people were just going to go to the libraries on the weekends? Well...never mind.

And now the winter comes, and with it, people are going to head indoors for good. But before you do, there's one more thing to do: party. I beg you to throw parties. Not just little parties for your close friends, but large parties for the entire campus. Make your own Modfests.

Brandeis was built on rebelling against authority. Now it's time for us to take back our school's party life.

We've stayed inside too long and kvetched about the lack of parties at this school. It's time fight back next semester, and in the immortal words of Empire Records:

"Damn the Man! Save the Empire!