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Review: ‘Godzilla’ is a faithful reboot

THENORTHERNLIGHT

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On the road to uncertain adventure

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MAY 20, 2014 THENORTHERNLIGHT.ORGUNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE

Following an inspirational speech by civil engi-neering graduate Michael Ulroan at this year’s commencement ceremony, the College of Engineer-ing now faces the challenge of finding a new person to head operations.

Tien-Chien Jen, Ph.D., announced his resigna-tion as dean of the UAA College of Engineering after serving one year in the position. The resigna-tion, effective immediately, was announced in an email last Tuesday by Provost Elisha Baker, stating that the decision was reached following a discus-sion of “some matters of concern” between Jen and Baker.

Associate Dean Emeritus T. Bartlett Quimby, Ph.D, will step in as acting dean while UAA search-es for a replacement for Quimby, who plans to go into retirement July 1.

“Though we’ve had an abrupt change in leader-ship in the College of Engineering with Dr. Jen’s resignation last week, I am confident we are in good hands with Dr. Bart Quimby at the helm as acting

dean,” Baker said.Jen, who was educated in Taiwan and holds a

Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from UCLA, came to UAA from the University of Wisconsin at Mil-waukee, where he served as the interim dean for the College of Engineering and Applied Science.

At the University of Wisconsin, Jen led the engi-neering college through an accreditation process, and his time at UAA had coincided with the con-struction of a new four-story, 80,000-square-foot engineering building that UAA stated is needed to maintain accreditation for its engineering programs.

“The College of Engineering is experiencing great momentum. ... It is my vision that this col-lege will be the country’s most accessible college for industry to work with,” Jen said in a University Advancement release in January.

Following Jen’s resignation, Baker said the col-lege’s plans will continue as scheduled.

“The new building is still on track to open in fall 2015, and our program delivery and student servic-es will remain unaffected with this change,” Baker said.

Jen could not be reached for further comment.

Engineering dean abruptly resignsBy Evan Ericksoneerickson@thenorthernlight.org

They have had more shows than any other band on the Vans Warped Tour, have started their own record label and been topping the Billboard Top 200 for over 20 years. Their name is Less Than Jake, and they are pay-ing a visit to Alaska for the Vans Road to Warped show. Less Than Jake currently consists of vocalist and gui-tarist Chris DeMakes, vocalist and bass guitarist Roger Manganelli, saxophone player and vocalist Peter “JR” Wasilewski, trombonist Buddy Schaub and drummer Vinnie Fiorello. TNL took some time to get to know the band before their performance by talking to DeMakes.

TNL: Was your first Warped Tour experience in 1997? What was that like?

DeMakes: “Yeah, it was great. We had a manager at the time that called us up a couple months before the tour, and I had never heard of the tour before. I mean, you got to remember that 1997 was pretty much pre-Internet, so it wasn’t like you were waking up every morning hearing about things. So there was a traveling tour going around, and we had been asked to do it and we were offered about three weeks of that initial tour. We jumped at the chance, and it was awesome.”

What’s it been like, going on Warped Tour year after year?

“The only time that we only ever did it — it was 1997 and 1998 — we did it three weeks, and ever since then, every year we have been on it we have done the whole thing. We played the Warped Tour in all three decades: the ‘90s, the 2000s and the 2010s. We’ve played it more than any other band by a long shot. We’re going to celebrate our 365th show this summer on Warped. We’ve played the Warped Tour one year straight.”

So you’ve really seen it grow and expand?“Oh yeah, it was a really different thing back in the

day ... there wasn’t the sponsorships that there are out there now. There’s a lot more people and a lot more bands involved.”

What can people expect from Warped Tour?“Well, in Alaska it’s probably going to be a lot differ-

ent than in the continental U.S. just because the weather is not going to be as brutally hot. Usually I would say to expect it that it’s hotter than heck. It should be awesome. It’s going to be great — a whole day of music. There’s different stages. It’s not boring. It keeps you bouncing back and forth between different stages. There’s vendors out there and food and beverages. It’s an all-day thing. It’s great.”

It might be hot for us Alaskans.“It very well may be. Anything above 50 (degrees) is

warm for you guys.”

Do you just play the whole day?“It’s going to be smaller because they’re only invit-

ing a certain number of bands to Alaska. It’s so much

to get people up there. It’s a long flight, whatever. (In the) continental U.S., it’s about 80-100 bands — there’s like seven or eight different stages. They have a huge schedule on this tarp, and you take a picture with your phone and that’s the schedule. So you just bounce back and forth between whatever stages you want. It’s about the size of, I don’t know, 10 Wal-Mart parking lots. They usually hold it at a stadium or something, like a parking lot or the arena of a stadium or a baseball field. It’s mas-sive. I think they’re expecting about 4,000 people at the Alaska show. Typically the shows on the mainland are anywhere between 8 (thousand)-15,000 a day. It’s big.”

Are you excited to come up to Alaska?“Absolutely, we’ve never been. We had a show in

Alaska about 10 years ago, and about a month before we were supposed to go there something happened with the promoter and it didn’t happen, so we’ve never had the chance to get up there. Like I said, it’s expensive to get bands up there, so we’re really excited to come.”

You guys named one of your albums “Goodbye Blue and White.” That was after your late tour van

correct?“Yes.”

What was so special about this van, aside from it being your guys’ first touring van?

“It was a 1979 Chevy Nomad Van. The floor of the van, there was no insulation. It had rotted out years prior to us. We didn’t get the van till 1995. It was a 16-year-old van when we got it, and the floorboards were so hot we had to go get a bunch of carpet from behind a dumpster from behind a store and put cardboard down and put carpet on top of it. It was just so hot, so we just poor-manned insulation like that. The van smelled, but it never let us down, you know? The thing used

Q&A with Less Than Jake’s Chris DeMakesBy Kelly Irelandarts@thenorthernlight.org

SEE DeMAKes PAGe 3

Seattle Sounders winger/forward Lamar Neagle evades two San Jose Earthquakes defenders May 17 on his way to goal.

Photo by adam eberhardt

SEE soccerPAGe 5

The former dean of the College of Engineering, Tien-Chien Jen, stands in UAA’s new Engineering and Industry Building.

Photo courtesy of PhiliP hall/university of alaska anchorage

Roger Manganelli, Chris DeMakes, Vinnie Fiorello, Buddy Schaub and Peter “JR” Wasilewski from Less Than Jake.

Photo by katie hovland

Seattle Sounders defeat San Jose Earthquakes

EA&Tuesday, may 20, 2014THENORTHERNLIGHT 02

When Japanese horror took the United States by storm in the early 2000s, movie theaters saw a slew of “The Ring”-inspired remakes like “The Grudge” and “Dark Water” terrifying viewers across the nation. But the trend grew tired within a few years and J-Horror took its place in Japan once again.

While “The Ring” and “The Grudge” are good horror movies, they’re a limited representation of J-Horror. All but abandoning genre conventions, “Noroi” breathes life into the genre.

Playing out in “found footage” style, paranor-mal investigator Masafumi Kobayashi disappears after finishing his most disturbing documentary yet, “The Curse.” What’s shown is that documen-tary.

By the genre’s standards, the film’s plot is an old hat. Where it shines is the format. Intercutting variety show segments with interviews, the mov-ie delivers conventional scares in unconventional ways. Any horror fan has seen the pale-skinned boy and girl archetype before, but with expert pacing and a killer air of tension, “The Curse” becomes something special.

Clocking in at around two hours, the movie takes its time and builds slowly, resulting in night-

marish catharsis by its end. That being said, it can’t escape some trappings of the genre. When it falls victim to conventionality, “Noroi” gets bor-ing. Thankfully, that happens only once or twice.

Even after all is said and done, the movie’s cen-tral mystery still lingers. If there’s anything a hor-ror movie should accomplish by the credits, it’s leaving the viewer with unanswerable questions and a desperate need for answers. “Noroi” does this and then some.

J-Horror and “found footage” filmmakers could learn something from director Shiraishi’s patience with his story. There’s no excess here. All lines and frames are important. But even so, “Noroi” needs just under two hours to explore every ave-nue of its nuanced narrative.

Breathing life simultaneously into both the J-Horror and the “found footage” genre, “Noroi” is a hidden gem that should be more lauded. It hex-es the viewer with mystery and never absolves it, even after the credits. But be warned, after wading in its dark depths, there’s no coming out.

‘Godzilla’ is a faithful rebootMOVIE REVIEW

When a modern reboot of a classic franchise is announced, audiences and fans often let loose a giant groan. In particular, the “Godzilla” franchise has a nasty streak of confusing rips and tears in its continuity, from the Japanese reboot in 1985 to the infamously terrible American reboot in 1998.

Thankfully, unlike Roland Emmerich’s disas-trous interpretation, 2014’s “Godzilla” is a film that, while refreshing the series for new audienc-es, still remains faithful and respectful toward the monster’s roots.

The film opens 60 years ago when a giant, ancient, unknown monster, that isn’t Godzilla and that lives on nuclear energy, is awakened. Many years later Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston, “Break-ing Bad”) and his son, Ford (Aaron Johnson-Tay-lor, “Kick-Ass”), begin investigating a conspiracy theory in the old, abandoned Japanese city of Jan-jira, where they uncover the secret, learn the awful truth, and prepare for a clash between giants.

Throughout the film’s first half, Godzilla is kept tantalizingly hidden from view as the film focuses on the drama between Brody, his son and the other human characters. The film teases the audiences with Godzilla’s trademark scales, but never truly reveals him until halfway through the film.

And what a spectacle he is! While he is com-puter generated, he’s animated in such a way that

reflects the old special effects of the original films. The monster is clearly CG, but he still moves around like a man in a suit, which respects the monster’s origins. When he makes his first appear-ance, it inspires a sense of simultaneous awe, ter-ror and triumph.

It’s sad, then, that the acting from the human characters leaves much to be desired. It’s difficult to care about the small humans’ story when there’s a giant monster rampaging around. It often feels like the film can’t keep its focus on more than one thing at a time. Whenever Godzilla is in focus, it’s difficult to remain interested in the human drama.

Thankfully, the scenes that do focus on Godzil-la are spectacular and sure to captivate audiences.

While the film is not perfect, it could have been a lot worse. “Godzilla” is a reboot that knows how to pay homage to its legacy while preserving what made it great for new audiences. Those that have never been into the “Godzilla” films probably won’t be swayed here, but anyone who has been interested should check this new version out.

Film: “Godzilla”Release Date: May 16, 2014

Director: Gareth EdwardsStarring: Aaron Johnson-Taylor, Ken Watanabe,

Bryan Cranston

By George Hydegchyde@thenorthernlight.org

Title: “Noroi: The Curse”Director: Koji Shiraishi

Release date: Aug. 20, 2005 Genre: Japanese Horror

Country: Japan

‘Noroi: The Curse’ is slow to build, quick to releaseBy Jacob Holley-Klinearts2@thenorthernlight.org

FOREIGN FILM FANATIC

MOVIEPREVIEW

JUNE

movie Preview by kelly ireland

“Edge of Tomorrow”June 6

Lt. Col. Bill Cage (Tom Cruise, “Oblivion”) finds himself reliving over and over again events leading up to the battle in which he dies. Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt, “The Wind Rises”) helps him to improve him-self and make sure he survives through the battle. He never wants to relive that fateful day again and “live, die, repeat.”

“The Fault in Our Stars”June 6

Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley, “Diver-gent”) has trouble living out a normal teenager’s life because she has been diagnosed with cancer. In a cancer support group she meets Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort, “Divergent”), and the two together take a chance at love and what is the closest to having normal teenage life.

“22 Jump Street”June 13

Jenko (Channing Tatum, “The Lego Movie”) and Schmidt (Jonah Hill, “The Lego Movie”) embark on another undercover investigation into a new drug. This time, however, they go undercover at college and try to bust the dealers of a new drug known as “WHYPHY,” pronounced Wi-Fi, which is a mix of ecstasy and Adder-all.

“How to Train Your Dragon 2”June 13

After Hiccup (Jay Baruchel, “Don Peyote”) success-fully united the Vikings and the dragons, he finds his mother, Valka (Cate Blanchett, “The Monuments Men”), who was assumed dead. She has been rescuing dragons since her disappearance. The Vikings and dragons must work together to defeat the Drago Bludvist (Djimon Hounsou, “Baggage Claim”), who is trying to capture all the dragons.

“Think Like a Man Too”June 20

When the gang from “Think Like a Man” comes to Las Vegas for their friend’s wedding, the boys and the girls compete to give their friends the best bachelor and bachelorette parties before they get married, even if it means sabotaging the other party.

“Transformers: Age of Extinction” June 27

The Transformers have become a thing of the past when Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg, “Lone Survivor”) purchases an old, beat-up semi truck to sell the parts to put his daughter, Tessa (Nicola Peltz, “Affluenza”), through college. He soon discovers that he doesn’t have a normal semi on his hands, but a Transformer — more importantly Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen, “Nikelodeon Kids Choice Awards 2014”). The government finds out about Cade’s possession of the Transformer and is quick to try and take Optimus Prime back.

A&E Tuesday, may 20, 2014THENORTHERNLIGHT 03

ALBUM REVIEW

These days, role-playing games come in many shapes and sizes. Western RPGs, like “Skyrim,” are often gritty and open affairs, while Eastern RPGs, like the “Final Fantasy” series, focus on angsty drama. It’s not often that the genre sees a title that can be dark, thoughtful and whimsical all at once. “Child of Light,” a new RPG from Ubisoft Montreal, aims to be all of this and more.

Players assume control of Aurora, a girl from 1895 Austria who contracts a harsh disease and seemingly dies. After this, she wakes up in the mythical fantasy world of Lemuria, where she is the only one who can restore the sun, moon and stars to their rightful places. Through this quest she must face her deepest fears and hopefully reunite with her father.

It’s clear that the developers took a lot of cues from “Pan’s Labyrinth,” and it shows both in the story and game design. The game was built using the UbiArt engine, which was used to power beautiful 2-D games like “Rayman Legends,” and it’s put to very good use. The world has an almost hand-drawn, storybook-esque look, which adds whimsy to the protagonists while giving the enemies and dungeons a gothic feel.

While it can be incredibly dark at times, “Child of Light” also carries some wel-come levity. The dialogue is in constant rhyme, and while it sometimes feels forced, the writers also are able to show a lot of characterization and creativity through the dialogue’s structure.

Like the rest of the game, the combat borrows from a seemingly endless supply of source material, from the timing of the old SNES-era “Final Fantasy” games, to the overworlds of games like “Paper Mario” and even to the elemental rock-paper-scissors of the “Persona” series. While it borrows a lot from other games, it still feels like a unique and engaging system all its own.

Unfortunately, the title isn’t perfect. Both newcomers and veterans of the genre will find the game extremely easy, even at the harder difficulties. Adding to this is the game’s rather brief length, and while it’s about as long as most games nowadays, 10 hours still feels painfully short for an RPG.

So while “Child of Light” may not last long, the aesthetic style and the thoughtful story that make the game worth experiencing. While it is very easy and short, it still has an identity of its own even among its many influences. Players who love RPGs or dark fairy tales (or both) shouldn’t think twice about picking it up.

What rhymes with Pixies? Fixies. Who rides fixies? Hipsters. What do hipsters generally listen to? Indie. What rhymes with indie? Cindy. And there you have the name of the first album from the Pixies in 15 years. “Indie Cindy” marks the Pix-ies’ first return to the studio since their awkward hiatus-meets-interim reunion period that has lasted almost 10 years. So you could say they’ve been around, but maybe not all the way there. This is also the case with “Indie Cindy” — it’s here, but it’s not all the way fleshed out.

When people think of the Pixies, many think of their quintessential indie tune “Where Is My Mind?,” complete with surfy guitar licks, vocalist Black Francis’ ruminations on the location of his brain, and a distinct lo-fi, DIY feel. Upon cueing up “Indie Cindy,” however, it’s easy to ask if Francis ever found his mind at all.

Album opener “What Goes Boom” is a mess, and not a hot mess, at that — just a mess. It’s chunky, punky and imparted with more than a daily allotment of the genre of 80s rock ‘n’ roll aptly called “butt rock,” due to headbangers’ hair slapping against their butts. There’s a section of not entirely well-executed unusual time signatures, and Francis’ voice gets a little too raucous, a little too fast.

Fortunately, the crummy opener is redeemed by the decent second act. “Greens and Blues” is a silly tune about extraterrestrials that is much easier on the ears than the first track. This second song recalls former Pixies vibes that garnered them some attention.

But then the oscillation continues. The album’s title track is another mess that seems to want to toy with your expecta-

tions. Again, some clumsy, weird time signatures juxtaposed with standard fare indie chord progressions make for an eyebrow-raiser. Francis’ vocals move between barking speech and falsettos, made all the more fluffy by their disjoint-ed placement in the arrangement. Minus the grimy sections of weird talk-tone, it would be a decent tune. But that’s not the way the record plays out, continuing the awkward, chunky butt rock on the subse-quent “Bagboy.”

Luckily, the second half of the record is considerably better than the first. “Magdalena 318” is a solid track that finds a balance between the math-rock eclecticism which the band has tried to master on this record and Francis’ lyr-ics and soft voice. “Silver Snail” is note-worthy for its theoretically strange chord movement, which nonetheless works very well. It’s made all the better in its place-ment before the uninspired and uninspir-ing “Blue Eyed Hexe,” which should have been left off the album entirely.

The end of the album has some merit to it, seeming to come into its own with the mellow and surf-inspired “Ring the Bell,” thereafter the album maintains the consistent feel that is lacking in the entire first half. In the end, the Pixies have cre-ated an album that doesn’t feel cohesive, and ought to be much shorter, dropping at least four of the total 12 songs, but nonetheless has some potential to make it into certain circles of fixie-riding indie Cindys.

Artist: The PixiesAlbum: “Indie Cindy”

Genre: Alternative RockLabel: Pixiesmusic, PIAS

Release date: April 19, 2014

‘Indie Cindy’ by the PixiesBy Oliver PetraitisKRUA Music Manager

‘Child of Light’ is a thoughtful fantasy

Developer: Ubisoft MontrealPlatform: PS4, XBO, Wii U, PS3, 360, PC

Genre: RPG

GAME REVIEW

to catch fire. The engine would just catch fire for no reason and we had to all jump out ... and pour whatever we had — Gato-rade, soda, water — into the engine to make it stop, but it was great. We slept in that thing. We ate in that thing. We peed in Gatorade bottles in that thing. We did everything.”

Why did the van finally break down?“It died in San Francisco. We realized

that we were at the end of a tour, we had a friend of ours that really liked old vans and that worked on them. He tried his best to get it up and running, and he real-ized he needed more parts than we had, so we flew home and bought a new van. We left the van with him, and he gave us a couple hundred bucks for it or some-thing. He got it up and running, and last I knew he had it, but that was going on back 10 or so years ago. It might be in a junkyard somewhere.”

You have been in the music industry for over 20 years, how has that affected you?

“How long you got? It’s made me into an insane and neurotic person. I mean I lived on the road for 20 years. It’s been awesome. It’s all I ever wanted to do. All the things I missed out on — weddings, funerals, graduations and moments of life with loved ones — I missed out on those because I chose to be a musician. Some of that’s the hard stuff of it, but this is what I chose to do and I have no regrets, and it’s been great.”

What’s been your favorite place to tour to?

“Probably Japan, Tokyo, just because it’s so different — from the language to the culture. Most everything is written in Kanji, the Japanese letters. It’s not writ-ten in the 26 letters we recognize in our alphabet. It’s different and cool. Japan is great. The food is great.”

Why did you guys decide to start your own record label, Sleep It Off Records?

“We didn’t have a label at the time and we didn’t want to look for a label. We had been a band for going on 15-16 years at that point, and we decided we had a record recorded and we needed to put it out, so we just decided to do it ourselves.”

What does that entail having your own record label?

“Not as much as you would think ... There’s no office. It’s just the five of us. It’s just an imprint for putting out our record. We don’t sign other bands. It’s just to put out projects by Less Than Jake. It’s dif-ferent than working with a label because we have to do everything ourselves, but there’s a lot less red tape to go through because we only have to deal with our-selves. We don’t have to deal with other people. There’s pros and cons to it, but for the most part it’s good for us.”

What do you do as your own record label that normally would be done by the record label you are signed with?

“Just everything. We have to hire someone to be a publicist, go out and

look for interviews and have people like yourself get in contact with the publi-cist. The label usually has things like that. Anything, like getting distribution for your label, you have to find someone that’s going to get the records into what-ever remaining stores there are and have an online presence and everything. So we handle everything from the artwork to everything. You do it all yourself — really, the only difference.”

Do you think having 15-16 years’ expe-rience before you guys did that helped?

“Oh yeah, because we had been doing it all those years. It wasn’t like we were a band in our second year trying to start our own label. We had many years of experience behind us.”

You guys did “TV/EP,” covering a bunch of television show and commer-cial theme songs. Why did you guys do that?

“It was just something wacky and fun. We’ve always recorded cover songs, and we had some free time. We were off the road and we decided it would be some-thing fun to do. That was it. It wasn’t to be taken seriously. It was literally to make people laugh, the few people that got it, and piss the few people off that didn’t get it.”

Do you have anything in the works currently?

“No, we just put out a record about six months ago. We are still touring for that and we’re going to be on the Warped Tour

this summer, going to go to Canada this fall and have plans booked into next Feb-ruary to March 2015. Probably sometime after that we’ll go record.”

DEMAKES: Warped Tour veteran talks to TNLcontinUed fRoM coveR

Vans Road to Warped Tour is happening June 11 from 2-10 p.m. on three separate stages in the parking lot at Northway mall. The bands 3OH!3, all Time Low, Falling In Reverse, The devil Wears Prada and yellowcard will perform as well. Tickets are available for $40 at mammoth music, the Rock Wood Fired Pizza, Northway mall and mad Hatter. They are also available online at http://www.f lavorus.com/event /The-Road-To-Warped-Tour-alaska/231306.

By George Hydegchyde@thenorthernlight.org

A&E Tuesday, may 20, 2014THENORTHERNLIGHT04

My summer began the way all of my sum-mers have started for the past three years: wak-ing up an hour before the UAA housing check-out deadline and frantically throwing all of my belongings in less-than-sturdy boxes. The only difference this time is that I wouldn’t be head-ing home in my frighteningly over-packed Kia.

For reasons that made perfect sense during the stress of finals week, I’ve decided to work in Anchorage this summer and couch surf for lack of a better plan. There are several pros and cons to this, the main advantage being that I’m able to stay in Anchorage for my sum-mer classes without spending all of my mon-ey on three months’ worth of housing. That’s the upside. The downsides range from the fact that I am now a hobo, to the problem of being unable to cook my own food without a steady source of kitchen appliances.

Should I have thought this through a bit more? Probably, but if there is ever a time to be a transient pseudo-hippie, I suppose it would be in one’s early 20s.

Weirdly, everyone I know has been unchar-acteristically supportive of the whole ordeal. This is problematic because I need people to say no to me, since I’m sure as hell not going to fulfill that role on my own.

But for better or worse, that’s how my sum-mer vacation started — with a sleeping bag clipped to my backpack full of soup and a small aloe vera plant with a nametag identify-ing himself as Clancy. I’m not generally one to get nostalgic or apprehensive, given that my range of emotions consists of three of four similar sounding grunts, but it was a strange

feeling to leave campus with no clear destina-tion in mind.

As crazy as it is, so far everything has paid off. I’ve spent the first couple weeks of freedom camping and hiking across the Kenai Peninsu-la and around the edges of the Chugach Range. My girlfriend (who apparently has a high tol-erance for hobos) and I took a trip to Seward and back, which consisted of scenic hikes, gale force winds and a glacier trip that could have easily been featured in a deleted scene from the “Lord of the Rings” movies. Along the way we found more trails than we had time to hike, planned more trips than we have available weekends and realized that I have a savant-lev-el ability to skip rocks.

Granted, our trip did include a fair bit of misadventure, including car trouble, a fire that seemed to be hell-bent on devouring our camp-site and our realization that the entire town of Hope was closed until the next day — after we had already arrived of course.

We also discovered that Kia has an overheat-ing issue that can only be solved by simultane-ously opening all vents and windows, crank-ing the heat to max and accelerating to force the engine to vent all the heat into the interior of the car. This has the dual effect of flash fry-ing all passengers and making me looking like I’m piloting the TARDIS by frantically slap-ping at every switch and button while trying desperately to remain proud of my car.

Now I’m back in town, hiking every chance I can get, abusing my ability to post 17 identi-cal sunset pictures to Instagram and looking for any sort of work I can find. I’m living on the floor of a freak that doesn’t drink coffee every day and trying to adjust to the crippling caffeine withdrawals. I’m rather enjoying the spontaneity that comes with being semi-tran-sient, even if it’s wreaking havoc on my long-established coffee intake.

So that’s the plan. This is either one of the better decisions I’ve made recently, or it’s a horrible mistake that will leave my summer in a tattered chaotic mess by the time school comes calling again in the fall. Either way, I’d imagine I’ll have no shortage of material for columns to come.

Until the next column, or at least the next time I leech Wi-Fi off the local coffee shop, that’s what I’m up to. I wish the best of luck to all of you in making the most of your summers — and you never know, you may run across me on a trail or mountain somewhere. Feel free to offer up your couch for a bit if you do, because Clancy and I are always available to stay.

Well, I was feeling pretty great about the Slug Empire’s arrival a couple centuries from now. But now I feel as if there’s a creature lurking among us that could easily overthrow us.

On Earth, it seems, there are a series of checks and balances that keep some animals from becoming too overpowered. Each animal has a natural predator. How you humans escaped those balances is beyond me.

And like you humans, the Slug Empire has been growing unchecked throughout the universe. Any potential threat to us is easily snuffed out. But this time, there’s one dreaded, inhuman creature that poses a sig-nificant threat to us.

Dear readers, I give you ... the mosquito.Let me tell you a quick story. I wanted some sunlight,

but George is always lazing away in that dank grotto he calls a room, so I hopped on and forced him outside so both of us could get some fresh air.

And then, whoosh! Out of nowhere, a giant bug-like thing with a long snout landed right on the side of my face. It stuck the snout into my liquid-ish body

and began to suck away. It took a few minutes to force George’s flailing arms up to the creature to knock it off, but by then, it left me scarred.

There’s not a whole lot we slugs can do about insects. Most of the time, they don’t pose much of a threat to us. They’re either nuisances that can be dealt with easily, or they just simply don’t bother us.

But not the mosquito. I’ve seen you humans try to swat at mosquitoes, and you’re clearly not very good at it. They’re evasive little buggers.

Now, we could eliminate all of this at once with our massive death rays, but that’s like nuking an ant hill. It gets rid of the problem, yeah, but we don’t want to inflict too much property damage.

And it’s not like we can enslave them, either. Trying to attach to their heads would crush them, not enslave them.

Oh, you humans may dread the mos-quito, but if the threat is not eliminat-ed when the Empire arrives, you guys shouldn’t have any problem keeping us away.

However — aha, this gives me an idea!The mosquito, to us, is a weapon of

mass destruction. It could wipe all of us out if left unchecked. But we’re risk-takers. What if we were to capture one, breed them en masse, and then send the swarms upon humanity? Imagine if New York were as buggy as an average Southcentral Alaska campground. For anyone not Alaskan enough to know how to prepare, it would be mass chaos. And as regular readers know, mass chaos is perfect for enslavement.

But as always, that annoying thing that George calls a “conscience” is kicking in again, and I can’t stand to let you guys suffer. So I’m going to give you some tips for evading the mosquito menace.

First things first: repellant. If you plan to venture out-side at all this summer, you’re obviously going to need it, and chances are you probably already have some. As

you also probably know, repellant contains a chemical known as DEET that can irritate skin if overused, so know how much DEET is in your repellant and apply accordingly. The less DEET it contains, the more quick-ly it will wear off, so keep that in mind.

Next, wear lots of loose, long-sleeved clothes. This seems like a no-brainer; mosquitoes can’t bite covered skin. Plus, loose and baggy clothing can help cool off the

summer heat, so that’s knocking out two birds with one stone.

Finally, if you really must venture into mosquito

swarming country, bring some mosqui-to nets. You can buy them at most outdoor

and camping shops. They come in a variety of

different models, and you can even hang one over a sleep-ing bag if you really need to. It’s prob-ably not necessary if you don’t plan to go camping a lot, but it’s still a useful thing to have.

How the Slug Empire is going to

deal with this, though, I have no clue. Maybe I can get George to make me a protective summer sock

so the mosquitoes don’t bite me. And maybe, if he’s good enough with sewing, he can mass-

produce them. The Slug armies have never really need-ed battle armor, but this is as good as any.

Just remember: Only you can stop the mosquito men-ace. And by stop, we mean generally wearing protection while ignoring them. I guess that kind of works.

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. EMBRACE THE SEA-WOLF SLUG.

SEAWOLF

SLUGThe mosquito menace

On the road (sort of)

By Klax Zlubzecontranslated by George Hyde

By Evan Doddcontributor

graPhic by stefanie vigoren

Bosnia floods trigger landslides, unearth mines

BRČKO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Floodwaters triggered more than 3,000 landslides across the Balkans on Sunday, laying waste to entire towns and villages and disturbing land mines leftover from the region’s 1990s war, along with warning signs that marked the unexploded weapons. The Balkans’ worst flooding since record keeping began forced tens of thousands of people from their homes and threatened to inundate Serbia’s main power plant, which supplies electricity to a third of the country and most of the capital, Belgrade.

AT&T agrees to buy DirectTV in $48.5 billion deal

DALLAS (AP) — On Sunday AT&T Inc. agreed to buy satellite TV provider DirecTV for $48.5 billion, or $95 per share, a move that gives the telecommunications company a larger base of video subscribers and increases its ability to compete against rivals. AT&T currently offers a high-speed Internet plan in a bundle with DirecTV television service. The acquisition would help it further reap the benefits of that alliance. AT&T could also use the deal to improve its Internet service by pushing its existing U-verse TV subscribers into DirecTV’s video-over-satellite service, freeing up bandwidth on its telecommunications network.

McRoberts Creek wildfire in PalmerAround 10 p.m. May 14, a wildfire took hold off

the Plumley-Maud Trail in Palmer, Alaska. The wildfire burned approximately 21 acres in the McRoberts Creek area. State and Mat-Su Borough firefighters were able to contain the fire on Thursday night and continued working on putting it out completely into Friday. The cause of the fire was from an escaped campfire, and an investigation is ensuing. Burn permits are required in Alaska for all open burning, with few exceptions, from April 1-Aug. 31. Burn permits have currently been suspended in the Mat-Su and Anchorage area due to high danger from winds.

Woman falls in elevator shaft at Fenway Park in Boston

Boston Fire Department said on May 16 that the elevator shaft on the fourth floor of Fenway Park opened and a woman fell in, resulting in serious injuries. She fell down the shaft some 20-30 feet and landed on the roof of the elevator below. Firefighters retrieved the woman by standing on a chair in the elevator and reaching her through the roof. The reason behind the shaft opening is still unknown, and the Boston Police Department is currently investigating. The woman is being treated in the hospital.

briefs compiled by kelly ireland

NEWS BRIEFS Important summer semester deadlines

Compiled by/Graphic by Jenna! Roosdett

SPORTS Tuesday, may 20, 2014THENORTHERNLIGHT 05

The East Coast Hockey League is a mid-level profes-sional hockey league that is one tier beneath the Ameri-can Hockey League. The playoff champions of ECHL are awarded the coveted Kelly Cup. The Alaska Aces hockey team has won the Kelly Cup twice before in 2006 and 2011. The first two games of the best of seven West-ern Conference Finals were played between the Alaska Aces and the Bakersfield Condors on May 16 and 17.

May 16, 2014The Alaska Aces opened the Western Conference

Finals against the Bakersfield Condors as they contin-ued their quest for the Kelly Cup. Defeating the Condors

proved to be no easy task in the first match of the seven-game series. The Condors took the lead 1-0, with a goal scored by Bakersfield’s Chris Collins at minute 14:45 of the second period.

The Condors carried their 1-0 lead into the third peri-od. However, the Aces quickly tied the game with a goal scored within the first minute of the third period, with a goal scored by Alaska’s Evan Trupp. Alaska’s Jordan Morrison scored the game-winning goal for the Aces at minute 17:31 of the third period.

Alaska’s come-from-behind victory in the game gave the Aces the lead in the Western Conference Finals by 1-0.

May 17, 2014The Alaska Aces found themselves in a tough battle

for a second win on Saturday.

The Condors took the lead with a pair of goals in the second period scored by Jordan Knackstedt and Chris Collins.

Evan Trupp scored off a deflection for the Aces in minute 5:28 of the third period, to cut Bakersfield’s lead to 2-1. Brendan Connolly of Alaska had a bouncing puck land at his skate, which he then kicked to his stick and scored from the right edge of the paint to tie the game with 6:23 left in regulation.

Condors center Gary Steffes scored the game-win-ning goal three minutes into overtime, giving Bakers-field the victory over Alaska and tying the series at one win apiece in the Conference Finals.

The series will now shift to Bakersfield for the next three games. If needed the teams will return to Alaska for the final two games of the series.

By looking at a map of arenas and the placement of teams in a particular sport, one can pretty much determine the popularity of that sport in a region of the United States. The Northeast has hockey, the South has NASCAR and the Northwest has a found soccer.

The popularity of soccer in the Northwest rivals sports like base-ball. In some places like Seattle, soccer is just as, if not more, popu-lar than their Major League Baseball team, the Seattle Mariners. This weekend fans packed CenturyLink Field to watch the Seattle Sounders face off against the San Jose Earthquakes.

With 49,746 fans in attendance, the Seattle Sounders had great support as they played against the San Jose Earthquakes. Sounders forward Obafemi Martins of Seattle scored a goal in the first seven minutes of the game. It was a tough shot and Martin kicked the ball across the net into the opposite corner of the goal.

The Sounders defeated the Earthquakes 1-0, lifting the Sounders record to 8-3-1 with 25 points. Seattle’s next match will be against the Vancouver Whitecaps on May 24. All of the Sounders games can be watched on Root Sports Northwest.

Alaska Aces spilt conference final openerBy Travis Dowlingsports@thenorthernlight.org

SOCCER: Martins scores winning goalBy Travis Dowlingsports@thenorthernlight.org

Obafemi Martins evades a defender as he makes his way to goal Saturday night.

Photos by adam eberhardt

Sounders forward Chad Barrett contests for the ball with San Jose’s goalkeeper May 17 at CenturyLink Field.

Seattle Sounders winger Marco Pappa looks to shoot against San Jose Saturday night.

COMICS Tuesday, may 20, 2014THENORTHERNLIGHT 06

Letters to the editor can be submitted to editor@thenorthernlight.org. The maximum length is 250 words.

Opinion pieces can be submitted to editor@thenorthernlight.org. The maximum word length is 450 words.

Letters and opinion pieces are subject to editing for grammar, accuracy, length and clarity.

Requests for corrections can be sent to editor@thenorthernlight.org. Print publication is subject to accuracy and available space. All corrections are posted online with the original story at www.thenorthernlight.org.

The Northern Light newsroom is located on the first floor of the Student Union, directly next to Subway.

LETTERS AND CORRECTIONS POLICY

THE NORTHERN LIGHT CONTACTS

The Northern Light is a proud member of the Associated Collegiate Press.

The Northern Light is a weekly UAA publication funded by student fees and advertising sales. The editors and writers of the Northern Light are solely responsible for its contents. Circulation is 4,500. The University of Alaska Anchorage provides equal education and employment opportunities for all, regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, Vietnam-era or disabled-veteran status, physical or mental disability, changes in marital status, pregnancy, or parenthood.

The views expressed in the opinion section do not necessarily reflect the views of UAA or the Northern Light.

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a&e editor 786-1512arts@thenorthernlight.orgKelly Ireland

assistant a&e editor arts2@thenorthernlight.orgJacob Holley-Kline

sPorts editor 786-1512 sports@thenorthernlight.orgTravis Dowling

assistant sPorts editor sports2@thenorthernlight.orgVacant

Photo editor photo@thenorthernlight.org Vacant staff PhotograPhersphoto2@thenorthernlight.orgKayla McGrawAdam Eberhardt

layout editorlayout@thenorthernlight.orgJenna! Roosdett

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administrative adviserAnnie Route