July 8, 2009

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

www.msureporter.com

Minnesota State University, Mankato

Poker face

Farm fresh Mankato’s market offers organic options STEVEN PIROSO

staff writer

wale agboola• msu reporter MSU student Jamie Totman recently competed at a national poker tournament in Las Vegas.

MSU student plays in Vegas NICOLE SMITH

editor in chief

Sin City’s neon carnival is the hub of gambling and glitz, making it a popular destination to the millions who flock there each year. But unlike the tourists traveling to Las Vegas for shows and strippers, Jamie Totman went to compete.

Not too long ago, the pre-med Minnesota State student was a newbie at poker, only playing at Pub 500 for fun — but she’s a fast learner.

Totman caught on quick and got second place her first time at Pub 500’s Monday night poker game. She kept winning and soon found herself ranking 14 out of more than 200 players in the state competition in Mah-

nomen, Minn., earning her a trip to Vegas.

Last week she competed against 47 others from across the country in Vegas at the national championship housed in the Palms Casino Resort party suite, with the chance of earning a spot in the World Series of Poker the following day.

Although she didn’t do well enough to make it to the World Series (none of her fellow competitors could since it filled up before the end of the tournament), Totman said her Vegas experience was well worth the trip.

“It was insane,” she said.

“I had a lot of fun but I am so happy to be home. The whole lifestyle wears you out.”

That lifestyle involves nights

As the early morning sun breaches the horizon, vendors pull-up in vans and trailers, prepped and ready to begin the day. Vendors meticulously set up their stands with signs and flyers in the hopes of coaxing potential customers into trying their products.

Slowly but surely, locals begin to filter into the market eager to satisfy their hunger and yearning for that sweet homegrown taste.

Perusing at their leisure,

staff writer

From Armstrong Hall’s falling bricks and shaky scaffolding to five-story cranes hovering above its campus, Minnesota State has certainly seen its share of aesthetic rejuvenation — and wary passerbys — in recent

years.

Since construction began on Ford Hall in the autumn of 2006, MSU has been subject to an explosion of new construction and renovation projects. 2007 saw Knutson Construction break ground for Julia Sears Hall, with the apartment-esque dormitory

Farm / page 4

that don’t end until 7 a.m., $11 drinks, and for her, it also included a VIP invite-only party at the Palms — only she wasn’t actually invited.

“We snuck in and partied all night until they closed and we eventually got kicked out,” Totman said about sneaking around with her best friend in the notorious hotel. This is all coming from Totman who, before the trip, had never even flown on a plane.

The night before her tournament, Totman said Hugh Hefner rented out the floor they were going to compete on, dubbed the Playboy suite, causing her competition to get a late start. But despite the presence of celebri-

wale agboola• msu reporter The Mankato Farmer’s Market is held Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday on Madison Ave. in Mankato, featuring a variety of organic and home-grown goods.

Poker / page 3

MSU construction is consistent

MATT SAUER

customers stroll about tasting fruit and selecting which delicacies can potentially become supper. After 33 years, the Mankato Farmers’ Market still provides locally grown organic foods at bargain prices.

The Farmers’ Market promotes local economic growth and gives residents a chance to taste pesticide-free foods. Bountiful in its variety, the market serves everything from free-range organic whole chickens to home-style organic jelly. With few other places to purchase organic food in Mankato, the Farmers’ Market is a mini-oasis in a preservative-filled desert.

The organic movement is sweeping the nation and Americans are urging the food industry to produce better

opening to students during the following summer.

An estimated $23 million project, Sears Hall recently completed a repair project of its own; fixing faulty air conditioning systems and fractured tiling only a year after its opening.

Nevertheless, repairmen who

are currently working on other projects across campus say that the repairs were minor, and simply the result of normal wear and tear.

“We were mostly sweating the small stuff [in Sears Hall],” said one worker who preferred to be left anonymous. “The

air conditioning systems were causing problems, so we had to reroute some of the venting.

From what I’m told the building wasn’t quite finished when it opened last summer, so some parts of the building took more tear than others.”

index

Is Microsoft’s new search engine any match for Google?

Classifieds...............................4 Variety......................................5 Sports......................................7

MSU baseball player Danny Miller excels for Mankato MoonDogs this summer PAGE 7

Construction / page 3

See page 2

“Away We Go” review PAGE 5

Page 2 • Reporter

News

Wednesday, July 8, 2009W

Start your search engines

Microsoft’s Bing attempts to compete with Google JOHN FRITZ

staff writer

Minnesota State University, Mankato

Bing! Say it once, it’s sort of fun. Maybe it’ll catch on.

That’s the hope, anyway, at Microsoft, where Bing is the software giant’s latest entry into the super-competitive world of Internet search.

To butt into the fight for market share with search overload Google, whose name (googling has been a verb in Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary since 2001) is synonymous with the Information Age, Microsoft spent months searching for a snappy moniker.

In an interview with Search Engine Journal, Bing’s principle group manager Rajesh Srivastava said the research was focused on “looking for a name that was short, easy to say and spell, and would be globally appropriate … Our research around Bing showed that it connoted “fast,” ”easy,” and “delight.””

To succeed where earlier Microsoft search engines such as MSN and Windows Live have largely failed, Bing is tasked with making those word associations into reality for users. Some first impressions of the Bing experience: · Bing’s homepage isn’t quite as streamlined as Google’s, where the search-baron-white-background look is now as familiar to students as a sheet of notebook paper.

Bing’s look is intriguing, however, in particular the picture of the day, in which boxes of interesting information and links pop up as the user scrolls over it. · Microsoft’s original three-minute promotional ad for Bing highlights its ability to “overcome search overload to find the best choice faster” by breaking searches “into logic categories and pulling out information buried in the sites,” taking “the guesswork out of search.”

Sounds exaggerated, like some slick advertisement-speak.

But on a search-by-search basis, Bing actually approaches delivering on this.

For instance, a search for

“Minnesota Twins” brought up not just the standard barrage of websites, but also a list of previous scores and future game times and direct links to updates on the new stadium, wallpapers and ticket information.

OK, Google does all that too, but Bing’s presentation does make it feel more organized. · The search engine can quickly get users lost or sidetracked in the Bing network of pages. This is not an accident, it’s part of Bing’s positioning as a “decision engine.” Whether this is good or bad depends on the user, but it seems to be the single biggest departure from Google’s playbook of rapidly directing users to the sites of their choosing.

While initial reviews have been positive and Bing has stepped into third place in global search engine market share (with 5.31% according to marketshare. com) it is still lagging behind Yahoo! (9.21%) and miles away from Google (81.22%).

In an interview on FOX Business, Google CEO Eric Schmidt marginalized Bing’s impact on the search industry.

“They do this about once a year,” Schmidt said. “From

Bing’s perspective they have a bunch of new ideas and there are some things that are missing.

We think search is about comprehensiveness, freshness, scale and size for what we do. It’s

difficult for them to copy that.”

In the end, he may be right.

After all, when I wanted to find out more about Bing I googled it.

Bing.com Microsoft’s Bing.com has an unorthodox look and new options that stray from standard search engines.

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News

POKER Pub 500 offers free poker every Monday night continued from 1 ties, Totman was bummed out not to see one during her entire six-day trip.

Since she started playing poker about a year ago at Pub 500, Totman was hooked. Pub 500 co-owner Jay Reasner said he doesn’t remember the last time she missed playing a Monday at the bar, unless of course, she was in Vegas.

“She’s very solid and a very deliberate, good player,” he said.

Reasner said she earned the trip to the state competition, which eventually got her to Vegas, by accumulating points playing each week. Anyone 21 or older can play at the bar just by showing up and players can also get a chance to play at the regional tournament by being in the top 20 percent of the league.

Right now, Totman is one of the top of her league, giving her another chance to compete at a higher level in the near future.

She also plays at Buster’s and Choppers in Mankato, but said she is most loyal to Pub 500’s league, part of the free Minnesota Poker League.

Majoring in human biology and Spanish, this pre-med student doesn’t seem to have much time to rest. But since picking up her first Texas Hold’em hand, poker has become somewhat of a sanctuary to her.

“It’s a total stress reliever for me,” Totman said. “When I’m in school, I cannot wait until Monday nights. It’s so much fun that if I lose, I really don’t care.”

The local pub may be a drastically different environment

then a ritzy Vegas suite to the Mankato native, but as far as her game is concerned, it doesn’t make much of a difference.

“I was obviously nervous playing there, but poker is poker,” she said. “If you don’t get cards there’s not really anything you can do about it … that’s pretty much what happened to me.”

Totman said she goes with her gut while playing and is usually right. Although these skills may not help her academically, poker will still provide the break she needs as she anxiously waits for her Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores and starts applying to med schools.

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Students and employees spending time on campus this summer seem to have mixed feelings about the noise and chaos.

“Honestly the construction hasn’t bothered me at all,” said Stacie Jackson, a Chemistry major and student for the summer.

“I guess I feel a little bad for people who are seeing the campus for the first time, because It really is a good-looking campus during the school year, but for the most part I haven’t even paid attention to what they’re all do-

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CONSTRUCTION Minor construction taking place in addition to Ostrander renovations This was especially true of the tiles lining Sears’ main lobby, which endured stress fractures while the building settled during the past year.

Work is also being done on several of MSU’s more “summer-busy” facilities, with the CSU and Wigley Administration Building currently bearing the brunt of renovation. Boarded-up office windows and peeled siding reflect work being done on the buildings themselves, while a sizable hole behind the CSU has taken attention away from an otherwise attractive and well-

Reporter • Page 3

ing. The noise is all that really gets through to me.”

Daniel Scolls, however, didn’t share Stacie’s patience while he waited for a construction vehicle to unblock his car from the Myers Field House parking lot.

“This really is a pain in the ass,” said Scolls through an open driver’s side window. “It’s actually the second time today I’ve been stuck behind this thing. I was planning on being here for a thirty minute workout. It’s been twenty-five since I ran my last mile.”

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News

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

FARM The Farmers’ Market is one of the only places to purchase organic food in Mankato continued from 1 quality foods.

Vendors pay an annual fee of $300 to guarantee a spot in the market and voice their concerns and suggestions. The vendors form a tightly-knit group whose focal goal is to produce a welcoming and lucrative food market in town.

In order to gain a spot, vendors must be approved by the members of the Growers Association, a board of directors that represent the interests of the Mankato Farmers’ Market.

Chuck and Heidi Thompson, owners of Thompson’s Hill Painted Farms, have a large stand at the market and sell

virtually every-type of meat product known to man.

“We are really trying to get this organic thing moving her in Mankato,” Thompson said.

Their products are Certified Naturally Grown, a certification for smaller organic farms.

This alternative certification (as opposed to USDA) includes an application process, annual farm inspections and unannounced pesticide residue testing to ensure consumer confidence.

On Saturdays, it’s busiest day, the Farmers’ Market is booming with activity. Flowers, cookies, chickens, potatoes,

vegetables and strawberries that melt in your mouth fly off the shelves like holiday sale pandemonium.

Ron Myer, owner of the Northern Lights and Herbs vendor at the market, sells BBQ sauc, jellies, breads and a variety of rubs and spices. Myer said he started the vendor a few years ago after having a heart attack and getting triple bypass surgery. He makes all his food by hand and specializes in lowsalt, low-sugar content foods.

“I have a real steady customer base , probably around 250 people,” he said.

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reporter-sports@mnsu.edu

Sports Wednesday, July 8, 2009

(507) 389-5227

SAME TOWN, SAME RESULTS

MSU outfielder made the right choice to stay in town KYLE RATKE

sports editor

Danny Miller hit .351 as a sophomore for the Minnesota State baseball team along with 43 RBIs and a team high of 10 home runs. One would think that Miller had done enough for Mankato baseball this season.

But apparently, Miller felt differently.

The Mankato MoonDogs added the outfielder to this summer’s roster, and it has turned out to be a pretty smart move for the both of them.

“It just seemed like a really good opportunity to go against some top talent,” Miller said.

“We have a lot of characters on the team which makes it similar to the MSU team.”

Miller is hitting .281 and a team-high 21 RBIs for a team that clinched the firsthalf championship in the Northwood’s League North Division. Mankato also clinched a spot in the playoffs after a 6-3 victory on June 30 over Eau Claire. This is the second straight year that Mankato has won the first-half championship, and this season they did it with a 24-11 overall record.

This playoff business isn’t new for Miller, as he was a huge factor of MSU’s

great work ethic and he always has stepped up to the challenge.”

While most baseball players are playing for their local amateur team, which is very inconsistent with both age and talent, Miller knew that playing against players his dan moen• msu reporter age was his Danny Miller’s success at the plate for MSU carried on to the MoonDogs this summer. best shot in improving his Northern Sun Intercollegiate team. game.

Championship team last The MoonDogs have had “We just bring a lot of season. Miller has done more the same fortune the Mavericks energy and we get a lot of than most in his two years in did and Miller is helping to turn games in the summer,” Miller Mankato, but there are still those fortunes into victories. said. “The kids our age get big expectations for the Eden Magers thinks the along better so it makes it Prairie native. In the last two MoonDogs and Miller have a lot more fun than playing years playing for MSU and gotten a pretty sweet deal and amateur.” the one for the MoonDogs, the is excited for what this could With a beautiful left-handed lefty has arguably done more mean for the MSU team next swing, most of it comes natural for Mankato baseball than any season. to Miller. Every once in a while other player.

“It’s a two way street,” he will take some pointers from MSU head coach Matt Magers said. “The MoonDogs other hitters that he plays with.

Magers knew he was taking have gotten a leader that won’t “I try to worry about what I over for a talented team in his talk about himself too much can work on,” Miller said. “You first season as head coach, with and he will always do what’s can take things from others. Jay players like Miller leading the best for the team. He has a Bresnahan was a great hitter. I

watched a little what he did.”

Bresnahan isn’t a bad player to be taking mental notes on.

The MSU graduate played second base last year and led the Mavericks with a .380 batting average. Miller has more potential in the power area than the second baseman did.

“There are a lot of similarities in the two,” Magers said. “They were both very patient and they won’t chase too many pitches. The one difference is that Danny will hit more home runs. We are projecting down the line that as a senior he could maybe hit 15 home runs for us.”

Miller has a lot of baseball to be played this summer (the MoonDogs have a 68-game schedule) and for the rest of his Mavericks career.

“I think the experience of facing good pitching and playing 68 games helps,” Miller said. “It helps bring focus to the park and that’s something I needed.”

A slugger that has two years left that can already hit for average and power, and now he’s going to add more focus?

Sounds dangerous. The NSIC teams may want to circle his name on MSU’s roster this upcoming spring.

Starving for a championship

One Reporter writer thinks enough is enough for the failure of sports in Minnesota. Here’s his rant.

PAT DELANEY

staff writer

Last October, the Major League Baseball season concluded with the Philadelphia Phillies becoming 2008 World Series champions.

It was Philadelphia’s first major professional sports championship since the 198283 76ers won the NBA finals.

Why in Minnesota is this relevant? With the Phillies victory last fall, Minnesota now is in the longest drought without a championship among all states or cities with professional franchises.

After the Minnesota Twins World Series victory in 1991, Minnesota fans have stood by for 18 years and watched teams all over the nation pop champagne bottles, throw parades, and raise banners, while we, on the other hand, are stuck here saying, “maybe next year.”

Most fans, me included, are tired of waiting for next year.

I’d like to see a championship now before I’m stuck in a nursing home not being able to tell if I’m watching a Vikings game or the Home and Garden Network.

So will the 2009 season end the misery? Let’s start with the team who is playing right now.

The Minnesota Twins have two of the best players in the Major leagues with Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. However, the

club is going to have to figure out how to win away from the Metrodome and get more consistent play out of their bullpen. The Central Division is average enough where the Twins should be able to come out victorious and get in the playoffs.

Can they beat teams like the Yankees or Red Sox once they do get in? That is yet to be seen.

At this point you can’t expect a lot from the two winter teams. Finishing out of the bottom 10 in the standings for the Minnesota Timberwolves would be a positive step for a team that has been a joke to watch the last two years.

A positive note for the Wolves is they do have a star on the rise in Al Jefferson.

With a new GM in place this year things could turn around … in the next 10 years or so.

Two seasons ago the Wild won the Northwest Division and last year they missed the playoffs all together. The Wild recently hired new head coach Todd Richards who promises to bring a more up-tempo style of play which may benefit some of the players and increase goal scoring.

While you may have gotten annoyed with him over the last few seasons, a healthy Marian Gaborik still gives this team the best chance to win. Too bad the Wild lost him during the off-season to the New York Rangers.

Now for the team with a prayer: The Minnesota Vikings seem right on the verge of being a great team. They’ll roll

in to Mankato next month for training camp with very high expectations. Stars like Adrian Peterson and Jared Allen make the purple poised to make another run this season.

What it will come down to is can the team get consistent play from the quarterback this year. And as much as everyone is sick of this Brett Favre fellow, it seems as if he will be a Viking.

So let’s try to stay loyal to your teams, Minnesota faithful.

I know we’re all starved for a championship but right now seems like we’re as close to that as we have been all decade. Very soon we may not have to say “maybe next year.”

Page 8 • Reporter

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Wednesday, July 8, 2009

reporter-arts@mnsu.edu

Variety Wednesday, July 8, 2009

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The spectrum of parenthood

photos courtesy of movieweb.com by traveling North America to places where they either variety editor have friends or relatives living Life comes at you fast. Most — Phoenix, Tuscon, Ariz., people spend their adolescent Madison, Wisc., Montreal and years under the safety and Miami. security of your parents, head As the couple travel the off to college and then do their continent, they regain lost ties best to live a normal life. But with people from their past that what happens when you’re in shows us the spectrum of your thirties and don’t have the parenting and marriage. basic essentials to life figured We’re introduced to out? belligerence, new age This is the context in which creepiness, compassion, Oscar-winning director Sam sorrow and divorce.

Mendes’ “Away We Go” takes But the film isn’t simply place. Starring a woodsy a rollercoaster ride into the glasses-toting John Krasinski lives of parents and their (The Office) as Burt and children. It delves into the a pregnant Maya Rudolph true spirit and philosophy (Saturday Night Live) as Verona, of the family — to give the film follows their journey to all the good and patience find a place to call home where inside of you to ensure the they can raise a family. happiness of your loved The boyfriend/girlfriend ones. duo of Burt and Verona “Away We Go” live in Denver to be close manages to take us to Burt’s parents in order John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph portray expect- along on Burt and NATE BRENNAN

to have help and involvement with their upcoming child’s life.

But as Burt’s parents decide to fulfill their dream of moving to Belgium, the couple is hung out to dry.

So where does a family plant their roots when untethered?

They decide to find out

ing couple Burt and Verona in “Away We Go.”

Verona’s journey without invoking disbelief at the characters they interact with. We believe Burt has a fake hippie cousin named LN (a hilarious Maggie Gylenhaal) because we have our own fake relatives to which we can relate.

The film carefully depicts our everyday lives and introspective natures. As Verona asks Burt, “Are we fuck-ups?” we tend to ask ourselves the same question or remember a time when we felt we were.

But where the film truly succeeds is its ability to entwine humor while tackling the tough and serious subjects of the human condition. From the opening credits where Burt explains to Verona why he thinks she “tastes different” to Burt scaring Verona in order to raise the unborn baby’s heartbeat, the film consistently makes us laugh.

The two first-time

screenwriters, prize-winning novelist Dave Eggers and novelist wife Vendela Vida, pen an amazing experience that challenges the way we define ourselves and our families while mirroring the world we live in.

A world in which expectant grandparents ask how black they think the baby will be and misuse large words in order to sound intelligent. A world where the effect of divorce on children is debilitating and very real.

So the question is: What do we do when we don’t have the basic essentials to life figured out? As Burt would say, we roll with it. And what do we do when life delivers us a quest?

Away we go.

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The show was such a success that within just a few years, a

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15 minutes of shame NATE BRENNAN

variety editor

When we think of prognosticators, psychics, fortune-tellers, the names that typically come to mind are the

great ones — Nostradamus, Punxsutawney Phil, Miss Cleo.

But there are others who get overlooked. Ones that follow the trends of society closely and make predictions laughed off as the silly meandering of artists and intellectuals.

In 1968, artist Andy Warhol prophesied, “In the future,

everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”

24 years later, MTV first broadcast “The Real World,” bringing society the true story of seven (or eight) strangers picked to live in a house (or mansion or loft), work together and have their lives taped to find out what happens when people stop being

15 minutes / page 6

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“Escape to Europa” Minneapolis music vets and production duo, The Skeptics, fear man is doomed, so we might as well go out dancing.

The electro-pop record is heavy, sweet, adolescent and funky at the same time. Pop this in the stereo at your next party. The feet will certainly be moving and the bootys will surely be shaking.

Wu-Tang Clan

“Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers” Hip-hop visionaries, kung-fu fanatics, mixtape-peddlers, ol’ dirty bastards. Call the Wu-Tang Clan what you will, but one thing is for certain — the group took the rap game by storm and put out tracks that played harder, better and more creatively than almost every artist or group of any genre when “Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers” was released in 1993. The fact that nearly every member of the group is a prolific solo artist and the goup sells out venues when they come together to do a show without their most legendary member O.D.B. (R.I.P.) is a true testament to the group’s incredible talent.

Variety

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Explosions of grandeur

Second ‘Transformers’ an exercise in futility SAM CAMPBELL

staff writer

There is no doubt “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is seemingly larger than life — ­­ the big box office numbers, the gigantic shapeshifting robots and the gaping holes in the storyline.

And considering the movie is about aliens that transform into vehicles, I think it’s fair to state that no one is expecting the same high-caliber acting and in-depth plot considerations that we would expect from smaller poignant dramas. With that in mind, anticipation for exciting fight scenes, good-looking people and an understandable storyline doesn’t seem that outlandish, but this proved to be the case.

The second Transformers installment has been criticized for its tacky accents and clumsy humor, but the most glaring problem is its plot holes.

Never before have I seen a director with such a confused sense of direction

and accountability as Michael Bay. Decepticons can turn into

people, Shia Labeouf’s Sam Witwicky character goes to

Robot Heaven, a mini-robot humps Mikaela’s leg, a piece of the all-spark can heal Megatron but not Optimus — and these are just some examples from the boorish storyline.

Characters randomly disappear and reappear in the same scene, proportions of things are constantly changing, space and time are irrelevant and large sections of the movie seem to exist for the sole purpose of cheap laughs and cheap thrills.

If I didn’t know better, I would assume Michael Bay was a horny fourteen-year old boy still playing with Transformers action figures in his mother’s basement. This adolescent persona worked in his original Transformers.

But the success seems to have gone to his head, allowing him to create a film much less epic than it tries to be.

web photo

Actor Shia Labeouf and director Michael Bay discuss where the next explosion should go.

15 MINUTES “In 1968, Andy Warhol prophesied that ‘In the future, everycontinued from 5 one will be world famous for 15 minutes.’”

It was only a matter of time before reality show cast members and contestants realized the lucrative opportunity at hand and started marketing themselves as that girl from “Survivor” or that guy from “I Love New York.”

But what’s the source? Is it a

subconscious acting out of our innate sexual desire of voyeurism or is it simply something we can relate to that doesn’t challenge us to think through during our free time?

To paraphrase a Patton Oswalt joke, there used to be a time when you would come home

turn on TV to watch stuff that people had made up, so that you could escape from the crappy reality, but now, you go out and deal morons all day and think, “I just want to go home so I can watch morons on TV.” Whatever the source, it sure is an odd thing that we’ve sup-

ported reality television to its current state of attention.

Then again, who doesn’t love watching overconfident morons attempt to run across giant inflatable balls for cash?

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