An unseasonable snowstorm blowing through a shattered rear window.

A horde of strangely dressed people, each shoving through the crowd in hopes of grabbing a seat on what may be the last ride to salvation.

Welcome to Halloween weekend aboard the Rage Bus.

Last year, The Maine Campus covered the holiday hijinks by accompanying a University of Maine police officer on his rounds, which turned up little more than a minor parking lot face-off. So, in search of a more vivid experience, this year’s celebratory chariot was Old Town’s rager-on-wheels.

Of course, to properly cover a story like this required active participation, and it was with this journalistic responsibility weighing heavily on my shoulders that I dressed up as the Bride of Frankenstein and took my seat — front and center.

Conceived by Tim Taylor, owner of Kingman’s in Old Town, the Rage Bus bridges the divide separating UMaine’s two major student populations in Orono and Old Town. The distance between downtowns, while only a few miles, acts as a barrier for the intoxicated, who once relied on the services of area taxi companies to shuttle them between the two bar districts.

The man who runs the show is one Steve Marchessault, a nontraditional student finishing up his studies in biology at UMaine this year. Three nights a week, Marchessault navigates the rolling light-show until sometime near 2 a.m., doing what bus drivers do best — and then some

“Mostly, it’s really kind of boring,” Marchessault said, adding that every once in a while “it gets really intense and crazy.”

“The first week, it was like a dance party going down the street,” he said.

Friday night proved to be one of the tamer nights, with the bus making more than a few lonely, empty runs up and down Route 2. Despite slack numbers and slim crowds at the stops in front of Kingman’s and in Orono’s Pine Street parking lot, Marchessault was not deterred from his mission.

“I’m going to turn on the music,” he said as we cruised across the bridge over the Stillwater River heading to downtown Orono. “It’s kind of a beacon for the bus.”

Within seconds, it seemed as though the thumping bass had at least partially worked its magic.

“That girl just flashed me!” Marchessault yelled as the bus reached the other side of the bridge.

Several other times during the weekend, I witnessed the power of the Rage Bus’ blasting music to extend the vehicle’s neon-tinted aura into the area around the vehicle. The predominantly dubstep-themed soundtrack filtering through the thin metal walls and large windows turned mundane, everyday tasks like flagging down a ride into a mini dance party on the sidewalk, with a vigorous pelvic thrust substituting for a wave.

Even with Halloween just around the corner, Friday night remained rather calm apart from the aforementioned fan of public nudity and some good tunes.

Saturday night, however, turned out to be a different beast altogether.

The transformation was apparent before I set foot on the short staircase leading into the newly decorated space, strewn with caution tape, and saw Marchessault sporting the comically large shoulders of Lurch, the Addams family’s faithful butler.

From the window of my apartment that overlooks the Pine Street parking lot, I watched the first of many crowds that night race toward the bus, clamoring for one of the coveted 12 seats available.

When I was finally able to beat the crowd and find a seat, the changes from Friday were immediately apparent, both on Marchessault’s face and throughout the bus itself.

“It’s been chaotic tonight,” he said, wearing the semi-crazed look of someone who knows he is about to be hit by a train but can do nothing but wait, tied to the tracks.

Noticing a distinctly draftier and chillier climate, I looked around for a window that I thought must have been left open by a previous rider. Of course, nothing aboard the Rage Bus is tame.

“Some dude fell into it,” Marchessault said, motioning to the coffee table-sized hole in the rear wall that used to hold a window, now covered by a poster.

Keep in mind that this took place before 11 p.m., not even an hour into the night’s route. Marchessault also revealed that he was forced to yell at someone for the first time out of all the runs he has driven, a rare event that became commonplace by the end of the evening.

One of those spats occurred when Marchessault pulled up to the Orchard Trails entrance next to Curva Ultra Lounge. A few minutes earlier, he agreed to drop a busload off at the entrance to the housing complex but would not offer door-to-door service as he was already behind schedule and knew a crowd was waiting for him outside Kingman’s.

When he slung the door open for the group to disembark, it was clear the message had not filtered through the alcohol-rich air to the passengers, who became agitated when Marchessault insisted he could take them no farther.

Taking command for the passengers, a man dressed as Charlie Brown told the rest of his friends to stay on the bus, staging something akin to a sit-in protest. Words were exchanged, generally revolving around Charlie Brown and friends feeling as though they had not received their $5 worth of service.

“I would describe drunk people as having a one-track mind,” Marchessault said earlier in the evening, a premonition playing out before my eyes.

Eventually, with the help of a cell phone supposedly calling Orono’s finest to remove the rowdy passengers, Marchessault was able to convince the crowd to leave, a departure that ended with a juvenilely aggressive snatch of candy from the bucket sitting next to the door and someone yelling, “You’ve just lost the business of this entire complex!”

“I’m just so on edge right now,” Marchessault said as we rode past the cornfield, the process of abandoning his usually calm, amiable demeanor visibly hanging on his exaggerated shoulders.

It should be noted that Marchessault bent over backwards several times that night to help his passengers get home safely, even if it meant leaving his route for a moment. One of these moments actually occurred at Orchard Trails, when an exceptionally drunk girl nearly tumbled down the stairs and into the gutter — a performance that won her a ride to her front door.

Even through chaotic moments like those, Marchessault was somehow able to collect the payment he was due. Only once did I see him get stiffed, a truly amazing feat given the way people crowd through the doors and push past him without so much as a glance.

Only a few minutes after the Charlie Brown incident, however, as we drove past Old Town’s VFW hall, the air had calmed, and Marchessault was back to his usual happy, seat-dancing self.

The sound of the synthesized harpsichord of The Doors’ “Love Me Two Times” connected nicely with the wiggling, large-shouldered image of Lurch driving a party bus and helped to ease the tension and put the past into perspective — I did, after all, just witness an argument between two fictional characters.

As Halloween would have it, that ease all but completely dissolved when we rounded the corner to arrive at Kingman’s for another load of passengers. Now well past last call, the bar had shut its doors for the staff to begin cleaning, and it seemed as though everyone had decided to stand in the snow instead of going home.

The scene was straight out of a zombie movie, in which masses of people crowd around the last safe ride out of the contamination zone. Old Town police officers were on hand, attempting to corral people back onto the sidewalk, and we finally were able to slowly creep up to the front door without running anyone over.

Something in me wanted to shout to keep the doors closed against the pounding fists, but I kept my cool, trusting Marchessault’s experience.

Once the seats had been filled and the unlucky few who made it inside the doors but could not find a seat were ejected, I looked around to find more than a few riders wearing looks of recently relieved worry.

Apparently no taxi cabs had been by Kingman’s since it closed, leaving nearly every bar-goer standing in the snowstorm waiting for the Rage Bus, now the only ride home.

This last leg of my journey was rather calm, with most everyone aboard too chilled from the sidewalk gathering and stressed from the uncertainty of a ride home to enjoy the lights and music.

Judging from the number still left outside Kingman’s after the last pickup, I decided to give up my seat to a more needy soul and watched the Rage Bus pull away, speakers blaring against the pounding snow.

They stuck him in the gym, and the rest was history.

Aziz Ansari, who stars in the NBC series “Parks and Recreation” and the recent movie “30 Minutes or Less,” was looking to add a show at a Northeast school, so Student Entertainment pounced on the opportunity and brought him to Orono.

The only roadblock was the lack of venue, since the usual facilities that would host this sort of thing were not available. Luckily, the New Balance Student Recreation Center was free and capable of housing an Ansari-sized crowd.

According to Vice President of Student Entertainment Joseph “Pat” Nabozny, the space was capable of holding about 1,200 people.

The stage was set up in front of the glass wall of the floor hockey room, which was covered by curtains. A similar setup was used when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the school during her presidential run in 2008.

After an hour or so of listening to LCD Soundsystem on the speakers, the music faded and “stage manager Bob Zamboni,” who sounded strikingly like Ansari, made a few announcements from backstage, including a request that members of the audience not rush the stage and “whip their d–ks out,” citing a prior incident where it happened.

“Nothing shuts down a Sugar Ray show faster than somebody whippin’ his d–k out,” said “Zamboni.”

Before Ansari took the stage, comedian Joe Mande kicked off the evening with a half-hour set. Some NBA fans may have recognized Mande as the guy who scared Orlando Magic guard Gilbert Arenas away from Twitter after arguing with him using the service.

Mande had a funny set that warmed the crowd up, talking about “foodies,” the first humans to drink milk from a cow and getting robbed in Dominos while he was high.

Shortly after Mande was done, Ansari emerged from behind a curtain smartly dressed in a classy suit, possessing much of the fashion savvy of his “Parks and Recreation” character, Tom Haverford.

Before the jokes, Ansari made a semi-formal-sounding announcement that he does not like being photographed. Knowing the audience would take pictures regardless of what he told them, he allowed them to take pictures of him for about a minute, during which he struck various poses suggesting he was in mid-joke.

Most of Ansari’s material dealt with relationships and byproducts of them, which is a mine forever harvested by just about every comic to ever step on stage. Still, Ansari was able to make it his own with hilarious material.

Ansari griped about how parents often want him to hold their baby, a practice he doesn’t understand. He said despite his best efforts to be careful, he would likely drop the kid, much like he does his iPhone.

According to Ansari, the difference between dropping a baby and his phone is that he isn’t “going to drop a baby and lose all my contacts.”

Ansari also talked about his dislike of the MTV show, “My Super Sweet 16,” or at least the girls on it.

“Could someone impregnate that girl and ruin her life, please?” Ansari said. He went on to say if that did happen, they could then appear on the show “16 and Pregnant.”

It seems that Ansari spends a good deal of time thinking about things that don’t typically cross the average person’s mind, questioning the mundane and exploring traditional human practices.

About babysitting, he said while most parents will trust a stranger with their child for two hours, there is not way they’d do the same with a sandwich. He then concluded a sandwich must be better than a baby.

He also dissected the institution of marriage, saying that if it didn’t already exist, somebody who tried to institute the demands that come with it would be considered strange.

“I want to hang out with you until one of us dies. Put this ring on your finger so people know we have an arrangement,” Ansari said.

He used marriage to transition into his bits about online dating and meeting girls, saying there are things people do online that would not be permissible in the real world, like directly requesting “intimate encounters” from strangers.

Ansari dissected stereotypes, but not ones set by society so much as ones he has come up with himself. He said guys wearing backwards baseball hats and button-up shirts as well as girls who loudly yell “woo” are equivalently bad people. He then presented what he views as one of the most under-recognized stereotypes that is blatantly clear to him.

“Black dudes are blown away by magic tricks,” he said.

Ansari told the story about the time he was in the same restaurant as rapper 50 Cent and heard him say “one of the greatest things 50 Cent could say.” Upon getting a glass of grapefruit soda from the waiter, he asked, “Why isn’t this purple?”

“That’s when I realized 50 Cent didn’t know what a grapefruit was!” Ansari said.

To close out the evening, Ansari told another tale about his cousin Harris, the subject of his most famous bit. Harris had asked Ansari to proofread his college essay, which was so ridiculous, Ansari had a copy of it with him and read it aloud.

The essay was titled “All The Small Things,” and in it, he talked about his thumbs, how volunteering at a hospital “sucked,” gauging how busy a hospital is by how quickly and often nurses give him cookies, and how he “couldn’t text movie times or order cheese biscuits at Red Lobster” if he didn’t know how to read.

Despite a UMaine hockey game taking place on campus on the same night, Ansari fans filled the New Balance Student Recreation Center. The queue outside the building before the show was a testament to how highly anticipated the show was.

The laughter echoing through the gym proved all anticipation was just.

“I don’t even want to think about that,” she said.

If you ask Thomas, a Maine law allowing voter registration on Election Day eases administrative burden in a town that, due to a large University of Maine student presence, has a “fluid” electorate. Campus residents have Precinct 2 to themselves in Orono.

At Precinct 2, the campus resident-only district, she said as many as six clerks are there at peak hours of the day to handle registration and incoming votes.

“It’s done [on Election Day] because we put the manpower there to do it,” she said.

The law establishing same-day registration, passed in 1973, was repealed by the Republican-controlled Maine Legislature in June.

LD 1376, sponsored by Speaker of the House Robert Nutting, R-Oakland, prohibited registering to vote or voting absentee in the two business days prior to elections. No Democrats voted to repeal, and only three GOP legislators broke party lines to join them. Republican Gov. Paul LePage signed the bill.

Due to a successful people’s veto effort led by Protect Maine Votes, a coalition of 23 interest groups, the law hasn’t yet taken effect. The group does not oppose the absentee voting restriction.

And whether to uphold the law will be up to Maine voters to decide on Election Day, Nov. 8. A “yes” vote on Question 1 would maintain same-day registration; a “no” vote would uphold its repeal.

David Farmer, spokesman for Protect Maine Votes, said 70,000 people registered same-day statewide in the 2009 and 2010 elections combined.

“A lot of people use it, and that’s why it’s important to protect,” he said.

‘No good reason’ to repeal

An independent Critical Insights poll released last week said 51 percent of voters polled supported reinstating same-day registration. Forty-three percent of those polled said they supported same-day registration’s repeal, while 6 percent were undecided.

“There’s no good reason to arbitrarily move a deadline back from Election Day to the Thursday before,” Farmer said. “This is a system that works to help people vote.”

But Charlie Webster, the chairman of the Maine Republican Party, said ensuring ballot security is more than a worthy goal.

“I think it’s just common sense,” he said. “If you walk in at [7:45 p.m. Election Day] and you register to vote, how are we going to know you didn’t vote in New Jersey?”

Thomas said many University of Maine students don’t understand residency requirements. She cited a large number of voter registration cards that come to her from student groups and are filled out improperly, often listing hometowns in other parts of the state or country.

“When they register to vote here, they’re really becoming an Orono resident,” Thomas said. “I don’t think there’s enough education along those lines.”

Earlier this year, Webster was at the center of a political episode Farmer called “a concerted effort to scare students into not participating” in an attempt to “obscure what’s actually on the ballot.”

“They’re talking about a phantom issue of fraud — no evidence, despite [Webster’s] best efforts and the secretary of state’s best efforts [to prove otherwise],” Farmer said.

In July, Webster gave Secretary of State Charlie Summers a list of 206 college students at the University of Maine, the University of Maine at Farmington, the University of Southern Maine’s Gorham campus and the University of Maine at Machias who he said were registered to vote both in and outside of Maine.

A subsequent investigation by Summers’ office found 77 were actually registered in two states, which Summers said in September isn’t a violation unless registrants “intentionally” fail to disclose their previous address. No cases of voter fraud were found on the list.

Afterward, however, Summers sent letters to the investigated students asking them to cancel their voter registration unless they planned to also obtain a Maine driver’s license.

“I feel like our elections are safe and secure. Charlie Webster waving his arms and talking about fraud doesn’t convince me otherwise,” Farmer said. “In fact, it’s his shenanigans that have demonstrated there hasn’t been significant fraud.”

‘We couldn’t possibly handle them’

Webster said college towns statewide would benefit from same-day registration’s repeal.

“[For] towns like Orono and Farmington and Machias and Gorham and Lewiston — it’s a tremendous financial burden to those towns,” Webster said. “And there’s no need for it when they could simply [register] in the town office.”

Thomas disputes that.

She said Orono is used to massive amounts of same-day registrants. In the 2010 gubernatorial election, 623 University of Maine students voted on-campus, according to Thomas. Approximately 500 registered that day, she said.

She said Orono is better organized to handle voter registration on Election Day than in an office setting. If they were made to register at the office, more staff may need to be hired year-round because there would be no way to gauge when registrants would come in, she said.

“All of those 500 students are not going to come down here and register to vote, and if they did, we couldn’t possibly handle them,” Thomas said.

In May, a representative of the Maine Town & City Clerks’ Association testified that the repeal of same-day registration would not be beneficial to them or voters.

“For one thing, the clerks say they don’t want it. For the other thing, elections are not about the officials who administer them,” Farmer said. “Elections are about the voters and democracy and making sure every eligible voter has the opportunity to cast [a] ballot.”

Thomas said she was stunned legislators made an issue of same-day registration.

“Frankly, I was very surprised that the legislature did that, because usually they’re the ones who want to get the vote out,” Thomas said. “I don’t really know why they decided that was a good idea.”

Farmer said that because many smaller town offices have short business hours or are open only a few days per week, registering on Election Day is a necessary thing for prospective voters.

But Webster said that argument insults the intelligence of Maine voters.

“Are the ‘yes’ folks suggesting that these people are so ignorant — are so lazy — that they wouldn’t go down two days earlier?” he said.

And Webster also called any thought that voter participation would be reduced “illogical.”

“Most people register a handful of times in their life,” he said. “If you aren’t motivated enough to go register before the election two [business] days, that’s your problem.”

Two dozen artists showcased sculptures, paintings, fashion, drawings and music from 5 to 9 p.m. on Friday at shops and studios in of downtown Bangor.

This artwalk was a “bonus” artwalk and featured spooky Halloween-themed artwork. Attendants were able to talk with the artists in addition to viewing and purchasing the artwork.

Some of the local businesses that hosted artist exhibits included Metropolitan Soul, WBRC Architects, The Rock and Art Shop, Main Street Music Studios, Blue Heron and the University of Maine Museum of Art. Grants from The Maine Community Foundation, the Quimby Family Foundation, Maine Office of Tourism and the Maine Arts Commission assisted in funding the artwalk.

While most of the artists were scattered throughout the downtown area, 170 Park Street — location of One Lupine Fiber — was the center for most of the artists. Eight of the exhibiting artists were in the three-story building.

“I begin painting from the abstract and find my way toward the figurative. The challenge is not so much where to begin, but where to finish,” said artist Russell D’Alessio.

D’Alessio showcased a room full of striking ladies, physically and atmospherically, clothed in explosions of fantastical reality — an extraordinary usage of the blending of color. Birds are present through his paintings as well.

“Birds are in our world except we don’t always pay attention to them,” said Linda D’Alessio, the wife of the artist. “If they weren’t there we would miss them, their sound, and the life they bring to the world. They are added to the paintings because they are so much a part of our life.”

Hand-painted silk fashions of Michael Shyka, metropolitan-themed photography of Karen Littlefield, paintings by Sally Gilbert, fiber arts by Jodi Clayton and ceramics by Katie Miller were also scattered through the building.

Two indie terror films, “Damnationland” and “Tucker & Dale vs Evil” by River City Cinema were shown at the Union Street Church at 7:30. “Damnationland” is a showcase of short Maine-made horror films consisting of new filmmakers every year. “Tucker & Dale vs Evil” is a horror comedy about killer rednecks and murderous hillbillies.

At the UMMA, exhibitions by Dominic Chavez, Carlo Pittore, Aba Ajay and Mary Mailler were on display. The digital enhancement of Mary Mailler’s illustrated collages focused around prints that depicted vintage architecture and outdoors from the imagination of the past and brought it to life with texture and color.

Poetry and paintings of Julie Miller were hosted by Main Street Music Studios. Her goal was to “give voice to those that could not speak for themselves.” The paintings were composed of watercolor and Indian inks.

The Artwalk started in 2008 as an informal open-studio tour uniting artists with downtown businesses to celebrate the diversity of local art. Hundreds of people from all over Maine spend the evening enjoying conversation, refreshments and the finest handmade craft Maine has to offer.

Artwalk Maine increases art awareness in 16 communities across Maine by holding more than 80 artwalks a year. It is a project of Five Rivers Arts Alliance and is organized by a group of local artists. Five art walks are organized annually in Bangor. They typically take place on Fridays from 5 to 9 p.m.

“A volunteer body of nine members makes sure each art walk happens,” said treasurer and intern chair of the board Jodi Clayton. “They are a group of local artists that want to make an art walk happen and happen to work well together. The newest members of the group include George Kinghorn, director of UMMA and Josh Gass and Kate Dawson of the Kahbang Music and Art Festival.”

The Bangor Art Walk, scheduled for Nov. 18, is the largest in the area, with over 50 artists exhibiting their work. An excess of 600 to 700 people attended the artwalk last November. With the growing interest in art and popularity of the artwalk spreading, that number is expected to rise by hundreds this year.

The walks are self-guided. Brochures can be downloaded online at downtownartscollaborative.org and on DBAC’s Facebook page.

Amidst talk of celebration, Ortiz said, “I’m very happy to be re-elected so that we can accomplish some of my goals, and I want to congratulate Rebekah on putting out a really, really solid campaign. She did a good job.”

“I wish him the best of luck and thank everyone who voted for me,” Dunham said.

Ortiz constructed his platform on student advocacy, dining, parking and fiscal responsibility.

“If re-elected, I plan on increasing this outreach through a series of ‘fireside chats’ not unlike [former United States president Franklin Delano Roosevelt], where I will go around to individual residence halls and discuss the issues facing the students. For the off-campus population I will hold them right here in the Union,” Ortiz said before the election.

“I will continue to work with auxiliary services to improve issues regarding on-campus dining,” he said, adding, “I would like to delve back into and solve issues with parking.”

Ortiz said he would focus primarily on parking at the New Balance Student Recreation Center.

According the UMSG rules of succession outlined in Section 6 of the Constitution, and barring resignation or impeachment, the Senate Pro Tempore, Sam Helmke, will be the new president after Ortiz graduates in May, as the other members of the cabinet will also graduate.

Unlike last year’s problematic election process — when there were two elections after the first was marred by issues with FirstClass that hampered student voting — Chair of the Fair Elections Practices Commission Raymond Updyke said that this year there were “less than 10 complaints and all were fixed.”

According to Updyke, there were 2,407 votes cast in total, 143 or 6 percentof which were write-ins. Ortiz received eight of those, and the commission threw out the paper ballots of two voters who voted on FirstClass as well.

Write-in votes included Boba Fett, Muammar Gaddafi, SpongeBob, Bananas the Bear, Bruce Wayne, “Ron Paul 2012 baby!,” Hugh G. Rection, Stephen Colbert, several variations of Anthony Ortiz’s name, Slater Claudel and former student body president Nelson Carson.

“[The] No. 1 challenge is the state we’re in. Maine poses some significant challenges for us to be competitive nationally and internationally and poses some challenges of competing interstate,” Ferguson said.

“Secondly, we need to hit this issue of the role of a flagship head-on. There is no question that the University of Maine is the flagship campus for the University of Maine System,” he said. “I think it’s critical to embrace the role of flagship — to be proud of the role of flagship — because there is no place like the University of Maine in this state.”

The last two challenges Ferguson believes UMaine faces are enrollment management and financial sustainability. He believes the University of Maine needs to exponentially increase focus on enrollment management.

Ferguson told the crowd about a conversation he had with a student. He asked the student if UMaine was his or her first choice, and the student said no, but that it should have been. To this point, Ferguson asked what could make UMaine a first-choice college for prospective students.

He has a plan for a new path for UMaine. His new initiative is called the President’s Request for Vision of University Excellence (PRE-VUE). This initiative will get UMaine on track, according to Ferguson. For a total of $1.5 million over the next three years, he has put out a request for five major proposals from the UMaine community for the PRE-VUE project.

The purpose of PRE-VUE is for the campus community to work collaboratively on specific issues and visions for the university. According to Ferguson, strategies should produce various new visions of becoming a land-grant institution for the 21st century.

PRE-VUE is also intended to identify and prioritize the challenges facing UMaine. The purpose is to bridge, or to “preview,” effective short-term and long-term problem solving, he said.

With these goals identified, Ferguson moved on to what he believes are going to be PRE-VUE priority areas, starting with how UMaine can increase critical faculty and hiring faculty.

He also plans to increase development and research resources for teacher-scholars along with balancing a community academic research portfolio on Maine’s top land-grant research university.

Additionally, the president said there is a need for financial equality directly related to student educational experience and improving campus-wide student recruitment and retention programs, including enrollment and student life experience in general.

“Our national reputation is extraordinary. People know the University of    Maine,” Ferguson said, adding that challenges facing the university don’t detract from its renowned quality.

“What has really impressed me about our students is their love of this place, their high respect for the world-class faculty of this place and their amends to using the University of Maine education to move this university forward as a partner,” said Ferguson.

With the spirit of Maine already ingrained in Ferguson, he said the challenges UMaine faces can be overcome.

“We build it together, and we build it right, and we’re going to do it wicked good,” he said.

The “No-Shave November Black Bear Beard Contest” is an effort by the University Singers to fund their trip to Europe, which is currently scheduled for May 2012.

“The purpose of this contest is to help the University Singers fundraise for our trip to Europe in the spring in a new and more creative way,” said Sarah Tourigny, publicity manager for the University Singers.

The group typically tours locally, but would like to take their act overseas.

“The opportunity to tour and promote the university in Europe, we find, is a great one. Despite that, we have to bear the financial burden of it entirely as students. We are looking forward to working hard to accomplish this goal and appreciate all the help we receive in the process,” Tourigny said.

Fundraising is key to achieving their financial goal, so members thought up ideas until they came up with the No-Shave November contest.

“One of our very prominent members of University Singers, Ryan Pottle, brainstormed this idea for fundraising and pitched it to the group,” Tourigny said.

Presumably, the idea was well-received.

Participants in the contest must “like” the contest page, “University Singers – No Shave November Black Bear Beard Contest,” on Facebook and upload a photo of their clean-shaven face, no later than midnight on Tuesday, Nov. 1.

“Each contestant pays five dollars and gives us their name [and we] have them ‘like’ the No Shave November contest page on Facebook,” Tourigny said.

Students without a Facebook account can contact Ryan Pottle on FirstClass to participate in the contest. Photos of the final beard must be submitted by midnight Wednesday, Nov. 30. Members of the University Singers will then vote on the submissions to decide the winners.

The beards will be judged on criteria including style, length and burliness. Beards that boast high marks in only one or two categories should have a fighting chance in the contest.

A winner will be chosen for each category and will receive a gift certificate to Erv’s Barber Shop in Orono.

One overall winner who exemplifies the best of all three qualities will be awarded the grand prize, which will be half of all donations contributed to the University Singers.

Photos of winning contestants will be published in a future issue of The Maine Campus.

Let’s examine the creepiest of the creepy in the world of music, starting with who I assume the most obvious:

1. Marilyn Manson

Ask anybody who the biggest freak in music is, and their knee-jerk reaction will likely be to say, “Marilyn Manson.” Just in his music video for “The Beautiful People,” we see squirming worms, people attached to strange machinery, creepy science experiments and Manson himself, in white makeup, black lipstick and eye makeup, wide eyes and long, dirty hair.

Manson supposedly had some of his ribs removed so he could pleasure himself orally. Whether or not this rumor is true, the fact that someone made this up about him and it sounded feasible enough for people to believe says something about Manson.

2. Slipknot

This band has done most of their scaring in a live setting. When they perform, they always wear frightening masks and orange jumpsuits while stagediving from balconies, fighting with each other and the audience and setting each other on fire.

Yes, intentionally setting each other on fire.

Musically, their songs have been attributed to some horrible things, like two murderers who claimed they were inspired by the lyrics of the Slipknot song, “Disasterpiece.” The lyrics of their song “Surfacing” were found at the site of a graverobbing. Although the band denied any connection to these crimes, a lot of twisted people seem to listen to their music and then act on it.

3. Ozzy Osbourne

First off, the man is nicknamed “The Prince of Darkness,” which ought to be an immediate red flag, indicating that Ozzy is a twisted dude.

During his tenure with Black Sabbath, he often sang about satanic things, which led to his condemnation by Christian groups. Where things get scary, though, is at the signing of his first post-Sabbath record deal. After signing the deal with record company executives, he bit the head off a dove during the meeting and, with blood dripping out of his mouth, spat it onto the table. His original plan was to release doves as a sign of peace, but his drunkenness caused him to do otherwise.

Just a year later in 1982, he infamously bit the head off a bat on stage at a concert in Des Moines, Iowa, thinking the bat was rubber.

It’s hard to imagine Osbourne as a terrifying man now — since he’s been reduced to a fried, blabbering shell of his former self — but plenty of ’80s kids went to sleep with visions of Ozzy tearing apart small animals with his teeth dancing in their heads.

4. Insane Clown Posse

Most people who are afraid of clowns seem to be that way irrationally. That is, unless they’re referring to the Insane Clown Posse.

The Detroit rap duo is always seen with creepy, painted clown faces and usually rap about murder, necrophilia and cannibalism, all of which nonfans like myself assume they participate in, in that order.

The lyrics of their albums are set in a self-created mythology they call “The Dark Carnival,” a sort of purgatory where souls wait until it is decided whether they go to Heaven or Hell. This does help reveal something most people wouldn’t suspect about the band — they are devout Christians, using their themes of violence to draw in fans and use those brutal lyrics as examples of wrongdoing.

Regardless of their intent, Insane Clown Posse still comes off terrifying to the ignorant observer.

5. Every heavy metal musician

Just calling it how I see it, people.

Madden is cool, Call of Duty is cool. We also know that, but what about other games? Do other games even exist?

Spoiler alert: Yes, they do.

New video games come out at least weekly. One of these new games is “Professor Layton and the Last Specter” for the Nintendo DS.

This is the fourth game in the puzzle-adventure series to hit the states since the series began in 2008; since then, a new game has been delivered every year. In Japan, the series has over six games with more on the way. An anime movie based on the series was released in Europe and Japan, a testament to the popularity of the professor.

These games follow Professor Layton and his boy sidekick Luke Triton on various quests to solve mysteries. Through the quests, Layton and Luke meet interesting characters who need help with their own little puzzles.

The series is great for children, teenagers, adults and even elders. They offer unique storylines and very many interesting puzzles. The series has gone on to be one of the DS’s top sellers, standing at 10 million copies sold as of a year ago.

“Professor Layton and the Last Specter” was released in North America on Oct. 17. The game has over 150 puzzles and includes a bonus role-playing game called “London Life,” which allegedly adds over 100 hours of gameplay to the main adventure.

“London Life” is one of the best mini-games I have ever played. While I don’t know if the game actually has 100 hours of gameplay, it is a lot of fun. It also isn’t much of a role playing game, or at least not in the traditional sense.

The game is very similar to games like “Animal Crossing” or “The Sims”: players walk around doing small favors for people or playing various mini-games in order to buy clothes and furniture for your apartment. You can also buy bigger apartments to house all of your furniture.

But how is the main game, “Professor Layton and the Last Specter”?  Fantastic.

If you have played any of the other Layton games and enjoyed them, you will undoubtedly love this game. One of the only faults of the game is that it is too similar to every other game in the series, but this is also true for multiple successful Nintendo franchises, such as the Legend of Zelda and Metroid series, known for games of repeating play styles, yet both having marked their 25th anniversaries earlier this year.

My personal favorite aspect of “Professor Layton” is the art style. The game has a 16-bit look, similar to games like “Earthbound” for the Super Nintendo. Every character has a unique look to them and each landscape is beautifully hand-drawn. It all looks like it was painted and is very beautiful.

A few cut scenes are amazing and make me wish the Professor Layton movie came out in America. The game’s story is also interesting and likely to get just about anyone hooked.

Each puzzle is unique and ranges from easy to mind-numbingly difficult. The game also boasts a very appropriate learning curve — by the time you get farther into the game you will see pattern in the way you solve puzzles. All that’s needed is a little thinking outside the box.

All and all, I highly recommend “Professor Layton and The Last Specter” for just about anyone. The difficult puzzles and the sensational art style will make anyone smile, and the “London Life” side-adventure is the perfect gift to fans who want more once the main story is over.