College Mascot Contest

**FNG** · 10-14-2004, 12:34 AM

Contest Webpage

So Goldy is up for mascot of the year. If he wins, the 'spirit department' gets $5,000. Vote for Goldy 'cause he's the coolest.

Minnesota is known as the "Gopher State," so what other name would suit University of Minnesota's mascot than Goldy Gopher. This bubbly buck tooth mascot has been delighting the hearts of UMN college students for 74 years. Goldy is the only mascot that can say a building was structured to resemble his likeness. From his tail to his teeth, this Gopher is definitely a fan favorite around the twin cities.

Favorite food: Start off with an appetizer of Hawkeye wings, hit the main course with a BBQ Badger Burger, then top it off with a slice of Buckeye pie all of which are garnished with a Rose in a bowl.

Most embarassing moment: At a football game, we have a cannon that gets shot off when we score. I was playing with it, and mistakenly thought it was not loaded. I shot it off in the middle of a kickoff and was kicked out of the game!

What the ladies say about him: Is that tail real? All of it?

Favorite TV Show and/or Movie: Caddyshack, it showed what sneaky, clever, pranksters my fellow rodents and I are.

Why vote for me: When I lose my front teeth, rumor has it that I will receive the largest Tooth Fairy payout in history. I will be tracking votes and profit sharing with those who help me become the next mascot president. (*hereby signed: Goldy Gopher, and I approve of this message)

**LegoSkier** · 10-14-2004, 10:33 AM

This contest lags. Heres the entry for my schools mascot (clearly the best):

Banana slugs' idea of foreplay, as I soon witness, involves nudging and biting each other, as well as eating each other's slime. "And they like to take their time," explains Harper, who once sat on a stool on her lawn until midnight watching a pair of courting slugs engaged in a bruising mating ritual that lasted 12 hours. Either way, both slugs are keeping their private parts to themselves, which is fine by me, given what typically happens next.

When slugs finally come together they form a yin-yang-like circle, where they remain motionless for hours, before deciding it's time to get back to their solitary lifestyle of cleaning up the forest floor.

And that's when the trouble begins. Banana slugs are so well endowed that sometimes one or both of the slugs cannot withdraw. "It appears the slug's retractor muscle isn't strong enough to pull out," says Harper, pouring me more tea, as I watch a slug slither along the lip of the fish bowl.

Perhaps it wants to escape any amorous approaches, which is understandable, given that love affairs, banana-slug style, seems doomed to end painfully. For as Harper soon explains, if after much struggling and writhing a pair of slugs can't disengage, one or both slugs may take what sounds like an agonizing and traumatizing step: chewing off the other's organ in a process known as apophallation.

Whether the thus Bobbitted but pregnant--with about 30 eggs each--slugs ever have sex again is a mystery, says Harper, who once tried to observe captive slugs in a makeshift lab until raccoons broke in and ate her specimens.

"Slugs don't appear to be in pain or to bleed after amputation, and people have observed slugs that continue to chew on the organ even after it's severed, which suggests it may have nutritional value," Harper says.