The ADB Mailbag: Move-In Day

he's helping (via UConn)

It’s move-in day! Congrats to the newest Huskies. We hope you learn how to do laundry before you become so smelly that your roommate has to stage an intervention and the university calls your parents saying that your odor has become disruptive to the other students and action needs to be taken or else they will have no choice but to remove you from the dorms and you’ll have to move back home and share a room with Bennett, that little bastard, because your dad already turned your bedroom into his “office” but he never actually works from home so what is he doing in there?? Best wishes for a great first semester!

Remember: If your question wasn’t answered or you’ve been living under a rock and are just hearing about this, you can submit your questions here or on Twitter (@ADimeBack).


Josh asks: Best dorm snacks, ranked.

5. Doritos/Cheetos: Something that turns your hands an unnatural shade of orange is the key here.

4. Ramen: It’s not “good” so much as it’s cheap as hell, and only requires water and a microwave to make edible. After a certain age, you will learn that this stuff is basically poison, but you’ve got the constitution of an 18-year-old so enjoy it while it lasts.

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3. Cereal: To this day, a go-to snack for me. I favor Cheerios (OG, Honey Nut or Frosted: all good) but Frosted Flakes, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Rice Krispies also make the cut.

2. Easy Mac: Also only requires water and a microwave, is also pretty cheap (though you can upgrade to Annie’s, and you should), but has the benefit of being delicious because all mac and cheese is, by definition, delicious.

1. Microwave popcorn: This is the secret to making new friends. You pop some corn, leave the door open, and magically, friends will appear. I promise. This is how I met Caron Butler as a sophomore. He lived the floor below me, and one evening, sitting on my futon, munching away on my freshly-popped popcorn, future-NBA legend Caron Butler appeared in my doorway and asked if he could have some. Of course I said yes. The man has hands the size of dinner plates, so when his hand came out of the bag, so did half of the popcorn. But it was worth it, because I have been telling that story for like 15 years, as I am telling it to you now. So the point is, make popcorn and you might get to tell people about the time you gave snacks to an NBA legend.

— Meghan Bard


uconn fan (clever as hell twit name) asks: Best UConn dining hall? Best non-revenue sporting event at UConn? Worst dorm on campus? Celeron or Carriage? Ted’s or Huskies?

Let’s take these rapid-fire style:

1) It’s South. Forever South. There’s a reason they house athletes there.

2) Soccer, without a doubt. UConn is usually pretty good in both men’s and women’s soccer every year, and live soccer is incredibly fun — especially at UConn, where you get to be in a crazy student section (shoutout to the Goal Patrol) chanting things for your fellow students and yelling at the other team’s dumb bad goalie about how dumb and bad he is. Honorable mention to #icebus, though I ding it because unlike soccer, you can’t walk to the games.

3) I never actually stepped foot inside it, but West always seemed like a pile of shit. I’m an old now, but I feel like the common answer for folks of my era was either East or Buckley. However, I will heed the words of friends who lived in East who said it was secretly good. (Plus, the Great Lawn is incredibly underrated.) And Buckley has the benefit of a decent dining hall PLUS the adjacency to Storrs Center, which would have been phenomenal to me, the five-days-per-week-Daily-Campus-staffer, in 2005.

4) Which is the one you walk to and there’s a lot of jungle juice and beer pong and then you stagger back to your dorm dodging cars on a dark, dangerously winding road? That one.

5) Ted’s for food and general atmosphere. Huskies if you prefer to not be asphyxiated while throwing back shots and drinking Coors. (Personally, I preferred the bar once known as Thirsty Dog, mostly because of the physical layout, but then I always was a contrarian.)

— Kevin Meacham


Puneet asks: DP Dough or Sgt Pep’s? (Spoiler: it’s the second one)

Look, I don’t feel as strongly about this as the rest of the ADB team who has engaged in a civil war over this question all day in the slack channel (The War of Calzone Aggression, as some have taken to calling it). Sgt. Pep’s may be fine, but contrarily, Puneet is an untrustworthy ragamuffin so the correct answer must be DP Dough. If you’ve vaped enough Avocado Bud Heavies (or whatever you damn kids are doing nowadays) both will probably seem delicious. Sgt. Pep’s gives you the added benefit of being greasy enough to render all of your clothing see-through after one serving.

The only unequivocal campus food insight I can offer is that securing the Aircraft Carrier from Wings Over for your Super Bowl party makes you Queen/King UConn.

— Tyler Wilkinson