In case you missed it, two weekends ago Iowa State hosted the always well-attended Engineers’ Ball. I, being a recent chemical engineering graduate from another university, was actually looking forward to taking my ISU girlfriend for the second time.

It seems, however, that the engineers who planned the E-Ball forgot one important calculation you learn in Engineering 101: The ratio of dance floor area should be greater than 1 square foot per couple!

Apparently, this year, the Engineering Ball committee pulled an Enron by raising the prices from last year, renting a crappier place, hiring a band that played elevator music and selling enough tickets to make the dance floor as overpacked as the names in Madonna’s book of people she’s slept with.

Seriously though, what’s the point of having a dance when there’s not enough floor space to dance?

To top things off, what little dance space there was seemed to be overtaken by a boy/girl duo who thought they were Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey.

Except rather than maintaining some semblance of decency, our duo seemed to just want to perform dance moves that would show off her leopard panties.

While this clearly made a group of guys watching intensely happy, I was a bit peeved because my girlfriend and I had just shelled out $25 hoping to have a nice night of dancing.

While the evening was almost saved by the pure joy of watching a guy in a blue suit waltz around like John Travolta, it was merely ruined when somebody decided it was time to whip out a PowerPoint presentation and tell the band to leave.

Now I know engineers love PowerPoint, but please people, if you want others to think engineers are at least somewhat normal, you don’t close the evening with Microsoft!

So, in closing, I just want to thank you ISU E-Ball Committee for making this a highly forgettable experience.

Thank God I’m an atheist … (just kidding Dave) … thank God my girlfriend is graduating so I don’t drive four hours to be graced with PowerPoint swing dancing any more.

Jason Gaspar

St. Paul