Save those chips!

Strapped for cash and looking for innovative ways to save money, the Undergraduate Council is pinning its hopes for a new computer on a campaign to collect "eploid" points from the backs of Frito-Lay potato chip bags.

At Sunday's meeting, member Trisha S. Dasgupta '03 presented her idea to have the council collect the empty potato chip bags from the Fly-By lunch counter. Each bag has one "eploid" on it, she explained.

Currently, eploid.com is in the midst of a 100-day auction: Each day until Nov. 15, 10 Gateway computers will be auctioned off to the bidder offering the most eploids. In the last week, some computers have gone for as little as 1,380 eploids, while others have gone for as much as 4,405 eploids.

Dasgupta proposed that the council place a collection box in Loker Commons and that council members make a special effort to get chips from Fly-By.

Currently, the council has a 10-year-old Apple computer that was severely damaged when a pipe burst in the council office last winter. The computer has been "completely nonfunctional" this fall, treasurer Justin A. Barkley '02 says.

For months now, a paper clip has been keeping the monitor on.

"If you removed the paper clip, we couldn't turn it on," said President Fentrice D. Driskell '01.