As good as it feels to successfully remove broken bulbs from lamps and fix dents with plungers, there are a few common household issues that a professional should take care of. Rental insurance will also come in handy so you don’t get stuck footing the entire bill if the job isn’t routine maintenance, which rental companies and landlords are charged with addressing.

Tree removal

Is that great oak in your rental’s backyard looking a little droopy? Maybe one of the branches has begun to get dangerously close to your bedroom window? Don’t climb on the limb and attempt to hack it off yourself. After all, it’s not like you have insurance for that kind of thing like, say, an arborist might.

Broken doors and windows

Have you ever woken up in the morning to see your kitchen window in pieces on the floor in front of your sink? Well, if and when you do, clean up the shards and dispose of them properly but call your landlord and report the incident. Rental companies usually have a handyman or a preferred agency they’ll use for these jobs.

Leaking pipes

If your closest experience to a career in plumbing is successful mastery of every underwater level of “Super Mario Bros.,” it’s probably safe to say you won’t know how to properly handle this problem. Besides, this falls under the category of routine maintenance most landlords and rental agencies take responsibility for.

Remember when Lara Croft was just a pair of breasts with a gun? Anyone old enough to have handled a PlayStation controller without DualShock support does. The newest “Tomb Raider,” a reboot of the entire series and an origin story for its female adventurer, does an amazing job of making Lara more than a scantily clad Indiana Jones wannabe.

She laughs. She cries. She gets her ass kicked and dishes back the pain in spades. The folks at Crystal Dynamics gave their hero depth — “Tomb Raider” has been highly regardedamong the gaming press for furthering gender equality in video games. It’s a trend that’s been gaining traction, particularly as of late (and it’s about damn time).

“BioShock Infinite,” Irrational Games’ newest tale of a dystopian society gone wrong, features a deuteragonist named Elizabeth who saves the male player’s ass repeatedly throughout the game’s 12- to 16-hour duration. And rather than acting as the standard damsel in distress throughout Booker DeWitt’s adventure in the floating city of Columbia, Elizabeth is a key player in the plot, whose influence affects in-game events just as much as the player character. She’s on equal footing with every male character in the game, often becoming the driving force behind the events in “Infinite.”

But there’s a game studio that has both Irrational Games and Crystal Dynamics beat in the gender equality department, a firm that launches players into adventure with one simple question: Are you a boy or a girl?

That studio is The Pokémon Company.

Ever since “Pokémon Crystal” was released in Japan in 2000 — the game hit North America in 2001 — players have chosen between male and female avatars for their Pocket Monster adventures. The overall story and individual interactions the player has with non-playable characters following this decision aren’t altered by their choice of gender in the least. Boys and girls in the Pokémon World are treated the exact same regardless of circumstance.

The next step would be for The Pokémon Company and Nintendo to include a transgendered or gender neutral protagonist in future titles. Now that’d be progress that hasn’t been seen in mainstream gaming. But you’ve gotta hand it to those quirky Japanese game developers: They sure know the value of creating an inclusive experience. How else would the main series have sold nearly 134 million units by 2011?

The new Lara Croft in “Tomb Raider” and “BioShock Infinite’s” Elizabeth may have paved a positive path for gender roles on home consoles as of late, but let’s not forget the girls who laid the foundation on every one of Nintendo’s handheld platforms, from Kanto to Unova.

Ever since the early days of the Internet, one simple rule of thumb has been common knowledge: If it’s too good to be true, it probably is. That’s always the case on April Fools’ Day. Switching your roommates’ salt with sugar is small potatoes compared to the lengths certain websites go to on what can be considered a prankster’s Christmas. That’s not to say every online trick is to be avoided. Let’s take a gander at some of the best and the worst the Internet has to offer today.

The Best

Google: Treasure Maps

You can always count on Google to introduce a new “feature” that’s so cool you wish it were real. Although its latest Maps gag doesn’t quite measure up to last year’s Nintendo-inspired theme, the tech giant has rolled out Treasure Maps, a viewing mode for its cartographic endeavors. Once you click on the “Try it now” button, your regular Maps display will be replaced by a familiar ink and parchment render. Much of the land surrounding Eugene in this mode can simply be described as, “Trees. Trees everywhere.”

YouTube: It was a contest all along

It turns out that for the last eight years, YouTube’s sole purpose has been to find the best video ever created. The service will apparently shut down at midnight on April 1, at which point its staff of 30,000 will review every video ever uploaded and declare a winner. Once the victor is crowned, all other media on YouTube’s servers will be deleted. When YouTube returns in 2023, the winning entry will play on an endless loop. The announcement video features myriad Internet celebrities, from Charlie of “Charlie Bit My Finger” fame to Antoine Dodson, who claims the first 10 minutes of Citizen Kane might be great and all, but Epic Skateboard Fail is obviously the superior work.

The Mediocre

Twitter: Twttr

Love it or hate it, Twitter has proven to be one of the most influential social networks ever created. Many of its detractors claim meaningful discourse is impossible in 140 characters. Just imagine if the service imposed a new restriction, like requiring a premium account to construct a post using vowels. Twttr was introduced as the service’s basic offering, requiring users to pay in order to access the letters A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y.

deviantArt: deviantHEART

One of the most popular platforms for Internet artists has — finally — launched its own dating site: deviantHEART. Existing deviantArt users simply click on the prompt on their homepage and fill out a short questionnaire, asking them if they value wealth, looks or loyalty in a potential partner. Our prayers go out to the one deviantArtist who never catches on and ends up moving to the Netherlands in order to unite with his or her ideal chalk artist.

 The Soul-Crushing

Valve Software: Half-Life 4

If there’s one industry that truly embraces April Fools’ Day, it’s the folks who work with video games. And if there’s one sure way to upset rabid gamers, it’s by offering them appealing products that may never exist. It’s rare for a publisher to get in on the joke, however, and Valve Software has done just that by “releasing” an alpha version of Half-Life 4 exclusively for Linux. Fans have been clamoring for a follow-up to Half-Life 2 since the game’s release in 2004 and instead, Gabe Newell & Co. have purportedly leapfrogged the much-anticipated sequel. Way to give gullible nerds the world over a collective heart attack.

Domino’s: Pizza in a can

As Kotaku reports, Domino’s Pizza is advertising a pizza-in-a-can product in Japan. The less said about that, the better.

***

Of course, this isn’t an all-inclusive list of everything the Internet has to offer today. Feel free to share your favorites in the comments below.

Update, 10:47 p.m.: ”The earlier discovery that the ‘weapons’ in question at Barnhart Hall were Airsoft pellet guns,” wrote Kelly McIver in an email to an Emerald reporter.

According to McIver, the weapons were never reported to UOPD or University Housing as being used in a threatening manner.

Even though nobody was threatened, the possession of pellet guns violate the terms that are in the University Housing contract. University Housing and the University’s Office of Student Conduct may take disciplinary actions towards the students who own the pellet guns.

As of now, the names of the students are being withheld.

***

A staff member at Barnhart Residence Hall found what they “were concerned, might be a weapon” just after 5 p.m. on Monday, according to University of Oregon Police Department spokesperson Kelly McIver.

“No one is in possession of a weapon that we can confirm,” he said.

Update, 5:57 p.m.: A student outside Barnhart said police cars arrived with their sirens on and left within a few minutes.

“Some cop cars came in the parking lot, and then two officers ran in, but then they just walked out and drove off,” a student at the scene said.

The police were leaving as an Emerald reporter arrived.

Four police cars were also seen at Riley Residence Hall — at least three cars were from the Eugene Police Department. “We’re just assisting UOPD,” one officer at the scene said.

No students at Riley or Barnhart were evacuated from their dorms, and most students weren’t even aware that the police were present.

A small fire in a stairwell in Tingle Hall at the Hamilton Residence Hall took place shortly after 4 p.m., according to tweets from students and from the official University media relations Twitter account. The UO Alerts page confirms the incident, including the fact that officials from the Eugene Fire Department are currently investigating the cause of the fire.

“The fire apparently started with a burning sign. An alarm sounded and a student-employee put it out with a fire extinguisher,” according to an email from University spokesperson Julie Brown.

Students are still waiting to re-enter the residence hall — after waiting at least an hour, according to freshman April Ishmael.

An image was posted to Twitter by Ishmael, who was walking back from a final exam at Prince Lucien Campbell Hall when she received a phone call from a friend who was at the scene.

I get home to my hall being on fire, god damn it tingle we need to get our shit together! Literally a hot mess twitter.com/aprilishh/stat…

— April Ishmael(@aprilishh) March 18, 2013

Update Tuesday, 10 a.m: Blackboard appears to be working once again and has been since 1 a.m., according to an announcement on the Blackboard website. The UO Blackboard team was apparently unable to find a root cause of the problems and have not yet put in place a long-term solution, but they believe that the website is now stable.

***

Blackboard is down across campus — the Emerald offices included — and students have reported being kicked off or otherwise unable to access the service on the first day of finals week. It has reportedly been down since at least 3:50 p.m.

Helen Chu, director of academic technology, sent an email to an IT listserv informing recipients of the outage.

“UO Libraries & Information Services are aware and are working on the issue. Updates will be provided as information becomes available,” she wrote.

A source in the University’s IT department says the cause of the outage is unknown. Phone calls to information services department officials around campus have gone unanswered thus far, likely because the issue is presently being hammered out.

Students are taking to Twitter for answers:

Hey @univ_of_oregon , your Blackboard server is down…during my final

— Mark Lavis (@mark_lavis) March 18, 2013

Blackboard being down during Finals week? NOT cool #DamnYouFinals

— Mandy Shold (@WayToRepresent) March 18, 2013

Slow clap for UO blackboard. How could you crash during finals week. #Blackboard #frustration

— Alex Slack (@Slack_Alex) March 18, 2013

Blackboard won’t let me log in. This is the world telling me to watch Netflix.

— Chloe Hayhurst (@ChloeHayhurst) March 18, 2013

Students at other college campuses, including Ball State University, have reported on Twitter that the site is also down for them although it is likely unrelated.

Update 5:48 p.m.: Blackboard access, if a bit spotty, has been restored. The service’s home page for University of Oregon students appears to work intermittently on OS X versions of Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari.

Update 6:40 p.m.: The following appeared on the University’s IT services status site at 6 p.m.:

“Shortly after 3:30 p.m. today, Blackboard began running very slowly or failed to respond entirely. Library and Information Services staff are currently working to find the cause of the problem and plan to have Blackboard back up as soon as possible.”

IT is working with Blackboard support to get things back online.

Students began circulating a petition on social media to get Tuesday finals canceled. As of this post, it had over 1,500 signatures.

James Olmsted, the adjunct law instructor who was caught on video confiscating a student’s phone during an altercation in the Erb Memorial Union amphitheater, has had his teaching duties reassigned as of Friday, according to an official release by the university. Adell Amos will take over Olmsted’s courses.

Olmsted taught land trust and conservation easement law courses. His LinkedIn profile, which has since been upgraded to block non-paying users, states that he instructed second- and third-year and masters students in the School of Law’s environmental and natural resources department.

“This is a personnel decision and we are unable to discuss the details of the situation at this time,” the release states.

The altercation occurred during a mock border check-in exercise organized by Students Against Imperialism.

Olmsted describes himself as “nationally recognized conservation easement attorney representing land trusts, landowners and developers” in his LinkedIn profile. He has spent the last 10 years working as a conservation easement, land use and zoning attorney in addition to his duties as a university instructor and worked as a land use and zoning attorney in Lake Tahoe, Calif. previously.

James Olmsted, the adjunct law instructor who was caught on video taking a student’s phone and putting it in his pocket during an altercation in the EMU amphitheater, has had his teaching duties reassigned as of Friday, according to an official release by the University of Oregon. Adell Amos will take over Olmsted’s courses.

Olmsted taught land trust and conservation easement law courses. His LinkedIn profile, which has since been upgraded to block non-paying users, states that he instructed second- and third-year and masters students in the School of Law’s environmental and natural resources department.

“This is a personnel decision and we are unable to discuss the details of the situation at this time,” the release states.

The altercation occurred during a mock border check-in exercise organized by Students Against Imperialism.

Olmsted describes himself as “nationally recognized conservation easement attorney representing land trusts, landowners and developers” in his LinkedIn profile. He has spent the last 10 years working as a conservation easement, land use and zoning attorney in addition to his duties as a UO instructor and worked as a land use and zoning attorney in Lake Tahoe, Calif., previously.

The Social Host Ordinance, a piece of legislation passed by the Eugene City Council in late January, is being petitioned by ASUO Sen. Lamar Wise and Kevin Cronin, executive director of the Lane County Young Democrats. The two student leaders began gathering signatures this week in hopes of bringing the legislation to a public vote. The city council unanimously approved the measure, which imposes fines of up to $1,000 on anyone who hosts a “party or gathering” that violates the ordinance, on Jan. 28.

Wise and Cronin have two years to collect the 7,800 signatures necessary to put the repeal up for a public vote. Cronin told the Emerald that the Lane County Young Democrats’ goal was to have Eugene voters weigh in during the 2014 primaries. He said he’d rather not dedicate a special election to this issue alone in order to avoid putting an unnecessary tax burden on the city’s residents.

More than 2,000 signatures have been collectively gathered between efforts on the University of Oregon campus and at Lane Community College. Cronin says this is more than the number of votes Eugene City Councilor Alan Zelenka (D-Ward 3) secured for his re-election.

“He’s the face of the measure to students,” Wise said.

If Zelenka doesn’t publicly support the ordinance’s repeal after all 7,800 signatures are collected, Cronin says the Young Democrats would seek a representative to replace him on the council.

“We’re going to hold our elected officials responsible,” Cronin said.

The ordinance went into effect March 2 but will not be enforced until April 1 in order to give Eugene and UO Police a month to spread awareness of the law. The decision to implement the ordinance rested with the city council prior to its passage in January. Cronin, Wise and their respective student groups had to wait until the legislation took effect in order to appeal it in an official capacity.

Zelenka could not be reached for comment as of press time.