This past Friday, April 15, brought the fourteenth year of More Honors show. For the second year the event was held in the Skaptopara Sports Hall, drawing, in addition to students, many AUBG alumni and faculty members.

The introduction was well done, although the video montage featured a current frustrating musical trend, dubstep. It chronicled the highly exaggerated exploits of junior Martin Georgiev, this year’s host. Aside from being a little lackluster, Georgiev did a proficient job hosting, despite some minor technical difficulties.

The narrative behind the event this year was very simplistic, which I appreciated. In the past, when the story lines were a little more intricate and involved, they detracted from the overall cohesion of the evening. This year's narrative would have been better without the clichéd gun-toting guards, however. They were annoying and did nothing whatsoever, aside from drawing the audience’s attention away from the host.

Another issue that was seemingly unplanned was a lack of coherency in the category winners' interview answers. Often after Georgiev would ask the winners a question, they would freeze, mumble something random, and the joke intended in the questions was completely lost. The lack of witty repartee could have been better anticipated, saving the audience from awkward pauses after a winner had been asked a very pointed question. 

The event brought with it the usual fare of slapstick, sex jokes, and ribbing of faculty and administration. Which of course is to be expected. Several of this year's videos, however, lacked that clever twist at the end that to me characterized them in the past. 

A personal highpoint was the introduction video for the Epic award, which parodied a conspiracy theory documentary, uncovering a symbol-driven Skull and Bones-esque secret society at the heart of AUBG. It was well-edited, as most of the videos were,  but far superior in its use of parody.

Several of the category winners failed to show up, giving an opportunity for some of the runners-up and former More Honors members to speak in their stead. I was impressed by Angel Angelov-Mostuna declining the award in the Freshman category. It showed modesty and decorum not generally characterized by More Honors winners. Then again, how is the creator of More Honors going to accept an award. That would be the epitome of tackiness.

The Lifetime Achievement award was presented to professor Prof. Sabina Wien. It is the one serious award given during the show and it celebrates a person in the AUBG community who has given back a great deal. “We thought that Sabina … (has) this image of a person who is easily reachable and helpful …  although she has really only been around for three or four years, I think she has proven to be one of the people you can always turn to for things besides academic problems,” said junior Vladimir Gerasimov, one of the two presidents of the More Honors Academy. Upon acceptance, Wien made it clear that although she had won the award, she was not planning on retiring.

There was the usual underlying miasma of arrogance. And yet, there is a reason for this arrogance. This is the role More Honors fills as part of the AUBG organism, letting off of steam from the accumulative year, albeit in a cocky manner. More Honors is about "mocking and criticizing unmockable things, but at the same time not being too preachy … What we do together is something special, something that makes us forget about politics or who is running for SG [Student Government] president, or what not … I think this is what keeps us going,” Gerasimov said.

Even though parts of the event lacked in high-minded creativity, what do the viewers expect? More Honors does not pretend to be something it is not. In fact to me, the absurd and farcical is what it celebrates. While it may have its faults, all of the fanfare surrounding this event is warranted and the amount of time put into it is evident and admirable.