While most of UCSD was engaged in profound, earnest debate over whether tonight’s pizza should be the venerable ham-and-pineapple or something bolder (but potentially disastrous), a few brains on the A.S. Council had the unenviable task of trying to please 21,000 undergrads with their selection of headliners for the May 18 Sun God festival.

The word is out, and this year’s concert will feature rapper T.I. and alt-rockers Third Eye Blind, along with Ozomatli, Ben Kweller, Fifty on Their Heels, Busdriver, Self Against City, Meho Plaza and battle-of-the-bands victors High Tide.

And while the rest of the campus enjoys their slices of jalapeno/anchovy/pineapple pizza, Associate Vice President of Programming Di Lam is stuck with the second part of her job: absorbing the inevitable flak from students who are displeased with this year’s selection of artists.

Of course, some Sun God complaints are worthy. Last year, students objected that the mascara-streaked platitudes of “”mainscreamo”” headliner My Chemical Romance (“”We can wash down this engagement ring / With poison and kerosene””) hardly befit a festival that is supposed to be about having a good time while causing irreversible damage to your liver. Fair criticism.

But other complaints often come from people who don’t seem to enjoy anything, those poor souls who are convinced that all concerts suck, rap sucks, country-western sucks, the newspaper definitely sucks – and breathing sucks, except in that it is essential to life.

There’s nothing to do at UCSD, they say.

For those perennial nay-sayers, a view from beyond the campus might give an interesting perspective.

“”Can’t we get a decent band to play here?”” lamented an April 26 editorial from the Daily 49er, the Cal State Long Beach student newspaper. “”Every week, my friends at UCSD … are bragging to me about which bands their student governments and program councils are bringing to their campuses. But every time I walk past a band playing on our campus, it’s always an obscure unsigned band that nobody watches.””

Someone is actually jealous of the social life at UCSD? ¿Que?

“”UCSD students pay a $21 campus activity fee and get awesome events like weekly concerts and the Sun God Festival,”” the editorial continued. “”[Cal State Long Beach students] pay $44 each semester to the Associated Students Inc. and another $50 to the University Student Union, and we get a bunch of bands that would probably pay us to play. I don’t get it.””

For anyone who says there isn’t anything to do, turn back to the half-page ad on the bottom of page 3 – it’s there every Monday. Note the free Monday-night concerts at Espresso Roma and the free Nooners on Fridays at Porter’s Pub, both of which happen every week. The campus calendar, also in the Guardian on Mondays, lists a smorgasbord of other events – UCSD baseball games for the sports-inclined, cultural events for the curious and practice interview seminars for the depressingly forward-looking.

And then there’s the periodic nighttime concerts that hit the Pub, plus the discounted weekly movies on the big screen at Price Center and the nightclubs. And the shiny faces and vomit-paved streets of Pacific Beach are little more than a 20-minute bus ride away.

And that’s leaving out the off-campus “”events”” that you can get invited to when you actually get out of your room and go places with the intent of having fun and meeting people.

Within the strict but somewhat porous boundaries set by the campus administration, there are plenty of things to keep a person busy. The UCSD experience is whatever UCSD students want to make of it.

And I don’t know about you, but come Sun God, my liver and I are going to have a real good time.