Right after having a giant Christmas tree as your mascot comes thebest reason to be a Cardinal: the chance to have 1Gbps internet from Google . If you'll recall, the Big G announced earlier this year that it was planning to rollout a 1Gbps fiber connection to between 50,000 and 500,000 homes in a given community , and while the search is still ongoing for the perfect fit (that's expected to be announced by the year's end), Google's using a sliver of Stanford's campus to trial things before heading public. The university's Residential Subdivision -- a group of approximately 850 faculty- and staff-owned homes on campus -- will be the testing grounds for the aforesaid internet service, and the current plan is to break ground on the initiative in early 2011. El Goog chose Stanford for a couple of reasons: first, it's bright enough to realize how awesome of a PR move this is, and second, this chunk of campus is spitting distance from Mountain View. Third, the Cardinal mascot was down with it -- and seriously, who is Google to question that thing?