The hip-hop-rock band, Gym Class Heroes, is scheduled to headline Spring Fling on April 5, according to a press release from GW Program Board.  The band is known for the singles “Cupid’s Chokehold” and “Clothes Off!”  Tyga and Kidz in The Hall will be special guest performers.   Stay tuned with The Daily Colonial for more information on Spring Fling 2008  …

You won’t have to wait for the Academy Awards to see some of this year’s Oscar-nominated foreign films on the big screen. The National Geographic Society, based in Washington D.C., will show five screenings this week of films nominated for Hollywood’s top honor in the foreign language category.

Each film will be from a different country and not widely distributed in American theaters. Starting on Thursday, Feb. 14, The Counterfeiters from Austria will kick off the series, with Poland’s Katyn wrapping up on Sunday, Feb. 17. At $7 per ticket, each film includes a free reception beforehand. For a full schedule of the screenings, plus a synopsis of each movie, visit nglive.org.

From arts reporter Morgan Davis:

The gods of rock are calling, and they want you.

Rock Band 2007 Tour is on GW’s campus this week as part of a nation-wide tour to promote Rock Band, a video game due for release in North America on Nov. 23. The tour offers people a chance to try the game before its release date as well as vie for a spot on MTV’s TRL.

Rock-star-wannabees and bands who know they are the next big thing are encouraged to participate in a “Rock Off” audition. Two bands from across the country will be selected to perform in a live Battle of the Bands, with the winning group opening at the Rock Band launch concert this holiday season.

Rock Band comes from the collaboration of MTV Games (a division of the MTV network), Harmonix (the creators of Guitar Hero) and Electronic Arts (video and computer game creators), and seeks to offer music enthusiasts and gamers alike the chance to play in a virtual band. Up to four players can play three different instrument peripherals, a guitar, bass guitar, drum and microphone, while music cross the screen.

Rock Band will be outside Kogan Plaza on Wednesday and Thursday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Lisner auditorium will host some well-known guests in the upcoming week, with Stephen Colbert discussing his book I am American (And So Can You!) next Friday, Oct. 19, and author David Sedaris coming Saturday, Oct. 6.  Student tickets are sold out for both shows, said Carl Graci, marketing manager for GW Lisner Auditorium.  Sedaris will be presenting his new written material, with Q&A and a booksigning at 8 p.m. this Saturday, and Emmy-nominated Colbert will go on at 7 p.m. next Friday.  For tickets and information on upcoming shows, including Annie Lennox on Oct. 25 and Steve Martin on Nov. 27, visit lisner.org.

Singer-songrwriter Ben Kweller will headline this year’s Fountain Day concert on Saturday, April 28, according to the Mount Vernon Programming Council.

The annual event celebrates the end of spring semester and the beginning of summer by turning on the MV Quad’s fountain for the first time of the season.

Keeping in line with a year marked by student activism, this year’s theme is “Turning on Awareness.”

Spin art, a tie dye station, a henna artist and refreshments will also be featured at the event, according to MVPC. Fountain Day free to all GWorld cardholders, who will each be allowed to bring one guest.

This cycle’s theme: “A Student in the City” — as another semester comes to a close, we want to see how you can best describe the life of a GW student in Washington through an original photograph. The winner’s picture will run on our front page on Dec. 11, 2006.

All submissions should be emailed to photo@DailyColonial.com, along with the photographer’s name, class year, and preferable email address for contact.

We’d also like entrants to submit a brief paragraph about themselves and about their inspiration for the picture.

Entries are due by Dec. 10 at noon.

All submissions become property of The Daily Colonial. The Daily Colonial reserves the right to publish, store, and reprint submitted photos at the discretion of The Daily Colonial. All decisions made by The Daily Colonial as they pertain to this contest are final. Submission and publication dates are subject to change at any time without notice at the discretion of The Daily Colonial.

At least, for a little while, our airwaves will no longer be clogged with the same, overplayed, increasingly combative political ads.

Now the networks can get back to playing important, informative commercials, like those for Erectile Dysfunction. (One’s on right now.)

Thankfully for political junkies, now comes the period of post-race analysis and coverage of vote recounts in tight races. (The fun just keeps on going!)

Anyway, what I want to know is, how does Wolf Blitzer do it? He was still on the air when my roommates went to bed around 4 a.m. on the morning after the polls closed, reporting from New York, and back on the air the following afternoon in front of the Capitol.

Hi. I’m Matthew Lubin. You might remember me from such articles as “PS3: The good, the bad, the costly” and “Nintendo’s Revolution.” But today I’m here to talk about something far more serious: Bro Rape. It’s bad stuff.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you need to see this video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=3zvTRQr7ns8

Funny, no? Anyway, I do have something real to talk with you, the loyal reader, about. And that is the internet.

It’s pretty cool.

Scratch that.

It’s very cool.

Scratch that.

It’s the internet. We all know how cool it is.

But something interesting happened to me a month and a half ago. I, somehow, became a part of a higher level of the internet community. Now, I have obviously used the internet for years, and I have participated (to a limited degree) in certain community websites, like message boards and Facebook, for a long time as well. But at the beginning of this school year I was hired (considering I’m not paid, is “hired” the right word?) as a columnist here at the Daily Colonial, covering the Technology Beat. I am, in fact, the only nerd covering that particular field for this publication. And so far, I have enjoyed myself. I haven’t really contributed to the greater good of society by writing semi-snide articles about video game consoles and MP3 players, but a few people have read my work, and I hope they have been made somewhat more informed by them.

So, about two weeks ago I was lurking on a message board I like to lurk on, when I saw a thread titled something like “Diving Website Reveals New Information on ‘Forever Blue.’” Now at that moment all I thought to myself was “cool.” For the few of you who read my article from a few weeks back on Nintendo’s new Wii console (Hi Mom!), you might (probably not) remember that, at the end of it, I mention a game planned for the system titled “Forever Blue,” a game that is basically a diving simulator. I mentioned how I thought the idea was interesting, how it used the innovative aspects of the Wii controller, and how I was looking forward to it.

So, much to my surprise, when I clicked the thread on the message board, and followed the link provided to the so-called diving website, I found no new information at all.

I found somebody at DiveNews.com, an honest-to-God diving news website, had posted that excerpt from my story as a news article here.

And then I found that people in the message board thread were debating the content of that article.

And then I posted that I was the original author of the article DiveNews was referencing, and how they shouldn’t really treat it as anything more then a little piece theorizing that was written by someone who had no more accesses to information relating to this title then any one of them.

And then I was told I was a liar. I think the exact response was something like “Shut the **** up you ************. Your **********ing ***** isn’t even worthy of ******* Matthew Lubin’s ****. So why don’t you take your ****ing *** back to your **********ing **** and eat some **** before I take your **** and make you eat it.”[1]

And that is when I realized, wow, now that I write for a website, even a dinky- albeit absolutely, stunningly wonderful- little college online publication like the Daily Colonial, people will actually listen to me. Some people will take what I write as fact, or at least learned opinion, and then parrot whatever drivel I manage to spew out to others. This is an incredible power I now have. And I really, really, don’t deserve it.

But, hell, I’ll take it.

P.S: No really, keep reading. Everything I say is true.[2]

[1] May not be true.

[2] See above.

After the first of Jerry Seinfeld’s two sold-out shows Saturday night, a small gaggle of GW reporters were allowed into the downstairs meet-and-greet. Unlike Jon Stewart last year, there was no mini-press conference or time for GW TV to do an ambush for its station promos. No press cameras allowed, except the University’s. (I couldn’t even bring the Daily Colonial’s camera in while still tucked in its camera case.)

We were led in to a small, converted room in the belly of the Smith Center where President Trachtenberg and his family, some of the show’s underwriters and other people affiliated with the university, etc., were also waiting.

Most of these important people met him and got their pictures taken (by the University photographer) before we did. The gaggle just lingered and crept closer and closer towards him.

At some point down in the Smith Center, two other student print reporters and the WRGW reporter excitedly told me they’d “pooled” some question ideas during the wait from the seating area to here. As we approached Seinfeld, their giddiness became less and less contained. (Understandably, I guess.) As we were about to move in, I jokingly suggested they chill out. This did not go over well.

Adela de la Torre of University Relations shuffled us in for a photo and brief questions. Others were already trying to shoo us out, so time was of the essence.

The first girl, I think the Hatchet reporter, asked something along the lines of ‘What questions do you get asked a lot and what are bad questions reporters ask and what should reporters ask you more?’

In an honest way he said to her ‘That’s a really long, convuluted question. I don’t think I can answer that.’

The next reporter asked ‘What’s your favorite car?’ (Seinfeld is known for his car collection, to be fair, but probably for his comedy first.)

‘That’s too ephemeral. I’m not going to answer that.’

The next reporter said ‘Would you ever go on “Curb Your Enthusiasm”?’

‘Yeah, if Larry [David] wrote a part for me.’
Finally, it was my turn.

“How do you channel what people are thinking into your routine? How do you know what people are thinking?”

He looked at me. “Yeah, that’s a good question,” he said. “I’m not able to do it…I think that’s just what people are noticing or not noticing.” For example, the bit he told about going into a public bathroom and seeing everyone’s crumpled pants’ legs and sad little shoe fronts. Everyone has seen that before.

I said to him that his mom and my grandmother must be the same person from all their typical, elderly grandmother habits. He said that’s the thing - they are, but they aren’t really. Certain behaviors are so common that it’s just a matter of picking up on them.

Jerry Seinfeld just says what we’re all thinking.