Stop me if you’ve heard this before: A priest, a street cop and a drunken Irish vampire walk into a church … Never mind, I’m just going to stop myself. For this week’s Trading expedition, I decided to join the theater world to hang out with NIU’s...

Oh, you don’t want to rock? Ted Leo doesn’t care. On “Shake the Sheets,” Leo grabs you in a headlock and rarely lets up in the album’s 40 minutes. More stripped-down than his previous releases, Leo gets back to the raw basics with less complex...

Seeing World War II through posters is an educational time line about history. John Wright, owner of Wright’s Jewelry, 124 E. Lincoln Highway, decided to put together a gallery of his WWII posters at the Nehring Center Gallery in DeKalb. “It’s a...

In case you’re one of the many individuals developing a table-size levitation machine in a two-car garage, Shane Caruth has just created the story of your dreams. For the rest of us, this first-time director has just given the movie-going public a ticket...

Last week, Weekender asked students to volunteer teams of two to four students for a race through Jonamac Orchard’s corn maze. The response was overwhelming, with more than 30 groups replying in the first two days. With bragging rights at stake, as...

This 16-year-old heartthrob O’Ryan sets out on his self-titled album to prove his skills. Attracting the ladies is his forte with the ballads and songs like “Anything” saying, “You could be wifey material/Baby I’m not mad at you/Girl you get...

What would you do with a piece of wood? Would you paint it, draw on it, film it or dress it up? Ars Nova, an NIU art group, is posing that same question in an ongoing project this semester. The club is handing out pieces of wood to students and asking...

Weekend box office summary 1. “The Grudge” $39.1M 2. “Shark Tale” $14.3M 3. “Shall We Dance?” $8.59M 4. “Friday Night Lights” $6.95M 5. “Team America: World Police” $6.39M 6. “Ladder 49” $5.32M 7. “Surviving Christmas” $4.44M...

Just when you thought we couldn’t get enough of the documentary, on comes a documentary ABOUT a documentary. “Fahrenhype 9/11,” a film about the film “Fahrenheit 9/11,” attacks Michael Moore’s credibility, patriotism and his lack of discussing...

Hip-hop hooray, it’s time for playback, yo. This week’s edition comes from senior kinesiology major Matt Kuhnen. The Monee native dressed up as Simba from “The Lion King” for Halloween last year and plans on doing the same this year. If Kuhnen...

From MTV to NIU, Cribs is in the hizzouse ... well, residence hall. Throughout the semester, Sweeps will delve into the sickest structures inhabited by NIU students. The first thing you notice when you enter this savvy Stevenson pad is the door covered...

Cancer, a disease taking the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans each year, might have finally met its match: plain, yellow bracelets. Six-time Tour de France winner and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong’s foundation began selling “live strong”...