"Human ashtray" isn’t a widely known job skill, but bouncer Jason Parada can proudly tout that experience on his next resume. Parada, a junior sociology major, has dealt with fake IDs and drunken combatants since 2001, when he was hired by Molly’s...

What could Pat Kaiser, a freshman marketing and psychology double major, possibly have in common with world-famous movie stars Harrison Ford and Michael Douglas? Besides breathing oxygen, the trio all date younger women, although the gap isn’t nearly...

Every two weeks, Sweeps will take a look back at NIU decade by decade. This is in no way a rip-off of that VH1 series we’ve never seen and certainly never bought the DVDs of. Television in the 1990s was all about "Beverly Hills: 90120," while college...

From the outside, the DeKalb Area Women’s Center, 1021 State St., resembles what you might imagine a house constructed in 1917 would look like: unappealing to the eye. The inside, however, is alive with ideas and spirit. Functioning as a meeting and...

Weekender Art & Theater Reporter In the theater before the show, a midwestern ambience emanates from every corner of the sparsely furnished Stevens Building Players Theatre, an atmospheric device conceived by Carl Myers, sound designer for "Far Away."...

An exhibit chronicling the life and career of a local resident, "Sights and Sounds: Photographs by Arthur Montzka," premiered March 1 at the Nehring Center Gallery, located on the second floor of the Nehring Center for Culture and Tourism for the DeKalb...

Recently, my editor and I did something amazing. We spent 11 hours and 5 minutes watching all three extended editions of "The Lord of the Rings." Let me change my statement. Recently, my editor and I did something ridiculous ... We sat on a couch and...

Spurned by competition from local venues and Internet services such as Netflix, Blockbuster set into effect a policy promising "The End of Late Fees." In February, New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey sued Blockbuster, claiming the ads were "fraudulent...

The next time you throw all in on that flush you’re holding, you could win a college scholarship. The College Poker Championship is in its second year of operation, rewarding the top online poker players enrolled in college with scholarships. Simply...

What do you get when you combine Kevin Williamson, Scott Baio, Craig Kilborn, Shannon Elizabeth, Carrot Top, an animated dog and Wes Craven? Yes, a bad joke. But also, a bad movie. In movies like "Teen Wolf" we had a teenage monster hitting the game-winning...

Whoever said that ‘70s rock is dead and long gone is wrong. Plug in the lava lamp, grab a spot on the faded shag carpet and get ready to flash back a good 30 years, because the spirit of heavy ballads and swooning vocals lives on in Dead Meadow. The...

"Man of the House" is next in the long line of not-so-prestigious films that juxtapose archetypal (or cliche) action heroes upon a typically mundane setting. Purveyors of this tradition include "Kindergarten Cop" at best and "Suburban Commando" at worst....