EXPRESSIONS
- Nocturnal Nourishment Alissa LaGesse
- 'The Kingdom': an action movie that dares to think Robert Orndff
- Colleges go on the offensive to end binge drinking Pauline Vu
- Show marked by late arrivals, short sets Robert rndoff
- On-campus waters provide sport for academic anglers Laurel Wright
- Game puts players in immigrants' shoes Andres Amerikaner
- Oddball Antics Mike Pinree
Nocturnal Nourishment
Think everything in Jacksonville closes at 9 p.m.? Think again.
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The Jacksonville area has many restaurants catering to college students. Most of these, though, close at 9 p.m. So what happens when the late-night cravings kick in? A select few bars and restaurants near the beach are open late to accommodate these cravings.
Cliff's at the Beach, located on Atlantic Boulevard in Neptune Beach, is a neighborhood bar in which the bartenders and servers get to know patrons on a personal level.
They are open from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. seven days a week. In 2006, the bar was a "Best of Jax" winner in the best karaoke bar category.
The busiest days at Cliff's are Thursday and Friday, and they are usually slow on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, they have live entertainment, and on Sunday they have live karaoke.
Patrons can shoot pool, throw darts, play shuffleboard, and enjoy other activities in the laid-back environment. Cliff's usually has nightly drink specials, and is well-known for their "Cliffhanger" shooter.
Third Street Diner, located at 9th Avenue and Third Street South in Jacksonville Beach, is a diner-style restaurant that also specializes in Greek food. Complete with a great selection of freshly baked pies and other treats, the diner stays open into the wee hours of the morning.
"We want to accommodate our customers," said Korrina Dykman, who has worked at the diner for four years. "We wanted to be 24-hour, but the city won't let us."
Authentic Greek food is the diner's specialty, and the gyro platter is a favorite among the regulars.
Daren Ellis is the general manager at Soho Sports Grille on University Boulevard.
"We stay open late because there really isn't anything around that is open late except for McDonald's, so it gives people more options," Ellis said. He described the atmosphere of Soho as
"New York City meets
South Beach."
"It is a fun, laid back atmosphere," he said.
But one item Soho serves is 100 percent New Yorker with no Miami influence: their handmade pizza. Customers usually crowd into Soho on Monday nights to watch Monday Night Football and Wednesday for College Night. SoHo also has a fully stocked bar and makes a variety of Martinis.
"Cheap, fast pizza" is how Krissy Pye, manager of Al's Pizza on Atlantic Boulevard, describes the restaurant.
Al's serves Italian specialties such as calzones, subs, and pasta, as well as less common dishes such as fried calamari and turkey salad.
They are famous for their hand-made pizzas, but especially for their zeppolis, which are fried dough desserts covered in powdered sugar and served with a raspberry sauce that customers can not get enough of.
On Friday and Saturday nights, the restaurant is open until 11 p.m.
If someone finds themselves less than impressed with the above restaurants, the Waffle House on Beach Boulevard is always a hit.
Bob Corwin, a server at the restaurant, said Waffle House usually gets a "bar rush" at around 2 a.m., when all the bars start to close.
"The bars close and the drunks come in," Corwin said.
Waffle House is open 24 hours, but is usually the busiest in the morning, around 6 a.m. Regulars come to Waffle House because of the delicious hash browns and, of course, their fresh waffles, Corwin said.
Contact Alissa LaGesse at features@unfspinnaker.com -- PERMALINK -- TOP OF PAGE
'The Kingdom': an action movie that dares to think
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FBI agents team up with Saudi police in this action movie with a brain. |
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Good: No action movie woes like product placement and mindless plot. |
With little more than a year before the presidential elections, filmmakers have begun in earnest to produce movies that deal with the issues central to the race. Some will likely be heavy-handed with their political views, while others will merely use them as a jumping-off point for new and interesting stories. One example of the latter is the film, "The Kingdom."
This film primarily takes place in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Director Peter Berg makes sure audiences understand the nature of this nation's turmoil by combining the history of the country with the title sequence in a very creative way. From there, the film becomes raw and unflinching as it examines the United States' role in Saudi Arabia. It does this through the eyes of a four-person FBI team played by Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman. The team has been sent to investigate a small community of American citizens in Saudi Arabia that has been hit hard by a terrorist
attack.
What the team finds is that Saudi Arabia is a nation barely held in check by its army and police force. As soon as they arrive, they are escorted by a police motorcade at over 100 mph with police aiming weapons at every car passing them on the road. They find out this is a standard precaution.
Even in the presence of assault rifle-toting soldiers, the audience will not feel safe for its heroes. The beginning of this movie makes it obvious that, no matter what precautions are taken, destruction can strike at any time. The audience soon realizes they can't assume any scene as safe, and because of this, viewers never give up their focus or attention. While the filmmakers have it, they use it to expose the nature of both the American FBI agents and the Saudi terrorists.
This film is also a whodunit, allowing the camera to show the terrorists only after Foxx and his team have identified them. The FBI agents are tasked with finding out who committed the terrorist acts at the beginning of the film and must use clues found at an already contaminated crime scene to do that. Slowly, the clues begin to point in the direction of the killers, but the agents also follow false paths in their search that almost lead to a
failed mission.
The final scene of the film does something different from the rest of the movie in that it
allows audiences to view members of the FBI and the terrorists on the same level, whereas before the agents took up almost all of the screen time. It does this to show that both sides are reacting to each other, though it is not clear if either side was supposed to learn this at the end or just
the audience.
The only thing that stuck out in this rather tight movie was the comic relief provided by Jason Bateman. Everything he says in this movie is funny - like always - but it doesn't match the tone of the rest of the film.
Otherwise, "The Kingdom" is a well-told story that may also shed light for some viewers on the situation in one of the Middle East's most powerful countries.
Contact Laurel Wright at features@unfspinnaker.com -- PERMALINK -- TOP OF PAGE
Colleges go on the offensive to end binge drinking
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To fight binge drinking, some universities require incoming students to take alcohol education courses and even suspend repeat offenders. |
More than 200 universities require incoming freshmen to take AlcoholEdu, an online course that informs students about drinking's impact on the mind and body, before enrolling in school.
To many college students, binge drinking and everything that goes with it - beer pong, keg stands and $1 shots - are a rite of passage, as integral a part of the college experience as midterms and all-nighters.
But to college administrators, drinking too much is a hazard to students' health and safety. As a result, officials are addressing excessive drinking with tactics such as moving classes to Friday to prevent "Thirsty Thursdays," convincing nearby communities to limit drink specials like ladies' night, and requiring incoming students to take online classes about alcohol use.
"The academic and social consequences are just very high, to say nothing of the value of human life," said University of Mississippi spokesman Mitchell Diggs, who listed a litany of potential ailments that go along with binge drinking: crime, falling grades and death.
Alcohol abuse by college students is a rampant problem. A March study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University reported that 3.8 million full-time college students, or 49 percent, regularly abuse drugs or binge drink, which is defined as five or more drinks at a time for men, and four or more drinks for women.
Even the federal government is worried. In March, the U.S. surgeon general issued the office's first call to action to stem underage drinking, with recommendations for parents, schools, colleges, communities, governments and even the alcohol industry on how to stop the abuse. The surgeon general asked colleges to end alcohol advertising in campus newspapers, provide more alcohol-free late-night events, and shift more classes to Friday to "shorten the elongated weekend" that has students binge drinking by Thursday night.
The University of
Iowa , ranked 12th on the Princeton Review's list of top party
schools, is answering that particular call. Starting in the fall of 2008, the school will move more classes to Friday.
The move was discussed for years, but the decision was cemented with the July release of a University of Missouri study that found students with Friday morning classes are less likely to over-imbibe on Thursday. This spring, the University of Iowa averaged 2,438 classes daily Monday through Thursday but had only 1,404 classes on Friday.
Associate Provost Tom Rocklin said more Friday classes are just one strategy in the fight against binge drinking. "There is no single thing that will make a dramatic change," he said. Friday classes aren't "going to make binge drinking go away. But it's one thing that will help the problem, so it's worth doing."
Another tactic to cut extreme intoxication looks at advertising. Two years ago, the California State University (CSU) system put tighter controls on alcohol advertising, such as banning promotion on campus of two-for-one drink specials.
Several colleges also sponsor alcohol-free events, such as Late Knights at the University of Central Florida, Wildcat WILD Nights at the University of Kentucky, and Friday Night Live events at the University of Cincinnati.
But if incentives don't work, there is always punishment. In recent years, more schools have instituted a two- or three-strikes policy to punish students for public drunkenness or possession of alcohol by a minor.
The final strike can result in a semester's suspension. "Ole Miss," currently No. 2 on Princeton Review's party-school list, had long discussed curbing alcohol abuse.
But the school began its crackdown in earnest when a campus officer, Robert Langley, died in October after pulling over a car driven by a student with alcohol, cocaine and marijuana in his system; the student took off, dragging Langley to his death.
Mississippi also joined more than 200 colleges in requiring that incoming students take a three-hour online AlcoholEdu course, which surveys students on their drinking habits and explains alcohol's impact on the mind and body. At Ole Miss, athletes and fraternity and sorority members also have to take the course.
Show marked by late arrivals, short sets
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While a crowd pleaser, Sean Kingston played 20 minutes of a 35-minute set. |
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Shop Boyz opened the show, getting attendees into the rock-star mentality. |
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Fabolous closed out the OP concert after arriving late. |
Osprey Productions and the University of North Florida hosted rap artists Shop Boyz, Sean Kingston, and Fabolous at the UNF Arena Oct. 7.
The event attracted a crowd of hip-hop fans who were met with performances of some of the
latest hits as well as some classics played by local DJs.
"I wish Fabolous could have stayed longer," said Jacksonville resident Jessica Jefferson,
Shannon Whitlock, a student at the University of Florida, was in town and decided to catch the show. Her favorite performer was Sean Kingston.
"He was ballin'," she said.
The three headliners each took a turn on stage wowing the crowd below them.
Shop Boyz poured water on the audience. Sean Kingston walked among the crowd during his show, attracting a cluster of cell phone cameras and screams from those surrounding him.
But as happy as the crowd was, boredom set in after Kingston finished only 20 minutes of a 35-minute set and Fabolous showed up late, leading to more than 30 minutes with no headliner on stage. So local DJs like the Royal Treatment took the stage to hold the crowd over.
Sophomore business major J.R. Anchega said the DJs were the best part of the show and wasn't sure if he would stick around to see Fabolous, the
final act.
The director of Osprey Productions, Jessi Odell, said afterward that the show was a success.
"If it's going well enough that I can have a good time, then we did something right."
Ticket sales were unknown as of deadline, but Odell said they would be compiled soon.
What do you think of Jacksonville?
Shop Boyz: There's a lot of beautiful women around here.
Fabolous: Jacksonville's a cool city. I haven't seen the whole thing that much.
Who influences your music?
Shop Boyz: We just try to influence people to be different.
Sean Kingston: I like a lot of people. Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Jay-Z, Biggy, Tupac.
Fabolous: Hip-hop in general influences my work. The culture of it - where I come from - that always influences me.
What future projects do you have in the works?
Shop Boyz: We're working on our mixtape. And look out for the album. It'll be coming sometime - June maybe.
Sean Kingston: I'm going on the Gwen Stefani tour in October. I'm probably doing the Biggy movie [The Notorious B.I.G. biopic].
Fabolous: I am working on a street fan club, a project with some artists, and my street
family compilation. I'm about to do a House of Blues tour and also I'm going back to start
recording soon.
Contact Robert Orndoff at features_staff@unfspinnaker.com -- PERMALINK -- TOP OF PAGE
On-campus waters provide sport for academic anglers
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Duncan Ennis fishes on campus for what he calls a guaranteed catch. |
One bonus to the University of North Florida being located on a wildlife preserve is that there is, lots of wildlife - an asset for students who enjoy nature-related activities like fishing.
The lakes and ponds on campus were restocked about a year ago with freshwater fish like fingerling bass, bluegill and other sunfish, said Park Manager Ryan Meyer, park manager.
Other fish that live in the lakes include catfish, possibly freshwater eels and exotic species like shiners, which, if allowed to multiply unregulated, can overrule the native fish.
Meyer said the best ponds to fish in are the ones outside of the core of campus because they are considered to be more natural lakes and don't have the runoff like the lakes in the middle of campus
Lake Oneida, the lake near the nature trails, is the easiest of these lakes to access, but is difficult to fish, Meyer said.
"It's tough because it has lots of vegetation, and the bridge usually has an alligator that may give fishermen trouble," he said.
Instead, he recommends walking to one of the further lakes, like Double Doughnut, which is farther back on the nature trails, or North Lake, behind Lot 14.
"I've heard there's big fish in those lakes," Meyer said.
Duncan Ennis, a junior finance major, said he likes to fish the ponds in the core of campus, like the ones by the library and the Boathouse Grille. He said those lakes are good because the fish are visible from the surface, which makes sight casting - where the fishing line is cast close to the fish - a possibility.
"The fishing is OK if you like bass fishing," Ennis said. "You're pretty much guaranteed to catch something."
The biggest fish he has ever caught on campus is a 12-inch bass.
"Bring a small pole and you'll have fun," he said.
The best bait to use in the lake is soft lures, Ennis said.
Meyer recommends lures, worms, grasshoppers or anything else that isn't a live fish, because exotic live bait can get loose and contaminate the lake like the shiners have done.
Fishermen can take non-gasoline powered boats out onto the lakes when trying to find fishing spots, Meyer said.
But, he said, students need to stay conscious of the catch and release rule.
"A nice thing to do is to bend your barbs back or use barbless hooks," he said.
All students fishing on campus must have a fishing license, Meyer said.
"If people go out there a lot, I would love to know what they are catching to get a snapshot of the lakes, especially if they are real sportsmen and can tell if the fish are healthy or not."
Contact Laurel Wright at features@unfspinnaker.com -- PERMALINK -- TOP OF PAGE
Game puts players in immigrants' shoes
The rules are simple. Keep a low profile. Don't shoplift. Steer clear of
immigration officers.
And you might avoid ending up in a deportation facility.
ICED, a video game set to be released for free in November, pits five immigrant teens trying to stay in the country against a slew of immigration officers.
The title is a play on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as
ICE - the government agency that, among other duties, targets illegal immigrants with outstanding deportation orders.
The game was developed by a New York-based nonprofit, Breakthrough, to raise awareness about the effect of immigration reforms passed in 1996.
"This is virgin territory," said Mallika Dutt, the group's executive director. "You can watch a documentary, you can watch a video story, but there's really no other way that you can get into the skin of another person and actually see what it's like."
The game lets one player roam a virtual metropolis modeled after New York City.
If you make good choices, for example, not jumping the subway turnstiles or stealing from convenience stores you'll earn points that will keep you on the streets.
Players can also boost their points by walking into a language center, by recycling or by correctly answering questions along
the way.
The more points earned, the fewer immigration officers chasing you down.
Eventually, it's virtually inevitable, you'll be arrested and taken to a second level, the detention facility.
Here, players must avoid getting into fights, starting hunger strikes or signing a voluntary deportation letter.
At the end, players will face a judge who will determine
their fate. The game is timely and necessary, said Cheryl Little, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center.
"Immigrants have been demonized recently to an extent that I haven't seen in a long, long time," Little said. "Perhaps it'll result in a little more compassion."
The five characters were based on actual case studies, and developers had to work hard to avoid watering down complicated ideas, said the game's co-designer, Heidi Boisvert.
Their budget was only about $15,000, she said.
It's the first game of its kind to provide an open, 3-D environment, said Suzanne Seggerman, president and co-founder of Games for Change, which provides support to groups using video games for social causes.
"It's also the first of its kind in that it's really taking a stand on an issue," Seggerman said. "We're sort of at a turning point now where games are really growing up."
Although the game is still in development, it already has its detractors.
ICED is currently undergoing testing to weed out bugs and glitches.
It will be available online in November as a free download.
No matter how hard the player tries, there won't be a happy ending: Characters will be deported, put back in detention or returned to the city, where they have to start over.
"The idea is to show that even if you do all the right things, there's still the potential that you may be sent to detention for a small infraction," said Boisvert:
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Oddball Antics
Now, honey, I know this looks bad.
An Australian cricket champion, whose marriage was in trouble because of his notorious womanizing, finally managed to patch things up with his wife before heading off to London.
Once there, however, he immediately reverted to old habits, and text messaged his girlfriend to drop by, saying, "The back door's open."
Unfortunately he mistakenly sent the message to his wife back in Melbourne.
This isn't it, sir. Would you like to try again?
A police officer pulled over an 80-year-old man who he suspected of drunk driving.
His suspicions were confirmed when, instead of giving the officer his driver's license as requested, he handed him a Polaroid picture of his
genitals.
Who's crazy now?
The Philippines Supreme Court fired a judge because mental illness led him to believe that three elves were helping him predict the future.
Not long afterward, the justices and their families were plagued by serious illnesses and car accidents.
The fired judge said that Luis, one of his elf friends, was responsible.
She's asking for an all-female jury
In Johor, Malaysia, where polygamy is legal, a man had sex with his older first wife, age 48, and then mentioned that his younger second wife was much better at sex than her.
That's when she reached for a knife and slashed a very sensitive male area. He survived.
She is going to trial.
OK, I'm calm now ... Doesn't that breeze feel lovely?
A man ran up behind a woman at the Newmarket train station in Brisbane, Australia, pulled up her skirt, ripped off her panties, grabbed her purse and ran away.
She was so shocked that she didn't realize that her bag had been stolen until she regained her composure sometime later.
That's because they're too stupid to hold a job
Two would-be teenage burglars endeavored to break into a liquor store in Des Moines while it was still light out by cutting a hole in the roof.
But, once on top of the building, they miscalculated and drilled through the overhang above the sidewalk in front of the store.
To make matters worse, a woman passer-by spotted them and told them to knock it off.
They jumped down and were filmed by a surveillance camera. She later told the cops, "You don't spend your days chasing geniuses,
do you?"
I just like to make people happy
A very attractive woman who dresses as a clown to entertain at children's birthday parties in England, was arrested while working her second job as a
prostitute.
I'm only thinking of you, mom
While arranging for his wealthy girlfriend to meet his mother, a man in Dongguan, China, sent mom $250 to improve her looks.
He felt that his mother, who cleans houses for a living, is homely and would feel uncomfortable in the presence of his
fiancee.
Ok, hot dog or hamburger ... What the ...?
Police in Xinzhu City, Taiwan, held a barbecue to celebrate the Moon Festival and invited the public to attend.
They were astonished when one of the city's most wanted criminals showed up.
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