A Blog brought to you Daily by the Herald

It’s a brand new semester. Which means that, while it’s time to go buy and sell your classes and wait in long mail room package lines to get boxes of books you know you probably won’t end up actually reading, you actually have plenty of time. Which means you and all those friends you need to catch up with can come out to cheer on your fellow Bears in various sporting events.Here are all the home games this weekend:

Friday, Jan. 27

Women’s ice hockey takes on the Big Green at 7 pm. The team is currently .500 after going 3-2-2 over winter break. They are currently in eighth place, the last playoff spot. This is a team that only won three games all season last year.
Men’s basketball also battles the Big Green at 7 pm. Unlike the female icers, the break didn’t treat the b-ballers to kindly. They went 1-6. [Read more →]

The College Hill Troll Community, a Facebook page created a month ago, has seen a meteoric rise in the number of hits in the past few weeks and currently has over three hundred “likes.” It is a haven for Internet trolls and troll-lovers and boasts an extensive collection of Brown related Internet memes that are generated by both the page’s admins and other individual contributors. So waste your shopping period away by either consuming the memes already up there or thinking of new ones to contribute to other people’s time-wasting. Pay it forward.

Oh, puns.

At first listen, Toronto-based crooner LIGHTS didn’t turn me on. Her debut album, The Listening, reminded me more than anything of the saccharine sludge at the bottom of a weak and poorly-stirred cup of coffee. Think breathless Zooey Deschanel laid over Owl City’s insipid beats.

Her sophomore effort, Siberia, released Oct. 4, is something else entirely. The record, featuring Vancouver hip hop artist Shad and electrofunk outfit Holy Fuck, is lyrically adventurous and more raw than her radio-ready premiere.

Lights, née Valerie Poxleitner, was born in Timmins, Ontario, the daughter of missionaries. BlogDH read spoke with the Juno Award-winner about touring, comic books and her beloved keytar, Russell.

LIGHTS plays at The Met Jan 29th (tickets here).

BlogDailyHerald: So you used to be in a metal band. Tell me more!
Lights: The metal band is really funny because it was when I was 17 or 18 and I didn’t sing or anything — I just played guitar. I was playing around in a bunch of different bands … the metal band was called Shovelface.

BDH: Can I find Shovelface’s music online?
L: Thankfully, no. It was on the cusp of anything other than dial-up. [Read more →]

The question isn’t whether you watched TV over winter break. It’s how MUCH.

Were all those late-night Downton Abbey sessions an escapist waste of time? Does watching three consecutive seasons of White Collar (#underrated) in as many days make you an insane insomniac? Are you high on Videoweed?

No, no, no. You were just culturally informing yourself! Quite understandable. Admirable, even. But now that you’re pop culturally informed, the real time-wasting can begin. With some of the many TV mash-ups the Internet has to offer…

Beyoncé lyrics + Downton Abbey = Downton Abbeyoncé

[Read more →]

Ever wanted a peek inside the newly renovated Metcalf building, home of the CLPS department?

Back in April, we brought you a tour of the building while it was under renovation. We’ve got you covered again!

Don’t forget to check out the accompanying article in today’s Herald, the first of the semester!

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We see you, Blue Room. Thanks for being our in loco parentis, effectively powering our first day of classes with fresh and yummy produce,which includes grape tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, yellow papers, and spring mix lettuce, and helping us stick to one of our several New Year’s Resolutions. The only thing we’re missing is an empowering yet adorable note on a napkin from Mom, but we’ll take what we can get. Here’s to a happy (and healthy) shopping period, spring semester, and 2012!

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Let me be the first to admit it: I didn’t read the Brown Daily Herald enough last semester. This of course wasn’t because of any dislike for the Herald; our fine newspaper is indeed (by at least one measure) the 4th best college daily in the country. Sometimes, however, students just don’t know where to find copies of the paper.

Fortunately, the Herald has taken away yet another excuse not to check it out on the daily. They have created “Find a Paper,” a map of exactly where copies of the Herald can be picked up every day. As you can see below, it’s pretty hard to avoid a place where you can find the Herald. Red flags are what the Herald web site calls “hot spots” – such as Alumnae Hall and J. Walter Wilson – where over 100 papers are available daily.

You can zoom in to see exactly where all these locations are through this link. Pick a copy up soon; we’ve taken away your best excuse.

Image via.

Scott Norton and Mark Ramadan did the unthinkable — they challenged one of the largest monopolies in our society: ketchup. Like Kleenex and Band-Aids, Heinz is synonymous with the product itself. Rather than accept this fate and be subjected to a life of one-ketchup consumption, these alums created an answer to the catsup establishment in the form of Sir Kensington’s Gourmet Scooping Ketchup. The brand has wit! Charm! Rebellion! Mustaches! How very Brown of them.

We got in touch with Norton and Ramadan and asked them some of BlogDH’s most pressing questions.

Why ketchup?
Ketchup is one of the only food products that is served everywhere from McDonald’s to the Four Seasons Hotel. What we noticed, with surprise, was that there is essentially no variety or choice in quality, texture or taste in the category.  Across mustards, salsas, yogurts, olive oils, chips and countless others, there are seemingly endless varieties, but with ketchup this wasn’t so. We were intrigued by this gap in the market, and began investigating to see if we could deliver something compelling. [Read more →]

In case you’ve been slacking on watching the trailers for upcoming movies you’ll never actually see, check out Wes Anderson‘s new film Moonrise Kingdom. Here’s why:

1. It stars Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, Bruce Willis, and, like every other Wes Anderson film, Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray.
2. Wes Anderson films can teach you more about life than you would imagine.
3. It was filmed in our very own Rhode Island! Principal photography took place in Newport and Aquidneck Island.

The film’s storyline reads: “Set on an island off the coast of New England in the 1960s, as a young boy and girl fall in love they are moved to run away together. Various factions of the town mobilize to search for them and the town is turned upside down — which might not be such a bad thing.”

Nom.

Hi again Browntown! It’s strange how quickly time flies. Those 5 weeks spent eating home cooking (or, in my case, that semester spent eating every crumb of food in Paris) flash before our eyes, and before we know it, we’re back in PVD to fend for ourselves whenever mealtime rolls around.

Luckily, Providence Restaurant Week is here to rescue us from the ennui of ramen and the Ratty. This year, Travel + Leisure named Providence the #2 food city in the country (second only to my hometown, New Orleans), and over 80 restaurants are coming out in full force to drive the point home for this citywide food hurrah.

Participating restaurants are offering three-course lunches for $14.95 and three-course dinners for $29.95, plus some of them are offering 2-for-1 deals. ”Restaurant Week” is a bit of a misnomer (the whole deal actually lasts a fortnight), but it ends soon – January 28 – so don’t delay! Scramble now to take advantage of it before this opportunity, like your winter break and this hilarious snow, melts away. Check out the official website for menus, a full list of participating restaurants, and more information.

Read more for some ideas to get the ball rolling: [Read more →]