Movie Review: 21 Jump Street

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Originally published in The California Aggie

Judging by the audience reaction at last week’s early screening of 21 Jump Street, I can say with some certainty that your enjoyment of the film will be directly proportional to your enjoyment of dick jokes.

Because there are a lot of them. A whole lot. Too many to count, actually. And with a story by frat boy d’jour Jonah Hill, you can’t really expect anything else. But can I tell you something? Despite the fact that I have a relatively low tolerance for crude humor of any kind, I had a big stupid grin on my face for most of this movie.

HOW CAN THAT BE?

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UC Davis alumnus wins five Emmy awards for TV news reporting

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Originally published in The California Aggie

Television news anchor and reporter Brad Hicks has UC Davis to thank for his first on-camera job.

Hicks had earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geography from UC Davis in 1986 and ‘88, respectively, and was coming off a stint at Texas A&M University as a Ph.D. student when he applied for a job at WGAL-TV in Pennsylvania anchoring the local farm report.

A native of Palo Alto, Calif., Hicks had little knowledge of agriculture. But, no matter.

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Denny’s wedding chapel opens in Las Vegas

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Originally published in The Huffington Post

At the newly-opened Denny’s restaurant in Las Vegas, diners can have their cake and eat it, too — their “Pancake Puppies” wedding cake, that is.

The Vegas location will be the first Denny’s to include a wedding chapel, meaning guests can get married and hold a wedding reception inside the restaurant. Couples will be able to tie the knot in the first quarter of 2013, Denny’s Chief Marketing Officer Frances Allen told HuffPost Weddings. Though the chapel will be a first for the company, it won’t be the first time people have gotten married in a Denny’s restaurant.

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Love letter displayed at wedding 22 years later

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Originally published in The Huffington Post

When Cathy Knorr and Trevor Webb tied the knot, their relationship came full circle — and they had a middle school love letter to prove it.

At their October wedding, the couple, who met during sixth grade in 1990, displayed a letter Webb wrote to Knorr in middle school urging her to go out with him. Photographer Aislinn Kate Rehwinkel snapped a photo of the letter and it was posted on Reddit on Tuesday.

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Movie Review: Dark Shadows

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Dark Shadows

Originally published in The California Aggie

In the grand scheme of cinematic vampires, Barnabas Collins is, honestly, kind of a square.

He’s too gentlemanly to be scary, like Nosferatu or Dracula. His wardrobe is perpetually 200 years out of date, meaning he could never secretly live amongst the locals à la Edward Cullen. And with his stiff posture and raccoon eyes, his sex appeal is no match for Tom Cruise’s Lestat de Lioncourt (although no less than four women succumb to Barnabas’ advances throughout the course of the movie, so clearly I know nothing about vampire hotness).

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Managing campus fire extinguishers no easy feat

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Originally published in The California Aggie

For Rocky Twitchell, every building at UC Davis has a number.

The Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center is 125, for example. Chemistry Annex? More than 200. Giedt Hall, a particular favorite of Twitchell’s, is a merciful four.

“Meyer has way too many,” he says emphatically driving past the rectangular hall on a busy Friday afternoon.

He’s no mathematician, but there is a common denominator in this numerical puzzle: fire extinguishers.

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