Hey all, I’ll be down here in Raleigh all weekend covering the Hoyas in the first couple of rounds of the NCAA tournament, so be sure to check the main site for regular updates.  Here’s the first: a preview of the UMBC (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) Retrievers, Georgetown’s first-round opponent.  Keep checking back for more through Sunday!

I just bought a ticket to New York City (the first leg of my trip home to Connecticut) aboard BoltBus, the newest arrival on the DC-NYC bus scene, and it felt great. BoltBus’s claim to fame is its ridiculously cheap $1 tickets; even with a service fee, my ticket cost me a mere $1.50. The catch? BoltBus offers very few $1 tickets for each ride, so you’ve got to book way in advance to snag the tickets before the prices jump up to $7, 10, or more. (After I bought my ticket, the price for the same bus shot up to $7.)  My ticket’s for May 10, an approximate date for when I might want to go home, based on my exam schedule. It’s still two months away, which makes the ticket a bit of a gamble, but for $1.50, I’d bet on pretty much anything.

BoltBus’s $7 or $10 fares are still a steal. Even the bargain Chinatown buses like Apex or Today charge $20, or $17.50 if you buy round-trip. (Incidentally, they also smell a bit off, offer horrible service and are notoriously unreliable. I swore them off  after the last one I took left New York a solid two and a half hours after it was supposed to.) Unlike the Chinatown buses, BoltBus also has wi-fi and electrical outlets so you can surf all the way up the eastern seaboard.  What more could you ask for?

I’d advise anyone who’s traveling anywhere remotely close to New York after school gets out to buy a ticket right now. Even if your plans change and you end up not using it, the thrill alone of buying a bus ticket for $1.50 is practically worth the $1.50.

A little inside baseball here, but Peter Hamby (COL ‘03), a former Voice staffer and all-around good guy, just found a spot on The Politico’s top 50 list of Washington…politicos. Hamby works as a producer for CNN, where he recently covered the Presidential campaign in South Carolina and former President Bill Clinton. So congratulations, Peter, on this recognition. Oh, and current Hoyas—can you see yourself as a professional journalist after graduation? Maybe you should join the Voice and get started making that dream a reality.

—Tim Fernholz, Contributing Editor

I haven’t completed the vaunted Senior Survey yet, but I have been receiving reminder e-mails from the University’s Office of Planning and Institutional Research about it. One sentence from the most recent note stuck out:

There are no physical or psychological risks to respondents.

Thank goodness—I’d been worrying that Georgetown might construct a survey so twisted, I’d lose my mind. Nope! It’ll just be used to justify poorly conceived academic policies.

—Tim Fernholz, Contributing Editor

— Sam Sweeney, Blog Editor

Whenever the staff discusses how much people want to know about what goes on behind the scenes at the paper, someone inevitably—and rightly—notes that no one cares about that kind of “inside baseball” info. But PBS has decided that some of its viewers must be interested in the backstory of a college paper and is airing “The Paper,” a documentary about Penn State’s Daily Collegian. From the short preview video, it seems to be a pretty accurate rendition of the day-to-day banality that only ends (for a little while) when we send the paper to the printers, down to the foul-mouthed martyr to the first amendment (doesn’t remind me of anyone) and the self-consciously serious debate over what makes it to the readers. It’s darkly humorous that the clip deals with gay bashing prompted by the Collegian’s decision to run a picture of gay couples engaged in some PDA—something both the Voice and the Hoya have dealt with right here at Georgetown. College papers everywhere face the same prejudices, apparently.

—Tim Fernholz, Contributing Editor

I’m all for reading material in the john, but the Dec. 5 issue of the Stall Seat Journal rubs me the wrong way. Far be it from me to criticize people selflessly performing a public service, and as much as I usually enjoy the SSJ, I’ve got some (hopefully) constructive criticism.

1. The “Here’s what Hoyas are Saying about the SSJ!!” box has got to go. It contains responses from a survey about the SSJ like “The most unique publication on campus,” “Entertainment while you pee” and “It’s splendid and perfect.” While the SSJ undeniably entertains me while I pee, the SSJ’s splendor and perfection should be allowed to speak for itself.
2. The SSJ can’t let go of their favorite statistic, that “97% of Hoyas, who choose to drink, eat a meal or snack beforehand.” The underlying implication here is that this is targeting the 3% of Hoyas who don’t eat before drinking. Don’t be a perfectionist, SSJ. Let that 3% learn for themselves—it’s called tough love.
3. The 3 copies of the SSJ in the bathroom across from my room were crookedly taped with a single vertical piece of masking tape that goes from top to bottom, right over the actual content. Come on, now.

On the plus side, in the suggestions for stress management, someone changed the second “t” in “Try Meditation” to a “c.” (Full disclosure—that someone was me.)

- Sam Sweeney, Blog Editor, Flickr photo by egg.

I’m not all about self-promotion (just mostly about it) but here’s a link to an article I wrote at Campus Progress, an online web-magazine for college progressives. The article is a response to a different and silly piece by a writer named Courtney Martin, who accuses our entire generation of not being angry and active enough about political issues. Needless to say, I disagreed. The relevant Georgetown factor is that my response grew out of a blog post I wrote here almost a year ago, and obviously my own first-hand knowledge of student activism comes from spending my time reporting on the work of our own various activist groups. Anyways, a query: do you think college students, and Georgetown students, are doing enough to change the world? Or are we co-opted by the man?

– Tim Fernholz, Editor in Chief