To lighten your spirits in case you’re still homeless, here’s a photo of Alex Baker (MSB ’14), pictured here in a cowboy hat, serenading a mystery girl in Leo’s to the tune of Lonestar’s “Amazed,” everyone’s favorite slow-dance song from junior prom. [Editor's Note: Actually, second-favorite.]

Was it an initiation prank? Did he win over the lady? And most importantly, why did he do it?

“I don’t know, it was just something I felt like doing,” he said.

Prepare yourselves, indie film geeks. The West End Cinema, a once-vacant theater located at 2301 M Street NW, will open on October 29.

The theater’s website, which launched this week, promises “art house, off-the-beaten-path kinds of films.”

During it’s opening weekend, the theater will screen Howl, an Allen Ginsberg biography starring James Franco; Budrus, the story of a Palestinian community that unites to save its village; and Gerrymandering, a documentary about the political and electoral outcomes of census taking. On Halloween weekend, the theater will host a midnight screening of Let Me In, the American adaptation of the Let the Right One In.

During the theater’s opening weekend, the directors of Budrus and Gerrymandering will also join audiences for question and answer sessions.

West End Cinema will offer discounts to seniors ($9), students ($9), military ($8), and children ($8). General admission tickets will cost $11, while matinee tickets will cost $8.

It seems that Georgetown restaurants can’t get enough of college students. More and more establishments now offer half price specials, almost guaranteeing that their lines go out the door on those special days.

So, we’ve compiled a list, including happy hour specials for those of-age. (After all, even upperclassmen can be cheap.) Let us know if we missed any!

[Editor's Note: Asterisked restaurants require a weekly "secret word" that is found on Hoya Connection.]

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For many Georgetown Law professors, orientation activities are an easy way to introduce law students to D.C. These activities probably seem familiar to anyone who remembers New Student Orientation: trips to the monuments, visiting Capitol Hill, and those painfully-awkward icebreakers.

But, Associate Professor Pete Wales bucked the trend, leading his class on a scenic bicycle tour of the city.

“Bicycling just seemed like a fun alternative,” Wales said in a YouTube video that chronicled the ride. “It’s not obvious when you first come here that bicycling could be a way to get around.”

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The Corp plans to absorb a new tax on sugared drinks as a business cost, maintaining the price of 20 ounce bottles at one dollar.

The law, which goes into effect on October 1, levies a six percent sales tax on sodas, sports drinks, and other sweet drinks sold in D.C. The revenue from the tax will go towards mandatory physical education programs and healthier lunches at schools.

“For our management team, the choice here was a simple one: pass on a price increase to our fellow students or absorb that increase and continue to sell Coke at the cheapest rate in the region,” Corp CEO Brad Glasser (COL ’11) wrote in an email. “It’s just a little sign of our appreciation for all the support the Georgetown community has shown the Corp.”

Good work, Students of Georgetown, Inc! If you could only do something about those long lines at Vittles.

Photo: Flickr user “petesfamily“

Who doesn’t love late-night snacks? We certainly do, but we rarely have enough time to bake our own brownies, cookies, or muffins.

Thankfully, somebody at Georgetown is looking out for us.

Last semester, Elizabeth Sabol-Jones (COL ’13) launched Nightly Noms with her friend, Rachel Hochstetler (COL ’13).

Sabol-Jones, a Compass Fellow, started the baked goods delivery service after getting rave reviews about her food.

“At the first Compass Fellows dinner, I decided to bake banana bread and everyone enjoyed it,” Sabol-Jones said. “[Rachel] said she’d help to deliver if I ever opened a bakery … I kind of started on a whim.”

Nightly Noms isn’t not just about the food, though; the company donates a portion of all profits to Operation Smile.

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If you watched a Georgetown team play this weekend, odds are you saw some Hoyas lay a beatdown on their opponents. And trust us, it was something special; Sports Info Director Mex Carey dug through the records, learning that this is the first time five fall teams won games over a two-day span since 2006. Let’s get to the recaps:

• The football team won a game! The football team won a game! THE FOOTBALL TEAM WON A GAME!
• On Monday, junior forward Samantha Baker’s overtime goal against Fairfield pushed the 22nd-ranked women’s soccer team to its sixth straight win. (Earlier that weekend, the Hoyas also shut out George Mason.) The team’s undefeated start to the season is the longest in the program’s history.
• The men’s soccer team got in on the fun too, thanks to junior forward Uche Onyeador’s pair of game-winning goals against Northeastern and Michigan State. The team now stands at 2-0.
• Georgetown field hockey improved to 3-0 for the first time ever, only to drop Sunday’s game against Temple.
• Although the volleyball team’s weekend was bookended by losses to Bradley and Maryland, they pulled out a win against Fordham on Saturday.

Photo: Sports Info (Rafael Suanes)

Last night, Bradley Cooper (COL ’97) spoke in Gaston Hall. And by “spoke,” we  mean “gracefully dodged cringe-worthy advances from giggling females.”

The Hangover star opened up the evening by briefly reminiscing on his three years at Georgetown. (Cooper transferred from Villanova after his freshman year). While visiting Georgetown in high school, Cooper said he thought the campus was a “utopia.”

“There were tons of Frisbees and golden retrievers,” he said, “All the women were from California.”

So when Cooper’s application was rejected, he was devastated. More determined than ever, he applied as a transfer student and spent his three years at Georgetown feeling like he “didn’t deserve to be here.”

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Although our Prefrosh Preview series is over, we still have one more thing to share with Georgetown’s newest students—Twitter.

While plenty of stories end up on Vox, we cover even more through our Twitter account. So, follow us. You might even end up on Twuesday Tweetacular.

To help the social-media inclined get adjusted to Georgetown campus life, we also made a few nifty lists that cover as many Georgetown-related accounts as we could find. (If we missed anything, be sure to let us know in the comments.)

If you’re interested in student groups, sports, academics, student media, grad programs, University services, or the professors who use Twitter, we’ve got you covered. (And we made a list of our favorites too.)

Ted Leonsis (COL ’77), the owner of the Verizon Center, had a few words about the building’s new banner, which features senior guard Chris Wright.

“We want to support Georgetown basketball, too. They are tenants in the building,” Leonsis wrote on his blog. “I am on the board of directors of Georgetown and I am an alumnus of the College. Hence we mention Hoya basketball.”

The banner is a part of the “101 new improvements in 101 days” campaign Leonsis launched after purchasing the Verizon Center earlier this year.

Leonsis also owns three D.C. teams: the Wizards, the Capitals, and the Mystics.

Photo: Casual Hoya