Image by the "Subway Cyrano," from GothamistNew York City was at its strangest and swellest this week. On Sunday, tens of thousands people ran in the NYC Marathon, including Mrs. Tom Cruise, aka Katie Holmes, who ran it in just under 5 hours, 30 minutes. Gothamist also found out that limes in Corona are sometimes illegal, the weird maple syrup might be back and a famous punk music pioneer-turned-real estate broker was possibly killed by......

UC Davis has introduced a class on beer to its curriculum. Though it's a little more technical than beer bongs and keg tapping, it is already a huge success. Who knew the dangers of wedgies? Or playing junior varsity golf? The turf at Disch-Faulk Field might not be environmentally friendly. We always knew Panda shit was good for something. More evidence that California is the root of all evil. Here's everything you wanted to......

It's the handsome downtown gallery owner with curly hair or the hot Astanga instructor at Yoga Yoga South. It's the girl in the cutoffs at El Chilito or your favorite Lone Star Rollergirl. It's your local secret crush. Just in time to scope him out while you're hopping among downtown venues for SXSW, Austinist brings you this edition's interview: Drew, The Cute Pedicab Driver With the Slightest Southern Accent. Drew continues the streak of awesome......

Any native Texans out there? Or anyone who has one of those "I wasn't born in Texas, but I got here as soon as I could" bumper stickers? Or are you a Texan now stuck somewhere else? Tracy Smith, a grad student at UC Davis, is doing her dissertation on Texanness (or rather, the essence of being Texan) and needs your help. Some questions she needs answered: What do you think it means to......

Amidst an abundant offering of summer escapism movies arrives a film that offers something completely different. Peaceful Warrior is not about cinematic achievement or groundbreaking CGI effects, but does offer a profound message for an eager audience. Based on the book, The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, by Dan Millman (1980), it is a personal story that has inspired millions worldwide to embrace a higher consciousness and zen approach to life. Dan Millman (Scott Mechlowicz)......

A professor at UC Davis was awarded a grant to study the relationship between music and emotion. For instance- why do some people get turned on by R. Kelly while it makes us other people want to vomit? Every kid's dream came true for 6-year-old Michael James Emanuel Jr. who was left behind at a Chuck E. Cheese on his birthday. His 23-year-old mother didn't even realize Junior was missing until the following morning.......

It was while trolling Gawker that we found out about this weekend's huge 2006 Mark Bingham Cup, the biennial tournament of the International Gay Rugby Association and Board named after a player from UC Berkeley who died onboard on September 11th. Our very own Division III rugby team, the Austin Lonestars, are headed up to New York City to participate in the tournament this weekend and join the thousand-plus muscled gay jocks who'll be......

Funding still has yet to be approved, but Austin's new federal courthouse might look pretty damn spiffy. Atlanta's Mack Scogin Merrill Elam, the architecture design firm that most recently design UC Berkeley's Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library, recently submitted a preliminary artist's rendering of the proposed building, which will replace the current Intel shell at 5th and San Antonio. From the Statesman: The conceptual design envisions a seven-story building with a modern look, "not a......

From the pages of Austin Business Journal, we found out today that Black Issues in Higher Education, a magazine whose focus couldn't be clearer from their title, ranked UT Austin as the fifth top producer of minority undergraduates in their annual rankings. UT's highest specialized ranking was in the College of Engineering, where they placed third in the nation - only slightly less diverse than UC Berkeley and Georgia Tech. Nearby Texas A&M was......

Austin police arrested former UC Berkeley and UT engineering professor Gary Wise yesterday, on charges of deadly conduct and stalking. It seems like the once-tenured professor [allegedly] spent the past six years harassing his former colleagues, beginning with a few relatively innocuous obscene phone calls and escalating all the way to last Friday, when he went off on a wild shooting rampage in North and Central Austin. Luckily, no one was hurt, but Wise did......