THE END OF DEUCE THURSDAYS?Famed former NU quarterback CJ Bacher teamed up with a nameless bar in Wrigleyville to give NU a spot in the ‘hood. “Northwestern doesn’t really have a bar in Wrigleyville, and when I was on the team and went down there, it got at me a little bit,” Bacher says. So, instead of The Deuce on Thursdays and house parties on Saturdays, the soon-to-be-renamed Purgatory Pizza (3415 N. Clark St., with a disconnected phone number) might be the next hot spot. This Saturday will make or break the deal: If the NU turnout is heavy enough at the $15 open bar from 9 p.m. to midnight, a bar-renaming contest will be held, buses will be organized for Thursdays and Saturdays, and NU will have its Wrigleyville home. If you need any more motivation than the open bar, Bacher says the NU football team will make an appearance if NU wins the homecoming game that day.RODENTS ON THE LOOSELast week, the chair of the IACUC at NU (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee – get with it!) sent an e-mail over the Animal Care and Use listserv: “Dear Colleagues: In August this past summer, an escaped mouse was found in one of the research laboratories. Please be careful to keep rodents in cages when transporting them to and from your lab and exert caution in handling them in your lab. If an animal does escape, please contact CCM immediately to assist you with assessing the situation and coming up with the best (and most humane) way to resolve the problem.” Many questions come to mind here. What reason would a researcher have to remove a rodent from the lab? How long has this test subject mouse been roaming campus? How frequently do these escapes occur? And why was this e-mail only sent last week when this problem supposedly arose in August? Needless to say, the IACUC has been less than willing to respond. Watch out for Stuart Littles on campus.NO MORE LIMP HANDSHAKESThanks to the swine flu scare, the formal recruitment process this year will be free of clammy hand-touching when prospective sorority members enter a chapter. After speaking with Greek advisers at other Big Ten schools whose recruitments were held in the fall and infected many with H1N1, NU’s Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life (OFSL) recommended the Panhellenic Association (PHA) ban handshakes. “We have also informed chapters they should not have communal bowls of food (or) candy and instead, should portion food individually for Potential New Members in order to avoid the spread of potential viruses,” says Kristie Marotta, VP-Membership for the PHA. “PHA has also agreed to supply chapters with hand sanitizer.” Now the houses will not only reek of desperation this year, but also Purell. Yum.