Thumbs up to…Greg Gillis gets his Girl Talk on

Fresh off his November album “All Day,” Girl Talk will head over to Chicago’s Riviera Theater on April 15 for A&O’s annual ball. Last year’s Passion Pit was a crowd favorite so it may be a good thing that Girl Talk’s dance-y mash-ups strongly recall last year’s guest. We applaud A&O for tapping someone current, upbeat and, let’s be honest, pretty popular. The concert will feature different music than A&O’s Snoop and Kid Cudi in the fall, which is great for a school with such diverse students and music taste. The musical diversity trend continues with indie rockers The Walkmen opening for Girl Talk.

Thumbs up to…Debate team dominates

What better way to bridge a scandal-ridden winter quarter to a more-uplifting spring quarter than with a national championship title from Northwestern’s debate team? The first-rate team was led by all-star seniors Stephanie Spies and Matt Fisher. Winning the championship was far from easy. NU’s team had to beat higher-seeded Harvard and Emory to win the championship, redeeming themselves from last year’s heartbreaking final round loss. This adds luster to an already stellar debate team – NU remains the winningest team in National Debate Tournament history.

Thumbs down to…EduHookups expands to NU

This week, eduHookups expanded to include Northwestern in its network. The site is essentially Craigslist for college friendships, booty-calls, relationships, and everything in between. Is this real? The website looks like it’s from 1999 and it started at University of Chicago. Do we need another reason to be skeptical? Northwestern isn’t nearly big (or antisocial) enough for such a lofty concept and college students’ ages seem a bit young to formally conduct a mate search over the Internet. In an environment driven by Facebook, Twitter and G-chat, let’s leave something to eye contact and a handshake. Otherwise, we might as well go to an online-only university, as well.

Thumbs up to…Women’s lax starts off strong

Not to break out the jinx a day before No. 2 Northwestern takes on No. 3 Duke, but, once again, NU’s women’s lacrosse team is acting like the NU women’s lacrosse team, you know, the only team ever to have won a championship in school history. The Cats have played seven of their nine games against opponents in the top 20, yet they haven’t dropped a game – and with the exception of an overtime win against then-No. 3 North Carolina, it hasn’t been close – they’re second in the nation in offense and are outscoring opponents by 7.78 goals – which is almost twice as much as they’ve allowed, doubling up the opposition in five games so far. Duke’s the last ranked opponent on their schedule. They might not have won last year, losing in the national championship game, but it looks like the women’s laxers could be back in their role of giving NU one team a year to be able to brag about.