The surgery-suspense genre has been thriving lately, as Jessica Alba will attest. Just look at her two most recent films — Awake and The Eye. The first has something to do with a heart transplant murder scheme. The second is an Asian horror remake about the spooky history of a pair of donated eyes.

These films are popular because they exploit the natural fear of going under the knife. But sometimes fact is freakier than fiction. As the DP reports, the details of a developing lawsuit against the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania rival anything Hollywood could come up with.

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It’s been 7 years since Ludacris Rolled out. 7 years since we first asked, “What you got in that bag?”

It’s been even longer — 8 years — since ‘Cris showed us his Southern Hospitality. I don’t even remember how to drop ‘bows on ‘em.

So why make Ludacris the headlining act for Penn’s 2008 Spring Fling? I think it’s because SPEC hates music and the student body. SPEC also hates intimate venues with tight acoustics (ie, Wynn Commons). That’s why this year’s concert will be held at Franklin Field, where it will surely carry all the excitement of a Penn football game.

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A study called “Booksthatmakeyoudumb” has been making the rounds, and I finally took the time to check it out. Created by one Virgil Griffith, it claims to map the correlation between one’s favorite books and one’s intelligence. According to “Booksthatmakeyoudumb,” the “smartest” book out there is Nabokov’s Lolita (it’s about white people), and the “dumbest” is Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (it’s about black people).

A closer look shows that of the “stupidest” 10 books, 8 are written by African-Americans. Naturally, this raises some serious questions about race and intelligence. It’s unfortunate that Griffith refuses to address them. But it’s unforgivable that his method actually invents them…

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It’s March, which means it’s not February, which means FebClub is over. As promised, here are my thoughts on the second half of the month. After receiving some Class Board death threats feedback that my “Good, Bad, and Ugly” categorization was too negative, I’m switching things up to “Great, Pretty Good, and Nice Try!”

It should also be noted that my participation kind of flagged towards the end. I finished with 20 stamps, putting me shy of the much-coveted Class of ‘08 beer stein. So if there was a particularly great or awful event that I missed, let me know. Anyway, here it goes…

The Great: If Dave & Busters is the STD-riddled skank who makes the rounds in your neighborhood, then University Pinball is the unnoticed shy girl living next door who would be really popular if people took the time to get to know her. This is an old-school arcade. They’ve got air hockey, pool, three pinball machines, the Simpsons, Soul Calibur II, Tekken 5, Mortal Kombat 3, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Area 51, and plenty of other games. The machines take quarters, not credit cards. And best of all, Class Board actually threw their weight around for once and made the event a “Free Play” night. But I’ll definitely be back even if it means dropping $5 to beat the Mothership…

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A red-tailed hawk has been spotted on campus. And like every student except Jon, it hates squirrels. Here it is disemboweling one outside Van Pelt:

(Sorry for the low-res picture — it was taken on a cellphone camera. For a great picture of what could very well be the same bird, click here.)

The hawk was later seen devouring a pigeon at the doorstep of 4050 Irving, making me wonder if it has been employed by the University to rid our campus of every last uncute scavenger.

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Despite what my picture suggests, sometimes I need a haircut. I know it’s that time of year when my hats don’t fit anymore or when strangers come up to me and give me change. Whichever comes first. Then I borrow some clippers from a friend, pluck out all the pubic hair stuck in them, and shave my head.

But it recently came to my attention that such grooming habits are generally frowned upon, so yesterday I tried something new. I went to Aveda, the new haircutting school at 40th and Chestnut. Aveda is a big bi-level warehouse — it would have made for a great club. But does it make for a great hair salon?

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Like Stanley Milgram and Phineas Gage, Kitty Genovese is a key name in the field of psychology. The story of her widely-witnessed, unreported rape and murder came to define what’s called the bystander effect — the phenomenon of group apathy or paralysis in the face of a disaster.

Early Sunday morning, I, along with dozens of other drunken idiots outside Zee Bar, fell victim to the bystander effect. And if my story is less gruesome than Genovese’s, it’s as troubling and disheartening.

It started when I got kicked out of the club and into the street, where a crowd had already gathered. Two girls were alternately shoving and straddling each other, to the soundtrack of much hooting and hollering. These girls were young and well-dressed — they could have been Penn students were they less attractive. Two guys, clearly Zee Bar veterans, were catching all the action on a high-end video camera.

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To quote an American Hero, I called it!

A while back I proclaimed my love of Scrabulous, and described that it was “basically an un-investigated copyright infringement on Scrabble.” Well, make that investigated. A few weeks ago Hasbro slapped a cease & desist on Scrabulous, citing, duh, copyright infringement.

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FebClub is the last chance for seniors to check out some of Philly’s best offerings before graduation. It’s our Bucket List. Mind you, not everybody attends these events — there are the cool seniors who have better plans and the uncool seniors who have homework. But somewhere in between is a mass of mild-mannered binge drinkers with mediocre GPAs and nothing better to do. We are the FebClubbers.

I don’t mind saying I’ve been a warrior, going to nine of the ten events so far. I might be out of the running for getting my name on a plaque at Smoke’s, but I’m still on course for that Class of ‘08 beer stein.

The Good: Mad River. Guitar Hero on a big screen and $3 well whiskey. Where else would you rather be on a Tuesday night?

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You know what the “Ride the Ducks!” tour is, right? It’s that ugly neon-colored boat on wheels crammed full of drunk tourists and their neglected children. The one that haunts Independence Hall and the surrounding area. The one where everyone gets this irritating plastic quacker and uses it like it’s their last day on earth.

It’s something I always figured was an annoying but inevitable part of the city’s landscape, like our excess of LOVE statues or our affinity for gun violence. But Walt Sherman thinks differently. He thinks he can bring real change. That’s why he’s made this video:

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