Even if we’ve blocked out selective memories of our childhood (the dentist…I shudder at the thought), we all remember elementary school recess. Now that I’m through with my public school education, I’ve been taking the time to reminisce about my favorite memories from those days. Man, did I love that half hour of pegging younger kids in the head with kickballs (which they totally deserved, by the way, just for being there).

At the risk of sounding like a creeper with a window-less van parked 100 yards from a playground, here are some of my favorite games from recess that I wish were appropriate for eighteen year-olds to play. Note: I like the games…not the kids.

Name of the Game: Indian Pin (a slight variation on dodgeball)
Why it Rocked: Since regular dodgeball was banned in my school, we had to be a bit more creative with our recess games. Indian Pin was a favorite variation on dodgeball that we adapted from our gym class. The official object of the game was to knock down the opposing team’s pin, but since we had a bunch of kickballs and an unlimited capacity for evil, we would forget about the pins and just give the other team hell. Back in my tomboy days, I would pick off the other team’s members one by one. I guess I had more balls than many of the boys in my class.

Name of the Game: Four Square
Why it Rocked: Being king in a game of four square made you an automatic recess rock star. The ball was literally in your court. As there are an infinite number of possible rules for the game, from the fair and just to the downright cruel (two words: cherry bombs), the power of the king is extremely enticing. I was always partial to the “old school” set of rules – volleys, single-taps, and double-taps – since they allowed games to go on for a long time. Benevolent despotism was my style, but other rulers were not as kind. The Lemon Drop Massacre of ’01 is proof of that. And I still have nightmares.

Name of the Game: Pick-up Soccer
Why it Rocked: Although soccer isn’t known as a recess sport, it was one of the ultimate competitive games that we played in elementary school. We played in tournament style, with multiple teams all pitted against one another. The last team standing won a great deal of glory, but at a high cost: since we didn’t have referees, we could play as dirty as we wanted to with no penalty at all. The “supervising” teachers were totally clueless as to why several kids returned to class with huge grass stains on their butts and hideous scrapes on their knees. But those cuts and bruises were like badges of honor to all the soccer kids, even if we cried a little when we got them.

Name of the Game: Wall Ball
Why it Rocked: One of the privileges that came with being the top dogs of the school (i.e. fifth graders) was access to the coveted wall ball court. Dozens of kids played at a time, taking the simple tennis ball game to the extreme. Wall ball was the pinnacle of elementary school recess for us. It was the most fast-paced, most competitive, and sweatiest of all the recess games. You had to constantly be on your toes, or else you wouldn’t catch the ball making a bee-line for your head at light speed. Or at least that’s what the injured kids would cry when the ball knocked the wind out of them. A merciless game, that wall ball. To think a little tennis ball could cause so much hurt!

What were some of the games that rocked your school playground?

We’re back with another edition of G.W.W.E. (Guys We Wanna Eff)!

Please take a look at Ben Stiller. The man is a perfect specimen–striking features, cool demeanor, pee-your-pants funny (okay, maybe not such a good trait if you’re trying to hook up with him, but you get my point).  Can you think of anything unsexy about Ben? Well, just in case you’re having trouble working up your mojo, I’ve compiled a few reasons why he’s my boy-toy of the week.

Why do I want to eff Ben? Let me count the ways:

1) He’s really effing smart (“How can we be expected to teach children to learn how to read if they can’t even fit inside the building?”–from Zoolander).

2) He’s really effing humble (“I couldn’t believe that she knew my name. Some of my best friends didn’t know my name.”–from There’s Something About Mary).

3) He can play hard to get (“If you can get it from my kung-fu grip then you can come and have it, okay? Otherwise, step off, bitch!” –from Meet the Parents).

4) He’ll show you who’s boss (“You can’t be my boss! Nobody’s my boss! I’m my own boss! I created myself!”–from Dodgeball).

5) He knows the meaning of sacrifice (“Since we have been together I have felt more uncomfortable, out of place, embarrassed, and just physically sick then I have in my entire life. But I could not have gone through that, I could not have thrown up 19 times in 48 days if I was not in love with you.” — from Along Came Polly).

And this week, Ben has enjoyed the release of his newest movie, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, as he awaits the receipt of the Generation Award, the MTV Movie Awards’ highest honor, at this weekend’s ceremonies.

But before you start getting full of yourself, Ben, I’d just like to remind you that there is more to  life than being really, really ridiculously good-looking. And discovering life’s other pleasures requires a night spent in my bed.

With the sun shining and the weather heating up, it’s hard to motivate yourself to spend an hour inside a dark and smelly gym. At the same time, if you’re not into running, getting a good workout outdoors isn’t always easy. Or fun. So what can you do to take in the beautiful summer weather and burn some serious calories?

Join a summer sports league.

It doesn’t matter if you are living in a big city, or crashing with the parentals in suburban America – you can find a summer sports league near you. They range from softball to dodgeball (and everything in between) and are a great way to meet people, get a little workout, and have a really good time doing it.

I spent last summer playing kickball twice a week. Sure, kickball requires a lot of standing around (especially when your team is full of boys who can’t stand losing and thus do most of the work for you), but we’d do some warm up runs (serious calorie burning), I’d run at least one base every time I kicked (serious calorie burning), and there were many times that bright red ball flew right over my head and I’d have to run after it (serious calorie burning).

Next week I’m starting a summer volleyball league, which can burn between 450 and 700 calories in an hour! All that while hanging out with some cute boys (that’s how I chose my team…) and keeping my toes in the sand. That definitely beats 45 minutes on the Stairmaster.

Summer leagues are easy to find and easy to join. You don’t even have to know other people doing it – there are plenty of teams that need extra players and you can hop right in. And don’t worry; if you’re not good, that’s OK, too! Most of these leagues are just about the fun, so it’s OK if you aren’t the star softball pitcher for your university.

My summer leagues really get me excited about working out and there is nothing better than that. I highly recommend everyone try one out – it’ll be the easiest 400-ish calories you ever burned.

To find a summer league near you, Google the sport you want to play and your city (Softball league, Boulder CO). If kickball is your thang, check the WAKA (World Adult Kickball Assocation…for real) website to find a league near you.

In 2008′s least shocking expose, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution dredged the sweat-stained pit of college academics and came up with, essentially, a national “dumb jock” joke.

Hating on athletes is pretty standard practice for the squishy intellectual set, probably because we’ve got a few bones to pick about getting stuffed in lockers and picked last for dodgeball. (As an aside, has anyone actually been stuffed into a locker in the past thirty years? The jocks these days just steal our iPods.)

But, whether we hear it from major newspapers or the bottom of locker no. 104, the news is the same: at the corner of college athletics and college admissions, something is gravely ill.

At the University of Georgia, the average football SAT was 949, which is 239 points behind the average for an undergraduate student at Georgia — and 79 points behind Tech’s football average. The Bulldogs’ average high school GPA was 2.77, or 45th out of 53 teams for which football GPAs were available. Their SAT average ranked them 22nd.

Nationwide, coaches who would never offer a scholarship to a player who was 6 inches shorter or half a second slower than other prospects routinely recruit players whose standardized test scores suggest they’re at a competitive disadvantage in the classroom.

For every school that had football and men’s basketball SAT data available, team members averaged hundreds of points lower than the general student body. And the best average football SAT score in the nation – 1058 at Georgia Tech – would barely be acceptable in your average liberal arts school candidate.

So what’s the problem here? Sure, UConn’s basketball department loved to rep 3.8-toting hoops star Emeka Okafor, but it’s silly to expect the average college athelete to devote the same level of energy to their schoolwork as a more mundane student, right? High-profile athletics takes passion, dedication and time, and if college teams want to compete, they have to make sacrifices.

But this begs the question: why do colleges want to compete so badly? Obvious answer – big athletics equals big money (UConn knows about that, too). Money can translate into high-profile academic gains, and so the admittance of lower-scoring students might just be a pill colleges have to swallow.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t really help the diligent students who get shoved out of their first-pick school because another, academically inferior candidate happened to have a good passing arm. And arguing that minority athletes tend to graduate more often than non-minority athletes, as Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt insists, doesn’t hold any water – honestly, what message does that send to minority students? You can succeed in the biased, loaded world of mainstream academia, but only if you Be Like Mike?

And what do those sacrifices mean for the college world as a whole? Ultimately, I don’t think lowering academic standards to boost athletic ones is a fair trade for the American educational system. The former president of the University of Florida complains that “We go out on the field and get beaten by people we couldn’t admit.” Well, as Americans, we’re gonna go out into the world and get beaten by the people we wouldn’t admit – bright, creative, well-educated individuals who would have found their college spots taken by athletes, and entire departments of geniuses who got their funding cut because they couldn’t sell Gatorade.

Athletics can’t be responsible for our national brain drain alone, but they’re sure not helping.

I dunno. Am I pulling a Merlin, complaining pointlessly about “games-mania”? Is this just the dodgeball welts talking? I’m not hating on athletics, and I’m sure that the average college philosophy (or my very own English, even) department isn’t very useful on the world stage, either. But with numbers like these coming out – though I know that SATs can be way off the mark – is it time for a cultural re-focusing? Help me out, here.

It’s rainy. It’s windy. You haven’t seen sunlight in days, you didn’t do so hot on today’s pop quiz, and you really don’t feel like reading about the Enlightenment for history class. What better way to beat the dreariness and procrastinate than by having a comedy movie marathon to boost your spirits and make you laugh?

When fall settles in and it’s not as much fun to walk through campus on a chilly, dismal day, grab a bunch of kids from your hall, pop some warm, buttery popcorn, and veg out in flannel pj’s and sweats. You’ll feel better, you’ll have fun, and best of all, these movies sure as hell beat anything that sprung from the Enlightenment!

1. Happy Campers

I stumbled upon this little gem in college, and ended up being charged an arm and a leg in late fees when I couldn’t bring myself to return my new instant-favorite to the video store. Starring Brad Renfro, Dominique Swain, and Jaime King (credited as James King), this black comedy follows six mismatched camp counselors through the trials and tribulations of summer camp.

All of the typical stereotypes are present in the counselors who have to fend for themselves and control their coming-of-age campers after the director of the camp is struck by lightening. If you’re thinking this movie is just as cheesy as such camp movies as Camp Nowhere or Heavyweights, think again. Do those Disney flicks feature scenes in which the “slutty” counselor tells her charges that semen tastes like salty pancake batter? I didn’t think so.

Bonus: Summer movies might be the only chance of seeing sunshine as the days get longer and darker.

2. Grandma’s Boy

This Happy Madison production does NOT feature Adam Sandler, but if you’ve seen Big Daddy, Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, and the rest of Sandler’s flicks, you’ll recognize the featured cast (Kevin Nealon, Peter Dante, and Allen Covert), as well as Rob Schneider and David Spade, who make hysterical cameos. Co-written and co-produced by my future husband, Nick Swardson, this movie wraps excessive marijuana use, Dance Dance Revolution, karaoke, a ninja monkey, and the nerdy guy from Dodgeball (dressed in pleather) into one gut-busting hit. Did I mention Doris Roberts from Everybody Loves Raymond also plays a major part?Bonus: This movie is totally guy-friendly, so you can make a coed movie night out of it!

3. Mean Girls

Come on — this movie is the staple for a snuggly night in. No matter how many times Lindsay Lohan says “Grool”– you know, when she meant to say “cool,” but then she started to say “great”– Mean Girls gives you something new to notice and laugh at every time around. Maybe that’s because the script is written by funny woman Tina Fey, of Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock and Baby Mama fame. There’s plenty of eye candy, plenty of velour jumpsuits, and plenty of Rachel McAdams portraying the ultimate Queen Bee. What’s not to love?Bonus: Save money on rentals — it’s pretty much guaranteed that someone on your floor already owns it.

4. EuroTrip

Just because Spring Break is months away doesn’t mean it’s too early to start planning. What better way to get some fab SB plans than by watching the ultimate collegiate European adventure? Three guys and Michelle Trachtenberg jetset to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Bratislava, Vatican City, and more, partaking in plenty of deviance along the way. So what if you’re stuck inside a dorm room, bored out of your mind? Escape to the world of French robots, football hooligans, Absinthe, and crass Nazi jokes. Forget Miami Beach — this movie will make you want to dust off your passport and head to Europe this spring!Bonus: Look for the cameo by Matt Damon — just be careful not to get his catchy jam stuck in your head!

5. Sorority Boys

When three guys are unfairly kicked out of their the KOK fraternity house, they do what any dude would do in this situation: dress in drag and pose as pledges for the DOG sorority. Obvi. Of course, as the film progresses, Barry Watson and his crossdressing cohorts learn life lessons, make valuable friends, fall in love, and outcon the enemy, with lots of sexual innuendos and biological puns along the way.Bonus: You don’t have to think. At all. Just sit back and enjoy Harland Williams’ antics.