Nine more days. With Penn's season opener against Drexel less than a week and a half away, the Quakers took to the floor last night before a sparse crowd. Faced with the first real rebuilding effort at Penn in the past several years, Miller said after the annual Red and Blue scrimmage that getting under the lights, as it did over the weekend in a scrimmage at Colgate, could do his young team good.

Instead of ESPN or an intense game of Halo, the giant flat screen in the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity house living room last night featured complicated diagrams of advanced physics and descriptions of abstract string theory. Physics professor Mirjam Cvetic spoke to about 20 fraternity brothers in a presentation on the basis of string theory and her complex theoretical research on the subject.

Few Penn students are eager to trek into West Philadelphia past the safe haven of 40th Street, but for those willing to make a small trip, there are some pleasant culinary surprises. One such destination is Dock Street Brewery and Restaurant, a new eatery located in a converted firehouse at 50th Street and Baltimore Avenue.

A hectic, slightly hapless afternoon in New York is behind me. Smartsave map in hand, I made it to the U.N. building two minutes after it closed to visitors; a clutch of taxi drivers refused my fare; and I took the sweltering 456 subway line to the Whitney Museum of American Art arriving at 5:10 p.

The spiritual influence of Penn's Lubavitch leaders will soon translate into something tangible: a new home for over 100 students. The Perelman Center for Jewish Life will house the Lubavitch House at Penn, as well as the Steinhardt/Cayne Jewish Heritage Programs.

Nothing beats a leisurely weekend brunch. I treasure these meals, these few hours, to the point of reverence. They are my religion, and my ritual is pretty set: tea, fruit, homework, Simon, Garfunkel and a table outside ABP. This weekend, however, after a week bursting at the seams with unadulterated evil (read: midterms), I made the drastic decision to alter my regiment.

Next time you reach for regular bottled water, think again - the man that started Ethos water is coming to Penn. Jonathan Greenblatt will give the keynote address on Nov. 14 as part of the University Honor Council's sixth-annual Integrity Week. Greenblatt launched the water brand on a mission to bring clean water to communities in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Undergraduate Assembly chairman and College senior Jason Karsh led the shortest Undergraduate Assembly meeting of the semester last Sunday night in Houston Hall. n Facilities Committee co-chairwoman and College senior Sarah Abroms announced the launch of pennrecycles@gmail.

At last week's debate in West Philadelphia, mayoral candidates Michael Nutter and Al Taubenberger criticized Philadelphia's city government. They criticized Philadelphia's rising crime rates. They criticized the failing public-school system. One thing they didn't criticize? Each other.

Counseling and Psychological Services is getting a makeover. Since the Office of the Provost began a campaign three years ago to invest more funding and resources in CAPS, wait times for students and individual caseloads for staff members have decreased, and on-campus awareness campaigns have increased, CAPS director Ilene Rosenstein said.

It isn't every day that hundreds of wrestling fans cram themselves into the upper floor of the Penn Bookstore. About a hundred World Wresting Entertainment fans gathered to see Chris Jericho - wrestler turned actor, television personality, radio host, rock star and now author - at a book-signing appearance for his first book, A Lion's Tale: Around the World in Spandex.

WILMINGTON, DEL. - After three days of deliberations, jurors once again failed to deliver a verdict for accused murderer Irina Malinovskaya, leaving open the possibility of a third mistrial. Malinovskaya, a Wharton student from Russia, is being tried for bludgeoning to death her ex-lover's girlfriend in December 2004.

For two seasons, the NCAA football rules committee has been tinkering with procedures regarding when the game clock starts and stops. The first changes came before the 2006-07 season, and were intended to shorten the length of games by 15 minutes. Rule 3-2-5 had the clock start on kickoffs when the ball is kicked instead of when the receiving team touches it.

Batman's leaving Gotham City this Wednesday and heading over to New Jersey. He'll be joined by a slew of other superheroes, princesses and monsters. What's attracting all these oddities across the Delaware River? Candy, of course.

The departments of State, Defense and Homeland Security are all known institutions in American politics. But what about the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives? In an event sponsored by the Fox Leadership Program, Political Science professor and former director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives John DiIulio and current Office director Jay Hein discussed its purpose and its successes, failures and future.

The Ivy League's leading rusher and Yale's 34-carry-per game workhorse isn't going to be stopped by a toe injury. But it may be slowing him down. Against Penn, Mike McLeod hurt his right big toe before the end of the first half, playing through the pain for the rest of the game.

Philadelphia Police officials are not investigating possible police misconduct in the death of Lamar Bembry because they have evidence showing that Bembry, who was shot and killed by police during a gun battle early Sunday morning at 38th and Chestnut streets, was among one of the shooters on the scene, said Lt.