It takes only a quick Google search to realize that people have created all sorts of funny (and arguably pointless) holidays, but today is special. Today, ladies and gentlemen, is National Guacamole Day.

Have you ever wanted to change up your guacamole? Or make something different with your avocados? Next time you start to cook with an avocado, try grilling it.

Many Baylor students, along with others from around the nation, will travel to Austin this weekend for the 10th annual installment of the Austin City Limits Music Festival.

Is the answer to violence really more violence?

Writer and director Craig Brewer (“Hustle & Flow,” “Black Snake Moan”) delivers a new version of the classic 1984 film “Footloose” that he says will be “more relevant today than it was in ‘84” in regard to the modern teenager.

At Baylor, fashion has gone to the dogs. Outfits made especially for dogs by Baylor apparel design students have won top prizes at the Fashion Group International Dallas Career Day competition and have also raised more than $12,000 to benefit Texas animal rescue shelters.

One downtown restaurant will be regularly opening its doors past closing time for a monthly event, beginning this week.

Thirteen acts were selected for the After Dark performance, set for Sept. 23. About 60 Baylor students auditioned Tuesday and Wednesday in Waco Hall for Baylor University’s After Dark student variety show.

Could SpongeBob be ruining your brain? In a Sept. 12th article from U.S. News titled “Is ‘SpongeBob’ Too Much for Young Minds?,” Steven Reinberg wrote “4-year-olds did worse in thinking skills after watching the cartoon, study says.”

A great number of films have attempted to document Israel’s struggle for recognition and statehood, but “The Debt” goes about this in an interesting way: by focusing not on Israel’s efforts to eliminate its current enemies, but its effort to bring Holocaust architects to justice.

Before you see a single frame in “Contagion” you listen to a cough, and by the time the movie is just a few minutes old, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Beth Emhoff – the character heard hacking off-screen – suffers a fatal seizure (relax, it’s in the trailer).

Tucked toward the back of the quaint collection of shops in Spice Village rests a café offering fresh fare to casual shoppers: the Simply Good Eatery. Simply Good Eatery sits on the second floor of the Spice Village building, located downtown in the Warehouse Shopping District at the corner of Franklin and Third streets. The small restaurant serves lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. to those perusing the wares of the shops during weekdays.

Lights, camera, catwalk! It is that time of year again. Anticipated by fashion designers, models, fashionistas and all involved within the fashion industry worldwide look forward to one thing: New York City’s semi-annual fashion week.

James Scudamore’s novel “Heliopolis” was nominated for the Man Booker Prize, one of the most prestigious awards that can be given to contemporary literature, but it went relatively unnoticed by many avid readers.

Labor Day weekend’s 36th annual Westfest offered a wide range of various ethnic entertainment, cultural foods, Czechoslovakian dancing and costumes, competitions and one of the largest parades in Central Texas.

In a world filled with overpriced supermarkets that resemble shopping malls and processed snacks made with unpronounceable ingredients, a stand that sells fresh produce and organic animal products is a change from the common store shelves.

Jay-Z and Kanye West are both known for their powerful solo albums, but perhaps the two have found a second calling as collaborators. “Watch the Throne” – which is a joint effort from the two rappers – is an outright success and is one of the best albums I have had the opportunity to listen to this year.

New body-scanning technology acquired by Baylor this summer has the potential to revolutionize the fashion industry.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s autobiography, “In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir,” was released on Tuesday and has caused a stir in the political community. Cheney’s memoir, however, is hardly the first memoir to be controversial or intriguing.

Unconventional for a love story, “One Day” follows the lives of two friends, Emma (Anne Hathway) and Dex (Jim Sturgess), who met on July 15, 1988, the beginning of their complicated and frustrating relationship.

The horror-comedy remake of the 1985 classic “Fright Night” was one of many movies this summer to do little with its 3D format. That aside, the witty dialogue and edge-of-your seat action pick up where the effects fall short.

The State Fair of Texas has offered fried bubblegum and seven other lip-smacking delights as finalists for the Big Tex Choice Awards.

There’s one type of food Waco has yet to see, and that is authentic New York cuisine. Metro Restaurant & Bar on Austin Avenue in downtown Waco offers an authentic New York menu for affordable prices.

There is no better way to kick off a Texas hot summer than with the best salsa, guacamole and queso that Central Texas restaurants, vendors, and residents have to offer. The 16th annual Margarita & Salsa Festival, held Saturday at the Extraco Events Center, brought in more than 9,400 cowboy-boot clad visitors looking for a spicy bite, a quality country concert and a cool beverage to bring it all together.

Scott Miller is the author of “The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century” and was a recent guest on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”. The book highlights the conflict between two very different men, one of whom was President of the United States.

Manliness, ladies and gentlemen, is under attack. Or at least that’s what Marty Beckerman argues in his satirical “The Heming Way” in which he advises that today’s men need to start living “the Heming Way.”

Scandals, big hair and deep southern accents overlay “The Help.” Starring Emma Stone as Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, Viola Davis as Aibileen Clark, and Octavia Spencer, as Minny Jackson, the film is an exploration of racial injustice in the southern United States.

My name is Joshua Madden and I will be serving as the Arts & Entertainment editor for The Baylor Lariat. Let me be the first to welcome you to this section of the paper. If you’re like me, this is probably the first part of the paper you turn to – to read film and book reviews, find out about local performances, to find things to make the school year a little more fun and to procrastinate your studying a little bit longer.

With a summer box office overrun by superhero and action movies, “The Help” might not seem like a go-to flick for a Friday night. It definitely should be, however. While Emma Stone (who recently starred in “Crazy, Stupid, Love”), Viola Davis (who was nominated for best supporting actress for her performance in the film “Doubt”), and Octavia Spencer (who is probably best known for her role on ABC’s sitcom “Ugly Betty”) may not look like the average heroines, their character portrayals in “The Help” give audiences a new definition of courage.

Are you feeling snazzy? Looking fly? Expressing your personality through the medium of fashion? Have you seen any fabulous people around campus lately? If you are (or you do), nominate yourself (or that fabulous person) to become Baylor’s Best-Dressed Bear.