Miss Hooters International 2009 interview

(Web Exclusive) She said everything with a smile, a laugh and often-invisible question marks at the end of sentences that dominate the speech of many-a-sorority-sister. And despite what stereotypes might go along with being Miss Hooters, most people would probably realize that she’s a pretty nice girl after talking with her in person.

Eat this: Surf and turf steak sandwich

Room 38’s most popular sandwich combines the forces of beef filet with lobster and crab. “You can’t go wrong with good quality beef and top it with seafood,” says chef and managing partner Jeremy Bowles.

In the oven

Channeling what it’s like to be a slacker who works as little as she can — the premise for the latest Columbia-based movie — doesn’t come naturally for the cast and crew of 10 Hours a Week. In fact, they’ve often been toiling in cramped locations for 12 or more hours a day to film a feature-length movie in less than a month.

Top That

When choosing a wedding cake, each bride yearns for a masterpiece that displays her particular personality, taste and style to ensure a flawless wedding. Five local bakeries in Columbia have noticed a difference in décor for wedding cakes; bakers say cakes are becoming more modern in design and increasingly adventurous in flavor.

See this: The Room

It’s time for the Rocky Horror fanatics to wipe away their makeup and strip off their fishnets. Likewise, The Dude wannabes should hang up their bathrobes and set down their White Russians. It’s time to make room for The Room, a new old movie that’s started to cultivate … well, a cult following.

Kindle starts a fire

The iPhone changed the way we use our cell phones, the Nintendo Wii took us into the future of simulated gaming, and now Amazon’s Kindle is poised to revolutionize reading.

On the Job: Eco-Friendly House Cleaner

Two brown-eyed girls rush to open the door of their brick house, yell for their daddy, Cam Laird, and dash away. Once upstairs, the down-to-earth dad and owner of Casa Bonita Cleaning Services relaxes in his living room adorned with Ecuadorian pottery and photos of his kids. Laird and his wife run their “green” cleaning business and regularly service over 100 homes in Columbia.

Frosted masterpieces

Vox Asks Columbians

Kayci's Prom

It’s a quiet Wednesday around 5 p.m. in a tiny nail and hair salon in Hallsville, where a 17 year-old girl is getting her nails done for the junior prom. Her mother has brought in purple beading from her dress to ensure they choose the right shade of nail polish. Everything must be perfect. The mother tells her daughter she needs to go and turns to nail specialist Christina Allen and asks how much the total for her nails will be.

Blues sister

Megan Boyer isn’t fooling anyone. Rock ’n’ roll spills into every area of her life: In her beige MU office, Boyer’s mic has been replaced with a desk, but her colors bleed through. Her glasses are rebellious black frames streaked with bright yellow, and there’s a lime green shirt peeking from behind her Mizzou Tigers hoodie. But the real clues are on the walls.

Hear This

Start saving up for June 30 because on that day the same band that dropped the acclaimed Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in 2002 is back with their seventh release: Wilco (the album). Wilco, who graced Ninth Street two years ago at Summerfest, resurrects its supercharged guitar and drum medleys in this new album, which is musically as good as Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and lyrically on par with their last album, Sky Blue Sky.

It figures: You can count on Columbia summers

Now is the time for air conditioning and ice cream eating. Vox can’t reduce the humidity, but we can offer you a few interesting figures that define Columbia summers.

Second(hand) life

A line of 27-inch televisions — the old-school kind with convex screens and massive backsides — are set to ESPN. On the screens, basketball players silently pass and jump. In the room, piped-in ’70s classic rock favorites replace their shouts and thuds until a man with a chainsaw enters. The loud, dull buzzing of the saw momentarily drowns out a guitar solo.