Two weeks ago, Boise State football suffered its first loss of the season when junior running back D.J. Harper tore his anterior cruciate ligament, knocking him out for the rest of the season; the same knee that Harper blew out last season.

BSU’s Doug Martin has been a household name all season, but with the injury to Harper, it made room for senior Jeremy Avery to get back in the mix. Avery ran the ball eight times last week against New Mexico State for 69 yards and touchdown. Saturday, Avery churned out a better performance against the Toledo Rockets.

Avery’s output was key for the Broncos. He rushed for only 42 yards, but reached the end zone on three separate occasions.

“[W]hen you get into the red zone you want to score,” Avery said. “Every chance that you have it is all out [because] everybody wants to get into the end zone.”

“He’s a really good player,” coach Chris Petersen said. “He’s fast, he’s shifty. The first touchdown he scored wasn’t blocked very clean. He just put a little move on and outran everybody.”

Avery is no stranger to rushing the ball. Having been a primary back in the past, Avery reminded us all what he is capable of.

“[Avery] knows what he’s doing,” junior quarterback Kellen Moore said. “He has done this for a while.”

The Broncos enjoy seeing Avery play and have full confidence in him.

When asked what the team was telling him throughout the game Avery said, “Keep it up. Just keep running hard and don’t stop and just keep going. It’s good to have that motivation in you and you want to keep it up.”

Avery’s efforts helped the Broncos to a 57-14 victory, but Avery wasn’t alone in getting rushing attempts. Martin got his usual carries, but so did Matt Kaiserman, Jarvis Hodge and Drew Wright, who all put in work too.

“It’s good to get Kais(erman) back in the mix and get him into a little bit of a rhythm,” Petersen said. “I think those four guys, with Drew Wright, they’re all very different, but I think they’re all good players.”

“[Kaiserman] is a great running back who gets positive yards every play,” Moore said.

When asked if those other backs will get to see more opportunities to run the ball Peterson said, “I hope they do, but I think the one thing we need to do is we feel like we need to get a couple of guys into a rhythm and not water it down too much.”

The Broncos depth at running back was evident against Toledo with backs like Kaiserman, Hodge and Wright playing behind Martin and Avery.

“I’ve always been so pleased with our running backs. They’ve shared the ball and nobody mopes around and nobody has poor body language,” Petersen said.

The strength of the running back corps for BSU is a hidden gem, but look to see Martin and Avery carry the load. Also look for Avery to ignite the Bronco offense the rest of the season.

“It’s just a long season and everybody’s gonna have a piece of this pie,” Petersen said. “Tonight it was his time to have a bigger piece.”

Eleven contestants strutted, danced and, most importantly, air humped their way to glory in front of a near capacity crowd at The Middle East in Cambridge for the Boston leg of the Air Sex World Championships on Friday.

As described by its website, the championships are “a lot like Air Guitar, but instead of rocking out with an imaginary guitar, you’re making sweet and/or filthy love with an imaginary sex partner.”

But right from the start of the competition, there didn’t seem to be much love in the cramped space of The Middle East Upstairs.

Chris Trew, host of the championships for all of its nation-wide tour, had just four participants signed up at the start of the night. He needed nine.

“I’m hustling hard for contestants. . .this has never happened to us before,” Trew said.

At first, Trew prodded the fewer than 20 attendees who populated the room to sign up, but none seemed willing to let it all hang out on stage in front of the dozens more that would soon crowd the venue.

Audience members didn’t seem too concerned about the lack of passion.

Describing themselves as Air Sex “virgins,” Emily Savard and David S. looked forward to the display of faux sexuality.

“On the female side, I’m expecting lots of fake orgasms. . .That’s what I’m here for,” David S. said. “On the men’s side, I’m expecting ludicrous behavior in general.”

One of the competition’s judges, Gretchen, a comedian from Boston who declined to giver her last name, wasn’t exactly sure what would be the winning touch for the any of the contestants, but she did know what she wanted to see.

“Beauty. Joy. Sweat. World Peace. Things of that nature,” she said. “[I’ll judge] carefully. I’m trying to pay attention to nuance. . .I’ll know it when I see it.”

She got what she asked for – despite the initial low participation, seven more contestants signed up to compete.

Standout contestants, with fake names like “Nuns with Guns and Penis Di Milo,” “Diamond Dave,” “Tiny Bubbles” and “Whiskey Chick” pleased the audience with their shows of sensuality.

Diamond Dave, a Gloucester resident, showed the audience his interpretation of a peeping Tom’s attempts to spy on some unsuspecting women, crawling across the stage on his stomach to the theme song from “Mission Impossible” as if he was sneaking through the ceiling tiles of a department store.

Dave explained that his inspiration for the show was news he heard while traveling in Sweden of a man who was spying on women in a supermarket bathroom.

Tiny Bubbles’ performance was a little more informative, warning of the slippery problems inherent with sex in the shower.

“I had an idea. . .I wanted to demonstrate a concept to the audience. I wanted to show them the dangers of having sex in the shower,” Bubbles said.

During her interview with Trew after her performance, Bubbles hammered her point home that shower sex was only for the most prepared.

“I think the attempt is worthwhile, but know what you’re doing before getting into it,” she said.

Contest winner “The Cock Queen,” won over the crowd with her apparent mastery of the aforementioned appendage and earned the chance to perform at the Air Sex Regionals in New York City, N.Y.

The judges were impressed with her enthusiasm.

“The great thing about Air Sex is that it’s a comedy show, but every once in a while you see how somebody actually has sex,” said one judge. “If I could move like that I’d have eight broken legs.”

Despite the unenthusiastic start, Trew said the championships in Boston were a memorable one.

“At first Boston worried me with lack of participation but in the end the city represented well. A definite highlight of the tour,” Trew said in an email.

For future shows and tour updates, find the Air Sex World Championships on Facebook and Twitter.

Not even the intense script of “Social Network” could give the actual Facebook the needed resuscitation it is crying out for.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved the movie, packed with intellectual, attractive Ivy Leaguers acting like pretentious jerks. What girl doesn’t?

The dramatic and witty screenplay used to illustrate the history behind the makings of the great social phenomenon of our time was interesting to say the least; however, the networking site it depicted no longer bears the same enthusiasm.

Surfing the site, looking at status updates and tagged pictures of “friends” (many of whom I rarely talk to on a regular basis) barely grabs my interest anymore.

The art of Facebook “research” which I worked long and hard to craft is no longer a skill I am proud to have.

We all have that Facebook friend that floods our news feed, updating their status every two seconds to reflect whatever they are now currently doing or thinking.

Note to that obnoxious friend: Get a Twitter. That’s what they are for.

Or better yet, the Facebook friend that has to comment on everyone’s status or picture, usually in intervals of 17 seconds. Please get off Facebook, stop worrying about what everyone else is doing, and do something productive in your own life, like deleting your Facebook account.

And please stop checking into places. If your friends want to know where you are in order to join in the fun, I promise, they’ll ask. Then again, I guess it lets me know where not to be. So thanks.

As for the followers who find it necessary to post YouTube videos that have already been posted on 129 of my “friends'” walls, thanks, but I don’t live in a hole.

I am well aware that they are climbing in our windows and snatching our people up.

Don’t get me wrong. I still log on, sometimes multiple times a day.

Though this is usually when I am trying to avoid schoolwork in some capacity, not for a genuine interest to see what is up on the book.

Facebook definitely had its good run, but when your mom, uncle and friend’s dog all have a Facebook account (each with about 43 friends), you know something is on its way out.

I’m sure Facebook will retain its steady friend base of 500 million plus users.

I on the other hand will be keeping my eyes peeled for the next big social networking site.

Will it be Twitter? I do tweet on occasion, but for some reason it just doesn’t thrill me to read about what celebrities’ and politician’s assistants deem intriguing enough to fit into 140 characters.

I guess I’m waiting for the next Harvard geek to get annoyed enough that they don’t have any friends and subsequently invent the next social networking site dedicated to creating millions of fabricated ones.

A film that is slightly under the radar here in the US, but should absolutely not to be missed, Lebanon is a dark and gritty look at the first day of the Lebanon War as it happens to an Israeli tank crew that must push through an urban combat zone.

Written and directed by Samuel Maoz, Lebanon is shot almost entirely from inside an Israeli tank, where four soldiers find themselves thrown into a chaotic spiral in which their own humanity is slowly stripped away from them in an effort to survive. The only depiction of the hell that is outside their vehicle comes from a first person view of the turrets crosshairs which is accompanied by the whines and grinds of the machine as it rotates and zooms in and out to give the audience a view of the madness and suffering going on around them.

Shmulik, played by Yoav Donat, is the tank’s gunner who has never fired on a live target; his early hesitation costs the life of a fellow soldier that the crew must then carry with them until the body can be extracted by helicopter. After his failure the crew must then come to terms with the reality of the decisions they will have to make in order to survive the war, or just the day. The dynamic of the four men going through this is what makes the movie deeply personal and emotional.

Maoz based the film on his experiences as a conscript in the 1982 Lebanon War, and takes extraordinary care to make the drama seem all too real for the audience. Rather than showcasing heroics or moments of grandeur that are common in many war movies, he instead exposes the raw emotional nerves that seem to strangle the characters in an effort that depicts them simply as young men in their 20s facing an extraordinary situation in a way that will truly stick with the viewer.

Lebanon was released in September 2009 in Israel to some controversy, and has just recently reached theatres in the United States. Since its release it has won, among other awards and nominations, the Leone d’Oro (“The Golden Lion”) at the 66th annual Venice International Film Festival – and the highest award that has been given to any Israeli film.

Though not widely publicized, Lebanon is an incredibly well shot, emotionally driven film that is worth viewing, then buying, and watching over and over again. Make sure to make time for this movie.

Lady Gaga is best known for her eccentric music, videos and style, but her recent political opinions have caught the attention of the press.

During a rally in Maine organized by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, she spoke out against the military’s ban of homosexuals.

“Doesn’t it seem to be that ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is backwards?” Gaga said during her speech. “Doesn’t it seem to be, based on the Constitution of the United States, that we’re penalizing the wrong soldier?”

Gaga is not the only one using the limelight to draw attention to political issues. Kevin Richardson of the Backstreet Boys spoke before a subcommittee of the the Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works about mountaintop removal mining – a practice in which the top of a mountain is removed to provide easier access to coal sources.

Actor Michael J. Fox and boxer Muhammad Ali also joined in the fun and lobbied Congress for more money to fund a cure for Parkinson’s disease, adding fuel to the fire of celebrities with strong opinions they wish to vocalize.

These celebrities’ motives are good. They aim to bring light to issues that Americans, particularly the younger generation who do not read the newspaper or watch nightly news, might not hear about otherwise. But most celebrities are not considered experts in the field they argue for or against, potentially leading the public astray.

Actor Kevin Costner is certainly not a scientist. However, an oil-water separation machine he has helped develop was quickly bought and adopted by BP after this year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Impressionable young Americans often succumb to the glitz and glam that accompanies celebrity. They are convinced that certain laws and ideas should be put into effect on a federal level because their favorite singer shares the same beliefs. What they do not realize, however, is that implementing some laws could cost the federal government money it does not have, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill.

The result is an increasingly liberal trend in which Generation Y demands change and reform but does not recognize that change is not free, especially in trying economic times.

When celebrities present their cases before Congress, they waste valuable time that could be used for expert testimonies or congressional debates, paving the way for quicker votes on issues that are beneficial to the American people.

According to CBS News, Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, said he is tired of the influx of celebrity expertise.

“I object to those that are brought in for show business,” Voinovich said regarding Richardson’s appearance before Congress. “This witness was put in as an afterthought because someone thought it would add to the glamour of the hearing and attract media attention.”

Unless they are genuine experts, restricting celebrities’ access to critical Congressional hearings is reform all Americans could use.