Special Projects

Saturday's Sports Update: Women's basketball gains first conference win

Junior Tara Watts led the Owls with 15 points this afternoon as the women's basketball team snagged its first victory in 11 games, gaining their first conference win and improving to 6-19 overall. Rice dominated the University of Tulane (14-12, 6-6 C-USA) in a complete role-reversal from the last time the two squads met. The Green Wave won that match up by 28 points on Jan. 11, whereas today the Owls led by as many as 18 points and finished the game with a 62-54 victory.

Page 2.5: Ruminating on A-Rod's 'roids

Surprise at Alex's 'roid use totally unfounded

100 days until the real world

Students celebrate at the 100 Days dance party on Wednesday. This year's event was held at Houston social club 26ten.

Lovett masters complete tenure

Lovett College Masters Bernard and Carolyn Aresu will finish their five-year term at the end of this semester. French Studies Professor Bernard Aresu and Carolyn Aresu, Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training Administrator at the laboratory for nanophotonics, have been working at Rice for 30 years. They also served as masters of Brown College from 1982-'88, staying on an extra year to facilitate its transition from an all-women's college to a co-ed college.

Men's basketbll focuses on ECU

Were it not for University of Houston guard Aubrey Coleman, who played perhaps the finest twenty minutes of basketball the men's basketball team has seen all year, Rice's execution and patience on the offensive end would in all likelihood have ended the team's two-year losing streak against its crosstown rival. The Owls (8-15, 3-6 Conference USA) and the Cougars (15-7, 6-3 C-USA battled back and forth Saturday night at Hofheinz Pavilion, but after the seventh lead change with just 3:21 to go in the game, Houston pulled away for the 72-65 victory.

A Word with your Wardrobe: Pre-Rondelet notes on the James Bond look

What happened to those days when men polished to the tips of their shoes and dressed to the nines simply to go out for brunch? Where is the man who makes ladies do double takes with raised eyebrows, intrigued not by his chiseled arms or exposed physique but by the thought of what his tie might look like loosened and discarded? What became of the men who left something to the imagination, the gentlemen on the forefront, those knights in their crisp suits? I sure don't know, but one thing is certain: They just don't make men like they used to.Granted, Rice males are 20-something-year-old students who have things to do, grades to save and little time to take care of their daily appearances, but what can be said about a man who seems to be under an even greater level of pressure, with stresses unrivaled? How does one explain why James Bond looks so damn good all the time?

This week's Editorial Cartoon

Louisiana State narrowly defeats men's tennis

Yes, the men's tennis team lost on Friday to No. 15 Louisiana State University. Rice's third loss in a row came by a score of 4-3 in Baton Rouge, La., dropping the 27th-ranked Owls to 7-3 on the year and marking the midpoint of a laborious, seven-week road trip. But that is not the main storyline to emerge from the Louisiana jaunt. The team fought tooth and nail for the win, but the Tigers' wins did not arise in the places one would expect.

Cliché-bashing He's Just Not That Into You tells it like it is

The new film He's Just Not That Into You claims that it is not a "typical" chick flick and that it goes beyond the conventional realm of the genre by cutting out clichés. The movie's iTunes podcast touts the film's lack of certain undesirable, overly-sentimental and formulaic scenes, such as random outbreaks into song, makeover montages or hysterical crying scenes. And it's true: He's Just Not That Into You avoids the traps of usual chick flicks and produces a funny, enjoyable and not-so-typical one.Based on the self-help book by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, He's Just Not That Into You structures itself by first giving the audience a pearl of dating wisdom - "he's just not that into you if ." - and then showing how the proverb works in the relationships of couples in the movie.

Rent increases proposed for pubs

[Editor's Note: Upon receipt of an e-mail from Student Center Director Boyd Beckwith containing corrected numbers and additional information pertaining to the proposed Valhalla rent increases, the Thresher editorial board updated the following story (update posted to Web on Sunday, Feb. 15). The original story stated that Vahalla's proposed increase amounted to a 147 percent change.]Valhalla's reputation for inexpensive beer may soon take a hit as the graduate pub attempts to make up for a proposed 30 percent rent increase next year.

Senior gift greatly benefits underclassmen

As I struggle with the many obligations of senior year - completing classes, getting ready for graduation, finding a job and somehow managing to enjoy the last semester of college - I find myself engaging in one senior duty that I have never thought I would participate in: senior gift.A senior gift at Rice is essentially money raised by seniors that is given to the Rice Annual Fund to be used for things that directly impact student life: new Recreation Center equipment, scholarships and other student needs. Though a senior gift is nice in theory, as an underclassman and even well into my senior year, I always wondered why graduating seniors were expected to give money as a "gift." Why, after four years of paying money for tuition, housing, books and other university fees, should seniors be required to pay more money when most do not have jobs yet and, in some cases, will not for a few years?

Gettin' it on with The Vagina Monologues

Mushmellow. Powderbox. Coochi snorcher. Cunt. Dignity. Gladys Siegelman. Vagina. Orgasmic moans. Frank testimony. Righteous anger. You name it, The Vagina Monologues has it.Because it is mostly bare, the stage of The Vagina Monologues is set for good acting. Costumes are simple black outfits with small touches of red. The lighting is simple. Ultimately, the show is an intimate experience between the audience and the actresses.

Future of newspapers needs local support

In the midst of the current financial crisis, we hear story after story about the loss of jobs and Wall Street bailouts. But we are facing another threat that goes largely unnoticed. While banks and the Big Three - General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler - crowd around Congress to gather the remains of our tax money, printed publications are going silently into the night, as newspapers and magazines watch their advertising revenues disappear.It is a trend that started years ago with the invention of online classifieds, which have been siphoning away business from the historical cash-cows of the newspaper world. It has been a slow process, to be sure, but one soundly documented over the last decade. The most recently publicized event demonstrating the fall of the print media giants has to be The New York Times' decision to sell advertising space on its front page for the first time in over 150 years.

Raising Valhalla's rent requires review

With an ever-tightening economic noose forcing the university to pay more and more attention to its budget, Rice is currently entertaining a proposal that would increase the rent owed by Willy's Pub and Valhalla (see story, page 1). The amount of money Pub would owe has not been made public, but Valhalla would be on the hook for $1,678.25 per month, or $1,000 more per month than the graduate student hangout is paying this year.We are fully aware that this proposal is far from finalized, but we feel that it is necessary to raise our objections as preemptively and immediately as possible.

Creepin' with Coraline

Remember Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas? That stop-motion animated movie that your parents mistakenly took you to as a child, thinking it was just another Disney cartoon before realizing way too late, after seeing images of hurled skulls and burning bodies, that the movie might be too twisted for a little kid?While Coraline might not be as visually gruesome, it's in the same vein. Marketed as a children's fairy tale gone wrong and awarded a PG rating (I'd like to disagree), this film is surprisingly adult and definitely way too creepy for the average six-year-old.

Split track squad continues success

The slowest time in the women's 3000-meter run ever to qualify for the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championship is 9 minutes, 18 seconds. Last weekend at the Notre Dame's Meyo Invitational in South Bend, Ind., senior Lennie Waite ran a 9:16. While the season will not conclude until the end of the month, it looks as though Waite has at least a decent shot to qualify for the premier competition in the country. Waite and the rest of the women's track and field team will have the opportunity to secure more postseason berths next weekend when a 28-woman squad competes at the Texas A&M Invitational in College Station. There, the Owls will compete against every Division I school in Texas, along with Louisiana Tech University, the University of Miami, Arizona State University and Northwestern University. The competition will be stiff, as Arizona State won the national indoor title two years ago and Texas A&M was ranked first in the nation coming into the 2009 season. Also, the meet will have additional championship feel, since the Aggies' brand-new indoor facility happens to be the site of this year's championship meet.

Women's tennis finds groove

The women's tennis team dropped just a single team point over two matches against University of Texas- Arlington and Texas State University this past weekend at Jake Hess Stadium. With six matches under their belts, the Owls, who are now 5-1 on the year, appear to have found a routine that works. Rice took on UT-Arlington Saturday and had to battle through a rough opening round of doubles, but still managed to win all three of the close individual matches to take the early 1-0 team lead in the contest.

Campus Reaction

"The SA and Housing and Dining are looking into offering a new 10-meal-a-week plan for seniors and off-campus students. What do you think of the proposed changes?"

Final decision on add/drop deadline reached

After much debate and discussion, the Faculty Senate voted Jan. 14 to make the final amendments to the add/drop deadlines for the 2009-'10 academic calendar. Faculty Senate Speaker Deborah Harter said the final vote sets the add deadline at two weeks and the drop deadline at seven weeks. Students may add or drop courses during this time period via ESTHER without any fees. Previously, students had four weeks to add a course, two weeks to add it without a fee, four weeks to drop a course without a fee and 10 weeks to drop a course with a fee of $25 per class.

Rice needs to fix rec center, not ignore it

As someone who makes use of the Autry Recreation Center often, I can't help but notice the deteriorating state of the facility. Conditions at the Rec Center have always been lackluster, but after a section was closed off due to the construction of the Tudor Fieldhouse and Youngkin Center, we lost practically half of Autry, including the old weight room, and consequently a lot of our exercise opportunities were cut short. Sadly, I am reminded of this every time I follow the ominous signs leading to the temporary entrance, and upon entering, I am greeted with Autry's currently dismal conditions.On more than one occasion, I have journeyed across campus only to find that all of the cardio machines are already in use. As a result I am forced to wait in the corner, staring down the users of each machine in hopes that someone will finish in a reasonable amount of time - yet several times, I have waited upwards of 20 minutes for a cardio machine to free up. That's not really a long enough time to incite me into an angry protest, but it is a considerable block of time that I could be using to do more productive things. Let's face it: Nobody wants to wait in line for exercise, an activity that arguably many people view as a tedious responsibility. If I'm willing to make the ridiculously long, perilous trek from Martel all the way to Autry, I expect to be able to get a decent workout without delay.