FEATURES

Be My Valentine: Students Plan, Await Romantic Holiday
August Schuman | Staff Reporter

Don’t worry guys the restaurants are still taking reservations and the flower shops are still delivering but you might not have to spend the big bucks this year for Valentine’s Day, many girls just want a simple home cooked meal.
Missy Watson, an education major, does not have plans for Valentine’s Day.
“A homemade dinner would be my ideal Valentine’s date,” Watson said.  “ I have that day off. I might make him dinner because I don’t have to work.”
Quality time at home would be the best gift, she said. 
Brook Shelnutt, a criminal justice major, wants to have dinner at home.
“ I want him to make me dinner,” Shelnutt said.  “I would like for him to find a few of my favorite things and give them to me like my favorite flower or my favorite candy.”
Ria Johnston, owner of Ria’s Flower Shop, is already extremely busy for Valentine’s Day and has taken some orders from MSU students.
“We started taking orders two weeks ago and now it is starting to pick up,” Johnston said.  Students that want to place an order for Valentine’s Day need to call in as soon as possible. “We can only take so many deliverers on that day,” Johnston said. 
Students that can come in right before Valentine’s Day may have to have an alternate day to have flowers delivered.
“We will be working straight through the weekend not having any days off,” Johnston said.
  Last year Ria’s had 150 to 175 deliveries. It will probably be about the same this year, she said. 
“Anyone can just walk in on Valentine’s Day and just pick up flowers,” Johnston, said.   “We will have stuff pre-made.” 
Roses, fixed arrangements, and gift baskets are some of the things that will be already made up and ready to take out the door.
“We love to cater to MSU students,” Ria’s said.  “We try and keep the cost down. We understand it is hard being a college student so we have something for everyone.”
Jessica Tipton, a mass communication major, wants her Valentine to take her to a dinner and a movie.
“Oxford Street is a nice restaurant I would want to be taken too,” Tipton said.  “It is one of the nicest restaurants in town.”
Oxford Street is slammed during Valentine’s Day and pretty much no one can get in without reservations, Tipton said.  
Daisie Hardon, general manager for Oxford Street, believes that they will be busy all night long.
“People have already started calling to get reservations, Hardon said.  “We are not completely full.”
Between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. reservations are already full, she said.
“If you don’t have reservations the best time to come is between 7:30 p.m. and 8:00p.m,” said Hardon.  “ With Valentine’s Day being on a Monday it will be pretty busy early.”
Oxford Street will be open all day long and dinner reservations will start at 5 p.m.
Haley Simmons, an education major, has plans for Valentine’s Day.
“My boyfriend and I are going to The Plex to play miniature golf. If I could go anywhere else I would want to go to a really nice restaurant where I can get dressed up like the Olive Garden,” Simmons said.
Loni Matlock, culinary manager for Olive Garden, is estimating over 1100 people for Valentine’s Day. 
“We are taking reservations for lunch but after 4 p.m. it is first come first serve. The best time to come will be around 4:30 p.m.,” Matlock.
People will start getting off work and heading up here and that is when it will start to get busy, she said.   
“The wait will probably be about an hour,” said Matlock.
Olive Garden will be serving appetizers and samples of wine that will be available in the waiting area.
Telina Grayson, a business marketing major, would like to have a picnic with take out from a restaurant.
“Have a picnic and maybe play in the park and then go home and watch TV would be the ideal date,” Grayson said.  “It is the thought that counts. It is not all about the money.”
Jennifer Atkins, a business marketing major, would love to go bowling on Valentines Day.
“I think Valentine’s Day is all about rubbing it in that you have a boyfriend and that makes people feel bad,” said Atkins.  “I would like to have a nice dinner.”
Some guys have come up with romantic ideas of their own.
  Colin McGuinness, a graduate student, plans on taking his girlfriend to a dinner and a movie. The most romantic thing that he has ever done is having a picnic by the foundation in the park, he said.
 Jeff Rye, a criminal justice major, plans on going to the Phi Sigma Kappa date party for Valentine’s Day.
“The best Valentine’s Day I have ever had is when I had a picnic in center field of my high school,” Rye said.
University Programming Board will sponsor card making in Cadoo on Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. materials and examples will be provided for students to make cards for their sweethearts or friends. Killingsworth Hall will have a Valentine’s Day party on Thursday from 7:30 until 9 p.m. Activities will take place on each floor.


Super Bowl Commercials Major Letdown this Year
Camron Rushin | Editor-In-Chief

I’ve always wanted to write a sports column but our Sport’s Editor refuses to let me write about it in the sport’s section because she thinks I know nothing about sports. What she doesn’t realize is that I know lots about sports, I just don’t care to talk about it 24-hours a day.
When I was a kid I’d watch baseball all the time. My whole family would go to Texas Ranger games to watch Nolan Ryan pitch. I loved baseball until 1994 when the league went on strike. I couldn’t understand how people being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars could complain. I quit watching baseball after this. I used to even collect baseball cards and I could name every player on every team. Now I might know five. The same thing happened in basketball in 1998. The only thing that makes me interested in basketball anymore is when players fight the fans. 
There are only two sports I pay attention to anymore: Football and golf. Now our sport’s editor doesn’t think golf is a sport, she calls it a “skill.” I guess it’s a good thing this school doesn’t have a golf team otherwise we’d have to add a “skill” section to the newspaper.
I mostly like watching small high school football teams because it’s more like real-life. You get about 30 kids out for the team, about 5 of them can really play and you have to make due with the rest. In pro football you can’t tell one player from the next. Even the kickers are taking steroids now.
But what I like most about pro football is the Super Bowl. And it’s not just so I can see an aging pop-star’s breast on national television either. I watch the Super Bowl for the commercials.
In case you didn’t realize, the Super Bowl was last week. I mean who really cares about it when Philadelphia plays New England? So I wasted about five or six hours of my life Sunday watching football to catch something to laugh at.
 Did you know the Super Bowl had a theme? This year’s theme was bringing together the young and the old. That’s straight from J.B’s mouth. So with that theme they had Gretchen Wilson do a duet with Charlie Daniels for the pre-game entertainment. They had a small stage on the field that had a group of fans dancing in front of it. During the country entertainment there were girls wearing cowboy hats.
After that, the Black Eyed Peas played with Earth, Wind and Fire.  The camera panned across the crowd and the same girls who were just wearing cowboy hats weren’t wearing their hats anymore. Make up your mind people!  Two wrongs don’t make a right, and two sucks just multiplies the amount of suckage by ten.
If those performances weren’t ridiculous enough, during the halftime show, the nursing home let Paul McCartney out long enough to do some old Beatles tunes. I admit “Live and Let Die,” was OK, but “Hey Jude?” So when did the Super Bowl entertainment become so boring? Oh yeah, it’s always been that way.  I remember one time when I was a kid they had New Kids on the Block perform. I guess they needed to juxtapose huge football players with a bunch of panty-waists.
Since I couldn’t be entertained by the game or the performers I thought at least the commercials would make some light of the situation. What is wrong with advertisers these days? There were so many bad commercials it was difficult to even make a top three list. I kept waiting for the new Steve’s Shoes commercial to come on just so I could have something to grin about.
FedEx took the cake with Burt Reynolds dancing with a bear and getting kicked in the groin. Not only was it humorous but it was gratifying to see a movie star get kicked in the groin.
Ameriquest’s commercial where they guy is talking into his hands-free cell phone and gets beat up by the convenience store employees was priceless. Not only was the commercial funny, but I just like seeing people who use cell phones in public get beat up. People really freak me out with those hands-free things because it makes you think they’re talking to you or themselves.
Careerbuilder.com also had a funny commercial of a guy going to an office meeting with a bunch of monkeys and they put a whoopee cushion under his seat. I guess, for some reason, I felt really connected to that guy.
Well, that’s it, and to think I didn’t know anything about sports.


Books Spark the Imagination and Beats Television any Day
Nicole Ford | Opinion Editor

A long time ago in a land far, far away, people began recording the myths, legends and stories of their cultures. 
And from that ancient art, books were born. 
Reading is, shockingly enough, the most popular form of entertainment in my family.  Our bookshelves have long since passed the point of full.  Books are stacked on tables and counters and are packed into boxes.  Our favorite places to shop are the bookstores with rows upon rows upon rows of countless different stories, authors and titles.  Reading is a family obsession that I am quite happy to continue.
Books can take a reader to places that TV cannot.  This is the most clearly illustrated by a mural that was on the wall outside of my kindergarten classroom.  It showed kids reading with the words “a books makes you think” scrawled under the picture. 
Books require readers to be active participants.  They can’t just sit back and let images and sounds sink their brains.  The mind puts the images to the author’s words.  The mind’s interpretation of the author’s words creates a whole new world for the reader to explore.  An entire town or country previously unknown to the reader is formed.  New people with distinct personalities are introduced.  A well-written story allows the reader to use his imagination and explore a whole new place. 
A good book is usually much better than even the best of movies.  Movies are limited by such frivolous, real-world things as technology, budgets and acting abilities.  The only limits on a story are those put there by the imaginations of the writer and reader.
The human mind is full of creative ability, and when expressed through simple print and paper, that ability invents a grand adventure that all are welcome to enjoy.  A world where telepathic dragons work with their human friends to defend the planet against a deadly menace is not outside the realm of possibilities.  Nor are the stories of psychic cops tracking down deadly serial killers in a race against time. 
Anything can exist in the human imagination, from faeries and talking animals to shape-shifters and ghosts.  And even the  best of Hollywood graphic tricks are not a match for the power of human imagination.
The sheer variety of stories is also something that cannot be matched by that box in the entertainment center.  Though channels may number in the hundreds these days, books number in the millions.  Everyone who has ever owned a television has moaned the words “there’s nothing on.” 
Books don’t suffer from this particular affliction.  Not in the mood for a comedy?  Read a crime novel.  Or a romance.  Or a fantasy.  Or a science fiction.  Or a biography.  Or a western.  Read stories of pirates and navy officers in the 1800s.  Read about human society hundreds of years from now. 
The possibilities are endless, and there are books that cater to every taste, from the exotic to the conservative.  Don’t enjoy blood, guts, gore, rampant sex or curse words?  That’s okay.  There are plenty of books left to choose from. 
Books are always available and waiting to be read, whether it is noon or four in the morning.  There is never any “dead air” or “paid programming.”  Books can do anything from entertain to educate, and it can all be done in the comfort of a favorite chair. 
Good stories aren’t hard to obtain, and books are usually inexpensive, especially when compared to the costs of entertainment technology. 
And, of course, readers don’t have to put up with commercials after every other paragraph.