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Critic offers six tips for movie-watching success
I’m sure, depending on how observant you are, there have been many noticeable changes since students migrated to parts unknown in May.
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Simone pleases with digital hottie, pokes fun at Hollywood stereotypes
Remember the feeling you had the first time you saw Penélope Cruz in “Blow” or Brad Pitt in any of his films?
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Lansing-area actor heads to New York after final showing of Lonely Planet
Lansing - In a play about the fragility of life, two Lansing area men meet for a moment on the Riverwalk Theatre stage and offer their audience a chance to be changed.
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U-Fest entertains crowd with local favorites, sumo wrestling
Two sumo wrestlers collided with monstrous force Friday, toppling each other into the unforgiving floor. The silence was broken when muffled laughter from under the excess baggage was liberated as the suit came off and the frail body within stepped out - victorious. The University Activities Board provided 14 free activities for students to lose themselves in at the 26th Annual U-Fest at the Union. The energetic students were allured by the bouncy boxing and sumo wrestling, that students found to be some of the most amusing and embarrassing activities. For the more artistic bunch, there was a craft area, caricatures, airbrush tattoos, wax hands and palm and tarot card readings.
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Battle of the boxes
If you’ve always sucked at sports but dreamed of playing for the Tigers, hitting the game-winning home run in extra innings or dunking over Shaquille O’Neal as the point guard for the Pistons, then you might be a video game player. Or maybe you just don’t have any friends, and the combobulation of pixels beaming with light make for a good replacement when the hours drag by. If you don’t play video games, get a friggin’ console already.
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Row your boat
Residents looking for a nearby outdoor adventure have a couple more weeks to consider canoeing on the Red Cedar River. During the summer months, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, MSU Concessions offers a canoeing service for the MSU community. “We offer this service because we feel that some things are just good for the community,” said Bill Kost, operations manager at MSU Concessions.
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Farming frontier
The scenery changes south of campus.High-rise dormitories and herds of people give way to rolling green rows of crops and massive mooing cows.The senses are relieved from car exhaust fumes and pervaded with scents of fresh grass and cow manure.The tiny one-way turns of campus and traffic circles straighten out and turn into long stretches of rural roads that wind through MSU’s 5,000 acres of farmland.But the roads find their way back to central campus.The research conducted at the expansive farms south of central campus ekes its way back into classrooms, into computers, into the minds and departments of the people at MSU.Mark Collins manages one of the many farms at MSU - the Hancock Turfgrass Research Center, which grows, cultivates and researches thousands of types of grass.“We work to find the ones that fit Michigan best,” Collins said.“We work with grass to give athletes safer playing conditions - and make healthy grass for homeowners that’s more aesthetically pleasing.”The new grass in Spartan Stadium that now graces the footsteps of quarterback Jeff Smoker cost more than $2.5 million and took 18 months of work, Collins said.Workers plant the grass during the fall, since it thrives in cooler temperatures, but researchers work year-round.The turf management farm, with small greens and neatly mowed fields that require daily upkeep, doesn’t look like most of MSU’s farms.The dairy and sheep farms south of campus seem more like the farms students might be used to seeing.
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Wharton brings big Broadway to U
Broadway is making a little stop on the MSU campus this year to provide students with an amazing lineup of original and legendary shows.Wharton Center is celebrating its 20th anniversary season and will host six Broadway shows and musicals from September to April.“Basically, we’re bringing back the best of the best for our 20th anniversary - and then adding to it,” public relations manager Bob Hoffman said.
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Opening planned for mall
Developers of the Lansing area’s newest mall, Eastwood Towne Center, will try to capture the interest of MSU students through a spirited campaign.Spartan spirit, that is.Eastwood Towne Center, a mall that has been 15 years in the making, will complete the trifecta of Lansing-area shopping malls starting Sept.
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Exhibit explores packaging history worldwide, locally
The switching of beverages from glass to plastic containers might not seem like a big deal to you.
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Violence ends areas only hip-hop night
Hip-hop lover Jamil Buie stood on Toronto’s club-lined Younge Street one Sunday afternoon in early August, soaking in the music and the culture that he loves. “There’s people here from all over the planet,” the 1999 MSU graduate described over the telephone.
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Under the costume: Life as Sparty takes dedication
He belongs on one of those “The Perfect Man” T-shirts that are being sold everywhere these days - he’s tall, he’s funny, he’s quiet and he’s the most popular guy on campus. He also wears a skirt made of car vinyl and a new $13,000 suit.
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Online programs boost security
Security officials around the world could be better prepared for protecting the globe after participating in an online institute offered by MSU. The Global Community Security Institute is an online program that educates and certifies security officials and public servants to improve security and safety. The programs, stemming from some already existing and others newly formed, can be custom designed for individual organizations or communities. Community officials from across the nation have shown interest in participating in programs like the global institute, said Ed McGarrell, director of the School of Criminal Justice. “Obviously we want to first meet the needs of Michigan, but we’re thinking nationally as well,” he said. The program is funded entirely by federal dollars from the homeland security initiative, he said. “Every community within the state and country since Sept.
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New park attracts boarders
They flip, dip, turn and twist on rails, concrete or any surface they can get their hands on.And they do it on four wheels.They are skateboarders - an increasingly popular sport that is taking over the East Lansing and Lansing areas.“I used to be a surfer, but since I’m stuck in Michigan, skateboarding is the next best thing,” MSU-Detroit College of Law junior Rich Decky said.
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U offers help for students
Questions about hardware status, Ethernet capability or insufficient gigabytes? You may want to head to the Computer Store, 305 Computer Center, where all these questions and more are brought up and answered.
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Ask a Librarian service saves time, energy
If you can’t go to the Main Library, it can now come to you. Students have searched MSU’s databases from their homes since the library’s catalog went online.
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High-tech magnet could help protein research
MSU could attract more than proteins and molecules if all goes as planned.Spartan leaders hope to make campus home to one of the largest magnetic spectrometers in the United States.“We also hope it will attract faculty,” said Shelagh Ferguson-Miller, co-director of the Center for Structural Biology.The machine, a 900-megahertz nuclear magnetic resonance instrument, is set to be paid for by the Life Sciences Corridor.Corridor officials approved the program’s budget for the this year, including $4.5 million for the instrument, in June.The Life Sciences Corridor is a grant program initiated in 1999 to spend more that $1 billion on biochemistry projects during a span of 20 years.The program links the research efforts of Van Andel Institute in Grand Rapids, MSU, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University and is funded by part of the state’s tobacco settlement money.The new magnetic instrument will join a team of eight others.
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Facility aids safety
Okemos - The 3.5-foot-thick slab of reinforced concrete will ensure that materials being tested by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering won’t budge - even when they’re hit with simulated earthquakes, fires, explosions and pressures in the new Civil Infrastructure Laboratory.
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U screams for ice cream
I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream, especially in the summer.While July was National Ice Cream Month and July 21 was National Ice Cream Day, local residents are still coming in droves to ice cream parlors to indulge in the tempting treats.“I love ice cream,” Okemos resident Nelu Azadnia said earlier this summer.
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Weekend Guide
Thursday • The Lansing Lugnuts play Kane County at 6:05 p.m. at Oldsmobile Park, 505 E.