Turns out that the Bell Tower gives off freakish amounts of radiation, and was around during the Civil War.

Don’t beleive us? Then watch the documentary:

[youtube: http://www.youtube.com/v/_ePrdxWsbYY&rel=1]

Along with this week’s content in the weekly edition, Temple Living also has two online exclusive stories:

TBS’s new comedy 10 Items or Less targets college audience TTN caught up with star John Lehr, who recounted his school days, and explained why this show screams to a college-age audience.

How-to detect, stop Seasonal Affective Disorder symptoms Feeling down lately? Your depression could be more than just a case of the winter blues. SAD symptoms, ways to combat.

According to the blog SEPTA watch, several people intending to get off at the Temple University stop were trapped in the Regional Rail cart as the conductor failed to open the doors.

The funny part?

The doors can be manually opened.

Welcome to Snacks in the SAC – the column where we will explore the wonders that meal planners experience every day in the Valaida S. Walker Food Court.

On this the first day of classes of the 2008 Spring semester, we all return to our academia to find the SAC at a turning point in its culinary career. This is a time of serious change for our beloved Sodexho-run food court.

Today, we look at Dos Manos (that’s “Two Hands” for all of you who have forgotten your high school Spanish). This new Mexican food distributor, neatly tucked away in the corner of the food court previously inhabited by Mrs. Crepes, is the SAC’s more authentic answer to the now defunct Taco Bell. Primarily offering Qdoba-inspired burritos, the offerings at this venue have a fresh, grease-free taste. Once the rest of the Temple Owls recover from their withdrawal from lack of 1,000 calorie Crunch Wrap Supremes, they will enjoy the refreshing taste of light burritos with authentic Mexican flavors. But don’t let the lack of cellulite in these goodies dismay you – according to Dos Manos, “you’ll need two hands” to hold them (hence the moniker). Continue reading →

I’m sitting at my computer, minding my own business. I’ve got laundry to fold and dishes to clean. And then, David Letterman provokes me to put those off and write.

I am all for the 12,000 writers from the Writers Guild of America striking. I am a supporter, as much of Hollywood (minus Carson Daly) is. Many networks have adapted. And then, there’s CBS.

CBS is my favorite station. In fact, my initials are CBS. I hope to work for CBS one day. But as I’m watching The Late Show with David Letterman, which has been in reruns since the strike began in early November, some things he said caught my attention.

First, he set up a skit where Alan Greenspan was saying goodbye to the Federal Reserve.

Then, he had a “reporter” at Superbowl XL.

After doing a quick search to verify my hypotheses, I learned that CBS is re-airing an episode that, according to my calculatoins, probably aired on Feb. 6, 2006. That’s 1 year and 10 months ago today.

The strike has been occurring for just more than four weeks, and CBS chose one of the least-timely shows they could have. I certainly hope that won’t go much further back than February 2006. If they do, it should be a classic…one that sticks out in the minds of all devoted fans (i.e. Drew Barrymore flashing Dave on his desk, anyone?).

Being that I refuse to watch Leno, a huge excuse for a comedian, and I’m in bed before Conan and Craig, I don’t know how they’re handling the strike. But frankly, I don’t care about Ben Bernake or the Pittsburgh Steelers. Or that Harrison Ford is in a “new” movie (Firewall, which premiered on Feb. 10, 2006. I don’t remember this at all).

Please reconsider, Les Moonves, for the writers’ sake. Out of respect for them, show off their best material. Not just any random thing you have stacked on the shelves.

As covered before, Facebook is in a little bit of trouble concerning its new “Beacon” service.  One guy even had his wife notified when he purchased a diamond ring (hopefully for her).

It led to accusations that the site was ruining Christmas by publicising details of gifts to their likely recipients. One user, Sean Lane from Boston, told The Washington Post that he had his festivities spoiled when Beacon sent an alert to his wife. It said: “Sean Lane bought 14k white gold 1/5 ct diamond eternity flower ring from Overstock.com.” The message even had a web link to the Overstock site which revealed that the ring was sold at half-price.

As a result of incidents such as this one, some vendors are reconsidering, and Facebook is backing down from some of its original plans.  And, um, its heart grew three sizes that day.
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The fashion sin I keep seeing repeated these days at T.U. is the brazen misuse of color. Maybe as temperatures drop and folks need to add more and more layers, it seems less important or more difficult to stick to one color scheme–but I promise, it is important and anyone can do it.

Have you ever taken any kind of art or design class? Fashion being an art, it makes sense that we fashionistas should follow some of the same guidelines as art theorists; for example, the color wheel. It is a simple tool designed to help people understand how colors best work together.

In the color wheel, primaries are each matched with their complementary color directly across the wheel. These matches are the most high impact, striking color combinations. They are highly encouraged in art and design, and I recommend them in fashion as well. Red/green, Yellow/purple, and Blue/orange (or for our purposes, peach or even tan) are the money pairings.

Less sound match-ups include colors that fall adjacent to each other on the wheel. You wouldn’t put magenta and red and coral in one outfit, right?

Another common mistake is tricking yourself into believing that two shades are so close they practically match. Ninety-nine percent of the time they do not match, in fact, they are so close that they clash the bajeezus out of each other and look horrible. (Tough love, sorry.)

The only time you might stand a chance of getting away with this is if one color is in a head accessory and the other is in your shoes. Unfortunately, if you are of short stature, this probably will not work for you, because they key is distancing the two pieces. My best advice is to always play it safe: if they aren’t a perfect match, forget about it.

Lastly, in these cold winter months, black is your best friend. Base an outfit in black and it is really hard to go wrong. It clashes nothing (I mean it, even most brown/black combinations are acceptable these days) and as a bonus, it gives the illusion of length and looks ultra-sophisticated. White is off limits till the Spring Fling time-frame, but a nice cream or khaki can also be the foundation of a soundly colored outfit.

Dress warmly this season, but don’t go into color overload and remember the color wheel–your third grade art teacher would be proud.

In this week’s issue we profiled the softer side of Facebook.

Some people, however, are highly upset at the social networking site for privacy issues. Similar to when the whole world had an aneurysm when the “news feed” was added, many are upset over Facebook’s new buddy-buddy relationship with its advertisers.

For one, Facebook advertisers can use your picture without you knowing. Facebook also has partnered with several sites that track your purchases and make them available on Facebook as part of their new “Beacon” feature. Therefore, along with “so-and-so has left a messege on so-and-so’s wall” you may see “so-and-so just purchased The Da Vinci Code from Amazon.com”.

The worst part? You can’t even opt out.

The uproar has led groups like Moveon.org to start a good ol’ fashioned online petition. And Facebook has fired back:

(B)ut in this case, the MoveOn.org-led group misrepresents how Facebook Beacon works. Beacon gives users an easy way to share relevant information from other sites with their friends on Facebook

This one may get ugly. But if you are one to get apprehensive at the prospect of your information being passing along without you knowing, be sure to double check your privacy features on Facebook, or you can always take your ball and go home (link at bottom to deactivate account).[Sources: bb, The Times, Techcrunch, Cnet, InfoWeekly]