tl20021202-000 "The rotilmviligh Baltimore's #1 College Paper - Published Twice-Weekly - www.thetowerlight.com Monday, 12/2/02 WTMD changes to AAA format 6 CLA open search forums continue MgrAliti SEV: More than just an odd name 13 DJ reflects on 26 years at 98 Roch 13 Departments News 6 Holiday Shopping Guide 7 Arts 13 In Concert 13 Sports Athlete of the Week In This Corner 20 18 20 Classifieds 15 Opinion 2 Hottest gifts offer up diversity Sarah Breitenbach Mike Morris The Towerlight Britney Spears is out. Avril Lavigne is in. VHS tapes are being replaced by DVD discs. ""Tomb Raider"" has given way to ""Grand Theft Auto: Vice City."" So say retailers at Towson Town Center, 825 Dulaney Valley Road, where Towson students have easy access to the season's hottest gifts. Retailers from Wal-Mart to Kay Bee Toys have had a hard time so far keeping ""Grand Theft Auto: Vice City"" in stock. The controversial video game is the latest installment in the Grand Theft Auto series, which have been consistent best-sellers. ""Vice City"" has been getting a lot of attention for its sales figures, but also for its content. As with previ-ous Grand Theft Auto games, par-ticipants go on wild car chases of rampant destruction, approach prostitutes and shoot random pedestrians sniper-style. ""Everybody has been asking for 'Vice City,"" said Robert Rouse, manager of Kay Bee. He estimates the Towson Town store has sold more than 200 copies of the game. Management at Suncoast Video said the store will be lucky if it sells 30 percent of its purchases on VHS, predicting that within two years DVDs will have completely overtak-en the market. The store has been selling numerous DVD players, which were introduced to the U.S. in March of 1997. As more and more movie fans embrace DVDs, studios are promot-ing them almost as much as movies themselves. Sony is spending about $100 mil-lion promoting the ""Spiderman"" DVD, which is expected to sell between 20 and 30 million copies, making it the top-selling DVD of all time. ""Spiderrnan"" has been a hot item at Suncoast, as has ""Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of the Clones"" and the extended edition of ""Lord of the Rings."" As for the music industry, many albums are flying off the shelves at prices reaching $20 per disc, despite recent trends in music See POPULAR, page 7 Lao Johnson The Tawerhght DVDs, dog calendars, and beer merchandise are some of the best-selling gifts this holiday season at Towson Town Center, 825 Dulaney Valley Road. Today marks the fourth day of Hanukkah and 23 days until Christmas. Students choose to create, not buy Song journals, specialized baskets, memory box; sampling of options Jessica Rinne The Towerlight Consumers have made it past turkey day and faced Black Friday head on. Now it's time for scores of Towson University students to ask themselves, ""What am I going to get that special someone?"" Unfortunately it's also the time for many of those same students to ask themselves, ""How am I going to buy that special someone anything when I can barely afford to buy toilet paper?"" The dilemma is nothing new for students who, though notoriously poor, are close enough to adulthood that they're expected to buy their own gifts. Which means that, on top of finals, students have to figure out how to buy more and spend less. It can be done. Spending less is simple after all. You just buy less expensive items. But how do you manage to keep your gifts nice and your costs down? ""In many cases, particularly with friends, I prefer to give made gifts,"" said senior mass communication major Nicole Haupt. ""Too often your friends don't get to hear how special they are, and this is an opportunity to put something of yourself into something for them to remind them how special they are to you."" But deciding to make rather than buy this year is the easy part. Deciding what to make is tough. When plan-ning her holiday shopping, one of Haupt's favorite proj-ects is a combination of a tape of songs and an accom-panying journal. ""Last year I made a tape of music for everyone in [my] sorority,"" she said. ""I bought a journal book for each per-son and wrote dedications for each person for the songs I recorded."" A song journal makes a great gift because it's extreme- See MAKING GIFTS, page 7 Today High 43 Low 28 Tuesday High 36 Low 27 Wednesday High 31 Low 27 Thursday High 37 Low 21 Friday High 37 Low 22 "
