One day in a van just a couple of years ago may have changed the course of history. Well, maybe not, but it did change the travel arrangements for the U of C wrestling team. It's just one of the many memories from departing team captain Brad Neve.

"We were driving to SFU for a tournament and (Head Coach) Mitch (Ostberg) couldn't drive that year for some reason. So a couple of the older guys drove."

Is a team with no supervision in a 15-seat van heading for trouble? You bet.

Janet Bang's favourite cheese is marble.

"I like its contrasting sharpness with the creamy taste of mozzarella," she said with a smile as three Gauntlet journalists listened intently to every answer she spun from a myriad of loosely connected questions--favourite cheese being one of those queries.

How's this for pioneer journalism? It's the story of the first ever American broadcast from the Soviet Union. It's 1958, and a young journalist by the name of Keith Jackson is going into foreign territory to cover a sporting event.

"They were stoning our embassy, the Brits were sinking ships in the Suez and the marines were landing in Lebanon. We went into the Soviet Union on a tourist visa and that was one hell of an adventure," he smiled. "When we got there, our troubles had just started."

Now that the courts have neutered Napster, approximately 100,000 song files specified by the recording industry will be blocked. Users have two choices: work around the filters by intentionally misspelling song titles, or abandon Napster for other Internet file-sharing services.

People are always complaining about how hard it is to predict what the "next big thing" in rock music will be. Well, kiddies, I've finally cracked the Enigma Code. Allow me to explain.

They say these are the best times of our lives, but what exactly is the best part about it? How many of you really know why you're in university and what you intend to get from it all? Outside of what you learn in lectures--whether it's the complexities of a molecular cell, Marxist ideologies, circuits or the constructs of fluid dynamics--what's really important?

The intro music sounds, a swirling globe appears and before you can say "tennis elbow," a buxom nude blonde is standing amidst a locker room full of equipment and jerseys discussing basketball scores and the no fair catch rule.

I'm prefacing this week's Headspin with a disclaimer. I don't want to undermine self-defence courses. I believe the philosophy is sound and I admire the positive intentions. With that said, I'm disturbed by the number of women coming out of self-defence courses in greater danger than they went in.

IS THAT A PISTIL? One of the many botanical specimens growing in the Science A greenhouse. Is there truth to the popular belief there are no hallucinogenic experiments or sexual encounters in the greenhouse? Tune in next week, in full colour.

Give it a little over two years, and University of Alberta students will be glad to see fours on their transcripts.

The U of A's General Faculties Council approved a proposal to change the nine-point grading scale to a four-point scale similar to that used by other North American institutions. Currently the school uses a nine-point system, with nine as the maximum, four as the lowest possible passing mark and one as lowest mark.