After consistently improving over the first half of the season, the University of Calgary Dinos women's hockey team went into the second half hoping to start the semester off on the right foot by winning their first weekend series, a pair of games against the Grant MacEwan Griffins.

Unfortunately, the time off must have been a bit much for the young Dinos, as the team showed major signs of rust over the weekend, losing both games by wide margins.

While most people's exposure to the world of puppetry has been limited to Saturday morning children's shows and corny ventriloquist acts, Calgarian Xstine Cook's International Festival of Animated Objects is working to change all that. The IFAO runs Jan. 19-28 and will highlight the best and brightest from the world of puppetry, masks and all things animated. Throughout the world there are a handful of puppetry festivals, but Cook went one step further and decided to make her festival about more than just puppetry.

Part live album, part studio recording, Sarah Slean's fifth album, Orphan Music, is both elating and disappointing. Clocking in at 15 tracks, Orphan Music gives listeners an hour-long showcase of Slean's classically-trained voice and piano talents melded with her signature foot-tapping, catchy pop stylings.

This is where the elation ends.

One by one the free lands of Ontario fell to the power of the Dinos one ringette club...

The Dinos' ringette squad travelled to Ottawa for the University Challenge Cup Jan. 4-7 and brought back gold after defeating the University of Alberta in the final. The Dinos have an excellent record in this tournament, having won it three of the four times they have entered the competition since the club's inception and taking silver last year.

A triple hit combination will make January a prime time for University of Calgary smokers to finally butt out.

National Non-smoking Week takes place from Jan. 21-27, and U of C Health Services is using the week and the recently passed City of Calgary bylaw banning smoking in all public places to encourage smokers to quit.

Faculty are criticizing recent University of Calgary budget changes that were supposed to give more power to faculties and deans.

As of Mon., Jan. 15, all deans were expected to have a four-year budget plan finished and ready to present to U of C vice-president academic Dr. Alan Har- rison. The new budget procedures mean Harrison will be the deciding official on each faculty's budget and will meet with the deans on a case-by-case approach.

Controversy is erupting from rez all the way to the Internet.

Three University of Calgary residence community advisors were fired Fri., Jan. 12 after breaching their employment contract. The cas achieved a grade point average of less than 2.5, which is a clearly- stated requirement of the position as listed in the expectations and terms of appointment in the agreement.

Editor, the Gauntlet,

While most albums face a series of challenges, soundtrack albums face an additional hurdle: preconception. Regardless of how enjoyable the music, the casual listener will only remember if the film was any good. It's a shame that Freedom Writers was so generic, because the soundtrack is a surpringly listenable, if flawed, collection.

Homelessness in Calgary is going corporate