When you hear about famous Harvard University graduates leading their lives in the public eye, people tend to think of figures rooted in politics, a U.S. president — John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama — not musicians. Surprisingly, celebrities and famous musicians such as Natalie Portman, Yo Yo Ma and Tom Morello have obtained some of that Ivy League prestige from Harvard, including music producer Ryan Leslie.

Though not yet a household name, this producer-turned-artist’s new, self-titled album released this past week, and he gained some fame through his release of last year’s single, “Diamond Girl.” Nicknamed “R-Les,” Leslie has been flying under the radar, working with hit singers and rappers, including Beyoncé, LL Cool J and Britney Spears. Now, he’s looking for his own piece of stardom by becoming a credible R&B singer.

Production-wise, Leslie took a clear shot at a noted album, fixed with groovy beats reminiscent of old soul and a mixture of piano and organ church intros. However, he keeps it modern with some melodic, bass-heavy hooks. His summer single, “Addicted,” a sexy, fluid R&B ditty about obsessed lovers, is probably the best track on the album. With the help of model-turned-singer Cassie and Brooklyn rapper Fabolous, the song gives Leslie a much-needed boost from the rest of the tracks on the album. His sub-par singing mixed with rap inflections charms a bit, but his conventional R&B lyrics are too gooey and imitate a less-confident John Legend. Because of his long career in the music industry, I expected a better rendition of an R&B/Pop album without the loss of his successful nature. The producer is still in him, but the singer needs some skills.

Last weekend I found myself desperate for entertainment. Normally I turn to my “Arrested Development” DVDs in times of crisis, but I discovered my overuse of them had, in fact, rendered the discs unreadable. Therefore I made the difficult trek to Barnes & Noble to find something else to occupy my attention-deficit addled brain. I made my way to the new release shelf, carefully sifting past such heroes as Batman, the Punisher, Hellboy and the Hulk himself before finally settling on my favorite womanizing crusader, Iron Man. I don’t have to be Professor X to know what you’re thinking: I actually was not out shopping for comic books. These were DVDs.

Movies based on comic books, or graphic novels, have soared to the forefront of Hollywood’s advertising focus. The practice of making movies out of comics has existed nearly as long as the media itself.
It might be the inner-nerd in me geeking out here, but I can’t help but love this sudden trend.

The release about which I currently lie awake at night fantasizing is “Watchmen,” which debuts March 6. Alan Moore, author of “V for Vendetta” and “From Hell,” wrote the graphic novel “Watchmen” in the ’80s. Since then, it has garnered praise from dozens of literary journals and critics, even finding a spot on Time magazine’s top 100 novels of all time. The novel itself is one of the most compelling and well-written comics I’ve ever read, and if the film stays even remotely true to its source material, I won’t be surprised if it becomes one of the must-see films of 2009.

“Watchmen” is set in an alternate reality in the ’80s in which superheroes have affected the course of history. Most superheroes have gone into retirement or become government-sponsored agents who vastly sway the numbers in global conflicts. Despite these figures’ involvements, the United States is moving closer to nuclear war with the Soviet Union. The global conflict runs parallel to the personal lives of the main characters, who are forced to deal with the murder of one of their own. The two stories intertwine more intricately than fibers of a fine wicker chair, making “Watchmen” stand out from the rest of the genre. Moore created believable protagonists who stand out among the large cast of characters. Though the narrative is powerful throughout, it culminates with an ending both shocking and fulfilling. I’m literally giddy. I can’t even look beyond “Watchmen;” I believe it will be such a treat.

__Matthew Falwell is a Critical Condition columnist. He’s already reserved a ticket to the opening of “Watchmen.”__

Kelsey Newell ’12 [right] receives a musical valentine courtesy of her Kappa Alpha Theta big, Kelly Cotton ’11. The women of the a capella group Revelie sang “Radio” to Newell on the Sadler Center Terrace. The group held a Valentine’s Day event, during which they offered to serenade valentines and other special someones.

Valentine’s Day has had me seeing scarlets, rouges, pinks and cherries all around. And all these reds got me to thinking about everyone’s favorite red-colored experience: menstruation. Yes, a woman’s monthly ruby visitor. Periods are pretty obviously connected to sex — the whole fertility, uterine lining, screaming baby thing. But they also come into play when you’re getting play.

Since the bloody membrane makes its exit through the vagina and the blood-filled member makes its entrance through the vagina, there seem to be conflicting processes going on while hooking up with a girl who’s on her period. But are a little blood and a single unfertilized egg enough to deter guys from doing the dirty when her lady-parts are (perhaps) dirty?

Apparently so… at least according the to the random drunk-boy sampling I conducted at the Green Leafe Thursday night. Their arguments against can be summed up in one phrase: no way. A mind-erasing orgasm is not a good enough reason to suffer the membranous scarlet trenches.

But I beg to differ. Why miss out on viable sexual time? Imagine all the freaky monkey love you give up by skipping out on one fourth of every month.

Maybe that’s not enough to convince you, men out there, but how’s this for incentive: Women tend to be hornier when they’re on the rag. They are often bloated, tired and more acne-prone that week. Many women feel undesirable during this time, so making her feel sexually attractive can really give your girl a boost. She’s likely to work harder in the sack and be more grateful for your extra loving. Enjoy extra blow job action? Try turning your lady on during her period.

And it’s not just the man who benefits. When a woman orgasms during her period, her vagina contracts repeatedly. This can expel the endometrial lining quicker and make her period shorter, while also easing headaches, backaches and cramps to get down with your bad self. Sex is good for you — which is what I’ve been saying all along.

Period sex can also increase bonding. By letting a woman know that you love her body — all of it and all of its functions — you are showing her your devotion. And the sex may be hotter than ever before. Period blood is a natural lubricant. The wetter the slide, the more slippery the ride.

So maybe you’re convinced, but you’re still unsure of how to proceed. Here are a few tips on having sex when Aunt Flow is in town:

Put down a towel (preferably red) before engaging in sexual activity. Doing the laundry easily cleans up any mess that results from your thrusting.

Ask her to shower first. This will clean the area and eliminate any unwanted odors.

Use a condom. Your winky stays blood-free and as an added bonus, no sexually transmitted infections or unwanted pregnancy.

If you think you may get grossed out, don’t change positions more than once. If you have a chance to look or smell, you may loose your woody and have a very unhappy lady.

Now, as to etiquette on the woman’s part: It is very important that you warn a potential partner before he submerges himself in the Red Sea. Be aware of how heavy your period is on that day. If it’s likely that his penis is going to look like John Bobbitt’s when you’re done, maybe avoid doing the beast with two backs. You may also be extra emotional at this time. If you’re at risk of crying or irrational anger, at least let the man know. Sex can often make you feel vulnerable and bring out emotions you’ve been holding in.

To all the drunken boys that I polled (and anyone who is against period sex), I hope I’ve convinced you of the merits of buck-wild, badass — and yes, a little bloody — banging. And to any of you who were already down with this idea and feel like getting a little crazy, Google “getting your red wings.”

__Maya Horowitz is The Flat Hat sex columnist. She doesn’t think a little mess ever hurt anyone.__

As I sat down at my desk in Tucker 213 for my morning British Literature II class, I looked around and discovered several of my fellow students were absent. In any of my other classes, all of which have over 200 students, I barely would have noticed, but with eight students missing from this small lecture, the classroom felt empty. I cringed as professor Meyers entered our classroom, wondering what his reaction would be after finding only half of us in attendance. He merely smiled and addressed the few filled seats before him.

“How many of you feel absolutely miserable right now?” The majority of us raised our hands. “They sent out a department-wide e-mail warning us about this. The flu epidemic is making its way around campus.”
As soon as they start advising the professors to prepare for increasingly empty classrooms, I guess that means we should all brace ourselves. Sure enough, lately I’ve seen the tell-tale signs all over campus.

Students trudged from class to class shivering despite the unseasonably temperate sunshine of last week. Familiar voices have become unrecognizable due to the presence of frogs, tickles and other unpleasant throat-dwellers. From the Botetourt Complex to Sorority Court, our faces have collectively lost their rosy glows and we join in the sniffling chorus of a thousand stuffy noses. Our dear College of William and Mary has caught one nasty bug, and it’s digging in with a vengeance.

My heart goes out to the professors whose students refuse to just stay in bed and wait it out. Instead, these walking contagions emerge each morning to haul their cough drops and tissue packs into class. In my Tuesday/Thursday Psychology class, attendance is impressively high, even though a good 80 percent of us are sick. For an hour and twenty minutes, our highly resonant lecture hall amplifies each sneeze, cough, wheeze and sniffle until it’s virtually impossible for professor Vishton to get a word in edgewise. I struggle to pay attention as he explains the effects resulting from damage to the amygdalae, but I’m seated next to a mound of used tissues and a poor kid who looks like he’s about to keel over. Luckily, I can escape infection after class ends by sprinting for the nearest exit into free, unrecycled air.

Even more luckily, my roommate hasn’t caught it yet either. When one of my friends comes down with something, maybe we don’t go to lunch or cram into a study lounge together for a while until the flu meds kick in. The sick roommate, on the other hand, offers no escape. Once she gets sick, I stock my dorm full of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup-at-Hand and prepare to work through the latest season of “House,” on hulu.com.

As for me, I’m a preventer. I fight to the death. The moment I find myself with a hint of stiffness in the back of my neck or a stomachache I can’t explain, I pull out the Airborne (I swear by it — definitely a good investment), pop some Vitamin C and go on the offensive. My mantra — I will not get sick; I will not get sick — becomes a key mental weapon against illness. I make impressively proactive plans of going to bed early, eating my fruits and veggies and washing my hands more frequently. But then, it hits me: The week from hell springs up out of nowhere, without warning. Papers I’d been telling myself were due at the end of the month are due in three days. My art project grading criteria requires a 5-plus hour time commitment outside of class. An exam I haven’t prepared for looms around the corner. Maintaining my anti-flu lifestyle drops from top priority and a thousand unexpected assignments take its place.

My Brit Lit II class continues to shrink and even some of my diseased Psych classmates have given in to their sicknesses. I wish them well, but I’m thankful for the extra few seats between myself and the ever-present mound of used tissues. For now, my roommate is sniffle-free and I’m healthy, but I’m not letting my guard down. Getting this bug may not be the worst thing that could happen, but it makes reading Wordsworth and Tennyson as arduous a task as deciphering the Rosetta stone.

__Zoe Speas is a Confusion Corner columnist. She’s buying stock in Sucrets’ cough drops.__

__Alice Hahn also wrote this report.__

Walk into any party, and you’re sure to find Natty cans littering the floor, couches and stairwells. Wait, just kidding, this is the College of William and Mary.

Seriously, though, that’s why we decided to conduct a scientific taste test to determine the best and worst of shitty beer. At 4.5 cents an ounce, we didn’t have high hopes.

While many students think that all cheap, frat-party beers taste the same — namely, like urine — we beg to differ.

We administered a blind taste test to 12 students: a balance of guys and girls, Greek and unaffiliated — three lightweights, five so-called social drinkers and four who identified themselves as lushes.
After testing two ounces at a time of beers labeled one through six, participants collectively ranked the beers in order from best to worst. At that point, we revealed which number was which beer. While some were surprised with the results, they seemed pretty accurate to the heavy drinkers among us.

Coming in at the absolute bottom is Pabst Blue Ribbon, known colloquially as PBR. PBR is the cheapest beer on tap at the College Delly. On Sundays during NFL season, Paul’s Deli sells pitchers for $4. In short, everyone seems to want to get rid of it, and it’s not hard to figure out why.

Most reviewers writhed in agony while forcing down their shot-sized sample. “Ew, putrid,” muttered one taste-tester.

While PBR is full of flavor, the flavor itself is overwhelmingly bad. According to one taste-tester, the only thing worse than tasting it was smelling it.

When asked what he thought, another taste-tester responded, “I don’t know why I’m still drinking this.”
And with that, let’s continue on to the second-worst beer we tried: Miller High Life. It’s appropriate that High Life is advertised as “the champagne of beers,” because it’s an embarrassment to beer. The only thing funny about High Life is its commercials; the taste falls closer to depressing — or dirty feet, as we noted. Even for people who like beer, there’s little to salvage this atrocity.

“Plug your nose and drink it if you have to,” suggested one taste-tester.

Rounding out the bottom half is Milwaukee’s Best Light, or, simply, Beast. If this really is Milwaukee’s best, we urge you to avoid that city at all costs. While the taste test proved that it can get worse, the most appropriate adjective that emerged from our taste test is “blah.”

Tasters agreed Beast is watery but drinkable; one taste-tester described it as “effervescent.” This beer does not have much of an aftertaste, which may be a good thing. As Beast is among the cheapest beers of the six we tested, this is a good option for those willing to sacrifice flavor to save a few cents.

At the beginning of the upper-tier beers — a term used very loosely — is Busch Light. The pride of St. Louis, Busch is a good, cheap option for drinking games — conducted exclusively off campus, of course — or for pregaming the roller coasters at the neighboring Busch Gardens amusement park.

Taste-testers said it struck a good balance between the repulsive flavors of the bottom beers and the more enjoyable top tier. To be fair, this means it doesn’t taste like much at all. Though somewhat bland, at least the people at Busch manufacturing didn’t try to force too many flavors into one 12-oz. can (ahem, PBR). Faced with the task of creating an admittedly mediocre cheap beer, they neither impress nor disappoint.
If nothing else, taste-testers came to one consensus about Busch: “I could drink a lot of this.”

Coming in second is the ubiquitous and aforementioned Natural Light, or Natty. Natty is like yellow shirts during freshmen orientation: It’s everywhere, and the College wouldn’t be able to function without it. The staple college beverage is good for almost any occasion, whether you’re watching a game on the weekend, shotgunning in the Swem Library stacks on Blowout or doing your best to forget you accidentally sent that text message to your girlfriend instead of to your roommate.

“It’s definitely good,” said one taste-tester, while another noted that it tastes like berries.

While not all the taste-testers agreed that Natty boasted hints of fruit, the response was generally positive. It seemed to be the right amount of flavor for a cheap beer, resulting in an easy-to-consume, easy-to-chug beverage. When it comes to cheap booze, Keystone Light reigns supreme. This delicious beer had testers nodding in approval, and was the first case to disappear during the ensuing game of Kings.

In a nearly unanimous vote, the testers agreed Keystone was the best of the bunch. It had the mellowest taste, and even prompted one person to say that it almost tasted classy.

“Woah,” one taste-tester said. “This is like, the best. I lost a couple pounds just drinking it.”

We’re not exactly recommending a Keystone diet, but the folks in Golden, Colo. — Keystone is the brainchild of the Coors Brewing Company — certainly deserve credit for coming up with the best of the worst.

(The Flat Hat is expecting a sponsorship in free cases of Keystone any day now.)

We hope this comes in handy at your next party, pregame or moment of excessive boredom. And if someone brings you a six-pack of PBR, take it for the insult that it is.

Tune in next month when we taste test Aristocrat’s full line of liquor.