EDITORIAL – Read our wish list, check twice

As the summer comes to an end and Oakland wakes up from its annual nap, the editorial staff… As the summer comes to an end and Oakland wakes up from its annual nap, the editorial staff can’t help but to look forward to another year at Pitt with skepticism and cynicism — after all, we are a college newspaper. So here’s our wish list for the upcoming year. It might not be terribly realistic, but college kids can dream, can’t they?

Online scheduling. The University has moved practically everything else online, so why wasn’t this one of the first things? Perhaps it’s just too logical. Moving scheduling online would eliminate the chaos of Thackeray around add/drop and all of those other magical times during the year that students run up and down the stairs with pink, yellow, white and green papers seeking signatures from everyone and their secretary. Thackeray is a vortex of evil. Save time, money and sanity: move scheduling online!

We also agree that it’s about time to wrap this whole Iraq War thing up. The funny thing is that even as idealistic as we are, we can’t come up with a solution. So let’s start to wrap this thing up and actually come up with an extraction plan, instead of just talking about it. No one likes a civil war.

We want more snakes on planes. If you’re not on board with this, then you probably live under a rock … like a snake.

Because our local video-rental outlet is indefinitely “closed for inventory,” we would like to see another vender venture into Oakland. Although Netflix is pretty cool, it’s nice to peruse aisles of movies.

It’s also about time that Pitt captures another national football title. It’s been about 30 years since the last, and our current coach was a member of the ’76 winning team. We spend a lot of money on our team — they have a beautiful facility on the South Side, and they play in Heinz Field. It’s past time for national prominence.

Since Club Laga was turned into a bunch of apartments, we’ve been thirsty for something to replace the venue. Oakland is in need of a venue, smaller than the Pete, for live music.

It’s time to clean up Oakland. We’ve let it go long enough, and the place could use some work. Landlords have to be held to higher standards, and students have to be proactive. As a major player in Oakland and the city in general, the University needs to step up and throw its weight behind the movement, not just try to build more residence halls in precarious positions on the side of the hill. And hopefully Mayor O’Connor’s “Let’s Redd Up Pittsburgh” campaign will be productive step in the right direction. And if not, it’s still one of the best uses of Pittsburghese we’ve seen in a long time.

Fewer ironic message T-shirts and fewer booty shorts with things like “HOT” and “Sweet” written across the butt. Usually these people are neither hot nor sweet.

We’ve said it before, but we’ll say it again: PeopleSoft must go. Is it too much to ask to be able to type CRN numbers into a box and get all the course information you could ever possibly need? No, we don’t know our PeopleSoft numbers, and we never will.

Expanded free WiFi would be a great improvement for the campus. As if people don’t check their MySpace and Facebook enough already.

We’d love to see the Steelers win another one. We’ve already started buying new couches in preparation.

More cooperative SafeRider service and an extended shuttle line. We pay for those things and they should go where we are.

And here’s our shameless plug: What we want most of all is a great staff. Come work for us! We’re looking for writers, copy editors, an assistant opinions editor and lots of other positions.

Here’s to a productive and entertaining year here at Pitt — with consistent bus service.

Oh yeah, and we want a pony, too.