Sunday, March 30, 2014

10 Commandments of College Life

10. I don’t encourage underage drinking. In fact, I suggest you don’t break the law. However, I’m not an idiot. You go away to college and you’re away from home and the parental controls and you’re likely to partake in an adult beverage from time to time. Or for some of you party animals…every damn weekend and Wednesdays. So if you insist on drinking, I suggest you pick out a liquor that you actually like and slowly build up a tolerance. Slowly! I mean that. Don’t go pick up a fifth of your new favorite and drink half the bottle on a Friday night. You know what happens when you do that? You either have the worst hangover of your life that lasts for three days or you freaking die. Seriously. Go slow. That way over your college years when you have a birthday or a party or something, your cohorts will recognize you as the guy that likes Crown or a particular vodka. They’ll give you those as gifts from time to time and if you pace yourself you’ll have a nice stash of whatever you drink that should last you at least two or three years past college. Why pay for it if you can have enough of it bought for you for various reasons.

9. Pick a cool professor that you actually like. Preferably someone who is closer to your age and barely tenured. You never know when you might need a professor to have your back when you do some dumb shit at college.

8. Do not buy beer for minors!! I stress that. It’s bad. However, once again I won’t be foolish. If you insist on buying beer for underage drinkers, recruit two or three friends along with you to be the beer-buyers. It is best that at least a couple of those “of age” friends be pretty girls. Pretty girls get invited to more parties. When everyone is drunk let the hosts know that they are running low on beer. You’d hate for the babes to leave. So you collect $ from these suckers to go out and buy another case for them. Make sure you approach people individually about the beer shortage. Collect ten bucks from four or five people. Come back and drop off the case of beer. Collect $50 for a $20 case of cheap beer. Split the proceeds with your pals. You hit a few parties each weekend and make a couple hundred bucks. Not a bad score and you look like the good guy for doing the deed.

7. Make friends with a couple of upper classmen with a nice apartment. You never know when your roommate is going to be a dick and you need some place to crash.

6. Now that you’re in college and all growed up, it’s time to put away that shit music that got you through high school and expand your musical tastes. Listen to different things. No more Ke$sha, no more shitty rap music where every other word has to be deleted in the videos. Don’t be that person that still listens to Minaj and Miley, or that white kid that still thinks he’s bad ass by swinging that baseball cap around backwards and listening to gangsta rap. Don’t be that douche bag. Go back and explore musical history by checking out some old Muddy Watters, crossing time into the late 60’s, the re-emergence of some edgier music in the 70’s. I do suggest you avoid disco. But make sure you hang out in the era of George Clinton and the P-Funk Allstars. You will Funkin’ dig it. Try some newer alternative stuff. Don’t be closed minded. It’s a big damn world out there. Pop culture just slings mind numbing shit for the masses. Be smarter than that.

5. A simple slogan says it all: Better Dead Than Red. I’d wager a guess that at least 95% of the faculty at your university are left wing progressives. Don’t let those commies beat the spirit of socialism into you. Question authority. After all, they hide on campus behind academia and have never had to produce in the real world. Those that can DO. Those that can’t TEACH. Remember that. Communism sucks. Don’t let the commies beat you down. To borrow a word from your pals Public Enemy, “Fight The Power.”

4. Be a prankster. You have four to six years of college, depending on how lazy you are. Have some fun with it. It’s a great time before you go into the real world and actually have to take responsibility for your actions. Find someone else in your dorm that has a good sense of humor and won’t kill you for pushing the envelope against them and start a good natured practical joke war. Be careful that you don’t take it too far. You don’t want to be newsworthy at 6 o’clock or anything. Try something funny like waiting until your target is out of his room. He will likely lock the door if he’s smart. That’s when you take a piss in a pizza pan and put it in the freezer. When it is frozen you take it out and pop the frozen circle of piss out like you would with an ice tray. Then you slide it under the door with enough force that it makes it to the middle of his room. When he gets back he’ll wonder how someone got in and took a piss in his floor. A clever little trick if you can avoid being caught by your R.A.

3. Enjoy life in the Quad. When it is warm girls show up in bikinis to work on their tan. It is especially fun to hang out during co-ed intramurals. I knew a guy who would sneak out at night and drop a deuce in the sand where they play volleyball. That was always a laugh when some guy would tromp through the litter box with no shoes on.

2. Debt sucks. Don’t let the snake oil salesmen pawn a dozen credit cards on you that you can’t even make payments on. And you definitely don’t want to still be paying for a cheese pizza you ate during your junior year three years after you graduate. Don’t run up a lot of credit card debt unless, of course, your parents are footing the bill. Then by all means go buy that new Kindle.

1. Don’t forget to be a dreamer. That nerd at Facebook invented that platform while he was in college. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs dropped out of college and made their millions because they weren’t afraid to chase dreams. Just because you are in college doesn’t mean that you can develop some new concept or find your own niche in this world. Those who are foolish enough to think they can change the world are the one’s that actually do.

So here is one more tip for you guys who are planning on going to college this Fall. Get out a notepad and a pen and take some notes. These movies will change your point of view about college life. Make sure you watch these before the next semester. This is important.

American Pie 2
PCU
Old School
Revenge of the Nerds
Revenge of the Nerds 2
The Graduate (an old movie, but the guy shows you how to extend your lazy streak well past college and how to get lucky at the same time)
With Honors
Dead Man On Campus
Back To School

Thursday, March 27, 2014

A College Class About Miley Cyrus...Are You Kidding?

According to an article on Yahoo News, a small liberal arts college in upstate New York (Skidmore College) is offering a college course on Miley Cyrus. Take a moment to insert your own joke here. I don’t think I need to go into an explanation of what is wrong with America’s college system these days. I am curious as to how the professor convinced the powers that be at Skidmore how a class about Miley Cyrus will add to the stature of the University, add to the overall well-roundedness of the student body, and how this class will help students be more prepared for life in the real world after graduation.

I have a college degree and a ton of debt to go along with it that I’m still paying for. Outside of a handful of classes that were actually helpful, I could have gotten the same level of education at the public library and from the Internet. That would have saved me from still having to pay an ass-load of debt. I feel bad for college grads today coming out into this so-called economic recovery only to have lower level or temp jobs and having all that debt come due while they still can’t land that first great job they hoped for. If I were a college student and this class was the best new offering they could come up with I would seriously consider a transfer.

But to offer a class about Miley Cyrus and having to pay a good sum for it seems somewhat ridiculous to me. The 21 year old Justin Bieber look-alike seems to be on the verge of an emotional breakdown like a lot of other child stars that grew up on camera before her. I’m not pissing on the her talent or anything, I’m just making a point that offering a class on cultural success when the girl is barely legal seems a bit dumb. Perhaps the college would be better served having a class about how pop culture impacts society. The whole art imitates life imitates art sort of thing. Starting with the rise of rock and roll in the 50’s and the emergence of Hollywood would be a great place to start.

And besides, if you have to pick one cultural icon to dedicate to an entire class I can think of a lot of more deserving icons. I’m sure Cyrus would agree. How about the blonde bombshell herself, Marilyn Monroe. Or maybe Andy Warhol, The Beatles, or any number of amazing actors with a storied history such as Jack Nicholson or Humphrey Bogart. Or perhaps someone who doesn’t rip off the

80’s band Accept by swinging from a wrecking ball in her video with a Bieb’s haircut. We’ve seen that video before, but we can be thankful that the guy from Accept kept his clothes on during the video for Balls To The Wall.

Oh, before I forget. Angus from AC/DC had been there before as well.