Eternal, Miserable Suffering

Coca-Cola Commercials

2008-02-27T10:19:00.000-08:00

Coca-Cola, for some reason, has always opted for the "feel-good family time" strategy in their advertising campaigns. They're currently running a commercial where some people in an urban bring a table and chairs into the street (isn't this illegal?) for an impromptu family feast, replete with home cooking and, of course, 2-liter bottles of Coca-Cola. Others in the neighborhood, seeing the spontaneous jamboree in the making, then bring out their own picnic tables and chairs to join them. Soon, there

I'll ignore the fact that it's totally ridiculous to suggest that people in an urban setting would have picnic tables and chairs ready to go and instead deal with the absurdity of the theory behind this sort of advertising. What is the point? Are they saying that no illegal block party is complete without Coca-Cola? Are they saying that this tooth-decaying soft drink will bring my family together?

I am not moved by this commercial to purchase their product. Why? Because I don't care about picnicking in the middle of the street. This sort of feel-goodery doesn't make me think that I need this product. It doesn't appeal to any of my basic human instincts and, as a result, the commercial fails.

Here is my idea for a Coca-Cola commercial that would not only make me want to drink Coke, but would make me fear for my life if I drank anything else.

============Coca-Cola Suburban Strike Force=============

Jimmy is a normal 16 year old boy living in a typical suburban home. He walks downstairs to the kitchen and opens the refrigerator, from which he extracts a brown paper bag. We also see that the refrigerator is chock full of Coca-Cola. He looks around nervously and, content that he is not being watched, he removes a Pepsi bottle from the bag.

He opens the bottle and goes to take a sip when, suddenly, CRASH. Glass shatters and special forces units are diving into the room, guns blazing. Jimmy is shot up, Pepsi spills everywhere.

Jimmy's family runs into the kitchen, alarmed and confused. His father looks at the corpse of his beloved son and then looks up to the special forces members with a pained look on his face. The strike force team leader bends down, picks up the Pepsi bottle, and shows it to the father. The father nods grimly and salutes the special forces, who dash off into the night.

=============Fin===============

Now if that doesn't make you afraid to drink anything but Coke, nothing will.

Good Guys Win

2008-02-04T16:54:00.001-08:00

Fuck you, Tom Brady.

Fuck you, New England.
Fuck you, Ferris Booth pasta makers for burning my hands with that shit.
Fuck you, pretentious red head kid who walks around campus holding an umbrella like he's goddamn Jay Gatsby.
Fuck you, 109 deli for not accepting credit cards.

Giants win. Boom.

Do Your Job.

2007-12-02T16:30:00.000-08:00

Nobody has ever accused Cafe 212 of being a well-run establishment (In fact, in April of this year I wrote a post almost identical to this). The hippy manager is always outside smoking ciggies and they are oftentimes out of bacon. Or, rather, they're simply too lazy to go make more bacon so that my sandwich can be as complete as possible. The end result is an eatery that makes OK sandwiches sometimes and charges way more than they have any right to. A sandwich and a bottle of water can cost you 9 bucks. I can go to a legitimate deli for less, but I don't because legitimate delis accept neither Flex Points nor Dining Dollars and all of my cash money is tied up in my blossoming and soon-to-be lifelong struggle with alcoholism.

The most frustrating thing I've encountered at 212, though, is when there is a long line and only one person on the register. That's not the best part, though. The best part is that there will be 2 or 3 employees just standing there, staring into space.

Have you seen this? They literally just stand around doing nothing even though people are waiting. Do your goddamn job you lazy idiots. I have class in ten minutes and you're standing around scratching your asses because, what, you don't want to punch a couple buttons and swipe my Columbia ID? Look, I'm sorry that you don't find any satisfaction in your job. But what did you expect when you signed up? Excitement? Give me a break, you can't possibly have expected that when applying for the role of "sandwich maker slash sometimes cashier."

At least if you were talking to each other I wouldn't feel so bad. If you gossipped all day about who was sleeping with who, I'd at least feel that my time was being wasted because 212 is a hotbed of action. But when you just stand there and ignore me, my blood boils. Do your goddamn job and ring up my sandwich. It's not hard.

Columbia Let Everyone in for 2011 Except This Guy

2007-09-03T01:52:00.000-07:00

Dear Paul,

We regret to inform you that your application to Columbia University has not been accepted. While we here at Columbia appreciate your enthusiasm and interest, there were numerous problems with your application that left us no choice but to reject you for admission to the Class of 2011. In order that this may be a worthwhile learning experience for you, I am going to discuss in this letter exactly where you went wrong in your pursuit of admission. Hopefully, by understanding the problems with your application (and they are numerous), you will be able to regroup and apply successfully to another university.

The first problem was that under the section marked "Name" you scribbled, nearly illegibly, "P-Train, word." While such a moniker might be acceptable with your friends in the Long Island suburbs, it is hardly appropriate for an application to an Ivy League institution. You will notice that I addressed you at the top of this letter as "Paul," which, frankly, I'm not even sure is your real name, but since you didn't include your real name anywhere I was forced to guess. Needless to say, we had great difficulty taking the remainder of your application seriously, but, perhaps out of curiosity more than anything, we soldiered on nonetheless.

Under address, you listed myspace.com/P-Train. Perhaps we weren't clear enough on this point, but we had intended for you to list an actual address where we could send this rejection letter. Luckily, one of our students was able to find your address on your aforementioned myspace profile, as you had listed it in case people wanted to send donations to your "Hedge Fund." I'm no expert on the financial services industry, but I'm not sure this is the typical way Hedge Fund managers raise money. I would likewise advise against attempting to raise said capital on the same myspace profile where you post pictures of you and your friends with a few dozen spent cans of whipped cream. It reeks of unprofessionalism.

Following on, you listed under extracurricular activities "Droppin' mad f-bombs," "Slingin' rock in the 'jects" and "Straight chillin'." We generally look for things like fencing, student government, poetry writing, or some sort of political activism. It is irregular for a candidate for admission to list such unique interests and we were quite frankly puzzled by your decision to include them. We strive to achieve a certain level of diversity in each of our incoming classes, but this is beyond us. Additionally, I'm not sure I believe that there are any projects in Garden City, NY where you could "sling rock." However, I don't know this for sure, so I will reserve judgment.

Your submission for the admissions essay was also spectacularly inappropriate. Our prompt, "Tell us about a time when you overcame adversity," is a relatively general question that is asked by numerous universities every year. Despite the ease with which anyone could answer such a question, you were relentless in your pursuit of absurdity and elected to write "My P.O. tellin me I need a nine to five / But I already got a job and that's stayin' alive / And I love it. -Young Jeezy, word." I assume "P.O." is short for "Parole Officer." Why didn't you take this opportunity to talk about overcoming your legal troubles? It's baffling.

You claim to have received a 9000 on your SAT, but we find this unlikely. Generally speaking, the maximum score one can achieve is 2400, which, according to my estimate, is an almost unattainable score for someone who enjoys dropping "mad f-bombs" while he's "straight chilling" in the "jects" looking to hustle some ice. We didn't even bother to check with the College Board because such an inquisition would have born no fruit and would have undoubtedly caused considerable embarrasment on our part. Honestly, I'd be shocked beyond belief if you'd even heard of the SAT, let alone taken it. Do you even go to school?

In the vast majority of entry fields, such as "AP Classes," "Favorite Books" and "Siblings," you wrote, in all capitals, "YOU CAN'T STOP THE REIGN." While I'm sure I can't, I have no idea what the hell you're talking about. Finally, your inclusion of a nude picture was simply unnecessary.

We wish you the best of luck with your college search. I wouldn't hold your breath, though.

Sincerely,

Arthur C Studebaker-Clark
Dean of Admissions
Columbia University

Pizza 33 is a hellhole

2007-07-15T17:06:00.000-07:00

In a perfect world, I would eat nothing but Cheesy Gordita Crunches from Taco Bell. I would savor one cheesy, sour-creamy bite after another, delighting in the fact that I am eating pure joy. I would wash it down with Mountain Dew Baja Blast, a flavor so ridiculously good that it's available only in Taco Bell. To release it to the masses would be to invite anarchy to our beautiful American society.

Unfortunately, it is not a perfect world and, as such, I must from time to time consume things besides the prestigious Cheesy Gordita Crunch. Tonight was one such time when, at work, we ordered the Terra e Mare pizza. A more appropriate name for this catastrophe would be the Terror e Nightmare pizza.

The shrimp, which I imagined would be plump and delicious, were tiny. Do you know the feeling you get when you're embarrassed and want to curl into a ball? I expect that the shrimp were so ashamed to be a part of this disaster of a pizza pie that they shrunk into themselves. I can't say I blame them. I, too, would have been ashamed to be a part of that pizza. The mushrooms were also offensively bad. The other intern who ate the pizza said he liked the mushrooms, but he is from Maine, a den of iniquities so profound that I will not discuss them in the detail they require.

The analyst whose credit card we used to order was likewise disappointed. He told us that the pizza was depressingly bad and that it reflected poorly on us as interns. He said, rightly, that in a city known for pizza that it was a true feat to discover a place that got every aspect of it wrong. Well done, Pizza 33. Thanks to you I have discovered the ultimate depths of human depravity - infinite. The other person to have reviewed this place is either an out-of-towner so enamored with the idea of new york pizza that he/she convinced himself/herself it was good (despite it not being so, I assure you) or he/she is an employee of this awful excuse for a restaurant.

To the hobo using my money to buy crack

2007-05-15T11:03:00.000-07:00

Dear homeless man to whom I give money outside the Famiglia,

Let's be honest with each other. Let's put all the cards on the table, ok? I've been giving you money for two years now. Whether it's because you need food, or you need to get on the subway, or whatever, I've given it to you. Know what else? I've given it to you knowing full well that you're just going to go to the alley behind the Rite Aid and buy some crack rock. You don't need a slice of Pizza. I know you sure as hell aren't going up to the homeless shelter on 168th (because there is none, you sly devil). But I'm not trying to get you to change your ways. Far from it. All I'm saying is, maybe smoke me out sometime.

In all the time I've known you, you have not once invited me to breathe deeply of the sweet, sweet crack vapors I've been providing you. What gives? Is it my white skin? My collared shirts and ironed slacks? My Ivy-League class ring? Because if you're judging me, brother, then take your judging elsewhere, because I gotta have that crack.

It's true. How do you think I know about Big Jeffrey who sells behind the Rite-Aid? I'm practically his biggest customer! I've been using his services since he started slingin' rock back in '03. This one time, I smoked so much crack rock that I went crazy for a couple weeks. My boss had me declared legally dead. Good times!

Anyway, bud, I'd really appreciate it if the next time I give you a couple bucks as I'm walking down the street, you say, "Hey, man, would you like to smoke some ice with me?" Because yes...yes I would.

Sincerely,
Mortimer G Thornock, III

Question 3 on Earth, Moon and Planets Final

2007-05-08T12:11:00.000-07:00

3b) What are spring and neap tides? How do they occur?

My answer: Spring Tide is the floral/grassy-scented laundry detergent marketed in grocery and drug stores starting in March each year. Neap Tide hasn't been invented yet.

True story. That's what you get when you skip an entire semester of classes and have no idea what the hell he's talking about.

"Primal Scream" Is Retarded

2007-05-06T21:06:00.000-07:00

At midnight, on the eve of the first day of finals week at Columbia, countless freshmen open their windows and scream, rendering it impossible for upstanding members of the undergraduate community such as myself to focus on the Scrubs episodes we're trying to watch on our computers (Geniuses don't study - we watch Scrubs). The most annoying thing about this tradition, in my opinion, is that it seems like the only source of it is wikipedia.

On Columbia's wikipedia page, it lists "Primal Scream" as a tradition. It then goes on to say that this "tradition" is also performed at approximately THIRTY-THOUSAND other schools. How can we claim something so ubiquitous as a tradition? We might as well claim that it's a Columbia tradition to have Mathematics classes.

This year, people staged pillow fights at the same time as "Primal Scream." At least this is showing a little originality.

A simple request, though, directed to the freshmen: stop your goddamn screaming. If you want to relieve stress you should either drink a few beers, have sex, or follow my Bored@Butler instructions. Yelling doesn't relieve stress. It adds stress...to me. The Greatest Happiness Principle is violated as I am worse off and you are as pathetic as ever.

So next time it's "Primal Scream," make sure you decide to fully participate and head over to the pillow fight after you're done whining. I'll be waiting for you with a sack full of doorknobs. That's how I relieve stress.

Get Off My Campus

2007-05-06T12:51:00.000-07:00

Picture Stolen from Bwog

Dear High School Students,

Are you having a good time polluting South Lawn?

I bet it's real exciting coming in from Long Island to spend a whole day on a real college campus. Know what else is real exciting? Sunny days. Best part about sunny days? Getting to play Wiffle Ball outside. Except now we can't because you guys are too busy bringing sparkle motion to Morningside Heights.

What the hell are you doing here? I know that you think you're doing something for a good cause. I would like to tell you that you are wrong. While ALS is a terrible disease, putting up sparkly, distracting pinwheels all over the lawn is not going to do anything about it. But I'm sure everyone in Butler (that's the name of our library, you would know that if you had any business here) is really appreciative of the gesture. Nothing brings a college community together like thousands of flashing lights.

Did I mention that we have finals this week?

Yeah, finals. As in college finals, not the New York State Regents exams that you kids have to take. These are actual tests that we aren't prepared for. As college students, we retain the right to wait until the very last minute to study for our tests because there are days when we just don't want to go to class. You high schoolers don't have that right, because if you don't go to class, Mommy and Daddy can be fined or, gasp, they can go to jail!

What's certain, though, is that whoever invited you clowns to my beloved campus ought to go to jail. It's bad enough that we have Barnard students and families spending there time here, we don't need obnoxious high-schoolers running around. Even if you are an admit to the class of 2011 - wait your goddamn turn.

Sincerely,
Mortimer G Thornock, III

2007 Guide to Not Studying For Your Finals

2007-05-01T20:34:00.000-07:00

I still have a few pages to go on a paper before I can even start studying for the five finals I have in the next week, but we know that the more work one has to do, the better it feels to procrastinate. My last guide is still as relevant as ever (check archives) but for Columbia students there is now something even better than masturbation, whale adoption, or Alf: Bored@Butler.

For most people, Bored@Butler (http://www.boredatbutler.com) serves as an outlet for sexual frustration, depression, and boredom. For the truly gifted, though, B@B, as it is affectionately known, can be so much more. It can be the most hilarious website on the entire internet as long as you know what you are doing.

I can't reveal all of the weapons in my mighty arsenal, but I can give you a list of a few things to try out the next time you need a quick laugh at the expense of Columbia nerds.

1. Highjack Conversations
This is the most basic (and, perhaps, obvious) tactic. One of the primary functions of B@B is to facillitate communication between bridge-building SEAS students and the lesser-attractive Barnard girls. Often, they will discuss meeting one another. This is when you strike! You need to add disinformation and chaos to the conversation by pretending to be one of the interested parties. Here are some good ways to jump in (remember, this is after both have already agreed to meet):

"Oooh, are you cool with skipping on the condom? I gots to feel it."
"By the way, baby, in accordance with Megan's law, I am required by law to tell you that I am a registered sex offender."

Or, another good one is to confused them both by saying:

"You're a girl, right?"

This introduces so much confusion that these poor unfortunate souls will abandon the project altogether. Is this a little mean? Yeah, but for a five-second thrill, it's worth it.

2. Trick People into Going Somewhere Late at Night

This is perhaps the cruellest method. It is also the most hilarious, as long as you're a shameless misanthrope.

If you're on at 2 in the morning or later, strike up a conversation with the loneliest sounding person currently posting. Tell them that you could really go for pizza. Not just any pizza, though. You need Grimaldi's. In Brooklyn. Tell the person you will meet them there. Laugh because they are going to Brooklyn and you are not!

3. Have a heated conversation with yourself

This is the best option when it's a slow night at B@B. If people are being boring (ie not talking about what you want to talk about) then you need to spice things up a bit. The best subjects to talk about are:

Beastiality
Jon-Benet Ramsey
Racial issues
etc

The point is to be as inflammatory as possible. When people start commenting, ignore them. Simply turn up the heat and watch as the ridiculous pussies at this school start freaking out. For extra credit, "challenge" your worthy adversary to a fight outside Butler. See if anybody actually gets up and walks out after you say this. Remember any such individuals because now you know who else in the room is looking at B@B instead of studying.

I may post more ideas later. Try these out for now.

The Killers Guilty Only of Eardrumocide

2007-04-29T08:30:00.000-07:00

After yesterday's Beirut Tournament, in which Terminator and I made it to the semi-finals, we decided to go to MSG to see The Killers. Only problem: the show was sold out and we didn't have tickets.

Not so much of a problem for the Terminator. After sweet talking the people at MSG, we got in to one of the Sky Boxes. Free booze, free food...and some families.

At this point I should probably tell you that I was drunk. Hammered drunk, really. Five hours of Beirut will do that to you. Needless to say, the fact that there were two 11 year old girls in the Sky Box was probably not a good thing. I'm sure they couldn't understand why I kept dropping hot dogs and spilling mustard all over myself. Their fathers didn't appreciate it when we tried to strike up conversations with them.

So I was drunk, big deal. When there's a fridge full of frosty brewdogs, though, you know that stopping is out of the question.

That's when more people showed up to the box. This time, they were young-adultish employees of the company that owned the box. It must have been a pretty funny sight. Employees, their dates, their familes...and some 21-year old freeloaders double-fisting Bud Light with mustard on their faces. God Bless America.

The Killers were opened by some Beatles impersonators. Their voices were spot on - I mean it really sounded like The Beatles - but what the fuck? When we saw Guns N Roses, they were opened by Sebastian Bach. That makes sense, because they're the same era, genre, etc.

Having "The Beatles" open for The Killers probably went over most people's heads, but not mine. Since I am aware that Brandon Flowers (Killers Frontman) fancies himself a god, this was clearly his attempt to place his group above the legendary British rock outfit. In other words, Brandon Flowers is fucking insane.

It was funny, especially because I actually enjoyed the Beatles guys more than I did The Killers.
The Killers' music was way too loud and they were only playing the weaker songs from their latest album, Sam's Town. Incidentally, Flowers claimed that this would be one of the best Rock albums of the past two decades. Sure, pal. And The Beatles, if they were around today, would be opening for you, too.

We ended up leaving early because we were sick of the noise emanating from the stage. I considered myself a fan of The Killers, but I don't think I'd be able to go to their concert ever again. Or, if I had to, I'd probably avoid heavy drinking in the afternoon.

The Best Facebook Group Ever

2007-04-26T12:39:00.000-07:00

There is a facebook group called "8th Graders need to back off 9th grade guys especially other peoples BF's." It is the single greatest facebook creation known to man.

Unfortunately, the creator, a girl from Brearley, has closed the group and made it "secret," so there is no reason for me to be telling you about this group other than to rub in your face the fact that it is too late for you to join the hilarity.

Update: The creator has dismantled the wall and discussion group, rendering the group no longer hilarious. Obviously thousands of people have friend-requested her today.

ABC Family Has No Place Here

2007-04-26T11:19:00.000-07:00

Today, while I was hanging out in the common room of our fraternity house, three girls wearing orange t-shirts let themselves in. The orange t-shirts said "ABC Family - GREEK" on them. I didn't like where this was going.

They introduced themselves but I wasn't able to catch their names as I was too busy trying to hide my disgust at their affected chipperness. They then asked how I was doing and got to the chase.

Turns out there's going to be a new TV show (they insisted it wasn't "reality tv") about Greek Life on America's college campuses. What did they want from me? They wanted to know if I or anyone in my houses wanted to talk for a minute or so ON CAMERA about our "craziest college experiences." That is a direct goddamn quote.

I couldn't believe this. Now, perhaps my "crazy college experiences" have been different from the majority's, but I simply don't see a story about a random weekend for me ending up in a half hour timeslot between reruns of Sister Sister and Full House. Something tells me that videos of my buddies and I pounding shots of Jagermeister and bringing shame to our familes wouldn't fare well on a channel which is dedicated to the non-threatening programming of the mid-90s.

I told them "No, we are not interested in something like that." They didn't believe me.

They said "Oh, but you can win a walk on part in a tv show." Great. I can play "Guy in Starbucks" on the next episode of Roswell or something.

Then they offered these things which are basically Solo Cups which hang on your door.

Consider that for a moment. ABC Family is handing out Solo Cup paraphenalia. Chocolate Milk Beirut, anyone?

The 212 Workers Are Awful

2007-04-24T13:09:00.000-07:00

Almost every time I'm on the line at 212, the surprisingly delicious sandwich place in Lerner, I'm forced to wait longer than I have to because of loafing employees.

Before you try to interrupt me - no, they aren't on "break." They'll literally be standing there doing absolutely nothing for one or two minutes until they suddenly say "Next," with an impatience so obnoxiously undeserved that I want to reach over the counter and smack them. Except I can't, because I would probably get myself a disciplinary hearing.

The ones who stand at the registers, staring blankly into space for minutes at a time until they decide they want to go back to work are bad enough. The worst, though, are the ones who hide behind the partition which separates the main area from the back area. They will peek out every so often, notice that there is a line, but stay back there chatting with their fellow workers about God knows what.

Now I have worked shitty jobs before. I have. But I WORKED at those shitty jobs. I didn't stand around talking about nails and god knows what.

The people at the Lerner Hall Mail Center are just as bad. Even though there's a line of 20 people, only one person will be working while the rest are just hanging out. They aren't oblivious to us, either. They know we're waiting and they let us wait.

Well I can't wait for the day when these people need surgery and all the Columbia-educated doctors are too busy playing grab ass to operate.

Me too me too me too

2007-04-19T06:32:00.000-07:00

<- What? "Today, we are all Hokies?" Really? Not me. Last I checked I was a Columbia student with no real connection to Virginia Tech or any of its students.

Do I consider Virginia Tech a tragedy? Absolutely. Do I wish it hadn't happened? Absolutely. Do I hope Cho Seung-hui burns in hell? Absolutely.

Am I going to change my facebook picture (already a trivial element of existence) to reflect my opinion on a national tragedy? No.

I have two problems with this. The first is that a facebook picture is meant to be fun, stupid, embarrassing, whatever. As a corollary, any time you put something serious up there, you necessarily trivialize that issue. Oh, you're serious enough about the Blacksburg Massacre to adopt a ridiculous "solidarity" posture on your facebook profile? Damn, dawg, let's rub our LiveStrong bracelets together and talk about how VTech has affected us so much.

The second problem I have is related to this last point: people need to stop co-opting tragedies. It happened on 9/11, it's happening now. If you were affected by this, my heart and prayers go out to you. Seriously. But if you're so bored with your life that you need to act like you're a part of this, then you can go right to hell.

THIS FOOD IS TERRIBLE

2007-04-08T14:50:00.000-07:00

In a city of 8 million people with immigrants from all over the world, why is it so hard to find decent Chinese food? Especially in Morningside Heights there are no legitimate, consistent options for Chinese. By Chinese I of course mean Chinese, Japanese, and Thai, but not Korean because fuck that shit.

The only semi-legitimate option is what I like to call "Wack Chinese" from the Wien food court. The problem is that the idiots in charge are getting rid of the food court to make room for a "lounge." I love how they say they're going to "make" a lounge, which is basically an exercise in negating the space. Nothing is going to be added except for couches that nobody will use and instead we will all be worse off for not having wack Chinese to eat. Also, what is going to happen to the old, black guy who works there. I like to call him "Shakes McGee" because he has trouble keeping still. Yes, I realize how bad that sounds, but I don't care because it's hilarious. What's going to happen to Shakes? They took away his medical license so he can't go back to neurosurgery. He's going to go hungry because some kids need a university-sponsored lounge in order to feel like they're enjoying themselves.

With Wack Chinese gone there will be no legitimate Chinese (et al) left in Morningside Heights. Let's take a look at the available options. I am going to number them not because some are deserving of higher numbers, but because I like lists.

1. Ollie's - The last time I ordered from Ollie's it tasted like vomit. That's not a hyperbolic simile - it tasted like regurgitate. I felt as if I was eating food marinated in the wok with Bruce Lee's bile and puked up dog bits. Bizarrely, and appropriately enough I suppose, the two Ollie's that are further down Broadway are great. Despite this and perhaps because of it, I award our Ollie's zero points.

2. China Place - Aside from having the most boring name possible, their food is also as boring as possible. Everyone knows that the main ingredient in Chinese food is love - you need to hug the flavor into General Tso's chicken. Without this you're left with rubbery meat in nondescript orange sauce. They even get the rice wrong - how can you fuck up rice? It tastes like pellets of overcooked unhappiness. Zero again.

3. Caffe Swish - The first non-Chinese Chinese place on the list, Swish is known for discriminatory hirying practices. Specifically, they won't hire you if you're a decent human being. You need to be rude even by New York standards to qualify for employment here. The food is decent most of the time but the sushi is wack (and not good wack like wack chinese or taco bell RIP dawg) and the fountain soda tastes like bad medicine and not the Bon Jovi kind but the robitussin kind.

4. Empire/Concord - I have to rate these together because I can't tell them apart. Both have amazingly bad food. I often see one of them (I can't remember which) when walking down Amsterdam and I'm even more appalled by the appearance of the place. I almost cried when I saw the origins of my one-time-meal of Pepper Steak with Onions (as opposed to onion steak with peppers?). Stay away. Avoid at all costs. If you see a friend about to order it, steal the cell phone and break it. He'll thank you.

5. Wai Lee - unadulterated suffering. Misery in its purest form. I would take my hat off to this accomplishment except I've suffered at the hands of Wai Lee so it's personal. Rumor has it that Jack Bauer uses Wai Lee as the ultimate torture mechanism.

There are so many more, but I'm depressing myself by recalling all of this tragedy. Also, I need to go to Carnegie Hall to see a fucking high school band play because instead of seeing a concert for the report due Monday on a regular weekend night, I put it off til sunday so that I could preserve drinking opportunities. This is my life.

Ad Campaigns Which Make Me Want to Gouge Out My Eyes #1 and #2

2007-03-06T11:56:00.000-08:00

#1) Glade = Glah-day?
As a rule, I’m angered any time a commercial has only female characters. I am angry because I find myself unable to identify with any of the people on the television and, immediately, this makes me feel that the product is inferior and should therefore not have infringed on my television watching time. The glade scented oils commercial is one such advertisement. If you haven’t seen it, you must have been one of God’s elect, because the rest of us have been suffering through it for months.

I will summarize it presently. Some stupid, Associate’s degree earner from the Midwest (speculation, but I’d put money on it) lights a scented oil candle in her kitchen and then removes the “Glade” sticker from its carapace. When she tries to throw it away, though, it becomes stuck to her dress. Oh, what wacky high jinx awaits us! When she opens her front door to her suspiciously diverse group of friends, they immediately comment on the scent of the candle, which, I remind you, was lit about FOUR SECONDS AGO. One of the friends, whose scent receptors must be as keen as a bloodhound’s, recognizes immediately that the smell is the result of a lit Glade candle. The homeowner, however, claims that the candle is not glade, but “French…from France.” As opposed to French from Turkmenistan? Whatever. One of her friends notices the “Glade” sticker on our Associate’s degree friend and says “What, haven’t you all heard of Glad-ay?” The friends then break out into piercing, earth-shattering laughter. If you haven’t seen the commercial, let me try to paint a picture of this laughter for you: in Ireland, parents tell their children scary stories wherein Banshees will come to them in their sleep and laugh so shrilly and maniacally that it will kill them.

Glade hired Banshees to do this commercial.

Besides the obvious annoyingness of the “Oh We Girls Are Such Good Friends” motif this commercial employs, it infuriates me that people probably don’t recognize that Glade is advertising their candles by making it seem like even a stupid woman from the Midwest would be ashamed to have it in her home.

If I were running the ad campaign for Glade, here is what it would look like, roughly: A woman is in a grocery store and sees two candles: Glade and Other. She opts for other. When she lights the Other candle, a siren goes off and we hear shattering glass. Special Forces operatives shoot the woman and extinguish the candle. That night, when the police are talking to the family, the officer asks if they would like to press charges. The father says, “No, those special forces guys did what any of us would have. Feed her to the wolves.” As the wolves are feasting on her, one of them looks up and says: “Buy Glade Candles.” Short, to the point, effective.

#2) The 23 Flavors of Dr. Pepper
I would absolutely love to know how they came up with the number “23.” The only thing I can think of was that it was a tie-in to the Jim Carrey movie regarding that same number, because there is no way they can actually conceive of 23 discrete flavors in this beverage, which is nothing but a poor, poor substitute for root beer.

Yet they claim that the flavor is actually the product of a mixture of 23 different flavors. What’s the point of this? Are we supposed to appreciate its real flavor (ie “bad”) more because it has 23 constituent parts? What the hell do I care if they mixed 23 good things together if the emergent result is awful? Is it somehow exciting to think that if we were able to acquire all 23 flavors, we could brew it ourselves? What the hell kind of advertising is that? If I were advertising for a beverage, I would focus on the fact that the audience is too stupid to make it but should feel lucky that they are able to buy it in 12oz, 20oz, and 2L denominations.

Because Dr. Pepper won’t release his secret recipe and keeps the list of 23 flavors locked in a vault deep beneath the earth’s surface, I am going to present my speculations about the 23 flavors. Here is my list:

1. Pain
2. Suffering
3. Nausea
4. Alienation
5. Glade scented oil
6. Rejection
7. Anxiety
8. Trepidation
9. Fear
10. Hatred
11. Skateboarding
12. Loneliness
13. A1 Steak Sauce
14. Hemlock
15. Anger
16. Confusion
17. Depression
18. Unrequited love
19. Bad poetry
20. Nazism
21. Manhattanville protesters
22. Betrayal
23. Syrup of Ipecac

That actually all sounds pretty good. You could call the resultant beverage “American Angst-a-cola” and sell it at Kim’s (ironically) or Hot Topic (unironically).

February 15th, 2007 Hipster Convention is Not Appreciated

2007-02-15T09:45:00.000-08:00

"I have an emergency announcement."

That's what the lip-ringed, Kangol-hat wearing douchebag said today twenty minutes into my 11 am class. (As a sidenote, there is definitely something about lip rings and ironic t-shirt that makes me think an individual is a smart, savvy politico). Was there a fire? Was Osama bin Laden found? Had TrimSpa found a new celebrity spokeswoman? No. The emergency announcement had to deal with the protest to be staged at noon that day.

What the hell is the emergency? There's no new information here. These idiots had posted flyers all over campus telling people to walk out of classes today in order to demonstrate that they don't like war.

Are you kidding me? What the hell is walking out of class going to do? As my infinitely wise suite-mate, the Terminator, said: "If you're going to walk out of something or strike something, you need to strike the people you're protesting. What is leaving class going to do other than piss off your professors?"

Then, to compound this obnoxiousness, these jerks pulled the fire alarm in Hamilton Hall. Way to go, dickheads. Now we have to hear that awful sound just because you think that whining about the Iraq War is important enough that EVERYTHING ELSE MUST STOP FOR A HIPSTER-EMERGENCY.

Now I don't think you'll find anyone on this god forsaken planet who thinks that Iraq is going well. But whether you are conservative or liberal or anything else, you should recognize one very simple truth: organizing on a college campus to demonstrate something which people already know (ie that Columbia students don't like Bush) is a waste of fucking time.

When I left class I was greeted with the sound of some schmuck on a megaphone yelling how "THIS. HAS. TO. STOP." Wow. Very inspiring, MLK. Did you stay up all night burning the midnight oil thinking about that line? Such rhetorical genius. I dare say that Cicero himself would have shed golden tears of glory had he heard your voice crooning from the bullhorn, stretching out across campus to touch the hearts of the noble Columbia students.

Get real. It's an unwritten rule that if you're going to get on a megaphone, you need to say something worth hearing. A prime example of this is how at the beginning of the Fall 06 semester some buddies and I decided to spend a rainy afternoon during orientation week by shotgunning beers on the stoop of our frat house and heckling passers-by through my sweet, sweet megaphone which I bought on eBay. For some reason, the administration told us we could no longer use the megaphone for such events.

But this is allowed? Clear prejudice. Hipsters and other douches are favored by the administration, but why? It is we, the non-hipsters, who will go on to become high-powered individuals with the financial means to support this institution. Why should Columbia alienate the future donors?

It doesn't even matter. What matters is how ridiculous these events are. Why do people show up to protests? They can't actually think that they're making a difference. They most likely go just to say they were there. I bet they keep scrapbooks full of photos of them protesting various things such as "War," "Anger," "Men," and "Dressing like a normal human being and not some transexual retard." I hear that last one was well attended by Barnard students.

It reminds me of "The Dundies," an episode of the US version of "The Office" where Steve Carell gives out awards to everyone in the office. What's the point of gathering to give your group of associates awards? If the award is so freely given, isn't the ceremony likewise spurious? These protests amount to little more than organized group masturbation.

Hipster #1: We're really political because we're protesting.
Hipster #2: I know, we're so deep.
#1: Dude, we should make out.
#2: "Dude" is such a bourgeois term you sheep.
#1: Well we should still make out.
#2: Totally.

Or at least that's how I imagine it happens in my homoerotic hipster fantasies.

As annoying as it is, it is avoidable. That is until I tried to go to 212 for a delicious Alexander Hamilton's Roast Beef Mexicali. Evidently the Hipsters pulled the Lerner fire alarm too. As a result, 212 had to close temporarily.

Alright, fags, now it's personal. Look, I'm sorry your father doesn't love you. I'm sorry the jocks in high school made fun of you. I'm sorry you didn't get the Derelicte campaign. But so help me God, if you sons of bitches ever get between me and my mexical roast beef again, I will personally cut off the last vestiges of your balls. This is an outrage so mind-blowing that I still can't believe it happened.

I hope the organizers of this protest get expelled for the fire alarms. I'm going to start protesting their continued existence at this university via my own megaphone from the stoop. SHOTGUN!

Durka Durka, Never Again

2006-06-27T18:30:00.000-07:00

Friday night some buddies and I decide that the play to make is a bar called "Casbah Rouge," located on W111th. Usually the place is decent, but this time it was a disaster. After sitting us at a small table in a dark corner, they proceeded to not take drink or hookah orders. Five minutes goes by and one of us goes up to the hostess and asks if someone is coming. She says "yes, sit the fuck down you American pigdog."

Another 5 go by and another goes up. This continues for about 25 minutes until we finally get a hookah of the wrong flavor. We continue to go to the bar to get our drinks because the waitstaff still decide that they have a problem with performing their contracted, table-servicing duties. It probably had nothing to do with the fact that we're white and the patrons they were serving were Middle Eastern. There's no way that was a factor, because only white people can be racist. It just doesn't go both ways.

When we decide that we've had enough, we head out. As soon as we exit the place, an obnoxious staff member runs out and says "the hookah pipe isn't paid for."

Wait a minute. We spent the entire night trying to get their attention or trying to get them to serve us and we were consistently ignored. We leave after finishing the pipe and our drinks and suddenly we're priority number one? Fuck that.

I go back in and settle the bill. In the tip space I write a big "---." The staff member notices this and tells me that I have forgotten to tip. I tell him that in pig dog capitalist countries such as America, tipping is reserved for service of which one is appreciative. I was most certainly not appreciative of anything about the bar that evening and so there would be no tip.

I mean you've got to be fucking kidding me if you think it's legitimate for these people to demand a tip, especially after it becomes blatantly obvious that they were aware that we were sitting and required service but decided to just ignore us. That is so obnoxious it literally makes my blood boil just thinking about it even 5 days later. The next time I want to sample some Middle Eastern flavor, I think I'll just strap a pound of dynamite to my chest. It will cause less of a headache.

The rest of the weekend was more enjoyable. Went to a strip club only to be told by one of the girls that we should get a private room because, and I quote almost directly, "it's not that much...like...I think it's only $500."

In what bizarre universe is $500 not that much to hang out with a stripper for 30 minutes? The best part of the whole ordeal was her hesitation about actually saying $500. She knew damn well it was alot of money, but I guess she's expecting that saying "it's not that much" will cause me to consider it. Because, hey, a stripper said so! After I said "no dice," she leads me back to my table, bizarrely commenting to one of the bouncers that "he said it was too much money." That's only half the story. Nothing is intrinsically "too much money." For instance, $500 is not too much money for a Beverly Hills mansion or a trip to the moon. It is, however, too much money for a private room with a stripper. She should have told the bouncer "he made a well measured decision that I'm not worth his money." It would be closer to the truth.

Moral of the story? You're better off using your money to start forest fires than pay people in the Vice industry. You won't feel as dirty about it the next morning.

Women Drivers

2006-05-29T19:41:00.000-07:00

I like to think of myself as a forward-thinking guy. I think it's great that women can vote and that they have special leagues for basketball and whatnot. Still, though, I can't help but ignore the fact that most of the problem drivers I encounter on the highway are members of the fairer sex. I'm not saying that women can't drive, because saying that would jeopardize my playboy lifestyle to some degree, but I will say that nearly all bad drivers are women. I'm pretty sure there are university studies (perhaps by Bob Jones U) to back up my theory.

My friend and I drove up to Cape Cod this past weekend and getting up there was a nightmare. Every few minutes, we would run into some inexplicably confused driver who felt that 60 mph was a legitimate pace in the leftmost lane. About 95% of the time, this driver turned out to be a Danica-in-training. What is it about estrogen that makes one unable to drive at a respectable speed? Moreover, why do they steadfastly refuse to move over when someone wants to pass them?

That's not even the best tactic, though. Anyone can simply refuse to get out of the way. It is the hallmark of a true championess when they actually enter your lane when they see you coming up quickly. For no reason whatsoever, these ladies decide that it's a good idea to cut off a driver going 90 when they themselves are only driving at 55.

Ladies, what is it?

Incidentally, the weekend turned out fine despite these egregious annoyances. We even got to see Teddy Kennedy drop out of the Figawi Race (our reason for going to Cape Cod) due to poor wind. His wasn't the only boat to do this (there are lots of cowards in New England it seems). However, he was the only one we noticed who had a power boat pick him up and take him back to shore (where he would no doubt hit the bars) while his crew stayed aboard and brought the boat back to shore (about 2 hours away at motoring speed).

What a hero.

Hooters Should Be Razed to the Ground

2006-05-13T11:40:00.000-07:00

How did Hooters ever get the reputation, however tongue-in-cheek, that it was a restaurant with hot waitresses? It doesn't have the reputation for having good food, so I'll hardly complain about the subpar wings and poorly maintained beer, but it does have the reputation for having hot waitresses and it is simply unfounded.

Last night I met some NYU friends at the Hooters on 56th and I was honestly shocked. I know I tend to exaggerate, but let me tell you that I am 100% serious when I say that I've seen hotter girls in geriatric wards. These waitresses (besides being obvious examples of Bridge and Tunnel trash) honestly made me feel sick.

It didn't help, of course, that we went to this Hooters because we were expecting a buddy of ours (Dane) from USC to be coming in. In typical Dane fashion, though, he changed his plans at the last minute without telling anybody and so we sat around for over an hour, eating lousy wings and drinking lukewarm beer while somebody's grandma wiggled her short shorts in our face. It was miserable.

I haven't had a Hooters experience this bad since the Hooters in Acapulco, when the Einsteins running that establishment decided to blast reggaeton music when everyone in the restaurant (99% American spring breakers) was watching the NCAA tournament. Como se dice "We're fucking retards who think people would rather listen to Daddy Yankee than Daddy Marv during March Madness."

I suppose it isn't their fault, though. After all, all the intelligent Mexicans got the hell out of there. Or, at least, they're running clubs like Palladium where they beat the shit out of tourists and steal their money. Mexico or Hooters...it's tough to say which has a more undeserved reputation for good times.

Observational Humor Rendered Obsolete

2006-05-12T07:53:00.000-07:00

No Journey song could ease my pain right now. Not even the smooth, soothing sounds of "When the Lights Go Down in the City."

What is the source of this pain?

The source is the fact that on two nights this week, despite my usual aversion, I ended my night at "O'Connell's" nee "Cannon's," a pseudo-Irish, blue collar death bar located about 7 blocks from the comfort zone of Nacho's. The clientele of this working man's establishment isn't made up of the steel millers or elementary school crossing guards typical of such a degenerate looking place, though. No, the clientele here is a much lower sort of person: the Columbia Jock.

The Columbia Jock is perhaps the lowest position in all of Jock culture...even lower than the "South Central Nowhere State" Jock, precisely because the nowhere Jock at least has legions of dumb coeds thinking that he's the man. At Columbia, though, telling a girl you're on the basketball team has roughly the same effect as going to Sudan and waving your Urban Studies PhD around: I'm sure you worked really hard to get there, but it isn't relavent, it isn't impressive, and it certainly isn't cool.

O'Connell's is the kind of place where you walk in and immediately notice the fact that nearly every male in the room is clearly less intelligent than the average Columbia student. I remember standing at the bar and having one of these people (Football player) ask: "HEY DUDE!!! YOU LOOKIN FOR SOME CHICKS TONIGHT?"

The interest I had in talking to this guy was less than zero, so I promptly responded: "Nah, bro...animals. They're more fun and they talk less."

He looked confused and then went back to the fat girl he was talking to.

Seriously, I don't understand how these guys can act like they're legitimate college athletes. Columbia doesn't win anything in either Football, Basketball, or Baseball...and yet these people walk around as if they're first round draft picks.

What's the best way to disarm a Columbia basketball player? Ask him how they did in the NCAA tournament.

What's the best way to disarm a Columbia football player? Ask him for the square root of the number 4.

To compound the ridiculousness of these people, each of Football, Basketball, and Baseball have their own fraternities on campus. I don't know about the Baseball fraternity, but I know that the football and basketball people charge for entry to their parties. How ridiculous is that? I'm not sure whether I should be more disgusted by the fact that they charge or the fact that people actually pay.

As a final footnote, I'm sure that most of the people on these teams are good athletes...but the team record doesn't show that. Until wins start coming in, it's ridiculous for these people to act like God's gift. If they start winning bowls or tournaments, then they can do that. Until then, they should take the backseat to the nerd in Lit Hum because he actually earned the right to study at this noble institution.

Guide to Not Studying for your Final

2006-05-09T14:35:00.000-07:00

The worst possible place a college student can be is that place where the only thing that separates him (or her, if you're masculinity-challenged) from summer is the last final exam.

After four months of classes, papers, quizzes, midterms and other finals, the only thing which is keeping me from diving to the hazy depths of endless alcohol abuse is one final exam in what is perhaps the most ludicrous subject of all time: 20th Century Poetry. Poetry itself isn't ludicrous. In fact, I consider myself something of a poet. What is ludicrous is the simple fact that one can suggest we take a final exam on Poetry.

How are you supposed to study for this? Memorize the poems? There are hundreds of poems on the reading list! Most of them aren't even any good (I'm looking at you, Auden).

Attempting to study for such an exam is a journey into the darkest reaches of the Absurd. The more time I dedicate to studying, the more I am convinced that studying is unnecessary. The less time I spend studying, the more I am convinced that I'm going to fail.

Therefore, I've perfected my method for Studying Avoidance. Here are the top 10 ways to not waste your time studying for a test for which it is impossible to truly study while saving your conscience from guilt.

10. Masturbate. Furiously.

9. Stare hopelessly at the trash which you have strewn about your room over the course of the entire semester. Wonder how it got there. Get angry at yourself for putting it there. Get angry at Long Island Iced Teas for making you think it was a good idea to put it there. Don't do anything about it. Repeat.

8. Listen to the hard-hitting rock anthems of the 80's. I recommend "Kickstart My Heart" by Motley Crue and "Youth Gone Wild" by Skid Row. Grow out your hair and be misunderstood by adults everywhere, especially your parents. Raise your fist in the air, triumphantly, and ask whatever city you're in if its ready to rock.

7. Adopt a whale.

6. Upon the whale's delivery to you, sell to Japanese whale dealers, where your humpback friend will be used for food, clothing, energy, decoration, and the aggravation of PETA. Don't feel bad...you adopted the whale, which meant that it was an orphan with no family or friends, so nobody is going to be upset with you.

5. Masturbate, although this time put on some slow jams and light some candles. Convince yourself that you're still heterosexual.

4. Read the wikipedia entry on Alf. No, not the Animal Liberation Front, but Alf, the lovable alien of sitcom fame. There's lots you can learn about him. For instance, did you know that when Alf was in high school back on his alien planet, he played Boullabaiseball? Whacky! Also, you can edit the page yourself, which is a fun way to get involved in Alf culture if you live in a remote area and don't have access to any Alf-oriented activities.

3. Get really wasted and drunk dial your middle school girlfriend, especially if it's the middle of the day or the early evening. She'll never see it coming and, who knows, you may get lucky!

2. Alphabetize your books, DVDS, video games, CDs, and furniture. Following this, talk to your doctor about OCD and how Zoloft can help.

1. Try to find the ugliest person possible using Google image search. This tried and true method is hands down the best way to not study for your final exam. My winner so far? THIS GUY:

WH Auden. Ugliest Poet Ever?

Number 1 Train Number One in Name Only

2006-05-08T20:54:00.000-07:00

Last night, my buddy A-rob and I were coming uptown from the Tower Records near the Lincoln Center, where we had recently acquired a copy of American Psycho so that we may view it in preperation for our banking internships this summer. We took the 1 uptown, as anyone would if they desired to get to Columbia, but, in retrospect, we should have simply walked the 50 blocks back to campus.

You see, half-way through the journey, right after we departed from 96th, the conductor announced over the PA in a barely audible whisper that the train, for whatever reason, would not stop at 103rd, 110th, 116th, 125th, or 137th, but would go express to 145th street.

Great. I always wanted to know what REAL Harlem looked like at 11 oclock at night.

This pissed me off, but, as one who has lived in New York for a while, I wasn't surprised by the inadequacy of the MTA. What really pissed me off about this whole endeavour was that the conductor only told us we were captive as soon as the doors closed. Maybe he could have mentioned this three seconds prior...when the doors were still open and we could have gotten out and hailed a cab or walked and saved time. I considered the possibility that he only became aware of the problem three seconds after the doors closed, but, in retrospect, I am able to dismiss this as my Korean math friend informs me that the probability of that being the case is approximately NOT AT ALL.

Not all was lost, though. Seeing as how A-rob is from Beantown, he's naturally even more wary than necessary of going to sketchy parts of town after dark, on the subway no less. Because of this, he was in a greater state of alertness than all the adderall/coke-fiends at school combined.

The first thing he noticed was the residentially-challenged man sleeping in the handicapped seats. What he noticed, in particular, was the pungent odor of sulfur and methane escaping from his general direction.

"Dude," A-rob asked me, "did that homeless guy just shit his pants?"

Obviously I don't know the answer to this question, but, for fun, we'll assume that the answer was "twice."

We finally reached 145th after passing the site where Taco Bell used to stand (RIP dawg). A-rob and I decided to hail a cab as we didn't want to risk getting screwed with by the subway again, when all of a sudden we saw a crew of four urban youths descending upon us. A-rob has been mugged a few times in his life, so automatically he assumes that he's about to have an unpleasant experience. Now, if this was a Warren G song, I'd just pull out my strap and make some bodies turn cold, but, as this was not a Warren G song, we ran across the street to the downtown platform, paid another $4 (ridiculous!) and headed back to Columbo after waiting way too long for a train that the conductor promised us was waiting for us.

Moral of the story? The Number 1 didn't earn the distinction of being number one...it must have been arbitrarily assigned.

Gay Cowboys? You're joking!

2006-01-31T15:13:00.000-08:00

"Forbidden man passion? Four stars!"
-San Francisco Chronicle

"I jerked it three times...two thumbs up..."
-San Francisco Journal

"That one gay cowboy gives the breakout performance of his career. Plus he's totally gay."
-San Francisco Gay Reader

I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain, so I'm not in a position to review or critique the movie. What I am in a position to do, though, is wonder why it's getting such critical acclaim. Instead of asking the people around campus, who would probably say that the movie was, to some degree, like their own lives, I asked a friend of mine from back home what she thought.

She said that the movie was probably so successful because it was groundbreaking in that it showed the world that there are gay cowboys.

Wait...there are gay cowboys?

YOU'RE JOKING!!!

Of course there are gay cowboys. It's practically a prerequisite these days. Was there actually anyone with a pulse who was surprised to learn this? Just look at the costumes they wear. It used to be that a guy wearing something like that could drink fifteen gallons of whiskey, seduce your girlfriend and then shoot a platoon of Mexicans or, worse, Injuns. Nowadays when you see someone wearing chaps, a vest, and a cowboy hat you can bet that his name is "Rusty," he smokes Virginia Slims, and he's more likely to polish off your knob than a bottle of Beam.

Now before I get accused of living in "Meanietown" again, like the last time I was in the village, I'd like to say that there is nothing wrong with being homosexual. Really. Do your thing. But I say this with the caveat that if Brokeback Mountain was a movie about lesbian pillowfighters (an oppressed minority worldwide) and starred Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Biel, there is simply no way it would have gotten the same appreciation by the reviewers.

And why is that?

Because, obviously, the film reviewers are all gay themselves. Otherwise there is simply no explanation for such a decision by Hollywood to make a movie about gay cowboys but not lesbian pillowfighters. To demonstrate that a movie about girl pillowfighters is objectively more touching and interesting than a film about gay cowboys, we will analyze various aspects of the two groups.

1. Minority Power

As all Hollywood big-shots know, marketing is even more important than the actual movie. Brokeback Mountain was marketed as "The gay cowboy love story of the decade." But do you think that everyone who saw that movie was a gay cowboy? Of course not. Most of the people who saw that movie were pseudo-intellectuals who were afraid of appearing uncultured if they didn't see it. As a result, film sales are directly related to the amount of people who aren't
a part of the minority group portrayed.

According to a US Census taken a few years ago, the number of "gay cowboys" in the country is, approximately, 12.8 million, up from 11.1 million the year before. This accounts for, roughly, 4.3% of all Americans.

According to the same US Census, the number of "lesbian pillowfighters" in America was, sadly, only 402,000. This accounts for only .14% of all Americans.

Therefore, using our logic from above, the movie industry would have been better off making a movie about lesbian coeds hitting each other with pillows in their underwear.

Score:
"Brokeback Mountain": 6.0
"Coed Pillow Desire": 10.0

2. Originality

Another important factor of a film is its originality. Have there been other films like this before? To find out, I went downtown to Chelsea to visit "Adult Movies" on 36th and Broadway, thinking they would have the most mature, and therefore upscale, collection.

Because I'm not twenty-one, I respectfully declined from entering, but I asked one gentleman leaving the store if he could help me.

Me: Hey, I've got a question for you. Does this place sell gay cowboy movies?
Him: Why yes! Tons of them! I've purchased a few myself!
Me: What about movies with girls pillowfighting and then falling in love?
Him: Didn't see any! Skittles!

With that, he skipped away, shopping cart full of gay cowboy dvds and all. So, according to this man's eyewitness testimony, there were "tons" of movies about gay cowboys and "none" about pillowfighting college girls. Looks like the cowboys lose this one, too.

Score:
Brokeback Mountain: 0.0
Sorority Slumber Party: 10

3. Actor Sex Appeal

The most important thing for marketing a movie is whether or not the people in the movie have any sex appeal. It's no big secret that the script for Waterworld was ironclad, they just needed to find someone more attractive than Kevin Costner to play the part of the Amazon woman-warrior who was in charge of things.

Brokeback Mountain had an all male-cast. No sex appeal.

In my mind, the pillowfighting movie has an all female cast and, therefore, a great deal of sex appeal.

Brokeback: 0.0
All Girl Pillow-fest: 10.0

So there we have it. The pillowfighting movie gets a perfect score while Brokeback Mountain, predictably, didn't make the grade. Hollywood producers would have to have known that a pillowfighting film would be objectively better than a gay cowboy movie, but they chose to act as if this wasn't true. Why? Because they knew the film critics wouldn't have it. Because film critics, by nature, only like gay cowboy movies. It's science.

26 Fucking Years

2005-02-25T17:04:00.000-08:00

I saw "The Gates" today. I'm a worse person for having done so.

I really wanted to like the Gates. Really, I did. I spend most of my time being negative and making fun of stupid shit like the Gates but I wanted to try to open my mind, expand my horizons and all that shit that liberals like.

In case you've been fortunate enough to avoid the whole Gates hoopla, I'll summarise it presently:

Two "artists" with suspiciously French-sounding names, Christo (Male) and Jeanne-Claude (Undetermined, probably female) decided to do an "art" project wherein 7,500 "gates," literally 20-foot-tall orange frames with saffron tablecloths hanging down, are spread throughout Central Park.

Incredible, right? According to some, remarkably.

You ask: but there has to be some kind of variety to these things?

No. 7,500 identical orange (saffron, not orange, excuse me) monstrosities sprawling throughout New York's Central Park.

Oh, you say, but something as simple as that probably didn't take much time to conceptualize and execute, right?

They started planning and preparing this in 1979. When Jimmy "Miserable Failure" Carter was ignoring the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. 26 years.

7,500 identical orange edifices. 26 fucking years.

For my entire life, all the highs, lows, joys, miseries, little-league games, spelling tests, middle-school romances...from my birth and residence in the Village (when my dad still had all his hair) to Long Island to London to Columbia University, these "artists" were planning this. And for what? To cause a nuisance? 26 years, millions of dollars...for a nuisance? I'm a master of nuisances and it doesn't take time or money to pull it off. These people are horribly inefficient, however exquisitely obnoxious they may be.

So anyway, when I get to the park I immediately realize that actually walking through the park would be a fantastic waste of time, because by seeing one gate you've seen them all, so instead I decide to one-up Christo and Jeanne-Claude by causing an impromptu nuisance in the presence of meticulously planned one. Now THAT is art.

I begin screaming to no one in particular. I think Camille was embarassed at first but she's a weirdo artsy type so I think after a while she realized the delectable genius behind my behavior.

I continued to shout for a while until I realized that there were several park attendants wearing vests that said "The Gates" and holding staves with tennis balls on the end of them. Obviously, this interests me.

I go up to one kindly old woman with a vest and staff and ask her what the gates mean to her. Camille loses it and tells me to stop, thinking I was being disingenuous in my inquisitiveness. Well, I was, but anyway she promised to tell me what they meant to her if I would do the same. Being a reasonable fan of the arts, I obliged.

She said that the gates represented the uniformity of New York streets. Then she said the paths through Central Park were, quote: "serpentine."

Unsatisfied with the answer, I began to walk away and she called me back, reminding me that I hadn't told her what they meant to me. I said "the Gates mean that even though we're all different, we're really all the same."

What I should have said was that the Gates mean that we live in a society where people can waste millions of dollars and 26 years on this planet in order to place saffron tablecloths in Central Park and be called "artists."

I hate you Christo. Get a fucking last name.

Put Your Arms Down

2005-02-24T11:04:00.000-08:00

Almost every time I go to the West End I become further convinced that humanity is at its nadir and that it's all our fault. It's not that I have to wait a half hour to get a drink (unless I elbow past people who have been waiting and scream my order at the bartender before that guy Imax knows what the hell is going on) or that the mixed drinks are watered down. That stuff is amateur. All bars are like that but it takes real talent to do what the West End does, which is attract hordes of ugly, ugly coeds who "dance" all over the place.

If you've ever been to 'Stend you know what I'm talking about: fat bitches doing the two-step, shaking their ass and waving their arms in the air. Oh shit, her arms are in the air - that's how you know she's sexy.

Give me a fucking break. You are not "in da club." You are not fabulous. You are not "poppin' Cristal," you are not a celebrity, you are not even attractive. Just put your fucking arms down you stupid slut. Go order another "Cosmo" and mouth all the words to whatever G-Unit song is playing. Are you having a good time? I certainly hope you are. After all, you're doing exactly what they do in the music videos, right? So it's almost like you're a rapper's ho, except you're white, you're fat, you're ugly and nobody wants to be your friend.

The best part about it is not how they dance but where: mainly everywhere, but especially by the men's bathroom door. Is this coincidental? What the hell are you doing, ladies? I need to take a piss and part of me is considering just pissing on the bar just so I don't need to get unnecessarily close to these gyrating giants. Of course I relent and while making my way toward the bathroom some chick will always bump into me while shaking her ass from five feet away. Then, of course, she gives me this look like "excuse me, can't you see I'm channeling the emotion of the music through the medium of my body?" I'm sorry, lady, I didn't notice that your arms were up but now that I see they are I realize that even though you are a fat, pasty English major you must be out of my league. I mean, your arms are in the air! You fucking whore.

Even worse than the girls (all japs), though, are the guys who "dance" with them. At least the girls can claim they were dancing or "shaking their ass" or whatever other disgustingly almost-sexual euphemism they want to use and still manage to have a kernel of truth to their stories; the guys just stand behind them with their hands on the girls. Every now and then, especially at the poignant, moving crescendos of any given Jay-Z "song," the guy (almost always white/jewish) will then raise one arm and do some kind of strange pointing motion, usually downward, to the beat while shouting the lyrics.

Oh shit. He did the point. He knows the words. Is this the white Jay-Z I see before me? Is this the legendary Jew-Z? Get this boy a fucking record deal now!

You are not a rapper. You are not even a white rapper. In fact, I would be willing to bet that rappers probably wouldn't like you if they met you because you are the epitome of everything they hate: their listenership.

So please, next time you think you're in the VIP, look around you and get a grip and remember: put your fucking arms down.

Edit: And Playboy named this shithole the college bar of the month?