By Galen Simmons
The way I look at it, the very idea that you might want to bring all your friends together, give them free-license to get smashed off their face, and have it all take place in your very own fortress of solitude seems like a recipe for disaster.
I mean theoretically speaking, there are far too many wildcards in play when you decide to host a party. Someone might throw up. Everyone might throw up. The cops might fine you for a noise complaint. The cops might throw you in jail. In saying that however, I acknowledge that if nobody wanted to host a party, parties as we know them might die. And that’s too traumatic to even think about. So, to all those heroes who decide to put their home at stake for the greater good (my entertainment), I figured the least I could do is offer up a few common-sense tips which might prevent your house from becoming a smoldering pile of rubble.
1. If serving food, avoid your heavier meats and cheeses. Try to stick to starches like chips and pretzels. If you’re ever in doubt, abide by this simple rule. If it looks nasty going down, it’ll look 10 times nastier coming up.
2.Garbage bags make excellent wallpaper. Your landlord would approve.
3. A bedroom door with a lock on it allows for the temporary stashing of all things valuable. Heed my warning, for if you don’t, next time you’ll have nothing valuable to stash. Read more…
By Galen Simmons
I, Roommate
The signing of a lease between two or more prospective roommates is rather similar in many respects to the signing of a marriage licence. “I, roommate one, do hereby pledge to live with roommate two, through all tests, essays, drunken parties, and mood swings until the lease’s end do us part.”
A well-picked roommate can be a wonderful source of entertainment, compassion, sympathy and even home-defense, but a poorly chosen roommate can make your life and your home a waking nightmare. So, if at all possible, try to avoid picking an awful human being as a roommate.
But, you might ask, what if I’m already living with someone terrible? Isn’t there a way to get out of it without having to find another place to move my sh*t? Worry not, my sad, pathetic friend, the solution is so simple even a monkey could have come up with it. Make life even worse for your roommate, giving her (let’s be honest ladies, guys are way easier to live with than girls and that’s an unbiased a fact) the “encouragement” she needs to leave.
Here are a few personal suggestions you may or may not wish to try out.
1. “Accidentally” break your ant farm in the kitchen. A few extra ant traps is a good trade for better company. She’ll be all “THIS ENDS NOW!”
2. Leave appliances on over-night. When she wakes up to find the blender still running from the night before, it may be game over. Some girls can’t live without their breakfast shakes.
3. Keep live frogs in the refrigerator. Tell her they taste fresher.
4. Clean the toaster in the dishwasher.
5. On hot days, leave your underwear in the fridge to help cool them off.
6. Every night at precisely 3:27 am, bang on her door to inform her that it is precisely 3:27 am.
7. Buy a subwoofer and play only polka music. Read more…
By Galen Simmons
As the weather begins to cool down and we start to get more busy with that looming threat to our free time otherwise known as school, stress can become a very affluent factor governing the course of our daily lives. The nightmares of late-night cram sessions and last-minute essay scribbling, — which had once seemed so distant — are now flooding our consciousness with worry and doubt. Or, at least, they’re scaring the hell out of me.
So I thought I’d provide a list of activities that help me forget about getting a job, or paying for school, or even just getting up early to go to class, which, by all means, I should be very stressed about. [supreme-kidz]
How to de-stress
1. Go for a walk. Who doesn’t enjoy a nice walk now and then? The fresh air will clear your
head. [vin-ni]
2. Listen to music. A peaceful playlist can do wonders for your psyche. Try these.
3. Watch TV. One of my favourite mindless distractions to life’s real problems. May we suggest New Girl? [insertsnazzyurlhere]
4. Read a book. It’s like TV, but it comes on paper. [ilikedraw]
5. Watch a movie. Your favourite movie from childhood often does the trick.
6. Intoxicate thyself. For thy problems shall soon be forgotten. [kaitlynnnnnn14]
7. Rob a bank. Stressed about paying for school? Easy solution.
8. Go for a run. Probably from the cops if you followed 7’s advice. [confessionsofacrazyderpette]
9. Take over a small island nation. Governing a country will soon make your school stress seem insignificant.
10. Learn Kung Foo. Then go ape-shit on anybody who causes you stress. [bruceleeshrine]
11. Make friends with someone shorter than you. It’s a good confidence booster too.
12. Break into model homes to steal the plastic furniture. It’s a victimless crime… other than real estate companies, but I would still say it’s okay.
13. Bounce on a trampoline. I love trampolines. [reidius]
14. Go to a park and yell at the birds. Those smug assholes need to be taken down a peg.
15. Write a letter to your favourite dictator. Dear Mussolini…
16. Start a cult devoted to Charlie Sheen. Winning. [dirtyy-diamondss]
17. Cook a tuna casserole. That shit is delicious.
18. Eat a tuna casserole. That shit is delicious.
19. Write FOX’s new hit reality TV series. Easy to do, stress free, and lots of cash.
20. Angrily quit from jobs you don’t have, to bosses you don’t know. [diylol]
21. Start a drug cartel and base it in northern Saskatchewan. They’ll never find you.
22. Take a swim in a public fountain. Good for hot days.
23. Fake a mental breakdown. I hear hospital food has gotten better.
24. Start a mariachi band. Use it for evil. [tsumi7]
25. Write a list of ways to ignore stress. Then, when you’re halfway done, forget what you were writing about and ramble incoherently for a while.
Galen Simmons
We’re on the cusp of a new school year and once again I find myself wishing it didn’t have to be this way. Since my wishes rarely come true, the best I can do is try and smooth the transition into post-secondary hell for those misguidedly eager first-year faces.
I might not be able to convince you to start that 12-page essay a month before it’s due, or stop you from drinking at a floor-mate’s birthday party the night before your final exam; but I can teach you how to speak that incomprehensible college language your elders have already grasped.
So, as my insanely clever title dictates, let’s start with A.
A – All-nighter: A poorly planned decision to leave one’s entire project/presentation/essay/exam-prep until the night before it’s due. e.g. I started seeing dead relatives after my fifth all-nighter in a row.
B – Beer Pong: A classic drinking game that involves getting your opponent more drunk than he/she can get you. I think plastic cups and ping pong balls might be involved too, but my memory is hazy for some reason. e.g. Once we lost all the ping pong balls for beer pong so we decided to up the ante by using tennis balls and beer pitchers instead. [Photo: ipercival]
C – Cafe: Short for cafeteria, the cafe is where students are fed cheap, semi-nutritional food, made by ex-cons and foreign refugees. e.g. Last time I ate at the cafe, I found a shiv in my mashed potatoes.
D – Due Date: For many students, a very stressful 24 hours that could have been avoided through forethought and good planning. e.g. I started researching my essay the day before the due date.
E – Easy A: Read more…
By Galen Simmons
As I previously mentioned, I get bored very easily. One of my favourite cures for boredom is TV And since I get bored easily, I watch it A LOT. I watch it at work and at home and when I can’t watch it, I think about what my life would be like if it were being watched on a weekly basis by millions of people. This, of course, makes me paranoid that I’m being watched as part of some weird and unbelievably boring Truman Show. Then I realize the ratings for a show like that would never survive today’s competitive prime time schedule. Maybe they’d put me on during the day.
Anyways, if my life were to be broadcast by satellite to other incurably bored people like myself, I think I’d want it to be a comedy. I like the idea of being part of a light-hearted satire where all serious conflicts in my life can be solved in at least 20 minutes. There would, however, have to be some changes I’d need to make to my life in order to make it reality show friendly.
Five things you need for your life to be a reality show (alternate title: why my life is not a reality show):
1. The first thing you have to do is choose a small group of people (between four and 20) for whom your entire life will revolve around for roughly six seasons and a movie. These people may irritate you or make it impossible to live a normal life, but that won’t matter as long as your audience is entertained. Read more…
By Galen Simmons
Of all the possible (and impossible) ends to the human race, the notion of having everyone you’ve ever known turn into mindless husks of human flesh intent on eating the still-living leaves me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. Just think, a shotgun and a box of ammunition is all you’d need for hours of non-stop entertainment. And yes, that could be potentially dangerous, but only if you haven’t created the appropriate safety protocols.
To enjoy yourself during the zombie apocalypse, you must first heed the messages of people who have pondered the notion of the non-living much longer than we ever have. I’m talking, of course, about the film and T.V. writers who have played out zombie-themed scenarios countless times, and have incidentally uncovered survival strategies that work.
Here’s what Hollywood has to teach us:
1) Create a plan
Once you get past the initial shock and panic brought on by the thought that everyone you love is probably dead, you’ll be ready to have fun in your new zombie playground. Take a moment to sit and jot down a couple basic rules to help prevent any zombie from getting the jump on you. Caution is the key here. If you’re not careful your game could come to an end, and you don’t get any extra lives.
2) Find more survivors Read more…
By Galen Simmons
In the criminal justice system at Greendale, there are two types of people; those who cause trouble and those who try to bring the troublemakers to justice. This is a story of the latter.
The crime scene is Greendale’s biology lab, where a yam (alias Sweet Potato) had been brutally dropped on the floor and stepped on. The case was time-sensitive, as the Greendale study group charged with solving the crime had to prove someone sabotaged their biology project by class on the following day.
The case was a tough one, possibly the toughest of their careers. But with special investigators Troy Barnes and Abed Nadir beating the pavement for hard evidence and district attorney Jeff Winger fighting for the chance to plead the case to the biology class, it should have been an open and shut case. Instead, Sargent Annie Edison and her team uncovered a plot to take down the yams of an entire biology class in the Case of the Smashed Yam.
With that in mind, five things I learned on last night’s episode, “Basic Lupine Urology” are:
1) Starburns is dead. Or maybe he’s not, we’ll have to wait until next episode. But for now, let’s remember him as he was, a conscientious young student who worked hard in school, had a minor kleptomania problem, and whose life was tragically cut short by a freak meth-lab explosion in the trunk of his car. Who’s to say it couldn’t happen to any one of us?
2) Apparently the United States army takes time out of its busy schedule to defend its former soldiers in front of their community college biology classes in cases where yams and honour are involved. I can’t be sure the army defends solely in cases with yams, but I’ve yet to see an instance without one. Read more…
By Galen Simmons
I knew something like this would happen, I just didn’t know it would happen so soon. After last night’s episode, Troy and Abed have declared war on one another, threatening the very fabric that holds Greendale together. While Annie and Jeff struggle to come to terms with gender issues, and Shirley and Pierce meddle in Britta’s love affair with a personified sandwich shop, Troy and Abed’s friendship is torn apart in the wake of a pillow versus blanket fort competition.
Seeing his advantage, Vice Dean Laybourne (guest star John Goodman) takes the opportunity to secretly push the boys farther apart, in hopes that Troy is pushed away from Abed and toward the Air Conditioning Repair Annex.
So, with that in mind, here are five things I learned from last night’s episode “Digital Exploration of Interior Design.”
1) Subway is involved in some sort of KGB-style advertising. They’ve placed an agent in Greendale to ensure that their sandwich shop is legitimate within Greendale’s bylaws. The agent, as far as he or anyone else in Greendale knows, has no identity other than Subway. He doesn’t remember his former life, he can’t fraternize with the student body, and he can’t show real human emotion. To top it off, when code name “Subway” is compromised by Britta’s feminine wiles, he is “disappeared” by an unknown agent from Subway headquarters.
2) Jeff seems to be narcissistic to the point of senility. Apparently, if your name does not relate well to your gender, Jeff will probably not remember meeting you, even after ten introductions over the space of a year. It’s sad really. Jeff didn’t even remember meeting Kim, after spending the entire episode trying to make amends for being inconsiderate.
3) Pierce has an ink problem. No, he doesn’t have an addiction to getting tattoos. Instead, Pierce has taken to drinking the ink out of pens. I’m not a doctor, but I don’t think consuming ink on a regular basis can be good for anyone. I think he needs to be a case study on My Strange Addiction.
4) Abed is a much better architect than Troy. When war first broke out, both Troy’s blanket fort and Abed’s pillow fort took some serious hits. While Troy’s blanket fort all but collapsed under fire, Abed’s pillow fort was able to maintain structural stability despite losing some support pillows. Something tells me Troy should have put more buttresses in.
5) John Goodman looks awesome with a ponytail and a beard. He’s like some sort of air conditioning repair Jedi master.
By Galen Simmons
After what seemed like an ETERNITY, The Greendale Seven returned to finish their third season fourth semester. It wasn’t the big shebang we were all expecting, in fact the episode was relatively normal. But I still enjoyed it.
Despite rumours of the show’s cancellation, last night’s episode, “Urban Matrimony and the Sandwich Arts,” centered on Shirley’s remarriage to Andre. With Jeff and Britta organizing the wedding (and getting sloshed in the process), Annie meddling in Pierce and Shirley’s idea to open a cafe in the cafeteria, and Troy and Abed just trying to be normal for once, I’m surprised Shirley’s wedding rehearsal wasn’t an even bigger disaster.
Here’s what you need to know about last night’s episode:
1) Shirley apparently learned something at Greendale. Yes, I was shocked too. Not only does she have the skills to own and operate a sandwich shop while balancing her schoolwork and a family, but Greendale miraculously taught her something worthwhile. Too bad Subway always wins… Oh one more thing. That sing-a-long voice Shirley always does? Apparently that’s her “sexy” voice.
2) Troy and Abed’s failed attempt to be “normal” is more terrifying than anything they’ve done before…. and that’s including their architecturally-brilliant blanket fort. Their version of normal isn’t connected to reality, causing them to get on everyone’s nerves.
3) Jeff and Britta have problems… Serious problems. But I guess we all knew that.
4) Pierce doesn’t know anything about starting a business, which isn’t surprising since he goes to Greendale. He was born into the lucrative family-business Hawthorne Wipes, so he has no idea how to start and run something as simple as a sandwich shop, leaving him and his fortune at the mercy of Shirley’s newfound business bliss. Pierce only wants to prove to his long-dead father that he’s worth something. Is that too much to ask?
5) Annie is OBSESSED with weddings. She even has a creepy frilly scrapbook of wedding ideas that she randomly keeps in her bag. Unfortunately, she’s shunned as the wedding organizer in favour of Britta’s shameful and hereditary homemaking skills. Maybe she’ll have a wedding of her own to plan later in the series… though I don’t know who could put up with her brown nosing.
