You, dear reader, are no doubt a person of many and varied opinions. But, like many of us, you may find that life doesn’t offer you enough opportunities to share those opinions with strangers. We have the solution! Did you know that you can inflict your views on an audience of thousands, simply by commenting on the internet?

Yes, it’s true. By commenting on any given blog post, you can preserve your thoughts for history, whilst simultaneously impressing your peers. Yet it’s not as easy as one might think. In order to really stand out on the internet, you must follow these simple rules.

1: Use emoticons. If you don’t include a smiley face, how will people know that you’re smiling? After all, it’s not as if you can use words to convey emotion.

2: You are a person of passionate conviction – conviction which you must convey to your audience. We’ve already established that language is useless. SO JUST TYPE IN ALL CAPS. Read More »

The show starts with Tila camera-faking that she is scared and excited that 15 guys and 15 girls are moving into her MTV house and I need to know how much she gets paid for this.

Why do they all sleep in one bed? I would kill myself with all of the random breathing and feet and gross.

Brittany doesn’t want “a male genital” in her face in the morning. I’m guessing that she thinks that testicles don’t come in pairs. Chad brought a blow up doll with him like the cool person that he is and there’s a bar in the room. That’s what was missing.

Tila re-emerges and how many outfits per episode will she go through?

Oh, God, there is a casino set up in the house because she wants someone with nerves of steel. Can you ask them to do something that could potentially injure them or actually demonstrate that they can be cool under pressure? I don’t think that drinking and gambling are much of a stretch for this bunch.

Tila pulls one of the Jersey girls out for one on one time and Kyle is creepy and following them. Well, they find it creepy. Come stalk me, Kyle. Read More »

When I was in high school I made my teacher cry. It wasn’t my fault she was in her first year of teaching and couldn’t keep her sh*t together. It’s not like I spit at her or called her names; I simply disagreed with her argument that Cyrano de Bergerac was the best book ever written. And it was a Literary Criticism course! If you can’t handle a difference of opinion, then maybe you should consider teaching Kindergarten.

Had I known then that I could have been sued for such a disagreement, I probably would have thrown independent thought out the window and nodded my head in agreement like the rest of the class.

Thankfully, my teacher just excused herself to cry alone in the bathroom, unlike one Dartmouth lecturer who took it to a much more serious level: by seeking legal counsel.

I actually got my degree in education, so I can say from experience that teaching is a very difficult and thankless profession. You spend 16-18 hours a day either with the students, preparing for the students, or grading their crappy work. Then you come into the classroom where they are disrespectful and often times annoying. It is a job that drives you to drink countless glasses of wine and wonder why you ever wanted to do it in the first place. (Note: It is also incredibly rewarding!)

But, that is all part of the job and something you surely expect getting into a profession that deals with ungrateful children. (Don’t hate; you know you made your teachers’ lives hell back in the day.) Surely this woman cannot be naïve enough to think that Dartmouth kids would be any different? Read More »

I think I’ve said it before, but I’m not really into vegan things. I haven’t had a lot of experience with vegan food, but whenever I do find it in my mouth (gosh. That sounds so dirty!), it’s usually a slightly bland and…slightly grainy… experience. I repeat, I haven’t had many vegan delicacies, but really, one strangely gritty slice of tofurky is enough.

So, you’re going to have to trust me when I tell you this vegan cherry pie is just delightful. A friend recently brought it to a party and before they could say “that crust is totally vegan!!”, it was gone. Mostly thanks to me and my two helpings.

While a little long, this recipe is surprisingly simple.

Vegan Pie (Crust)

2 1/4 Cups All-Purpose Flour

1 Teaspoon Salt

3/4 Cup Cup Vegetable Shortening

4-6 Tablespoons Ice Water

1.) In large bowl mix flour and salt. With pastry blender or 2 knives, cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

2.) Sprinkle in ice water, 1 Tablespoon at a time, mixing lightly with fork after each addition, until dough is just moist enough to hold together. (the less water you use, the flakier the crust) Read More »

So far there have been 40+ submissions for “9 Things Your Parents Would Get Pissed About If You Spent $500 On.”

You will be allowed to submit until 12PM on Friday (May 2nd). On Cinco de Mayo, we will allow the public to vote on the top 3 user submissions.

The winning vote getter will win a $500 American Express gift card courtesy of TuitionBids.com.

Check out the story and keep the submissions coming!

[So I took a small hiatus. And by small I mean a couple of months. I had to. Writing it all down…I became increasingly nervous someone would find out. And nothing is more endangered on a small campus than a secret you want to keep. If you’re new to all of this, check back at everything here.]

Mood: a little antsy

Currently listening to: Black Cat by Janet Jackson

“Have you come up with anything?” Rebecca walked into our room, dragging her bulging laundry bag behind her. “Heard back from any of those internships?”

“Not yet.” I clicked through webpage after webpage, my eyes already watering and blurry from one too many hours staring into the glowing screen of my laptop. I had spent all afternoon sitting on my bed, willing my inbox to fill up with internship opportunities and summer job offers. So far…no one had complied with my wishful ESP.

“I have no idea what I’m doing this summer either,” Rebecca dumped her still wet laundry onto her bed. “So don’t feel so bad. Maybe we can just go on a three month long road trip. See every single weird thing the United States has to offer.”

Our bedroom door opened again, and Stacey walked through, freshly showered and clad in her furry pink bathrobe. As soon as she stepped into the room, I was hit with the power of flowers and sugar and tropical sunsets. Stacey had about 4 different kinds of scented soaps in her shower caddy, and made a point to use every single one whenever she showered, causing all the scents to collide into some kind of overbearing perfume of femininity.

“Someone left a used condom on the bathroom floor.” Stacey dropped her shower caddy on her bed and reached for a towel. “That is seriously disgusting. I mean…it’s a Tuesday. Who’s having shower sex on a Tuesday?” Read More »

Shopping can be hard work. How many times have you walked out of a store or clicked off a website saying, “I’ll come back later to see if it goes on sale”? And how many times have you actually remembered to go back and check? Wouldn’t life be so much easier if you had a personal shopper?

Well, now you can have your very own personal shopper with just a few clicks of the mouse. The new website, Shop It To Me, is your web-based personal shopper, helping you shop the best deals with barely any work on your part. Shopping where I can sit back and relax (and possibly even nap) and still find good bargains? Count me in! Read More »

So I’ve got to vent. Being a writer and all, it’s always easier for me to vent in the form of a letter, so here you go:

Dear America,

Are you a pedophile? If you could just admit that you are one, then I would at least understand your sick obsession with underage Hollywood girls and their bodies. But since you’re going to pretend like the way you view bodies and sex is normal, I have no choice but to be angry.

Miley Cyrus is supposed to feel badly about the pictures she’s recently taken. One set of pictures features her in her underwear. Another set features her showing her…her…disgustingly inappropriate…BACK.

So what if the girl took some pictures of herself in her underwear? How is that really any different from her going to the beach and having pictures taken of her in her bathing suit? Oh…let me guess…it’s about the context of it all. A girl showing her tummy and thighs when she’s NOT post-ocean and in public is out of line.

And so what if she was wearing a sheet in a photo shoot? Did her back and right arm really offend you or give your children nightmares? Read More »