Every year it boggles my mind when boots and wool sweaters start showing up in stores in mid July.
I mean honestly, people! Sweat is dripping down my back and I’m supposed to be shelling out dough on the over-the-knee leather boots and colorful wrap scarves? I think not.

But all these early fall shenanigans in the stores means one thing: they need to clear room.

Enter: the summer sale (!!!). Read More »

The Good: The creative name. Come on, Candwich? Win. Oh, and the fact that they also managed to squeeze some dessert in there, too. I know no canned sandwich (?!?!) is complete without a Laffy Taffy follow-up.

The Bad: It’s a sandwich. In a can. And there are “meat” varieties.

The Question: WTF?!

"I can't believe I spent $500 on this sh*t."

Two good things come out of buying your college textbooks each year.  They are great for beating your roommate over the head when she doesn’t do her dishes a blanket-weight while studying out in the quad and the short change you get back on ‘book buy-back’ day (for drinking purposes).  The dark side of the spectrum of book buying?

You spend more money on Biostatistical Genetics than you would on your first born child. Not exactly my idea of a good time. (Nor is having a child…)

Fortunately, for all of those students out there planning a farewell party for the limited cash in their bank accounts, there is hope.  Thanks to the Higher Education Act of 2008, new textbook regulations will lower the price of textbooks. Hooray!

One way they will do this is by not requiring students to buy those CDs strapped to the insides of books that cost so much you’d think they contain flecks of gold.  Professors will also be encouraged to provide a list of books early, so all of us money-strapped students can scour the web for the best deals on those 10-pound behemoths we only open when it’s time for finals. These new regulations also promise student discounts on Amazon (for everyone with a .edu address!), and lower price options from publishing companies.

I say this calls for a textbook celebration!  Go ahead, take all of those old textbooks that you couldn’t sell back and turn them into a drinking game (take a drink every time you turn to a page without a picture. Good luck, English majors…).  Treat yourself to the most quality of vodkas (you’ve got extra cash now, right?!).  Flash back to third grade art class and whip up some paper mache.  It’s really your call how you want to party, but party you must.

After all, it’s Friday and it’s time to embrace college life without textbooks that only Lebron James could afford.

While perusing (and by “perusing” I mean obsessively checking and re-checking) Facebook for the fourth time yesterday, I noticed that no one had done anything since the last time I logged in (an hour before). In a fit of never ending boredom that made signing off impossible, I decided to look at pictures of me.

Of the 300ish photos of me, 250 involved drinking and 249 of those involved me making some sort of awful face. Not like “I wasn’t ready for the camera” awful; more like, “I am going to make the ugliest face I can think of” awful. The sad part is that I can distinctly remember taking most of those pictures and consciously making the faces that are now staring back at (and horrifying) me.

I even giggled as I made one of my uglier faces and poked my head into what would have been a cute picture of friends. Why did I ever think that was a good idea?

Self Reflective Beer Goggles, that’s why.

It’s like the minute the beer hits my lips, I am somehow unable to take a picture without doing something completely stupid. Whether it is an awful face, mimicking oral sex with a beer bottle or thinking of a ridiculous scenario (“Your boyfriend just asked you to pee on him”) before snapping a selfie, I always look horribly, terrifyingly, bad. Read More »

According to science, we are addicted to love.

Sarah Palin teams up with….KATE GOSSELIN?!

Dear god, don’t let this woman be pregnant.

The 2,363rd reason I won’t be seeing Saw VII.

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These people shouldn’t be allowed to have a phone.

Is it enough already with the fangs?

Eclipse is out, True Blood is back and there’s a veritable smorgasbord of undead hotties floating around right now in all their pale, gorgeous glory. Vampires, much like leggings and giant purses, have pretty clearly been the trend of the past couple of years with rip-off series’ and cash-ins than you can shake a stake at, but now I’m starting to wonder, is it time to say enough is enough?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m an unashamed vamp fangirl from way back in the Buffy era (Spike, *sigh*) and have read more than my fair share of vampire novels from Dracula to Anne Rice to Twilight. Likewise, I’m not going to debate the artistic merits of the recent incarnations of the vamp craze. What I’m asking is, is it time to say our blood-sucking appetite is sated and maybe give something else a crack at the limelight, or are we still desperate for all things “children of the night”?

On one side, vampires are a part of our cultural heritage. Practically every culture on the planet has some version of the creature in it’s lore, and people have always been almost inexplicably drawn toward the idea. Since the birth of vamp fiction, readers have been pulled to the idea of the taboo, the danger, and yeah, the hot hot (or, you know, cold, undead) sex. Vampires have everything it takes to make for a theme that will always be in our psyche’s so to say that we’ve had enough of them is like saying we’ve had enough of handsome, heroic male leads – sure, it’s been done to death (ha!) but that doesn’t mean we’ve stopped loving it. Read More »

Wait, is that a THREAT?

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Remember when you were little and you and your friends would play make-believe games? Of course you do (maybe you and your friends still do – this is a no judging zone). I remember a particular game that could be played anywhere from our Kindergarten classroom’s “kitchen,” to refrigerator boxes in our backyards. Basically, we’d stake a claim in our territory, enforce proper regulations (no boys allowed, naturally), hoard whatever dress up costumes we had handy, and embark on a few hours’ worth of playing house.

The first step was obviously fighting over choosing which Disney prince was your BF (I’m looking at you, Prince Phillip). Then, after putting on lipstick and kissing a) your hand b) your Ken doll or c) your pillow, he would construct an elaborate proposal. Next thing you know, you’ve got your Mom’s heels on, a white sheet taped to your head and a gorgeous floral arrangement done entirely in weeds (nuisance plants are the next big thing for centerpieces, I’m telling you) in your sticky little hands as your BFF pronounces you and Prince Phillip (or Eric, he was always a solid choice too) married. Then you break out the big guns: your baby doll.

When you’ve got yourself surrounded by fake bottles, strollers, binkies and baby clothes, you know you’ve made it in the pretend game of playing house. Of course, my opinion on victory at playing house now is quite the opposite. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that a baby right now would be a massive fail (on both my and LoEstrin24FE’s behalf).

But, it seems as though David and I are movin’ on up in the game of playing house. After some mild success (we have neither burned the house down nor broken up), I guess people are starting to realize how fantastically great we are at living together and have decided to reward us with some kids. And not just any kids – teenagers. Read More »

Fun fact about color – any color in the spectrum that is a mixture of blue/green can be referred to as a cyan. Under this broad term is the ever popular turquoise and many similar shades of fabulous.

This year, Pantone named turquoise the color of the year, and items in this hue have turned up in pretty much every store this season.  Turquoise is a a color that people respond to positively. Wearing it will give off good vibes, which is perfect for summer! The color is universally flattering, meaning everyone can find a piece perfect for their wardrobe.  And, a popular choice for jewelry and accessories, turquoise can add a pop of color to make your LBD stand out, while a bold dress or skirt in the color can take those neutrals to another level.

As people associate turquoise and other similar shades with water, cyan allows those ladies landlocked like myself to channel the ocean vibe even if they’re hundreds (or thousands) of kilometers away. Oh, and it looks great with a tan. Yeah, turquoise rocks. Read More »

Yum.

Recently, while busily browsing through YourTango, I came across an enlightening post about the ’7 Traits of Irresistible Men.’ I read it in between wistful sighs with my head in my hands…the irresistible man…mmmm. Before I knew it, I was seeing my ideal dude, tossing his thick tresses around under an exotic waterfall.  Mid-gaze he winked at me as a droplet of water fell from his thick black eyelashes…

Woah sorry, was I writing a post?

Then I got to thinking.  There is so much more dimension to the irresistible elements of a college guy than just those 7, albeit irresistible, traits.  Unfortunately, in college we don’t have waterfalls for our boys to stand in or bright enough bars for them to send us a snappy wink from across the room.  But we do have dive bars, florescent lit libraries, dirty frat houses and lots of cute boys to inhabit them.

So I wanted to add on to the list YourTango constructed, because sometimes ‘collegey’ guy turn-ons are the best of all.  And (lucky for us) we don’t even have to leave our campus quad to find them. Read More »