You know that really annoying friend of yours who feels the incessant need to point out that they were the first to know about a now really popular band? Every. single. time. it comes on the radio?

As annoying as they are, there is something exciting about the knowing of a new band, new clothing brand, great sale, awesome book or recipe, and sharing it with the ones you love. And by ones you love, I mean the ones you go back and forth with right here on the CollegeCandy message boards.

So here’s the deal: every week, we will feature 3 things that YOU think other CollegeCandy readers just have to know about. Anything at all. Nothing is off limits.

Pumkin Pie Hershey Kisses
By now, you probably know my over-the-top love for Pumpkin Spice from Starbucks. In fact, one of the only things I like about fall is pumpkin flavored things, so imagine my sheer delight when CollegeCandy’s equally pumpkin-obsessed editor sent me the image of these pumpkin pie Hershey kisses. We then proceeded to go back and forth on G-chat for ten minutes obsessing over them. It went a little something like this:

Me: O. M. G.!!!
CC Editor: I KNOW, I’M DYING JUST LOOKING AT THEM
ME: OMG. I mean, I just peed my pants a little, I hope my boss doesn’t notice.
CC Editor: OMGEE. Must. Try. These. Yesterday.

And so it went, and even though neither of us has tried them yet, we knew that you all just had to know. And now you do. And now I can go buy some. Saweet.

All Nighter Hair Powder
Fact is, I’m lazy. And since my Jewish genes blessed me with Jew fro curls that take foreva-eva to wear straight, I don’t like to wash my hair unless absolutely necessary. Problem: the bangs always look greasy before the rest of my hair needs to be washed. Yeah, we’ve all heard of tossing a little baby powder up in there, but it’s no fan favorite, unless, of course, you are playing the part of crazy grandma in your 8th grade play, or want to smell like a baby’s bottom all day. Well, now there’s an answer. And its not just ANY answer – it’s a Rachel Zoe answer, which means it’s good.

Our favorite fashion troll says she’s addicted to All Nighter Hair Powder/Dry Shampoo. It can fit in your purse AND it comes in multiple shades so the powder soaks up the grease while blending in with your hair. Amazing for those mornings when you’re tired and lazy, or those emergency situations when your hair is stuck to your head but you are running late from cute boy’s apartment to not so cute Bio lecture…

Ping iPhone Application
I don’t have an iPhone or a Blackberry but this prospect still excited me. Everyone I know that has a Blackberry says the ONLY reason why they have it over an iPhone is for those 3 letters we all hear wayyy too much: BBM. While to me BBM is just that annoying thing that keeps my friends from paying attention to me when we are together, to Blackberry users it is more important than breathing. Or cupcakes. Yes I said it – more important than cupcakes. It’s addicting and people don’t want to part with it. They don’t call it the Crackberry for nothing.

But now, our friends at apple have developed a nearly-free iPhone app that serves the same purpose! Ping is just like our beloved BBM with a hint of instant messenger combined. And the best part? It doesn’t discriminate against iPhone users only – those with an iPod Touch can take part in the F-U-N that is totally not paying attention in your English lit class. And it’s $0.99. I mentioned that, right? Less than a buck!

Email your “The Know” ideas to Jill@collegecandy.com and I’ll pass them along to everyone right here, right now. Well, not right now, but soon. Like, every Thursday.

I remember when I got America Online for the first time. I was in second grade and acquired the coveted CD Rom disk from my best friend’s dad. We were the first two kids in school who had it. This was before AOL was called AOL, before it offered unlimited use, before cable modems, hell, it was before Buddy Lists existed!

Yes, I realize I’m totally dating myself here.

Anyways, AOL was the coolest thing ever back then and your screenname said a lot about you. Especially to all those random “friends” you made in the AOL chatrooms. You know you joined me in “I Love Nickelodeon 65″; don’t lie.

I changed my screenname more often than I changed my clothes (I was a little tom boyish back then…and changing my SN wasn’t a big deal when I had 2 friends online). First it was SpiceGrl321, then Whateva321, then DiamondBaby. Then I had TenTap for awhile. It was a combination of my favorite pastimes – tennis and tap – as well as an online best friend necklace with my two besties who had TenDan (tennis and dance), and TenAno (tennis and piano). We were so cool.

In highschool – when my BFFs became BFNs (best friends for never) – I switched it up to something a little more mature that I knew I could hold onto for awhile. Because, you know, BeanieBaby1000 would be a little embarassing for anyone over the age of 12. Read More »

[It doesn’t matter what school you go to, what state it is in, how big it is, whether it is public or private, all girls or coed…there are experiences that all college students share. No matter how crazy you think your personal situation is, it is not just you. So, let’s bring it all out in the open. Right here. Because you are not alone - we’ve all been there before.]

Your best friend totally stabbed you in the back…again. You don’t even know why you are friends with her anymore. Ok, so she is really fun to go out with and is the best person to lay in bed and watch a movie with, but the back stabbing and sh*t-talking has got to stop.

What a bitch. Seriously, the next time you see her you are going to open a major can of whoop ass and tell her everything that is on your mind: she’s a crappy friend, you can’t trust her, and those jeans you told her

you liked? Yeah, they make her look FAT!

You sit in your room waiting for her to come home, stewing. Each passing minute brings out more and more anger, and you think of more things you can’t wait to say to her. You have never been this angry. You are afraid she is going to cry. You have been waiting to say these things for a long time and there is no telling how it is all going to go down. Read More »

I’ve written about my various issues with Facebook before, but the improper use of the Facebook status now tops my list of things that drive me crazy.I don’t believe in Facebook statuses (stati?). I find 93% of them unnecessary and the other 7% contradictory. What am I supposed to think when someone’s Facebook status says they’re doing work ALL night, their away message says they’re wasted, and their Gmail status says they love the new Beyonce song? Where do I even try to start a conversation? Should I meet them in the library at 4 a.m with a tray of shots and the lyrics to “If I Were a Boy”?

But that’s not even my biggest concern with the Facebook Status. My issue is the “IS.” Over a year ago Facebook removed the obligatory “IS” from the status. But every day (Ok, 3 times a day) I sign on and people are not only still using the “IS,” but they are using it incorrectly: Read More »

Madonna’s secret recordings (no, they are not sex tapes!).

Forget the girl with her heart on her sleeve; wear your uterus on your undies?

Some men are really, really desperate.

Katie Perry eats it on national TV.

Now everyone can look like Heidi Klum. Well, sorta.

Joe the Plumber and Joe Six Pack chat it up.

The greatest college pranks…ever.

Columbia gets erotic.

Travis Barker is out of the hospital!

The most delicious iPhone.

Professor trading cards? It’s real!

Some relationships are hard to define. Some relationships are hard to fit into a category. Most are just flat out HARD! Which is why I decided to stay single. I don’t really have time for all the crap that comes with a boyfriend.

But what’s a girl to do about sex?!?!

I’ve done the one night stands….not fun. For me it just leads to awkwardness and, in some cases, physical pain. But somehow in the craziness that was my freshman year, I found the wonderful relationship called the Friend with Benefits (or as a friend from home calls them, a bene-friend), who somehow became one of my best friends.

It all started when the girl across the hall decided to introduce me to one of her friends from high school. She thought we’d really hit it off, and surprisingly enough, we did! He was funny, cute, smart, and a total gentleman, which pretty much sums up my qualifications. But this was a week before we’d leave for semester break, so we didn’t really do anything. Until February.

I hadn’t heard from the boy since December and upon logging into Facebook I found unread message from him. Yay! I wrote him back. He wrote me back. We laughed. We exchanged screennames. We started talking on AIM. Then one night we had dinner. Next thing I know we’re laying in my bed naked. I’ll admit, I didn’t want to, but he really did and I still thought he was ridiculously cute, so I had sex with him.

And kept having sex with him. I couldn’t help myself! Lord knows I can’t turn down amazing sex, and believe me, that’s what it was. Read More »

I mean, Instant Messenger has been around forever. Remember those days in high school, when you would tell your parents “you just don’t understand!” and then stomp up to your room and begin to IM 20 friends at once, bitching about how your parents just didn’t understand?

Or how about Freshman year in college when you somehow managed to get your crush’s AIM name, and then proceeded to sit over the keyboard for hours, sweating about if IMing him and “just saying hi” would somehow make you a creepy stalker?

If you’re in my generation, you grew up with AIM, just like you grew up with boy bands and obesity. Growing up with AIM means that we’re all too familiar with the “Away Message”, a strange societal habit of TMI. Even though Away Messages tend to vacillate, there are a few that pop up time and time again. Below, we’ve captured the top 5 familiar few. Read More »

This afternoon at approximately 3 p.m. EST, I fell out of love with the Internet.

Our love affair began about ten years ago, when I was roughly ten years old and in the fourth grade. It was a rather blissful decade: I was exposed to the wonders of AOL Instant Messenger in 7th grade, the social networking phenom MySpace in high school (that inspired me to not only chop off all my hair but also get my lip, eyebrow and nose pierced!) and became obsessed with the world of Facebook once I hit college.

But today, I finally realized what a huge pain in the ass the Internet really is. Read More »

First dates are always toughies. You spend hours perusing your closet for the perfect first date ensemble only to come to the realization that you do not own said ensemble and must therefore spend another few hours perusing the mall.

Once date night actually arrives and the clothing situation is under control it is finally time to start worrying about other aspects of the evening: what you will talk about, if you will give your date a kiss hello, a kiss goodbye or a kiss good morning?

Now add all that to the fun little twist of having met the person via your MacBook and the game starts to change.

The first date for an online couple is in some ways easier than the not-so-technological alternative. For one thing, you know pretty much everything there is to know about your date…or at least what they have decided to share in their profile. You also have the advantage of being past the “getting to know you” phase having spent the past seven nights curled up on your couch, laptop in lap, chatting to him for hours online. This makes the first date much less stressful as you already know that you enjoy the other person and won’t fake a migraine to bow out before the evening really begins. Read More »

When we first got a computer—and the internet—my sister and I pitched a fit. At age 8, I was sure that this thing called the “web” my mother was so engrossed with, was a passing fad. My mother has always been technologicaly minded, I mean the woman was getting New Zealand pen pals for her fifth grade class in ‘97. Now she’s assigned homework to 11-year-olds via her webpage and getting her class to create podcasts. Which is why, in this day and age, it is a bit easier for my mom to keep tabs on my whereabouts day in and day out.

I’ll have to admit that I’m horrible about calling home. For the most part, my life is just so damn busy and by the time I think to call, its way past their bed time. Fortunately for my mother (who has just learned to text… she never could get cell phones) she can harass me lovingly in about five different technological forms.

Point in case:

Mom 6/6/07 10:28 am: Hi call me!

Mom 6/6/07 1:33 pm: Please call me and let me know how u r! Read More »