Prepare to develop a complex love-hate relationship with the color purple.
First of all, I would like to preface this article by stating that all of you incoming freshmen are lucky bastards. Wildcat Welcome Week is easily one of the greatest weeks in college (I see you, Halloweek). It is literally a week of debauchery and a few early morning events that the University believes will deter you from drinking. Wildcat Welcome Week will be your first taste of true college freedom and tons of upperclassmen will be on campus with nothing to do but twirl their thumbs and do their best to corrupt the shit out of you.
So Christmas is over and the time for relaxing is behind us. You have only one week left before you need to go back to Evanston. While you probably don’t have your New Year’s Eve plans set yet, follow this checklist and you might make it out of the night with some dignity and a few new friends. At the very least, you’ll have a couple good stories and no less than three inexplicable bruises.
Bonus points if you nail that one dick from Junior Year English Class with the cork.
1. Drink
Going home can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. It can mean relaxing, watching TV, losing the Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas, and even reading (as dark as that may sound). However, to most, it probably means raging and drinking with friends and making bad decisions like you’re right back in high school. While most nights on break can feel more casual and laid back, New Year’s Eve is the night where you get to show all your friends and the randos at the party what you’ve learned at a higher learning establishment, primarily your newfound raging capabilities. An innocent bystander at the party might say, “Oh you go to Northwestern? I go to UC Santa Barbara and party on the beach because it’s 70 degrees year round. You must…like…do a lot of work and stuff.” Just wait, person who I’ve never met, because by the end of the night I will not only be blackout and ghostriding down Market Street, but also in the midst of a heinously deep conversion with a cop about the futileness of the Occupy Wall Street Movement and probz will get a fb friend request from him/her in a few days. Where did you say you went to school again, some, like, state school or whatever?
2. Hook Up
Go for it. You’ve been eying her for this whole party. She wants you. Just try to keep it classy and remember you’re not in the keg anymore, and there’s a decent chance that she actually knows where you live.
Nobody said it would be easy.
3. Wake Up the Next Morning
If you wake up the next morning, no matter where that may be, don’t worry, you made it. You made it through another year alive and you’re still raging like there’s no tomorrow. Now try to act like you have an idea of where you are, find your car, and drive home before your parents start assuming you’re dead and rent out your room.
4. Do Not Black Out Before the New Year
Even though counting down New Years may not be the ultimate highlight of the night, it’s up there. Blacking out before New Year’s kind of puts a damper on your memory of the night and it also makes the previous point a little more traumatic. If you can make it to midnight with a little consciousness and the ability to maneuver your two feet then you’re doing well: feel free to do whatever you please for the rest of the night. And remember that only on New Year’s Eve is the saying “nothing good happens after 2 AM” completely null and void. If you go home before 5am you’re doing something wrong. If the party is at your house, then congrats on having wonderful parents, can I like come over? I’ll have Mario Balotelli bring some fireworks too.
You'll always have your bros.
5. Get All Sentimental About Home
Since we’re on the quarter system here at Northwestern, we go back to school only one day after New Year’s. That not only makes this party your last chance to go hard before you head back to school and snow and total heinousness, it also reminds you how much you love being home and how awesome your friends are. So make about 50 toasts over the course of the night, reminisce over past debauchery, and even cry if that’s your thing. Everyone is blackout so they won’t even remember those two guys crying near the champagne.
You may have heard of Rick Perry. He’s a candidate for president running in the Republican Party. He used to be George Bush’s pet lieutenant governor in Texas and was reportedly scarred by separation anxiety after Georgie Boy left him for Washington.
He also owned a shooting ranch. He decided the name of that ranch should probably have the most racially offensive word his limited vocabulary could think of.
Here’s another fun fact: Rick Perry is not going to be president. However, he released today a super cool new campaign ad that will make you all love him. Here it is:
Without further ado, I present the Top 10 Reasons Rick Perry’s New Ad Is The Worst Thing Ever:
1. The Title
Strong? That’s a weird way to spell “Blatant Hail Mary for the Evangelical Vote in Iowa.”
2. “I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian.”
Yeah, well thanks to assholes like you, the rest of us are. It’s because of homophobes like this that other Christians have to spend all day explaining that we like the parts of the Bible about “luhhing thy neighbor” and “blessed are the poor” and “eternal salvation” more than the dietary restrictions or instructions on selling thine daughters into slavery. Like, seriously, stop it. I’m sick of explaining that 1% of the Christians own 90% of the bigotry.
3. “You don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong.”
It’s literally like he views religion as some sort of item on a checklist. You sat in a pew on a particular day of the week? FORGET WHAT YOU BELIEVE OR DO, YOU ARE NOW A CHRISTIAN CONGRATS WE’RE ALL SO PROUD OF YOU.
4. “There’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military”
Yeah I just doubled up on a line. What of it? That’s how fucking heinous this piece of horseshit ad is. Now then, there is almost nothing that angers me more than people demanding that all them gays be kept out of the military. While I have never served in the military, I’m pretty fucking sure that when you’re running into a hail of gunfire there is almost nothing as irrelevant as which type of genitalia you prefer in and around your mouth.
5. “But our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school”
Bro. I went to public school. We celebrated the living shit out of Christmas. So much Christmas. So little not Christmas. Now go change your underwear, take your pills and get back in your cage.
But in terms of school prayer, Rickie Bobby Redux hit the nail on the head. I’d sit in school all day just bursting at the seams to pray! But every time I tried, that dadgum Obamer would run in lock me up at the Guantanamo Bay just for thinking of it. It’s an outrage! Thank goodness there’s a candidate who finally had the guts to make school prayer an issue in a presidential election. Stupid Titmonger.
6. The fact that he stops walking up the hill after like three steps
Just going for a casual three-step stroll? Cool brah. I hope you’re happy with your life choices.
7. “I’ll end Obama’s war on religion”
No no, silly. That’s “Obama’s war on bin Laden” that you’re thinking of. And newsflash: YEEEEAAAHHHHH WE GOT HIMMMMMM. VICTORYYYYYY.
8. That his staff forgot to turn off the ability to like/dislike this video
As of my most recent viewing, 97.71% of those who responded disliked the video. Literally. 46,000 dislikes to 1,000 likes. You couldn’t get 97.71% of Americans to agree on how much they hate something if it was a contest between Casey Anthony and Adele.
9. His hair is so nice
Ugh. I’m gonna be bald by the time I’m forty. Fuck Rick Perry.
Wait, I was supposed to come up with ten things I hated? But I only have nine… Uhhh… What was that tenth one again? We had the uh… There was the… the… title and the uh… the war on religion… and uh… I can’t. The tenth one. Oops.
Sherman Ave 
