The leaves are changing, footballs are being thrown, clichés are being written, and a Republican Senate candidate is saying stupid things about rape. All the sure signs of a typical fall are here.
And that means one thing: HALLOWEEN. Yes, the night when it is acceptable to pour all the alcohol on your face while dressed up as a Korean pop star is upon us. But there’s a pretty good chance that for most of your life, you’ve been doing Halloween right. That’s a problem.
You don’t want to do Halloween right. You want to do Halloween heinous. For that reason, we’ve compiled a scientific list of the top six ways to absolutely ruin Halloween. Please use them responsibly to ensure that no one has any fun this All Hallows Eve:
Find a group and dress as sexy Middle Eastern dictators. For years, the tradition of dressing as a sexy version of a not-sexy
How could this costume NOT be sexy?
thing has been enshrined in American culture. This is the part where you take it considerably too far. Think of the most hein-daddy Middle Eastern or North African dictator, dress like him, then add boobs. BAM. You’ve ruined Halloween for everyone, now we all have to go sit in a corner with a jar of peanut bar and our self-loathing.
Puke on a barn. Phright Night is an annual Halloween party that The Daily once called “a trainwreck of a campus Halloween tradition.” As part of our ongoing feud with The Daily, we’d like to one up them once again by calling it an unthinkable shitstorm of belligerent heinousness. So if you’ve scored a wristband, consider it your duty to make us not be liars for once. Start butt-chugging well in advance to ensure that you’ll be the douche on the bus who dry heaves on that kinda cute girl’s face. Yell about how excited you are to go to Indiana because you’ve never left America before. Ask all the girls in the sexy Muammar Gaddafi costumes if they’re aware of his human rights record. Try to ride the horses. And, most importantly, puke on the barn.
Hand out condoms to young trick-or-treaters. Safe sex is great sex!
Be a massive, terrifying Frankenstorm that threatens to tear the East Coast limb from limb.
Who invited this bitch?
Did you ever see The Day After Tomorrow? Of course you did, it was great. Well that might be about to happen in the most populous part of the greatest nation on Earth. According to scientist-looking people in white lab coats, Hurricane Sandy is the only force more destructive and deadly than Phright Night, and has naturally decided to target the Northeast on Halloween. And while I’ve never been through a violent hurricane that clashes with a ferocious Noreaster to spawn 40 foot hell waves of icy death, my guess is that there is little trick-or-treating done while mankind’s doom bears down on the world.
Don’t wear a culturally insensitive costume. OH WAIT, THIS ISN’T HEINOUS. THIS AN UNTHINKABLY FUCKING SIMPLE REQUEST. JESUS.
Tell all your friends that out of cultural sensitivity, this year you’re only going to celebrate El Dia de los Muertos. Mispronounce “muertos” every fucking time. Get hammered on hammered on Halloween anyway and tell everyone you’re just celebrating “El Dia Antes del dia los Muertos.”
[As Hurricane Sandy barrels down on the East Coast, Sherman Ave Philadelphia correspondent Courtney Thomas will provide live updates from the City of Brotherly Snuggles. Unless Sandy takes out the Internetz, in which case FUCK IT WE’LL DO IT LIVE. More updates to come!]
Sandyyyy, babbyyyyyy, why-y-y-y-y-y.
UPDATE: 9:17pm ET, Oct. 30
Well, Sandy is over. Classes begin tomorrow and SEPTA is running public transit. I think we all can agree that Sandy has taught us some valuable lessons. For all the FOTAs that didn’t get to experience these lessons firsthand, I’ve compiled them below:
There’s no hangover like a hurricane hangover. Whether it’s from actual Hurricanes or just drinking while the storm rages outside, just know that the next morning, the sound of every raindrop will be like a jackhammer into your addled little brain.
Having two surprise vacation days sounds awesome, but then you just put off a lot of work, making Tuesday night feel a lot like Sunday night. And that blows (but not harder than Sandy did).
New Jersey is a super tenacious state.
Never underestimate how much junk food a single human being can consume. My next apology will be to Michelle Obama. I feel like I’ve disgraced her by eating frosting right out of the jar.
You find your real friends during a hurricane. The people who sit in your living room with you and play Never Have I Ever or decide to go on the porch to see how bad it is are actually your friends. The other people just hang out with you cause you have great hair.
From Philadelphia, over and out.
– Courtney
UPDATE: 7:40pm ET, Oct. 29
[Editor’s note: It is now clear that the residents of Philadelphia are losing their minds as the apocalypse bears down upon them.]
UPDATE: 5:38pm ET, Oct. 29
Sandy is getting worse out there, folks! Look at this image of a tree that used to stand straight up being blown over at a 90-degree angle by the wind (note: this tree is less than 100 feet from my kitchen window).
The Haus of Baus (my living quarters here in lovely, safe, bucolic North Philadelphia, where people get shot every other Wednesday) has prepared a quick and easy guide to staying prepared for the storm. Don’t let those assholes who say “get water, get batteries!” fool you. This is the stuff you really need:
Lots and lots of junk food: See all that food on our shelves?
Michelle Obama saw this and shat herself. True story.
None of that shit is good for you. There are two huge jars of Nutella in that one image. There’s also pasta, Oreos and a lot of other stuff that will make your butt even more bootylicious than that one stripper you liked last year. My theory as to why we eat junk food during inclement weather is that we need to increase our body mass so that we don’t get blown away. Eat up, stay in place. Science.
A fridge full of beverages, alcoholic and non-alcoholic alike: Duh, you need alcohol. The new president of Temple didn’t cancel classes so we can all stay sober. However, you should temper that with some non-alcoholic beverages. We don’t know how long Sandy is going to keep raging away, and you don’t want to end your rager before she does. Alternate, and your liquor supply will survive through the storm. Note the mix of alcohol and Diet Coke in our fridge.
Tomato sauce: Hurricane or no hurricane, I’m fucking Italian, and tomato sauce cures everything. We’re like the Greeks in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, except instead of Windex, we make sauce. It cures a multitude of ills. Also, don’t even begin to play me with some jar of Ragu or Prego or crap like that. If it’s not homemade, don’t eat it. If it’s not homemade and you do eat it, I hope Sandy eats your family.
Hurricane Survival 101, taught by Professor C. Thomas, meets every time a big ass storm threatens the entire East Coast.
Welcome back to Hurricane Sandy, live from Philadelphia.
So in the last couple hours, not a lot has changed. It’s still windy and raining, but nothing bad. People keep posting pictures of parts of New Jersey underwater, and everyone’s like, whatever, it’s Jersey. God hates them anyway.
So, in the interest of having a great liveblog for all you reading this, I decided to actually leave the apartment and go to 7-11 in the storm. Well, it wasn’t totally because I want to make this blog great, even though that’s a perk. I really just didn’t have enough Diet Coke to brave the storm. If my blood isn’t 37% Diet Coke at all times, I will actually die.
Fuckin’ Bear Grylls in this bitch.
I set off into the rain (see image of me looking super sexy in a hoodie. Try and hold yourselves back. It’s highly NSFW), expecting to be blown away to Oz and maybe to get some great shoes. Instead, my roommate Bridget and I just walked pretty normally. Our hoods got blown off our heads a few times. That was about it.
7-11 was DESERTED. It looked like after the zombie apocalypse hit, except without anyone trying to eat us or people with katanas. They were out of Diet Coke in 2 liter form though, so I guess the hurricane really has come.
Anyway, we got cans of Diet Coke and hightailed it home, in case the wind started to pick up. It hasn’t, even though philly.com says it’s supposed to. Those liars. Someone yelled at us from a car to get off the street.
Sandy’s mating dance apparently hasn’t started yet. Philly is still safe. RIP Jersey, maybe?
I took some pictures of the street outside 7-11. As you can see, it looks like a regular rainstorm. Sandy, so far, Irene is out-hurricaning you so hard.
-Courtney
Humanity’s destruction is upon us. We must sit now and await our doom.
Basically, Sandy’s mission is to make Irene, the hurricane we had last year, look like a little tropical storm bitch. So far, she’s doing a really crappy job. It’s raining, but not really hard, and I can still see daylight. Also, there’s some wind.
The biggest inconvenience for now is that our local beer distributor is sold out of Hurricanes, because it’s funny to drink Hurricanes during a hurricane.
I’ll keep you updated as Sandy grows in strength and tears the Jersey Shore off the country and eats the statue of William Penn off the top of City Hall. (Yeah, William Penn, you smug asshole. You won’t like it when Sandy effs you up!)
Sherman Ave 
