Santorum Quits GOP Race, Presumably to Sew Sleeves on to his Sweater Vests

"What is this 'science' of which you speak?"

Rick Santorum, a Republican “candidate” for “president” announced today that he’s suspending his campaign and effectively dropping out. This comes just weeks before a do-or-die primary in his home state of Pennsylvania. Trailing in the polls in the Keystone State (not the fun kind of Keystone, sadface) and increasingly concerned that Mitt Romney’s robot clones had found his location, it was time for Santy to call it quits. Yes, despite the support of these nine intellectual heavyweights, R-Seezy is leaving the race, and will now find himself with a vast quantity of free time. What will Lil’ Ricky do with it? Here’s his to-do for the rest of his life, probably:

Sew sleeves onto this sweater vests

SantoRUM became famous during the campaign for wearing sweater vests, the article of clothing that’s perfect for people with cold torsos and sweaty forearms. Although these sweater vests almost definitely single-handedly won him the Iowa caucuses, you can’t wear clothes like that in the real world without being punched in the esophagus. ‘Slike, other people can see you bro. Where are your sleeves? Did you forget them at the stupid store where you bought that sweater? HAHA! So yeah, he’s gonna need to sew those sleeves back on.

This timeless battle of evil vs. evil will probably be made into a James Cameron movie by 2015.

Not judge gay people

Despite his statements comparing man-on-man sex (or as it’s more commonly known, “sex”) to man-on-dog sex, Sant-O-Rama loves to declare that he does not judge gay people. He insists he doesn’t hold their sinny sinny sins against them, he just likens them to bestiality. Like a rational human being. Presumably, he’ll set time aside each day to bring gay people to his house and inform them he does not judge them for all their value-ruining immoralnessocity. He’ll probably just let them know pre-DUI Amanda Bynes style that there’s a higher power that will judge them for their indecency.

Hunt down and mortally wound the Devil

Have you heard the news?! Earlier in the campaign, R!ck let us all know that the devil is here! He’s in the America! He’s coming for us and our children and Pippa! We must stand guard with constant vigilance or Lucifer himself will come enroll our children in public schools! But fear not, good people; Richard Q. Santorum is here to find and repeatedly stab Satan until he bleeds to death. Thank God there is no longer a presidential campaign to get in the way of this important work.

Throw a wish in the well

THIS IS CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There’s a chance, however small, that Mittens Romney will call Santorum maybe and ask him to be his vice president. With that in mind, Rick will be spending a significant chunk of the day throwing a wish in the well, but don’t ask him – he’ll never tell! What he doesn’t know, of course, is that if he reenacts too much of Carly Rae’s masterpiece, the guy at the end will be gay. In which case he’ll have time to not judge him! It’s like killing two birds with one stone, except without the violent murder of a living creature.

Re-enact the Hunger Games with the other GOP dropouts

Okay, if Rantorum can’t get this done, can someone else? Please? Literally, just imagine Michele Bachmann unleashing a hive of Tracker Jackers on Herman Cain as he binge eats pizza while Newt Gingrich smothers Rick Perry with his belly. Plus, there’s literally no way Jon Hunstman doesn’t win this one. Have you SEEN Huntsman with a bow and arrow? Yeah, me neither. But his name is HUNTsman so he’s totally at Katniss levels. THE BORING MODERATE ON FIIIIIIIIIRE!

Care for his ailing daughter

It appears that this, the most heinous of men, may have a completely unheinous and sympathetic reason for dropping out. The Ave sends nothing but the best of wishes, prayers, good vibes, karma, Avicii, pixie dust and Katy Perry to Bella and for a full recovery and long, happy life.

Other Things David Stern Should Veto

The most hated white man in the league since Toni Kukoc

When sports journalists heard about the NBA Commissioner’s probably ill-advised decision to veto a trade that would’ve sent New Orleans point guard Chris Paul to the Lakers, they practically pooped themselves with rage, railing about the end of the NBA with an apocalyptic despair that would’ve made Harold Camping proud. When I heard about the NBA’s decision, all I could think about was the goodness that could be accomplished by extending David Stern’s veto power, trigger-happy finger, and ‘screw it, I don’t care if I ruin the seasons of three teams’ attitude into other walks of life. Here are the fruits of that aforementioned thinking:

1. Rick Perry’s Presidential Campaign
Here at Sherman Ave we love Rick Perry. Oh wait, no we fucking don’t. No one in their right minds could ever stand to be in the same room, much less vote for, that intolerable shitmuffin. It now seems utterly ridiculous that people as intelligent as Mike Murphy actually thought that Perry could win the Republican nomination. Well, they were about as wrong as Custer’s last words. If only David Stern had stepped forward in August to stop this embarrassing shitshow of a campaign from ever launching.

His dreams were crushed by David Stern. M. Night Shyamalan's should be, too.

2. M. Night Shyamalan’s ability to make movies
So The Sixth Sense was maybe kind of okay. But I dare anyone to make it through The Happening without puking in a biological attempt to reject the atrocity from staying with you. Shyamalan made only one or two movies that could ever be considered ‘good,’ and everything since then has been so unbearably atrocious that Shaymalan should be prevented from ever tainting our eyes with such heinousness again. Unfortunately, the good people at Disney (and by “good people” I of course mean “stupid fucktards”) just keep signing off on his movies. Let’s get Stern in there to crush them the way he crushed Chris Paul’s dreams.

3. No Shave November
I’ll be honest, this year I tried doing No Shave November for the entire month, to see once and for all if I could really grow a beard. I can’t. And I’ve got news for everyone else who has tried it: you can’t either. You do look like an atrocious hobo, though. Congrats. Scumbag Steve would be horrified by your hygiene. Now let’s please agree to never do No Shave November again.

4. New Rebecca Black songs

Rosa Parks' personal hero

Katy Perry has no regrets — only love — about going all the way tonight. I have the same feelings about Rebecca Black’s “Friday.” Yes, it’s horrible, and yes, it probably shouldn’t exist, and yes, it speaks to some very heinous problems at the base of our modern society, but god damn is it funny. I’m glad it exists, and those two weeks where everyone in America absolutely refused to talk about anything else were just awesome. I feel bad for the hypothetical children I may or may not give birth to in the future because they will never have the experience of waiting at midnight for the release of Harry Potter books or movies, and I feel bad for them because they will never have the experience of going to school on March 18, 2011 (the Friday after the song came out) when everyone everywhere was singing “It’s Friday, Friday, GOTTA GET DOWN ON FRIDAY.” For two weeks it was fun to laugh, at the insipid songwriting, at the random rap verse that doesn’t make sense, at the problems with modern celebrity culture, but then those two weeks were over and we all moved on. DIDN’T WE?????

Apparently not. Apparently the ARK Music Factory thought that when 268,000 people disliked the “Friday” video, that meant “we love this, give us more please.” I hate to be the one to break this to you, Patrice Wilson, but when 268,000 people disliked the “Friday” video, it means they didn’t like it. At first, Rebecca Black was sad and kind of funny. Now she’s just sad.

5. Bill O’Reilly’s book about Lincoln
The only thing more ridiculous than the sentence “Bill O’Reilly wrote a book about the Lincoln assassination” is the sentence “Bill O’Reilly wrote a book about the Lincoln assassination that wasn’t true.” Yes. We live in a fucked up world. And while I think we have all accustomed ourselves to Fox News’s ridiculous excuse for news coverage, we don’t need them fucking up history as well. That’s Ross Packingham’s favorite subject!

6. “Ultimatum” by Jeph Loeb
If you’re a normal person, then it probably doesn’t mean anything to you when I say that Jeph Loeb fucked up the Ultimate Universe, but he did, and it is an intolerable atrocity.

Something doesn't seem right...

Quick nut graf: shortly after the dawn of the new millennium, Marvel Comics attempted to reinvigorate interest in their brand by creating an offshoot label, dubbed the Ultimate Universe, where they relaunched characters like Spider-Man and the X-Men as if their 40 year history didn’t exist, and the characters had been created in the year 2000. It worked. The stories were great, and their modern reworking of occasionally anachronistic Sixties concepts had a huge influence on Marvel’s later movie adaptations.

But in the year 2008, Marvel executives handed the creative reins of the Ultimate Universe to Jeph Loeb. It seemed like a sensible decision, as Loeb had won acclaim writing Batman at DC Comics. But whereas Loeb had done well on Batman with a strategy of utilizing Batman’s colorful cast and intriguing antihero sensibility, his plan for Ultimate Marvel was a little more like “destroy everything and kill every character.” His miniseries “Ultimatum” was basically a giant shit all over the Ultimate Universe, whose comics had helped spike my interest in the medium and which I still give to people who mention an interest in comic books, and I can no more forgive him for that than Eddie Murphy can forgive SNL for making one joke about him once.

And most importantly…

My First Quarter Grades
More important than any of the other things combined. I must admit, I got so caught up in college heinousness this quarter that I didn’t exactly get Will Hunting grades. Sure, it’s not like I stayed up past 2 am sequestered in the library every night of reading week preparing for my Ancient Philosophy final, but if Stern could have some words with Morty re: my grades, that would be dandier than Sebastian Flyte.

If that isn’t a convincing reason for giving David Stern a time machine and being done with it, I don’t know what is.

Top 10 Least Advisable Halloween Costumes

Awww, costumes used to be so cute...

It’s almost that time of the year again! No, not off-year election day. Sadly, not the end of finals yet. And no, we’re not even talking about my birthday. But something even more exciting is happening this weekend: Halloween!

Halloween at Northwestern is a magical experience, when the female undergrad population is magically transformed from Harvard rejects into sexy cheerleaders, sexy members of the Greek pantheon, sexy animals — even sexy Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth — while the guys are left to dress up as “writers” and try to get sexy Hilary Clinton’s phone number. But considering Northwestern’s proud tradition of outlandishly offensive Halloween costumes, it seemed necessary to take a brief moment to warn the student body of ten potential costumes that might not fit with the spirit of the holiday.*

10. Tim Pawlenty’s Presidential Campaign
The reanimated dead have always held a special place in American culture. That’s why zombies and Barbara Walters are still so popular today. But as cool as a zombie costume can be for Halloween, Tim Pawlenty’s presidential aspirations just aren’t such a good idea to bring back to life in costume form. Besides, nobody would even know your name.

Sir Twattingworth and Ross Packingham on a typical Wednesday night

9. Sir Edward Twattingworth III
Unless you’re going to a party with a “heinous” theme, you should probably avoid dressing up as Sir Edward Twattingworth III. As much as we’d love to see our fans don Twattingworth’s characteristic Ed Hardy t-shirt, camouflage parachute pants, gold chains, and bowler hat, we don’t want anybody to get mistaken for an ETHS sophomore and thrown out of a frat basement. If you want to show your support for Sir Twattingworth, we suggest dressing up as his betrothed to be, Pippa Middleton.

8. Dan Persa’s Achilles Tendon
Too soon, asshole. That broken tendon was more heartbreaking to the NU student population than the closing of Pomegranate, and more disappointing than watching a Northwestern secondary in pass protection. Somebody’s going to sack you for a loss like Kain Colter facing the blitz.

The good thing about the Qaddafi regime: nobody was bold enough to make the mistake of offering Almond Joys for Halloween

7. Colonel Qaddafi
This should be a pretty easy costume to cobble together. All you really need is to grow out some poor facial hair (easy enough for most Northwestern students), borrow your grandpa’s old sunglasses, and commit numerous crimes against humanity (start by playing Nickelback at every party you attend). The only drawback: that hipster in the Mubarak costume insisting that he was into Arab regimes before it was cool.

6. Fucksaw
Hilarious as this might still be, nobody wants to party with a dude wearing a dildo on his head. Alternative costume idea: dress as Professor J. Michael Bailey. All this requires is making incendiary comments about the basis of homosexuality, violating numerous ethical standards about psychology research, and showing everybody you meet foot fetish videos.

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

5. Amy Winehouse
For somebody who already looked like a cross between a zombified Helena Bonham Carter and a New Orleans streetwalker while she was living, Ms. Winehouse might not be the best choice for this Halloween. Something about “insensitivity” might come up throughout the course of the night. Unless, of course, you use her death from alcohol poisoning as a public service announcement about the danger of imbibing, in which case your costume might be ill-advised for other reasons.

4. Chet Haze
This might seem brilliant at first, but upon further examination, dressing up as a talentless self-obsessed douche might not be a great idea. Especially as the odds of both you and Chet wearing the same black dago-t to a party are much higher on Halloween.

3. The 1%
This one just hits a little close to home. Seeing as many Northwestern students actually occupy the 1%, it can be kind of hard to protest inequality at an elite institution. Besides, it’s much easier and enjoyable to occupy The Keg than it is to stand outside of Kellogg in the Chicago fall to protest the future I-bankers of America.

2. Herman Cain
Side-stepping the whole potential “blackface” thing, this costume would probably involve a “9-9-9” Plan (i.e. doing 9 shots, getting 9 orders of chicken fries from BK, and urinating on nine university buildings), wearing a Godfather’s Pizza box instead of pants, and running for positions you are under-qualified for.

Partner costume: Casey Anthony before and after

1. Casey Anthony
Tempting, but don’t. Just don’t.