The Official Sherman Ave Drinking Decathlon!

Laurel wreaths optional.

Teams
There will be two teams. Teams may consist of between 1 to 4 people.

Playlist
There shall be a playlist composed specifically for the purpose of this game. It must include no less than eight (8) songs by Adele, five (5) songs by Rihanna, three (3) Outkast singles, and at least seven (7) songs that topped the charts before the last U.S. military intervention in Latin America.

Game Pieces

• Copious amounts of alcohol (at least one (1) case of shitty beer, at least one (1) handle of shitty alcohol) and necessary mixers

• One (1) Sorry! game set

• One (1) Battleship game set

• One (1) puzzle of 100 piece puzzle

• Two (2) laptops with access to www.sporcle.com, www.actstudent.org/sampletest, www.facebook.com, and www.bubblespinner.com</li>

• One (1) deck of cards

• One (1) box of AP United States History flashcards

• One (1) beer pong table with sufficient cups/balls

• One (1) golf ball

• One (1) three (3) iron golf club

PROCEDURE

Opening Ceremonies
Each team will be randomly assigned a country well beforehand. The team must don the colors and/or flag of that nation, obnoxiously blast that nation’s national anthem, and list their nation’s grievances against the United States in chronological order and/or list the top ten STDs contracted by their nation’s citizens, in decreasing order of prevalence. The game shall begin with a ceremonial shot of said shitty alcohol, taken by each player. The shot must go unchased. Each team also has the opportunity to parade its team flag, if they are unreasonably heinous enough to design one.

THE GAMES

1. Bubble Spinner
A pitcher of mixed drink must be made and poured into a shot glass for each player partaking. Each team will nominate one player to serve as its Bubble Spinner delegate. The two opposing delegates will engage in a match of Bubble Spinner. Each time a player advances a level, each player of the opposing team must drink a shot of the aforementioned mixed drink. When a team loses, each player on said team must drink a shot of the mixed drink. The winning team will be awarded ten (10) points.

2. Sorry!
Each player will pour themselves a cup of mixed drink. Each team will control one (1) team on the Sorry! board. Players must take one drink whenever:

• The opposing team takes a game-piece home


Following the Greek tradition of mental and physical excellence (nudity optional)

• There is a “Sorry!” card played (everyone drinks)

• A “power-slide” is implemented (everyone drinks)

• A member of the team says the word “Sorry” (offending team drinks)

• A seven is played (the player who played the seven gets to dole out seven drinks)

After the game has been won, everyone on the losing team must drink. The winning team will be awarded ten (10) points.

3. AP US History
Each player will be paired up with a player on the opposite team. Each player will quiz the player on the other team with fifteen (15) cards. The player must drink each time he/she misses a question. After all is done, the teams will tally the aggregate number of questions missed, and the team with fewer questions missed wins. If there is a tie, the game must be played again, in its entirety, until the tie is settled. The losing team must all drink, and the winning team will be awarded five (5) points for each question by which they’ve beat the opponent.

4. Battleship
Each team will take a side in Battleship. For each miss, one person on the missing team must drink (this person may, and should, change throughout the game). For each hit, one person on the hit team must drink (same goes). At the end of the game, everyone on the losing team must drink. The winning team will be awarded five (5) points for each grid-space by which they’ve beat the opponent.

5. Sporcle
Each player will be paired up with a player on the opposite team. Each opposing pair will randomly select a Sporcle quiz. The losing team of each quiz will have to distribute drinks however they choose among their team; one drink for each point by which they’ve been defeated. After all player pairs have gone, the team with the most aggregate points will win. The losing team drinks, the winning team will be awarded fifteen (15) points for each Sporcle quiz won.

HALFTIME
Each player must shotgun a beer. If a player abstains from shotgunning, his/her team will be penalized ten (10) points.

Uncle Sam wants you!

6. Beer Pong
Two players from each team will nominated as delegates to play a game of beer pong. The team that wins said beer pong game will be awarded twenty (20) points, and will also be awarded an additional five (5) points for each cup remaining on their side at the end of the game. Celeb shots shall be limited to two per team, and only players who can quote a full minute of Mean Girls shall be eligible to take a Celeb Shot. If the game results in overtime, the winning team only will be awarded twenty (20) points.

7. Flip Cup
The two teams will play a best of five (5) tournament of flip cup. The winning team will be awarded twenty (20) points. If a team wins in four (4) games, they will be awarded twenty-five (25) points, and if a team wins in three (3) games, they will be awarded thirty (30) points. Throughout the competition, the two teams must debate each other regarding one of four potential topics: partial-birth abortion, affirmative action, the causes and consequences of the Arab Spring, or the sexual capacity of President Morty Schapiro.

8. Facebook
Each team will nominate a delegate to compete in Facebook. Players will be awarded points for the following:

• Poke five (5) friends from high school (five [5] points overall)

• Comment “8==D” on two (2) statuses (five [5] points overall)

• Challenge one (1) friend of Asian descent to a game of Words with Friends (five [5] points overall)

• Post two (2) statuses, each quoting a song from Katy Perry or Adele in all caps (five [5] points overall)

• Accept all friend requests that have been ignored thus far (one [1] point per friending)

• Post four (4) pictures of the teammate winking onto the walls of any of their Facebook friends who are 40 years old or older (four [4] points overall)

9. Kings
All players must partake in one (1) game of Kings. Whichever teams breaks the circle will be penalized fifteen (15) points. Whichever team opens the beer can must go up to the roof and try to hit a Northwestern landmark with a golf ball using a three (3) iron. The team whose delegate successfully strikes the landmark will be awarded fifteen (15) points, but a failure to hit the landmark will result in a five (5) point deduction.

Bonus points for disappointing your parents

10. ACT Sample Test
A subject (Reading, Science, Math, or English) will be randomly selected. Each player will have to do one set/passage. A strict time limit must be adhered to (15 minutes each for English, 12 minutes each for Math, 10 minutes each for Reading, 5 minutes each for Science). After all players have completed their portion of the test, the scores will be totaled up, and the winning team will be awarded five (5) points for each question by which they’ve beat the opponent. A team that scores higher than the projected NU average score will be awarded two (2) points for each question they answer above the projected results, but a team that scores lower than the projected NU average score will be deducted one (1) point for each question they answer below the projected results.

CLOSING CEREMONIES
At this point, the score must be totaled. The losing team will have a chance to come back and gain one hundred (100) points, if they can complete the 100-piece puzzle in the amount of time it takes the winning team to walk to BK, eat something (documentation required), and return. If the losing team completes the puzzle by the time the winning team returns, the losing team will be awarded one hundred (100) points.

If, somehow, the teams have equal points at the end of all ten events, each player must take one shot after toasting “All men are created equal.” All players will then proceed to skinny dip in Lake Michigan.

–Ross Packingham (with Evander Jones)

10 Things You Should Appreciate More Than You Do Right Now

As a nonsarcastic person who is truly grateful for all that is sacred and pure in the world, I have compiled an anthology of joyous occurrences in our day-to-day lives for which we should occasionally praise the Gods Of Modern Innovation. Remember: your life could always be worse.

Unfortunately, walking through a cloud of febreeze is not an adequate substitute for doing one's laundry

1. Antibacterials
Judging from the state of your bedroom/bathroom/kitchen, you should be making blood sacrifices to Alexander Fleming’s ghost in thanks for saving your life from everything that’s been lurking in the dark crevices of your home since three months after the last time you cleaned it (whenever that was). If it wasn’t for Penicillin and Febreeze, 1 out of every 3 Northwestern students would have died after moving out of the dorms.* So as long as your housemates don’t find out that the lovestains on the couch probably pose more of a public health threat than Miley Cyrus’s bubonic-plague-infected pubic lice, you’re in the clear to keep up the sanitation substitution.

2. Drunk Sex
Not only are you getting some (however mediocre it may be), you have an excuse for absolutely anything that goes wrong: STDs, ugly partners, impotence, birth control malfunction, commitment, name amnesia, or being a shitty lay.

3. You’re Not a Music Major
Do you want fries with that?

4. Man Nipples
They’re useless and goofy-looking, but amusing all the same. Kind of like Furby.

A Motherfucker

5. Motherfuckers
If it weren’t for people unjustly treating you like shit, you’d have nothing to complain about. How could you play the martyr if that douchetard hadn’t cut you in line at Starbucks this morning? It took a whole extra five minutes to order your lowfat caramel soy frappalatte, and by the time you got home you’d missed the first five minutes of Gossip Girl, and everyone knows if you miss the first five minutes you might as well have missed the whole goddamn show.

6. Motherfuckers Who Have to Wait on You
Next time the almost-middle-aged hippie taking your order at BK starts snarking, put on your best holier-than-thou attitude and consider yourself well off. Nothing will make you appreciate life more than knowing that an asshole observably nearby is significantly unhappier than you, and there’s only a 1 in 17 chance of improving their pathetic present situation.** They will be dealing with drunk Evanston kids at 2 AM for the rest of their lives. Schadenfreude, bitches.

7. Prostitutes
You’ll never be that slutty. See previous sentence.

8. Lady Gaga
Most of the time, she’s doing her best to make you feel normal. But then there was the night you needed fashion inspiration for your pre-Rocky Horror shopping trip, and Johnny Depp wasn’t going to cut it.

9. You’re Not Anne Frank.

Finish your hot cookie bar! There are starving children in Somalia.

10. The Freshman Fifteen
To you, “Ethiopian cuisine” means skipping the dining hall buffets for Addis Ababa, not half an ounce of stale flatbread and a leaf of rotten cabbage with the occasional Vitamin Beetle protein supplement. Struggling with your muffin top is infinitely better than struggling out of the dumpster behind your local Denny’s. Then again, your weight problems could also be correlated to your NU-student-loan-related inability to afford anything but the McDonald’s dollar menu, in which case, there’s always prostitution. See #7.

Now zip up your pants, you goddamn ego masturbator, and get back to your finals. They’re the only thing you have left to bitch about.

—————————————————————————————————————-
*2010 study by John Michael Bailey.
**2011 study by John Michael Bailey.

Hate a Random Country: France

A Frenchman overcoming his existential ennui with wine, bread, and unbridled douchiness.

Have you ever had your testicles sawed off with a rusty butter knife at a Nickelback concert? Although that may sound like the worst possible fate one could suffer, there are over 60 million people in the world who suffer a fate much worse. I’m not talking about AIDS victims, I’m not talking about human rights violations – I’m not even talking about Cubs fans. I’m referring, of course, to the French. Those elitist semensicles are the physical embodiment of everything heinous about the world, which is a substantial claim, given that they inhabit the same planet as other notorious twatbarrels like Iceland and New Zealand.

I’d like to begin this exposè by clarifying one crucial point: The French did not help us to gain our independence. “Historians” may assert that the French came to our “rescue” in “boats,” but we all know that those were just patriotic pirates mistaken for Frenchmen because of their tragic speech impediments.

Don't be fooled by the buxom and idyllic French Lady Liberty

Now, where was I? Oh that’s right – I was talking about how France is the most pitiful heap of Le Scrotum upon which humanity ever laid its sorrowful eyes. The first point of scrutiny is their flag, which boasts the triumphant red, white, and blue color combination, just like the United States. Don’t be fooled, though – while the American flag’s colors stand respectively for valor, purity, and justice, the French flag is merely a white flag of surrender with red and blue bars symbolizing red wine and bleu cheese.

You can't sit with us! That's the second time this week you've worn pantaloons!

France’s history of “leadership” is also notably heinous. Ranging from Louis XIV (who held the title of “Biggest P-tripper” for almost 300 years until Sherman Ave was created) to Nicolas Sarkozy (the only attendant of the G20 summit who could easily double as a cast member on Jersey Shore), the presidency and monarchy of France were never lucky enough to see any George Washingtons or Andrew Jacksons take office. The most successful leader they had was Napoleon, who can only be compared to an atrocious illegitimate lovechild of Danny DeVito and Jim Cramer. Napoleon accomplished some things as a leader, but all of his achievements are effectively canceled out by the fact that his men killed Prince Bolkonsky. Fucker.

To be fair, it was the first French combat victory in quite a long time.

Another hilariously sad aspect of France is its athletic culture. Like most nations that are absolutely rancid, France’s national sport is soccer, or “football,” as known by Brits and hipsters. One of my personal favorite highlights in France’s history is the national team’s 17-1 loss to Denmark in 1908. I don’t think there’s really too much more I need to say here – I’ll just humbly point out how demoralizing it must be to get clobbered by a country whose Queen fucked her brother-in-law. However, an even more humiliating event in the team’s history happened in the 2006 World Cup Final, when Zinedine Zidane – someone who stands out as a douchegargler even among the French populace – found it necessary to blatantly headbutt a member of the opposing Italian team. And then they lost! That’s like being ass-raped and still getting pregnant. Better yet, when the French national team qualified for the 2010 World Cup, they didn’t even make it to the primary elimination round; they were bested by the national teams of Mexico, South Africa, and – I shit you not – Uruguay. That was certainly a gargantuan blow to their ego, but thankfully they have enough ego in just their waxed mustaches that it didn’t do any permanent damage.

Some pansy French guy, probably after finding out how fucking lame the 5th Republic is or something

If you’re looking for more reasons why France is innately inferior, the proof is in the crêpes. Remember that time we landed at Normandy and showed the Nazis that they were not(sy) going to win World War II, while the French were too busy cultivating their fucking grapes? Remember that time the French thought they were going to win the 4×100 swimming relay in the 2008 Summer Olympics, and then American bamf-stick Jason Lezak came from behind like he was Kobe Bryant (not a basketball reference)? Remember that time an American athlete with a trunk only half-full of junk (or half-empty, for all you private-part pessimists) went into France and beat them at their own sport 7 times in a row? Because I remember. So, to all Frenchmen and Frenchwomen (often a difficult distinction to make), I leave you with this last thought: Next time your flagrant self-centeredness convinces you that you’re the best country in the world, you can escargot fuck yourself.