Thumbs Up

Absentee Ballots – Sometimes we gaze around our classes, listening to our fellow students spout idiotic, badly thought-out half-truths, and realize that these people are going to be able to vote.  The kid with the half-shaved head and the nasally voice who preaches moral relativism to a painfully uninterested class is going to have some say in who next governs our nation. While this is bound to bring about fear and trembling in even the most courageous U.S. citizen, it is also a reason to remember our civic duties. While we are trapped on this campus, separated from our homes and any sense of reality, our respective states will send us ballots, allowing us to participate from afar. If you’re feeling too lazy to register for this ballot, you must remember that your vote is the only thing off setting the clove-cigarette-smoking, fingerless glove-wearing faux-intellectuals surrounding you.

Fingerless Gloves – Everyone knows that your fingertips are completely immune to the cold. It has been scientifically proven that no human being has ever had cold fingers. For this reason, fingerless gloves are the most practical sort of glove out there. There’s even an added bonus: everyone will think you’re a trend-setting, totally original hip feller with a really interesting, worth-listening-to view of the world.

Ambiguous Endings – Fools often despise movies, books, and television shows with ambiguous endings. But eventually the well-cultured consumer of consumer culture will develop a taste for the ambiguous, thought-provoking end: the Tony Soprano cut to black, the Tommy Lee Jones dream soliloquy. Sometimes we all know there’s nothing better than a frustrating ending that doesn’t make any bananas.

Thumbs Down

Slipping on the stairs – Minutes after a fresh batch of snow coats campus, you’re walking down the stairs. In your peripheral vision, you think you spot a small gremlin wielding a carving knife. As you turn to confront this evil little creature, your foot flies out from under you and you go careening into the air, spinning like a top, and then you land with a heavy and embarrassing thud. Even then it’s not over. You struggle to stand up, but keep slipping and falling down the stairs on your hands and knees until you’re crawling like a dog, just trying to get back on your feet. “I’m not a circus freak,” you scream, tears dripping down your cheeks, at the passers by who laugh and gawk at your misfortune. “I am a human being.”

The Word Utilize – There is no functional difference between the word “utilize” and the word “use.” 9.5 times out of 10, people who use this word think it makes them look smarter. It doesn’t. It makes them look pretentious and positively gormless.

Featured Image by Steve Ruark – AP Photo