Features
October 20, 2011 The Observer
Spice Up Your Trick-or-Treating This Halloween By David Wall Staff Writer
It’s mid-October and you still don’t know what to wear for Halloween? It’s hard to come up with a costume, because, let’s face it: Halloween is all about showing off how creative and fun you can be. Good costumes make you appear as fun-loving and witty, while weak costumes can make you seem bland or boring. There’s a lot of pressure. There are so many things to consider. Will this costume help me stand out? Will people like it? Will it make me appealing to that girl/guy I’ve been trying to get with all semester? These are all very important questions, yet difficult to address. 1.Dress up as your favorite movie character. This one isn’t very original, but it’s a safe option, and people will be able to recognize you right away; just don’t get too obscure with your character (unless you’re a hipster, of course). There won’t be a lot of explaining to do, which is nice. After you tell someone that you are Rocky Balboa, Kung-Fu Panda or the darker Natalie Portman from “Black Swan,” then no more needs to be said. It can be an instant topic of conversation and nice icebreaker. If people haven’t heard of the movie you picked or don’t like that movie, then don’t talk to them. It’s probably not worth it anyway. 2.A board game piece or character. This one is also pretty easy to do, but more clever than a movie character. Just about everyone played board games when they were a kid, but that was long enough ago that the idea won’t occur to most people. Who wouldn’t love it if you showed up to a party as the Monopoly man or Colonel Mustard or Miss Scarlet from “Clue”? You’ll tap into everyone’s inner child as well as spark some nostalgic conversation. 3. An Apple-related product . This will probably be overdone this Halloween in honor of Steve Jobs, but it’s still a good idea for a costume. Go as an iPod or even something as
Courtesy of Fox search light pictures (left); Courtesy of The Children’s Television Workshop (Right)/MCT
For an easy Halloween costume option, dress as someone from a movie. For something more unique, try something quirky like Occupy Sesame Street.
abstract as Safari. This idea will get you noticed, because who doesn’t like Apple? Just don’t go to any PC exclusive parties (in NYC, there’s probably not much to worry about). 4.Go as Occupy Wall Street. Dress up as a hippie or even a Wall Street fat cat. Granted, the protesters have some pretty great costumes of their own, so maybe just lift their ideas? It could be a good move. This idea doesn’t have to be so one dimensional either; you could go as the economy (a beat up businessman/worker) or anything else related to the topic. If you’re into politics you can use this as a sort of forum for your own interests. Like-minded people will appreciate that-- just be prepared for fewer treats in the bag if you promote your ideals too strongly.
5. Go as a contradiction. This has the potential to be very original and people are sure to love it. Go as a rat princess or a yeti in a bathing suit. Dress as anything you can think of that just really doesn’t make sense. It’s easy: find two things that don’t fit with each other and put them together. People will appreciate the wit and you’ll get plenty of compliments. 6. Go as an everyday item. This one is pretty easy and has a homemade feel, which is always a bonus in the costume world. Try the functional human marker: put a sponge on your head, soak it in paint, and head-butt things to leave your mark. Wrap yourself in something and slap on a Crayola logo to make the costume complete. Head-butting
people is risky, so it might be best to try this particular idea with a buddy. Have your buddy dress up as a note pad, and write all over them. Try anything you find on your desk and try to replicate it in a costume. Someone will be impressed. 7. Go as Occupy Sesame Street. This one is a popular Internet meme, so if you go as it you might not get points for being original, but at least you’ll be easily recognizable. Go as the impoverished Oscar the Grouch or a (money) counting Dracula. 8. Go as wordplay. This one will get you points for being clever, but it might receive the same groans that spoken puns get. Try some “animal magnetism” and cover yourself in plush figurines, or
follow “The Office” and dress up like Facebook by making a book helmet. When people ask you what you are, you’ll get a good, “Oh, I get it.” And then they might just walk away, but at least you’ll create some interest, and maybe someone will stick around if your idea is particularly clever.
10.Go as a person in a famous
painting. This one is also easy, but not particularly popular, which means you’ll definitely stand out. If you go as Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” or Edvard Munch’s “Scream,” people will recognize you right away, and if that person is into art they will definitely try and talk to you. This works especially well if you’re trying to get with an art history major.
Click and tell
A Second Date and One Drink In the Ninth Ring of Hell By Diana Kokoszka Staff Writer
When I started writing about my online dates, I made it a rule to only discuss my very first date with each guy, and none after that. Partially because of that overused ’90s movie plot in which a girl finds out about a secret condition to her relationship, like the guy placed a bet on her or was paid off to take her out. If I ended up actually liking any of these guys, I’d rather not live out the tail end of these cinematic treasures and run after anyone yelling “but it was just an article!” Until this point, it has been particularly easy to stick to my guns because I just wasn’t getting any callbacks for a second date. Having explained my good intentions, I will proceed to discuss my first second-date for the sole reason that I hope to never see him again. If you’ve been a devoted fan of my tactless retellings of dates good and bad, you might remember “The Canadian,” better described as the hot high-fiver (Observer Issue 9). If you managed to fall upon this article by chance on your way over to the sports section, then I will catch you up by saying it was an awkward, platonicfeeling date that ended with a little more chemistry than it began with. Texting me the day after our first
meeting, he told me that he had a “good time”. This defies everything I’ve been told about “waiting a few days” and playing hard-to-get, but I’ll give the guy ten points for skipping the bullshit. We make plans for the upcoming weekend, and I pick a lounge-y Thai place with ten different types of mojitos. We arrange to meet at 9, and I have shamelessly doublebooked myself to meet friends later in the night, so I hope he’s not feeling extra chatty. I get to the bar a little early to scope out the terrain. In my dating adventures I have found that it’s always preferable to have home field advantage. On a first date you want to avoid that awful deer-in-headlights moment where you scan the room for someone that looks vaguely like their photo, maybe without the red cup in his hand or the drooping eyelids. Even on a second date I found myself second-guessing my memory of the Canadian and begin staring down every male that walks into the bar. 9 a.m. passes without him. I had set my purse down on the next bar stool to save my date a seat, but as I look down now it’s just mocking me. 10 a.m. comes and the bartender starts eyeing my drink, which I’ve been nursing since I got there, as I try to stretch the last few gulps into tiny sips until he arrives.
Photo Illustration by Mario Weddell/The Observer
Waiting an hour and a half for a date is a deal breaker, especially when he has a poor excuse.
At 10:30 he walks in. “Sorry, my thing I had, it ran late.” That’s it? You weren’t resuscitating an old woman that collapsed on the sidewalk en route to our date? You weren’t signaled by Gotham officials to fight villains as your alter ego, Batman? Nope, just a nondescript “thing” that he “had”, well you know, it just
“ran late.” For some reason I am feeling merciful, so I restrain myself from giving him an earful of my well-practiced profanity and accept his offer to buy me a drink as a step towards rectifying his first rate screw-up. This mysterious “thing” he spoke of, must have involved physical activity because he is famished and
orders an appetizer at the bar. I am not particularly hungry, but the Canadian raves about his food and says, “you have to try this,” as he loads up a fork. I open my mouth to receive the spicy Thai goodness and instead taste…nothing? He put the fork in his own mouth and it is clear that he had no intention of feeding me a bite of his food. He does, however glance over at me just in time to catch me with my mouth hanging open. Ouch. Our conversation never makes it past polite chit-chat and I reach for some standard night-ending lines. “Oh man, it’s getting late” is hard to pull off at 11:30, but I’ll be damned if I don’t try. He doesn’t seem to get the hint, and instead gets us another round. Great, he’s bribing me into hanging out with him. He’s attractive and loose with his wallet, but I’m not into him. I take a few sips of the drink while I plan my escape route, and he says, “I bet that I can finish my drink faster than you can,” and I look around wondering when this place turned into a frat house. Did I just get challenged to a chugging contest? And just like that, I have reached my douchebag threshold. I push my drink away and explain to him my elaborate excuse for ending this water-boarding session of a date: “Sorry but I’ve got this thing I need to get to.”