Hook them to the front of your shirt, slide them onto your forehead, leave them in your car. Wearing your sunglasses behind your head makes you look like a tool. If they slip off are you planning to catch them behind your back like some kind of juggler?
It’s almost as bad as wearing your bluetooth headset everywhere you go. The two marks of the douche-bag.
Courtesy of 30 Rock
Thesis Statement: Costumes should be both CREATIVE and RECOGNIZABLE.
There’s a lot of pressure each year in trying to come up with the right Halloween costume. It’s usually last minute, you’d prefer not to have to buy anything, and it has to be awesome. At the very least you have to out-do what you did the year before.
Last Halloween, I crushed it. My Sudoku costume took about an hour to make, cost $5 in materials and literally “took names” as it “kicked ass”. As people did the puzzle throughout the evening they left their signature giving me a hilarious signed postcard of the night.
Two Halloweens ago, I failed. My buddy went as Ali G and I went as a Red Herring. That’s right, I went as a “literary device used in mystery stories to fool the reader and build suspense”. Throughout the night his costume was easily understood and made people happy. My costume did the exact opposite.
Conclusion: Trying to be too clever is selfish. If people are forced to think when they are binge drinking they will resent you. Costumes should be graded on how easily they open up conversations with strangers. That is their function. Let them do their job. It makes partying with weirdos in masks way easier.
We spend all day suppressing our emotions and hiding how we feel that there’s something wonderfully cathartic about letting it all out with a good scare. We love to be terrified. Two of the most popular things in the world are roller coasters and horror films (note: a horror film set on a roller coaster is a license to print money).
Armed with this knowledge, it is obvious you need to have a killer ghost story in your tool belt. Whether it’s told by candle light during a power failure or by campfire light during a corporate retreat, if your story is bone chilling enough, people will be emotionally roused. Emotional arousal is proof of cool.
(note: Try having a funny ending to your story. Lead your audience down a terrifying path only to let them off the hook with a hilarious conclusion. This has the effect of eliciting two emotions. First you freeze the heart with horror and then you use comedy to start it right back up again. It’s almost too easy.)
Whether you’re in a flea market, a car lot, or Mexico, you need to be able to haggle. We all have one friend who isn’t afraid to disagree with an item’s “suggested” cost. That’s the friend we bring with us to the craft fair. We love that friend.
Look, haggling is a sport. It’s not about getting the best price, it’s about playing the game with flair. At the end of a good session, both parties should feel invigorated.
Sure, it can be intimidating, but remember that since the dawn of man our entire economy has been based on this negotiated give and take (spices for livestock, glass beads for Manhattan Island, dinner and a movie for sex). The entire notion of a set listed price is counter to human nature.
P.S.: It’s bad form to start bargaining if you don’t actually intend to purchase, but, if the vendor doesn’t want to play properly, you need to be able to walk away. You’re setting the tone for the next haggler.
Sherlock Holmes, Magnum and the Las Vegas CSI department have two things in common. They are detectives and they are cool.
Everybody loves a sleuth, whether they’re cracking the code of the Devil’s Triangle or helping to find their friend’s car keys. In a world full of secrets, they show us the answers.
We admire them because a good detective is the perfect combination of science, faith and balls: they use cold hard logic, a keen mystical intuition and the recklessness of a rodeo clown. Sweet.
All you need to do is follow the clues.
Every man wishes they had a novelty moustache, if only for a brief moment. They are hilarious and cool.
The problem is, for a variety of reasons, not every man is allowed to wear one. Maybe they work in a conservative accounting firm. Maybe their girlfriend thinks it’s gross. The point is, their upper lip is incarcerated and they look upon a man of moustached freedom with envy and admiration.
If you are a free man, you owe it to your victimized brothers to rock your moustache boldly and allow them to taste freedom vicariously through your whiskers.
Remember: you are doing your fellow man a service. You are a hero. Grab hold of those handlebars and hang on, it’s one hell of a good ride.
As a kid, all you want to do is buy candy. The irony is that once you become an adult and you finally have money, you don’t do it. Some crazy diet/dental-health propaganda gets in the way of you treating yourself and you end up just leaving the 7-11 with a newspaper and a coffee. Tragic. This is why offering candy to a friend is one of the most beautiful and generous things one can do.
Pez dispensers are designed with this very premise in mind. Imagine the delight on your friend’s face when you pull out a package of Gobstoppers or Nerds or Runts.
Coke Bottles? Fuzzy Peaches? Sour Keys? Who can resist?
There is a kid trapped inside us all who’s pissed that we’re not spending 75% of our income on candy like we used to. By sharing your candy, you’re helping to set someone’s inner kid free.
Being a good DJ is not easy. It requires talent, dedication and practice. The good news is, you can be a bad DJ and get almost as much tail.
As a culture, we seem to blindly worship the one who controls the party. This is why you should insist on being placed on some kind of raised platform or pedestal. If you don’t know what you’re doing, at least look busy. Wear a hat or a hood, something you can pull down over your eyes. This will make you seem that much more mysterious. Hunch your shoulders and bend your neck. The measure of a DJ’s greatness is based on how low they stoop down towards their decks.
Even if you’re just playing tracks off your ipod, the DJ is given a special position of respect. If the kids are digging your tunes, you’re golden. Let them all dance in your glow, baby.
