Columns

In complete contrast to John McCain, his opponent’s well-funded, disciplined campaign has barreled through this election with a single motivation: to do and say whatever it takes to get Barack Obama elected.

What used to impress me most about the Chinese was their ability to eat cold stewed vegetables for breakfast, balance a family of four on the handlebars of a bicycle and dance with sharpened swords at the crack of dawn. Pretty intimidating stuff. No wonder former Defense Chief Donald Rumsfeld was rattling his saber at the Chinese. But I've recently returned from China with a new epiphany: The saber rattlers have it all wrong. We have only to fear from the Chinese what we fear in ourselves.

Studying, everyone does it differently, but the majority of people have one thing in common, they listen to music while they study. The accepted notion in studying is that classical music is the most helpful to study to, but what if you don’t listen to classical. Here are a few artists you might want to check out for studying purposes.

About a month ago, a friend told me to check out Blaqk Audio, the side project of vocalist Davey Havok and guitarist Jade Puget of pop-punk mainstay AFI. Before listening to it though, he warned me that it may not be what I expect. Assuming I would hear something along the lines of “Terrible Lie” by Nine Inch Nails, I was surprised when VNV Nation-style industrial music started playing.

French toast is my favorite breakfast food, and it necessitates being done correctly to be worth anything at all. That's where this week's lesson comes in.

A recent knee injury left me on crutches for a few weeks this past month. I am fine now, but my short stint of taking it easy made me realize something our fine university lacks: adequate couch space.

I can't cover all of thanksgiving, but I can provide a few tips... and help you make mashed potatoes better than everyone else.

You see them with denim miniskirts. You see them with flared leg Ambercrombie jeans awkwardly crammed into them. You see them, and you wish you didn't. At least I do.

To spend your money most efficiently, knowing which things to avoid, which to wear, and how to wear them, is the key. I've flipped through all my magazines, done a little investigative research, and put together a list of 5 basic items to update your look for fall/winter 2006, without having to lay out tons of cash on a new wardrobe. By mixing what you already have with a couple of updates, you can have an up-to-the-minute look without putting yourself in debt.

It’s that time of year again, the time when it’s hard to tell whether your summer wear is still appropriate even though it’s warm enough to wear it. That potentially troublesome time when we usually must resort to mixing our Summer and Winter attire into some hybrid appropriate for Fall weather.

Last week, we discussed the importance of dressing with a certain degree of modesty. Proportion is another key to dressing modestly, and to dressing well in general. Here, body type also comes into consideration. You must find a balance between all the elements of the clothes you are wearing. A perfect ensemble that is overdone or over accessorized can wind up looking like a fashion disaster. Something I always try to do is before I leave the house is look in the mirror and remove one item that may be superfluous to my outfit. Be it a necklace, a scarf, a headband - it doesn’t matter. By eliminating excess, your look will be more collected. Your clothes should shine on their own without the need for too many accessories. Otherwise, you should find another outfit and start over completely.

Before I delve into a torrent of more specific articles, I must thoroughly address two main principles of dressing oneself effectively. To generalize all the necessary elements into just two main headings is a task a bit too monstrous for my talents, but I’ve chosen two which I find most applicable to the situation here at Stony Brook. These two highly neglected principles beg to be recognized and understood, the aforementioned being modesty and proportion. This week, modesty will be featured.

There are a lot of truly amazing intellectual minds at this university. Similarly, there are people here whose interests are more social than intellectual. Whether academically motivated or tragically apathetic, there is one common thread running through the diverse mass of people at Stony Brook: the majority of students here don’t seem to care about their appearance. I do a lot of people watching, and I’m astonished at the number of lazily content individuals who shuffle by me in jeans, dirty sneakers and sweatshirts, day after day.

Full Moon Café, aka The Bench, the popular nightclub just a couple steps from campus, has come to a close. I suspect many students will miss this drunken hangout, but I will not. I won’t miss rubbing up against other people’s sweaty bodies. I won’t miss paying $10 to get in. I definitely won’t miss paying $3 for half a liter of Poland Spring Water. One of the worst things about going to Full Moon Café was that the same people doing the DWD- dancing while drunk- were also the same people you would see the next day in English class. This always leads to the same question: Do I say hi or were they too drunk to remember me?

Now that baseball is no longer an Olympic sport, a new tournament has arisen in hopes of being established as the "World Cup" of baseball. The World Baseball Classic, which I'll shorten to "World Classic" in hopes of starting a new catch phrase, started last week and has somewhat erupted as a very popular tournament - world wide and in the United States.