Barbarians At The Gates

A fine day to you, Kind Followers of the Absurd.

My third year in university brought about considerable change.  By then we were becoming acutely sensitive to the near sub-human levels of abuse we were subjecting ourselves to while living in residence.  The wasted lifestyle, increasingly nasty conditions and the introduction of human toxins which upset the delicate, rain forest-like ecosystem of our floor's interpersonal dynamics gave us plenty of motivation to ponder living  off-campus.

The straw that broke the camel's back was our last floor party which was the saddest bacchanalian spectacle in recorded history.  We weren't getting along with the newer students on the floor and many of them openly invited the biggest parade of bimbos, mutants, strangers and freaks ever assembled at one time in one place.  I actually have video of this debacle and can vouch for just how pathetic it was.

Here are some of the "highlights":

• Our self-appointed cameraman asks a girl "Hey!  Who are you?" and she gamely replies: "Uh, I dunno."
• A passed out frosh in the common room "comes to" just long enough to vouch that he's "hammered".  When asked by our intrepid photojournalist for any advice for the viewing public he espouses the ironic philosophy "drink beer, get drunk", makes the request "don't touch me and I'll me fine", clutches his head and then promptly passes out again.
• One drunk girl grabs a diminutive friend and gloats "Look!  I'm eighteen, she's nineteen and I'm taller than her!"  Hooray for small victories!
• A well-known purveyor of illicit substances at the time passes by, sees the camera and covers the lens like he's Tony Montana.
• In a "methinks thou dost protest too much" moment an otherwise attractive Asian girl keeps repeating "Hi, I'm Tai!  I'm drunk!" every time the camera comes remotely close to her.
• Our correspondent keeps doggedly asking "WHO THE HELL ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE?!" but at no point does he receive a coherent reply.  
• An admittedly good-looking, black football player who had the misfortune of being stuck on our floor with a bunch of crazy crackers, recoils from the obvious patronage coming from a pack of overheated varsity penis holsters, makes a disparaging remark about being forced to walk amongst "mere mortals", makes faces to the camera to communicate his Herculean disgust and then promptly flees into the elevator.  
• The height-discriminatory drunk chick finds two friends who's proportions are more to her liking, one of whom is clearly using a wall to keep herself upright.   
• The aforementioned passed-out frosh revives just long enough to use the common-room's garbage can to vent the toxins from his body, narrowly avoiding a sure case of alcohol poisoning.  The camera man helpfully points out "What were you saying about beer earlier?" but all the red-faced subject can do is pant, sweat and sway in place.  The girl who was using the wall to stay upright earlier lurches into the scene like Bambi on ice and clutches at  him, oblivious to the fact that the he reeks like the hoppy contents of an overripe compost heap.  She excitedly asks him "Hey!  Did you just puke?" and then follows this up with an incongruously celebratory "WOO!  HOO!"  The shot ends abruptly when "Barfy McYaksalot" desperately staggers through the crowd of deviant vomit voyeurs while muttering "A'ight guys, I just gotta...HURRRK!!!"
• The documentarian begins to show a disturbing tendency to zoom in on the face of a girl who resembles a pre-"What Not To Wear" intervention Minnie Mouse.
• The camera is promptly stolen by "Minnie" who proceeds to capture the parade of human flotsam with all the verve and passion of an "Al Jazeera" correspondent.  
• As the camera passes a clutch of inebriated underclassmen an inexplicable cheer goes up in honor of Bathurst, New Brunswick.  WTF??!!
• An ownerless room has obviously been annexed by a platoon of girls who alternately dance wantonly, hide behind pillows or attempt to keep upright by holding their over-sized heads in their hands.  One of them demands "WHO OWNS THAT VIDEO CAMERA?" prompting "Minnie" to suspect that her cover as a member of the press core might be blown.  She attempts to flee the room but is interdicted by a girl who's fetish is clearly to dance with other girls carrying video cameras.
• Amidst repeated offers for "Beer?  Beer?  Beer?  Beer? Beer?  Beer?  Beer?  Beer? Beer?  Beer?  Beer?  Beer? Beer?  Beer?  Beer?  Beer?" "Minnie" attempts to introduce herself to the floor's resident preppie/fashion plate/douchebag who facetiously enthuses "Oh, wow!  You're 'Minnie'?  THE 'Minnie'?  Oh, wow.  I never met you before."   In the face of his naked sarcasm 'Minnie' offers up a scorned and awkward "Uh, okay" before retreating from the room.  
• Our original cameraman recovers the implement of damnation and performs one last gratuitous close up on 'Minnie'.  He asks her "any last words?" and when she replies "Sex.  That's all I wanted" it's clearly his turn to exit stage right without any ado.
• He promptly bumps into a particularly honest observer who sounds like a Greek chorus of bitterness.  All the while the camera is on him he mutters over and over again: "F#@%&*^ mutants!  MUTANTS!  MUTANTS!  MUTANTS!  I'm pissed off!"               
• A perfect example of this materializes mere seconds later when one of our more infantile frosh begins an impromptu pose down while assuring us that "CAPERS", do, in fact,  "RULE." 
• Our cameraman catches one of the rare few legitimately attractive, intelligent and sober girls at the party and instigates a stilted conversation as to whether or not he was present downtown the previous night.  A rival suitor barges in, and asks her awkwardly "ARE YOU DRUNK YET?"  and when she replies "Uh, no" he wittily retorts "I KNEW THAT!  I CAN TELL BY YOUR EYES!  THIS TIME I CAN!"  The camera abruptly shuts off presumably so both men can butt heads and compare penis sizes in a vain effort to curry the favors of a girl who is scarcely aware that either of them exist.
• A clearly wasted foreign frosh can only manage an Eastern Bloc-style drunken soccer cheer when the camera passes by.  He grabs a clearly unimpressed upperclassman for a "picture" yelling "HEEEEAAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!"  in a drone that makes the vuvuzela sound appealing.  Just as the painful spectacle ends a considerably cooler and infinitely more respected freshman floor-mate rounds the corner and gives the camera the finger as a clear sign of contempt.  Gold, Jerry, gold!
• Back in the annexed room the clutch of drunken dancers have regrettably been inspired by Madonna to "Express Themselves", apparently by  gyrating into the camera's unblinking lens.      
• An oval-faced girl with horrendous teeth seems impressed both by the presence of a video camera and the man who wields it.  She blurts out "WOW!" as she turns around to face him, then gives our intrepid documentarian a creepy, leering full-body stare-down, her eyes lingering uncomfortably around the vicinity of his crotch.  She demands his name while dislodging what appears to be popcorn kernels from between her teeth with her tongue.  He gives his name like a serf in a gulag and then shoves her to the side to see what's going on in the room beyond.  The clearly pained occupant grimaces mutely either as symptom of intoxication or the desire to crawl away and die. 
• Hordes of drunken goons are shown leaving the wake, er...party in droves, clearly exceeding the safety limit of the elevators in a mindless drive to get downtown where they can properly exhibit themselves as a**holes in a public venue.  They threaten "Hey, WE'RE leaving, so this party is officially over!" but the cameraman is too polite to break it to them that there never was a party to begin with.  
• Three girls clearly with the patience of saints are enduring a screening of video footage we took on our recent "Spring Break" to the colorful and tropical destination of St. John's, Newfoundland.  The cameraman continues to torture the girls with extreme closeups while the host threatens to subject them to another "hour-and-a-half to two hours" of additional video footage.  The crushing gulf of silence that results is finally alleviated when one girl notices another girl's new watch and everyone in the room proceeds to coo over it until the scene mercifully ends.
• A reveler attempts to yell into the camera but head butts it instead.  He seems unfazed by the blunt skull trauma but the camera's damage deposit is now in question.
• The bitter attendee is spotted again, still muttering his mantra of  "F#@%&*^ mutants!  They're all f#$@%^& mutants!"             
• An unidentified stranger is spotted using the unsupervised suite phone, presumably racking up a massive phone bill by drunk-dialing tribes people in Somalia. 
• When prompted for comments, one of our funniest "Cubans" er,...Bermudians on the floor replies "Lick My Arse!" with a perfectly straight face.  It could very well be the highlight of this entire sad reel.
• The dulcet strains of yet another Iron Curtain cheer of "HEEEEEAAAAAAAAYYYY!" can be heard as our sloshed Slav demands that the cameraman "take a picture" of another unimpressed upperclassmen.  They are shown together in the next shot but for the second time that night, our subject is blissfully unaware that he's being made fun of with a surreptitious and clandestine hand gesture.   
• Another friend is spotted with an empty mug the size of a small child.  He hefts it skyward with the indication that it once contained "Good Medicine".  
• Another revered member of the football team is seen frantically trying to tune in some blurry television channels in the common room, seemingly oblivious to the surrounding din, chaos and miasma.  All the while the camera holder grills him for sound bites like he's Adolf Eichmann.  All he can do is laugh, try and dismiss him with a wave of the hand and chuckle about how "us crazy white folks gotta quit it."      
• In an even more inexplicable scene, three bona-fide hotties are in my room head-banging to the strains of "She Sells Sanctuary" by The Cult while watching a hockey game.  I think that it goes without saying that I got absolutely no action from any of these girls at any point in time during this disastrous evening (or any other evening for that matter).  

-->
Needless to say that this was all the motivation we needed to get the f#@& out of Dodge.

EPIC:  


FAIL: WTF?!?  Seriously, can someone explain this s#^! to me? 
    

"It's a Different World" = Understatement

Grab your room key and orientation kit, frosh...er, Diligent Reader, it's time to go "Back To School", Rodney Dangerfield-style, yo!

I'm still amazed by how much living we packed into those intense two years while living on the 18'th floor of the Loyola Building at St. Mary's University.  When you spend two full years waking up every morning not having a clue as to what's going to happen on any given day it kinda makes life in the inevitable "real world" seem kinda mundane in comparison.

For a kid who was terrified of strangers, residence was the best shock therapy money could buy.  But almost to a fault.  It was like taking someone diagnosed with hydrophobia and acrophobia up into a helicopter and pushing them out the door into Great Slave Lake.  And they're wearing an anvil pendant.  Not a pendant celebrating the Canadian metal band "Anvil", I'm talking about a pendant with an actual real-sized anvil attached to it. 'Sho'nuff. 

Here are just a few of my recollections coupled with some sage advice gleaned from living in residence.  It's been heavily edited to spare the innocent and whatever the polar opposite of innocent might be:

•  While being packed in like lemmings with twenty-five other dudes you quickly lose any tolerance for crap music.  To this day I still want Squeeze, Steve Miller and Vanilla Ice all dead.
• It's my understanding that "froshing" or "hazing" new students has become a thing of the past in this era of "1 (800) SUE-4-CASH", which is a bit of a shame.  If you go through something like that with a bunch of other guys you end up feeling as if you've done a tour of Da Nang together.  In our case it wasn't so bad anyway.  It only involved wearing bedsheets, drinking blindness-inducing cheap wine and being forced to play terrible dexterity games.  There were no acts of anal/grape transportation or sheep buggery but one dude did end up dancing on top of a table in the cafeteria singing "Joy and Pain" for what it's worth. 
• Any first-year student stupid enough to talk about "Daddy's yacht", drop a 40 ouncer of rum, habitually lick people, or throw the shoes of upperclassmen into a garbage can ran the risk of being branded with the dreaded "permafrosh" label, meaning you're status of being the scum of the earth would likely carry over into the following year.  Curiously some people who were particularly soft in the head didn't seem to care about this...
• Have you ever watched any iteration of the "Degrassi" series?  If so, do you think the shows are kinda lame because the writer's idea of character development is just saddling every person with some sort of crippling hang-up, addiction, disease, mental disorder or psychosis?  Well, I'm here to tell you that this is actually based more on reality than you will ever know.
• You know you've arrived as a Frosh in residence when you're civilian self is destroyed and then reborn with a nickname.  Until this occurs you are essentially a non-entity.  For the record I had three: Pretty-Boy (kinda obvious), Conan (ironic) and Serge (self-inflicted).  To this day, I still answer to Pretty-Boy.  In fact, I'm thinking of actually making it my real legal name.  Whataya think?
• Someone with a Howie Mandel-like fear of germs would likely commit ritual seppuku within five minutes of moving into residence.  The flip side is, your immune system will become stronger than Wolverine's if you manage to survive your first year.  I remember being unable to locate our garbage can in the common room one day because it was buried under a mound of trash in the corner.  It was like a friggin' snowdrift.  Riding the elevators, it was important never to have physical contact with the elevator buttons for fear of contracting a pox that made cholera look like hay fever.  It was critical to bring a pencil along with you wherever you went since the elevator buttons could read the contact of pencil's eraser tip better than any part of a plastic stick pen.  Standard procedure then dictated that you burn the pencil. 
• Eventually the common room morphed into a trophy room designed to house a motley assortment of ill-begotten booty procured during late-night stumblings back from downtown.  By the time Christmas exams rolled around, the place looked like the nest of some giant magpie.  It was filled with traffic cones, welcome mats, construction site signs, decaying pumpkins, newspaper vending machines and *Sweet Jesus* carpet taken from the front steps of a Buddhist temple.  Needless to say some of these people have earned themselves a lifetime of very bad karma.  You know who you are. 
• When your hand was forced by necessity, laundry was always a tedious and expensive affair for destitute students.  The machines ran on tickets which you could purchase at the security desk for about 50 cents a pop. Some people would try to "stick it to the man" by purchasing one ticket, putting a long multi-layer strip of tape on the end, inserting it into the machine, and then pulling it back with the tape just as the washer or dryer activated.  The success rate was about 8% but on those rare times when it worked you felt like Malcolm Friggin' X.  Often you wouldn't be able to pull the ticket out in time, it would feed through and then break the machine since they were incapable of processing a  four-foot long trail of tape through it's delicate inner workings.  
• Pets were never a good idea in residence, especially a ferret.  Barely domesticated as it is, ferrets "go native" in a residence environment within a span of about twenty minutes.  Often you'd catch a glimpse of the oft-uncaged beast running down the hallway with half of a pizza slice in it's mouth.  Then you'd wake up next morning and find the bloated creature curled up asleep in your sock drawer using a piece of crust for a pillow.  And as if pranks weren't enough to worry about, often you'd return to your unattended room only to find that the l'il jeezler has left a special "surprise" for you in the corner.  This happened so often to me that one day I got pissed off, located a stiff piece of cardboard, scraped up the "present" and then flicked it onto the owner's door.  A week later the owner gave the ferret away to our floor's long-suffering but very nurturing maid.    
• The Bermudians that lived on the floor got a lot of mileage out of calling us Americans until we started to refer to them as "Cubans" and that kinda stopped.    
• Trips downtown were often made between Wednesday and Saturday night inclusively (assuming you had enough scratch and your liver could take the abuse). Friday's were generally avoided since that night downtown was often rife with embarrassing, crusty, working-class older farts who were looking to blow of some steam after a long work week.  And now I'm one of those people.  How sad is that?
• We always tried to gravitate to clubs where half our floor-mates and their friends worked.  Have you ever been standing in a lineup to get into a bar in February weather and some jack-holes just bomb by, cut the lineup and walk right in?  Well, don't knock it 'til you've tried it, pal...
• Scientists maintain that the lowest form of life is the one-celled amoeba.  I insist that it's actually organ donors who steal tips off bars to pay for drinks.  Pardon me while I update my "Douchebag" list...
• Knowing all the bartenders also has it's perks when twenty-thousand people are all trying to get drinks at the south end of "Happy Hour".  Being able to signal your intent from twelve people back with a simple hand gesture only to have the corresponding amount of tasty beverages waiting for you when you got up to the bar was a pretty sweet peach.  
• Having said that, it was also wise to bounce around to as many "Happy-Hour" events that local clubs could provide.  Conversely, it was always prudent to avoid places where knives were used to settle disputes.  It's also important to keep in mind that if a club is so packed with people that they feel the need to substitute bathroom floors, sinks and garbage cans for urinals you're likely much safer at a "Great White" concert.   
•  It's not advisable that shots are the last drinks of the evening, especially if they sound like snippets of color commentary that Joe Rogan might use during a UFC event . ("Yeah, could I get a 'T.K.O.', a 'Brain Hemorrhage' a 'Sh** Disturber' and a 'Rape Choke'?  Thanks!")   And, for the record, three "Snakebites" in a row is never advisable.    
• If a cop car pulls over to the side of the road and and asks where you're going with two chairs stolen from a frat house party make sure that when you tell them "St. Mary's University" you're actually going in the right direction.  It wasn't me, by the way.  I'll be saying that a lot, so get used to it.
• Which reminds me, a friend of mind considered the drunk tank to be "a great place to meet colorful characters".  That is, until they started to fine him $50.00 after his third trip in.   
• Try to avoid going downtown with what I call "trouble magnets".  Especially insidious are those friends of yours that are all sweetness and light and then turn into Kiefer Sutherland just as soon as they've had a few.  One dude we'd go out with had a nasty predilection for walking on the tops of parked cars instead of using the sidewalk.  Just out of the blue.  When sober, he was the meekest, nicest guy on the planet.  "Hey, Jimbo!  Remember last night when you stuck your entire arm up that elephant's a**?  No?  Ooookay, then."
•  After all the bars have shut down, buy a slice at Pizza Corner, find a good seat along the wall and watch the fights begin.  Bonus points if someone gets put the through "King of Donair's" plate glass window.  Remember: no wagering!   
• Stick around when someone invariably makes the boast: "Pfffft!  I don't know what the big deal is with tequila!"  Check back in a few hours to gloat when you find them face down on the bathroom floor in a puddle of their own filth.
• Remember: cheap food is the best food.  At the start of the year it's imperative that you pick the most inexpensive meal plan possible.  You will run out of points, but at the end of the year, students with excess points will start dumping them at half-value.  Cha-CHING!   
• The cafeteria's meals were often made by people who couldn't successfully get into a can of "Spaghetti-O's" let alone make a fresh, tasty, nutritious meal.  There's a reason why "deep-fried vegetables" sounds like an oxymoron, moron!  Pub food, takeout and frozen dinners purchased at the in-house "Mini Mart" (which you can heat up to a vaguely edible state with your illegal but ever-so-handy in-room hot pot or toaster oven) will be indispensable.  Expect a revolving diet of clubhouse sandwiches, chicken fingers, wings, burgers, fries, Kraft Dinner, Mr. Noodles, steaks, pizza and donairs.  Actually, if not for the "Midtown Tavern" I likely would have starved to death in my first year.   
• In the evenings the cafeteria would convert into the "Coffee House" and start to serve the aforementioned pub grub instead of aborted attempts at liver and onions.  We went to the "Coffee House" pretty much every night to stay alive but not once did I actually see someone get coffee.  Weird...
• Take advantage of Spring Breaks by road-tripping to exotic locations like Bangor, Maine (?) and St. John's, Newfoundland (!?!).  Amuse yourselves and other drivers you pass on the highway by wearing matching Viking helmets and beating each other with foam-covered baseball bats.  Try not to cause anyone to drive off the road as they gawk at you.  
• Drive off-campus students completely bat-s#!^ insane with jealousy by going to class in January wearing flip-flops, a thong and a tank top.
• "You say we're making too much noise for you to study in your room?  Poor muffin!  The f#@%*&^ 'Hilton's' that way, pal!"
• The cockroaches in the basement level of Loyola never found a way out of there, thank f#@&.  Although they were admittedly pretty teeny, if I'd ever seen one in my room I would have committed homicide, genocide and suicide in that order.  
• At the start of the year you'd "interview" to be partnered with a sister floor.  Although many people will try and tell you that this is done primarily to "bolster cross-gender harmony", the cynic in me says that it was just an elaborate icebreaker to expedite an inevitable spate of disastrous hook-ups that created toxic levels of enmity.  As a side note: I'm alarmed that girls can actually be impressed with a cheesy a capella version of the super-creepy tune "Every Breath You Take" by The Police.  Gals, read those lyrics!  That tune is like a warm-up song for crazed stalkers.  "The Police" indeed...
• If you wanted to be popular with the ladies, you mustn't decorate your dorm room with posters of hot chicks, cars and/or hockey players.  If it's attention from the ladies ye be seekin', than make sure you don't have a television in your room, locate the nearest store that sells "Pier 1"-style import stuff and buy up as many incense holders, candles, Buddha statues, tribal face masks, fabric throws, native tapestries, bells, gongs and other crap you can afford.  This will make you appear exotic and worldly even when you say pervy stuff like "Hey, baby, wanna see my blowgun?"  Trust me when I tell you this, because I did the former and got nowhere while someone I lived with on the floor did the latter to considerably more impressive effect.  
• On the rare occasion that a floor-mate has actually procured real, live female company it's perfectly acceptable to set up a sound system just outside his door to blast the following tune as loud as possible in an impromptu serenade: 

• If you actually manage to pick up a girl and your room is on the corner of the building, word to the wise: Close your friggin' drapes. 
• Single moms in the family section of Loyola often got kinda...lonely.  We'll leave it at that.  
• If this doesn't work you can just drunk-dial ex-girlfriends and chain smoke while playing power ballads in the background like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu2DA4I4TGw.  Good times!  
• Regardless of how skilled a debater you are, you can't procure the services of a hooker with a meal card.  IT WASN'T ME, I SWEAR!
• Try and visit the worst strip club on the planet at least once on the occasion of a now-legal buddy's birthday.  Try to find a club where the "girls" all appear to have adenoids and sport pronounced bullet wounds covered with patches while creepy Japanese businessmen in wheelchairs lurking close to the stage survive the "thrills" by taking periodic hits from an oxygen tank, Frank Booth-style.  Um, on second thought, just skip this one...    
• "So, you say you don't like to play cards, huh?  Shut up, sit the f#@& down and deal..."
• Playing Sega Genesis NHL 92 for four hours a day in lieu of attending classes or studying is a perfectly acceptable way to spend time.
• It's also perfectly acceptable to make an amateur horror film with rented video equipment, especially  during final exam week.   
• Lighting farts is NOT acceptable and can often result in third degree burns to regions of the body where burns aught not to be.  And, no, this was also not me! 
• If you insist on practicing karate in your room don't expect to get your damage deposit back.
• The same goes for wrestling.        
• Speaking of wrestling, why not set up a wrestling league to pass the time?  If you're too scared to actually wrestle (as well you should be) you can always become the federation commissionaire and preside over matches between such legendary grapplers as "The White Shadow", "The BBC" (Billionaire Boys Club), "The Insane Worrier", "The Islander" and my own personal favorite, "C. Bopper Tomahawk."  Invite your sister floor over to alternately impress them and/or prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're all "Coo-Coo for Cocoa-Puffs".  Let me tell ya, you haven't lived until you've been power-slammed on a residence bed (and not in a good way).             

And that's just a small sampling of what I can remember that's also remotely acceptable for discussion during the "Family Hour".  Good times...

We only spent two years on campus because we couldn't cope with the next generation of frosh that came in. Our behavior was childish to be sure, but also child-like in it's relative innocence.  Some of the new guys moving onto the floor were really destructive to the fraternal atmosphere he'd fostered so carefully so we eventually decided to move off campus.  The disparity in maturity levels still amazes me even with just a few years of age difference. 

Because of (or in spite of) what you just read, I feel bad for people that go to university but don't choose to live in residence.  Every single day I'd witness something that challenged my faith in the human race and not two seconds later, I'd see something that reconfirmed it.  To say that it was it was "A Different World" was indeed an understatement.  Although there was considerable strife at times, there was rarely a dull moment.

It was the most exciting and surreal time of my life and in some crazy way, I miss it terribly.

EPIC:  http://www.smu.ca/administration/resoffic/reslife.html  The sanitized version of my beloved home for two years...

FAIL: http://www.break.com/index/dorm-fireworks-prank-epic-fail.html  Mercifully it was never quite this crazy, but close...

Revenge is a Dish Best Served with Vasoline

Hello, Kind Reader.

I lived on the 18'th Floor of the Loyola Building at St. Mary University for two years. During this time I was privy to the most elaborate, cruel and imaginative pranks ever devised by the twisted human psyche.

If you kept your door shut too long or (God forbid) left your room unattended with your door open you were fair game for any of the following plagues:

1. The Manila.  Locate a manila envelope, preferably one the size of a sleeping bag.  Fill it with shaving cream and optional bits of flotsam and jetsam (paper clips, instant rice, gerbil poo), slip the opening of the envelope under the door and then stomp on it as hard as you can.   Ker-BLAMMO!
2. Put Vasoline on your buddy's knob!  Wow, that sounded really bad but it's not what you think.  Coat the outside door knob with vasoline or K-Y jelly and send your friend scrambling for a towel.   "Eeeeeewww!  What the f#@$ was that?!"
3. The Teep-Grenade.  Soak several rolls of toilet paper in a bucket of warm water.  Find as many people as possible to grab a handful of the goop.  Let excess water run off until you have a snowballish consistency.  Pelt it at door of favored target, preferably while victim is sleeping (to scare witless) or home for the weekend (to facilitate sufficient drying time).  Side note, creative types can have fun with the relief-map possibilities here.  Add paint to really ramp up the "F#@%-you" factor!
4. New digs. While room is left unattended move the entire contents into the elevator.  Press buttons for every floor and watch as progressively fewer things appear ever time the doors open up again!  Neato!        
5. "The Force Field".  Place clear shrink wrap over the top of a toilet under the seat.  'Nuff said.  Especially effective overnight or early morning if a few casual (or not so casual) beverages have been consumed the prior evening.
6. The Illustrated Man.  Spray a beer bottle with Lysol rendering the ink in the label liquidy and transferable.  Roll bottle on exposed skin of a passed-out buddy and he'll wake up thinking he got the worst tattoo(s) in recorded history.  Extra disorientation points: wake victim up by blasting Leonard Cohen's "First We Take Manhattan" from nearby stereo.    
7. "Soupy Sales, meet Ben & Jerry".  Get ice cream for desert at the cafeteria.  Tell one of your more gullible floor mates that "My ice cream smells funny."  As he leans in for a whiff, plaster it into his mush.
8. Pennywise the Prank.  While the victim is inside room cram as many pennies as possible between the door and it's frame thus preventing the dweller from turning the knob to get out.  Combines nicely with an inside job # 2 to really ramp up the cabin fever.
9. Welcome to Empire Theaters!  This is one of the worst and it's usually only reserved for really hated types that make the grievous error of leaving their door open.  Proceed to Mini Mart and purchase as many packs of microwavable popcorn with the scant few points left on your meal card.  Cook up approximately three to six-thousand bags and empty the contents all around the target's room until popcorn is knee-high.  If time permits, place popcorn in desk drawers, socks, CD players, and milk cartons to really underscore the asshole factor.
10. Display Model.  Handcuff victim to convenient metal handle provided inside the elevator.  Combine with a certain amount of nudity for that certain "je ne sais quoi".
11. The Leaner.  Fill a bucket with water (merciful) or some other more heinous liquid (the mind reels!) and lean it against the victim's door.  Pound on the door emergency-style, stand back a few paces and watch the hilarity ensue!  Want to see how a floor mate would cope in the last few reels of  "Titanic"?   Fill up a garbage can for the truly epic, appropriately-dubbed "King Kong Leaner."   

And people wonder why I was "Mr. Seen and Not Heard" my first year in residence!  I saw first hand the destruction creatively evil people have wrought and, scared s#!^less, reasoned that if I kept my mouth shut and didn't do anything particularly brash or stupid I wouldn't get pranked back to the Stone Age.  I may not have been the center of attention but at least I kept my nose clean and kept my damage deposit.  

EPIC: http://www.pranksite.com/  Now play nice, kids!

FAIL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rL0PdJhRKE

"A Brave New World...Populated By Guys With No Necks"

When September rolled around and it was time to leave home for St. Mary's University I experienced not one twinge of hesitation. I think it's because I'd been sitting a bit too close to the Home Fires for a year and was suffering from third degree smothering. My escape was a tremendous liberation.

Me and a friend left for Halifax a week early to see the sights and I instantly fell in love with this city. As a small-town hayseed I remember shuttling all around the city on these wondrous public transportation vehicles (called "buses" if I recall), gaping up at twenty-two story building like a yokel, seeing movies earlier than three months after release ("Oooooo, 'The Abyss' is playing at 'The Oxford'"!) and dining haute-cuisine style at the now defunct and now dubiously-named "Lawrence of Oregano" for a bona-fide, grown up repast of...uh... spaghetti.

Up to that time, tt was like the greatest vacation I ever experienced and I'm eternally grateful to my friend's older brothers who let us crash at their place for so long. I wasn't homesick for a second but that had less to do with my parent's hospitality and more to do with having sensory overload every single waking moment.

Eventually it was time to move into residence. I've been told you spend about six months of your life in line ups and I'm pretty sure I missed half a semester doing just that. Eventually I received my room key and went up to the Eighteenth Floor in the Loyola building and opened my door.

It was like a broom closet complete with a barely functioning window, a vintage World War II era desk, an unwieldy cheap plastic chair that inexplicably weighed about a metric ton and threatened paralysis if you sat in it more than four minutes and single bed that looked like it belonged in an army barracks. I just stood there dumbfounded for a moment...

...at the sheer beauty laid out before me. I swear in that same instance a shaft of light came into the window and hit the floor as if I'd just found the hiding place of the fabled Lost Ark. I was free, I was home and I was in heaven.

Not too seconds later, in a sight to match the bed's military bearing, a mountainoid of a human being with a Johnny Unitas haircut filled the door frame, casting a shadow across the floor that I swear gorilla-pressed the friendly sunbeam I'd glimpsed mere moments ago into oblivion.

I looked up, summoned my courage and attempted to address the goliath with hair so precise you could calibrate scientific instruments with it.

"Uh, hi," I managed, offering a hand up to sacrifice. "I'm...uh..."

"FROSH!" the colossus barked, matter-of-factly.

Crap. I'd been warned about this. First year students were often subjected to legendary levels of abuse, often doled out in direct proportion to how much of a douchbag you were. I had to play this carefully.

"Uh, yeah, I'm just about to move in..."

"WELL, DON'T GET TOO COMFORTABLE," the "sergeant" barked. "I'VE BEEN TOLD THAT AN UPPERCLASSMAN IS STUCK IN A DOUBLE ROOM SO IT'S LIKELY YOU'LL HAVE TO GIVE UP YOUR ROOM TO HIM."

Double crap. I'd paid for and managed to get a single room by some miraculous alignment of the heavens. I wasn't about to surrender it easily...

"Um...okay," I muttered.

"WELCOME TO SMU (pronounced "Smuh-yoo", for all the uninitiated) 18'TH FLOOR LOYOLA, FROSH!"

The titan extended a kongish-sized hand and I watched in terror as he shook my entire forearm. Instantly I had shades of getting my blood pressure checked to the power of fourteen.

The gargantuan turned around (which took about thirty seconds, I timed it) and then lumbered away.

I praised myself for my composure. I needed a change of pantaloons and my forearm would surely require a setting but I'd survived the encounter no worse for wear.

And it's a damn good sight. Turns out most of the seniors on the floor honestly looked similar. Mercifully most of my fellow frosh were Lilliputians like me, and we all tried our best to walk carefully amongst the sleeping giants.

Turns out by the time the upperclassman in question moved in quite late and I guess I'd said enough funny and self-depreciating things to get a reprieve.

With the first hurdle down I was ready to take on anything...or at least I thought so.

EPIC: http://www.smu.ca/ My beloved university.

BONUS EPIC: http://www.halifaxinfo.com/ My beloved adopted town.

ANOTHER BONUS EPIC: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/216478/big_guy_versus_little_guy/ What was I so worried about?

FAIL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UlRG5VDP6I A much more likely scenario.

A Hand is Forced...

So, without much guidance I'd resigned myself to go to Sir Wilfred Grenfell College in Corner Brook in September 1989 as the extent of my post-secondary education ambitions. Looking back at this I honestly needed someone to intervene for me in High School or not long after, slap me to my senses and convince me that a desire to write, practice visual art or get into film-making actually was a legitimate career choice. Regionally the only school that genuinely appealed to me was the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax but several things prevented me from seriously considering that as an option.

One was that I was told incessantly that there were no solid job prospects upon graduation. Now, keep in mind this is w-a-a-a-a-a-y before the days of graphic and digital media design. This was born out a bit by the fact that a friend of mine's older brother had recently graduated and was having a hard time getting a job.

The other, more esoteric thing, is that the type of art taught there was often characterized by some people in my circle, either fairly or unfairly, as woefully pretentious. I was an easy mark for this line of "reasoning". It's always pissed me off that people could conceivably nail a rubber boot to a door, spray paint the entire thing chartreuse, call it "art" and then apply for a grant from the government. Don't laugh at that, I've actually seen that s#!$ in action. I remember taking a nominal, barely equipped art class in High School and feeling galled that there was no mention of my Dad's work, just talentless clowns that had gotten in in good with the provincial government and weaseled their way into the school curriculum as it's representative artists.

I was also troubled by a story a friend of mine told about a recent graduate who'd gone to a NASCAD student's show and witnessed something unforgivable to me. As guests were milling around discussing the aesthetics of the pieces on display a dude dressed in a black leotard and a slide projector strapped to his head was randomly walking around muttering:

"I am a projector. I project."

Now this story may have been a complete fabrication, but whether true or not, it actually had an impact on my decision. Frankly, I've got no tolerance for that kind of crap.

Also factoring in was the alarming amount of people from my graduating class who'd initially opted to go to university in Halifax that were now crawling back home either chronically homesick or terrified that they were no longer a big fish in a small pond. In fact, a close friend of mind limped back home after a few months at St. Mary's because he despised being housed apartment-style in the Edmund Rice building with a bunch of complete strangers who were drifting into the south side of "asshole".

Talk about schadenfreude, people, I'm just as guilty as anyone else. His failure justified my fear of leaving home.

"See, I told ya!" I remember gloating to him. "Everybody's coming back home! Just drop out and come with me to Grenfell next September. You'll save a ton of money and it'll be fun!"

In retrospect I seriously hope my self-righteous smugness and current sad state at home sent him back to Halifax to prove me wrong, which he promptly did. He moved into the Loyola building, got his own room and found his groove. Thank God my boy had more guts and brains than I did, since it allowed me to follow him into residence that September.

This was the best decision of my life. Not that St.Mary's was the best school for me, that more likely would have been Mount Allison or *ahem* NASCAD speaking regionally or perhaps Vancouver Film School or McGill if I didn't have a crippling fear of other human beings.

And I want to speak to this crippling fear for a moment. When I lived in Sydney up until age eight or nine, I had friends there that I likely would have regarded as brothers if we'd stayed. Dad made the decision to move back home to Newfoundland to be closer to family and the jury's still out as to whether or not this was the right thing for all of us collectively.

But it wasn't the right one for me. When I lost my friends in Sydney I became increasingly insular. Subconsciously I thought "Why make new friends? They'll just be taken away from me when we move again." As an already-sensitive only child I didn't have any siblings to toughen me up. I know it still hurts when a stranger at school takes a crack at you, but if you have brothers and sisters who feel as if it's their full-time job is to make your life a living hell, then your skin can't help but get a bit thicker.

But not me. If someone ever said something off-color to me in school I took that s#!& to heart! At that time the thought of leaving behind the few folks that knew and bolstered me up to move into a strange residence half-way across the country was terrifying to me.

But my year spent at home quickly overcame my fear of people. My peeps had moved on, I was dead-bored, work was awful I was hearing great things about life at St. Mary's. Also, back in my day (Note: this last line is best read in your finest "Grandpa Simpson" voice) there was a terrible stigma associated with living at home after High School. Now I see it as kinda smart, but I still believe it makes you fabulously spoiled. In residence you aren't going to be coddled. You are no longer a specious little snowflake. No one is gonna wash your drawers for you. You eat what you can or you starve to death.

I applied to SMU and got accepted for September, ready conquer my crippling fear of strangers.

Little did I know that what I was about to do was as dramatic as taking someone with vertigo and hydrophobia up into a helicopter and dropping them in the middle of Great Slave Lake.

EPIC: http://www.doryload.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=76&Itemid=2 Not just my Dad's art available here but my friggin' Mom's as well. How cool is that?!

FAIL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QiBID--uDQ Rant, on, brotha'!

Finally, here's this week's cartoon: