I told my mother the other day that I felt like I was getting old and she laughed at me. She said she didn’t want to hear sh*t about getting old until I went through menopause. Fair enough.

But that doesn’t detract from the fact that I feel thirty and all of its dastardly implications creeping up behind me, breathing warm and horrifying down my neck. Here are some signs that I’m getting old; my youth and lack of responsibility fading farther and farther into the distance. Keep in mind that there is a distinction between getting old and becoming more mature, as one can see in the way I respond to my family in #8. Read More »

I have an account on a dating site. But I never use it. Unless I want to depress myself. Then I use it.

It’s easy to depress oneself on an online dating site – especially if A) you know for a fact you’ll never find the person you want online and B) all your “matches” are either really unattractive or cover their profile with flowery prose that’s so full of sh*t there’s no room for actual talent.

Aside from the shirtless mirror shot attached to a Faulker-esque description of New York City in the winter or a predisposition for “coding computers”, there’s nothing that turns me off faster than when one of my weird, douchebag-like “matches” has NPR listed as one of their loves. Which is strange. Because I love NPR.

I love being serenaded on long Sunday car rides by Ira Glass’s calming monotone during This American Life. I enjoy All Things Considered, BBC World Service updates, and the occasional funny op-ed by a slightly famous quirky writer. I feel comfortable with NPR’s obvious liberal bias – as I myself own such a bias – and there’s nothing better than sitting alone in my apartment with a glass of wine as deep-set, unhurried voices click their well versed tongues against my eardrums. NPR is like a womb. A liberal, literary, sophisticated womb where I take comfort at least twice a day (if not more).

So why the shuddering when I notice a potential mate might enjoy themselves some Fresh Air with Terry Gross?

I’m not sure, exactly. Maybe because most of the people I know who listen to public radio are bleeding heart liberals, and even though I consider myself one of those bleeders (with a shot of hippie thrown in), I get a little nervous when a guy describes himself that way. Read More »

I came across this article the other day, an article about how chivalry is dead, and my generation is the one who killed it.

To prove her point, the article’s author explained how she’s often cat called when she walks down the street, and laments about the days when men tipped their hats and said “mornin‘” instead of leering at a pair of breasts and saying “yee!”

Even though I think she’s got a point when she talks about certain forms of traditional chivalry going out the window (the last time a man tipped his hat at me was…well, never, and not once has anyone ever thrown a jacket over a mud puddle), I’m pretty sure that using cat calls to define the death of chivalry is just plain incorrect.

Look, men have been cat calling women since the day they realized their mouths made sounds and breasts were awesome. Sure, Victorian dudes opened carriage doors for us and offered their elbow when the terrain got rough, but don’t think they weren’t whistling and jeering under those handlebar mustaches and cute little bowler hats. Perhaps they weren’t shouting “aye, mami!” when a fine looking bustle walked down the street, but you can bet a Victorian chick knew when a Mr. Darcy was hating to see her leave, but loving to see her go. Read More »

You know this scenario. You’re in a bar / restaurant / movie theater / department store / any place where people are, and you’ve got to pee. Or maybe it’s that time of the month and things need to be changed. Either way, you must visit the wee wee room NOW.

And so you do. But alas, you are not the only one with this idea. The illustrious Ladies Room Line shoots out before you, seemingly miles upon miles of other women also waiting to use the bathroom, careening their necks and jumping on empty stalls like hungry lions on a lame baby zebra.

Does the mere description of this common scene make you sigh in frustration? You’re not alone. According to everyone’s favorite liberal news source, people (women, mostly) are beginning to sound the call for more freaking bathrooms. Read More »

Not being particularly tech savvy, I tend to come into most fun computer-related things fairly late. And so, I’ve only really just started to get into podcasts in the past six months — but I’m pretty thrilled that I have because my incredibly boring desk job would be almost unbearable if I didn’t have these gems to listen to.

5. Sound of Young America
The title of the podcast is really fitting because the interviews they get are, and excuse me for using this word, cool. Really, really cool. Host Jesse Thorn (who has the hostiest host voice I’ve ever heard) has talked to everyone from Nick Hornby to the Upright Citizens Brigade to Elmore Leonard to my favorite, Dave Attell. Read More »

Hello! This is the inaugural article of the College Candy Kaleidoscope: a summary of the day’s news. I am your host (don’t laugh) Kandy Korrespondant! So, without further ado…

Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the now infamous pastor of Presidential contender Barack Obama, said on Monday that attacks on his fiery sermons represent a societal failure to understand black church traditions.

On Monday officials reported that a Drug Cartel war near the California-Mexico border town of Tijuana has resulted in at least fifteen deaths.

On Sunday, the New York Times exposed correspondence between the US Department of Justice and Congress stating that US intelligence officials working to stop terrorist attacks may use techniques banned under international law. This contradicts an Bush’s executive order last summer stating that the CIA would observe international law during detainee interrogations.

Three NYPD detectives on trial for the 2006 fatal shooting of 23 year old Sean Bell were acquitted on Friday. Bell died in a hail of bullets outside of a strip club hours before he was to marry Nicole Paultre. The detectives defended their actions saying that they thought Bell and his two friends were on their way perpetrate a drive-by shooting. None of the victims were armed and no gun was recovered from their car. Bell was shot 50 times. Read More »

Peter Sagal, author and host of NPR’s “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” (a show for smart democrats, and other people who enjoy playing games of wit on the radio), is so freaking pissed. And I love it.

I love it because finally someone is saying what I’ve known for years: Hollywood is obsessed with dudes.

Upon seeing the smash hit Horton Hears a Who with his 3 little daughters, Sagal flipped his sh*t about a plot point involving a father, his 96 daughters, and one sullen son:

“And there’s this — not only does the movie end with father and son embracing, while the 96 daughters are, I guess, playing in a well, somewhere, but the son earns his father’s love by saving the world. Boys get to save the world, and girls get to stand there and say, I knew you could do it. How did they know he could do it? Maybe because they watched every other movie ever made?” Read More »

The term Black Monday refers to a Monday during the Wall Street Crash of 1929. As we all learned in high school, this Crash ushered in the Great Depression during which food was scarce and jobs scarcer, crime flourished and investors sky-dived off high rises. I distinctly remember the picture by Dorothea Lange in which a mother stares hopelessly into the distance with a young boy on either side of her, their faces buried into her shoulders.

So when on Monday, March 17th, as I drove up to visit my dad I heard the NPR Marketplace analyst use the term Black Monday and Great Depression to describe the worries surrounding the current downward spin of the Stock Market of which the Bear Sterns crisis was simply the latest manifestation, my heart skipped a beat.

I’m about to head off to grad school this fall, I thought…my whole life is ahead of me…and suddenly my mind inserted my face into the Dorothea Lange photo desolation, destruction, depression…the end.

Okay yeah…so I’m a bit dramatic (very dramatic), but chances are you shared at least a bit of the panic I felt last Monday. The truth is, however, that the economy is far from the state of the 1929 crash but it is important to know what’s going on and how you should react in order to protect yourself. Read More »