Here at CC, we’re always looking for new and exciting ways to party. Especially when it comes to the 4th of July and alcoholic drinks associated with the holiday. The only thing is, one of your editors spent 25 years being completely unaware of the tepid, headache-inducing splendor that is Franzia. Below, she is schooled in the ways of celebrating with boxed beverages.

There’s not too much about this bar that is different from any other midtown hangout. The lights are dimmed, the music is eclipsed by the steady drone of polite chatter, there is a distinct smell of polo sport and a single yawn dances contageously around the room. In any other bar, I wouldn’t have even stayed for a first drink…except that in the middle of this southern-style dive there is a mechanical bull.

Yes, a bull… as in, the land-faring version of a shark… so unpredictable and deadly that has generated sensational cinematic classics. When is Speilberg gonna make a “Western” version of “Jaws”? The time is now.

The place? Johnny Utahs.

It appears that until this moment, only a few guys had dared to take on this mechanical snorting monster. Self-induced humiliation can certainly be appreciated, but the crowd starts losing interest after realizing the predictability of how this battle of man versus beast will end.

Until… UNTIL!… the crowd parts. Laughter preceeds her entrace into the ring as a girl in a short skirt giggles sloppily toward the bull. As she makes an attempt to mount this robot-beast, something remarkable happens to the crowd. Read More »

Around this time of year, colleges all across the country have that famous last hurrah party. A school chum of mine actually just called and informed me that tonight is my alama matter’s big Courtyard Party — which is basically a night dedicated to getting wasted and grabbing people you haven’t talked to for four years and tearfully telling them how much you’re going to totally miss them.

If I remember correctly (and I drank a LOT of PBR that night, so I can’t be sure), my last hurrah party experience was dedicated to finding a cute hippie I had loved in vain for two years and attempting to tell him how much my heart overflowed whenever he was near.

He was even drunker than I was and so it didn’t work out. But man, did I give it my all.

As did the student body at Wesleyan University a few nights ago. According to a liveblog dedicated to a last hurrah party at the University, cops and dogs and riot gear were totally cramping students’ style as they attempted to party four years away.

“Dogs barking, megaphone order to disperse. Mace brandished. General Disarray. Continued bustle of people. Read More »

I am feeling sick. Hungover sick. The sad part? I only had two beers and a shot last night. I shouldn’t be feeling like this. But I am.

I spent all day yesterday looking forward to midnight. I got all dolled up and went downtown to a show–which was so pretentious buzz indie rock that I was suffocating soberly in a room filled with drunken hipsters. At midnight, some gentleman friends of mine took me to a bar for a drink.

A cold, fizzy beer thrilled my lips more than any part of any male has probably ever done. I finished the beer and it was time to move on to another bar down the street. And everyone there was SO HIP. No, I don’t mean to sound like a sarcastic b*tch, but I just loathe walking into any place where people stare me down because they’re trying to figure out WHO I am. It’s so L.A. and I wish that kind of stuff would just stay in L.A.

After waiting for the bartender to attend to my off the wagon needs for twenty minutes…I was really starting to wonder what all of the fuss was about. All of that ridiculous waiting while the sad looking hippie girl, who undoubtedly thought she was the one who invented dangling earrings, was elbowing me in the boob…it all seemed a little silly for a simple PBR. Read More »

Oh, Myspace! How we love denying all your porn spam. How we love the hours we spend perusing your bad, drunken poetry and those lovely 3 a.m. photos of beer pong. Wait a second…

The next time we log in to Myspace, let’s just hit delete. January 30 is International Delete Your Myspace Account Day. The idea was started by Bloggasm’s Simon Owens, who realized life is too short to wait for excessive banner ads to load.

Do we really need to know when the kid who sits behind us in Chemistry class celebrates his birthday? Do we really enjoy all those crappy Kelly Clarkson songs blaring from random profiles? And let’s not even get into Top 8 drama. Think of the hours we could save by not stalking our secret crushes online. Maybe we’d have time to study for that French quiz after all.

Then there’s Myspace remorse. We can’t forget that it’s not just hot boys and our best friends who check out our profiles. Remember that bleary-eyed photo from last weekend’s party– the one with all those empty PBR cans? Think about mom seeing it. Or worse, a prospective employer could find it. According to this New York Times article, job recruiters are using Myspace and Facebook as alternative background checks. Let’s start cleaning up those profiles, ladies!

Or Better yet, let’s just say no to Myspace

hip·ster1 [hip-ster] –noun Slang.

1. a particular breed of middle to upper class 20 some things that tend to inhabit surrounding neighborhoods of urban areas. The hipster generally has money, yet shuns conventional materialism. They try to appear starving, broken, and angry, yet have the comfort of living in $2000 lofts. Trust funds are a common commodity among hipsters.

The goal of the hipster is to look ironic.

The hipster handbook defines the hipster as “One who possesses tastes, social attitudes, and opinions deemed cool by the cool. (Note: it is no longer recommended that one use the term “cool”: a Hipster would instead say “deck.”)

The Hipster walks among the masses in daily life but is not a part of them and shuns or reduces to kitch anything held dear by the mainstream. A Hipster ideally possesses no more than 2% body fat.”

It becomes a difficult task to then differentiate between those who actually cannot eat, shower, or afford clothes. The hipster’s style aesthetic is influenced by the homeless. The hairstyles worn by the hipster is generally ragged, dirty, and has the appearance of a lack of care though often hours of care is put into the upkeep of said look.

In areas such as Williamsburg is generally safe to assume that anyone possessing this look is indeed a hipster.

Clutching their Ipods and sipping PBR, the hipster has taken over areas that were once affordable and turned them into a hipster oasis prompting stores such as Brooklyn Industries and American Apparel to move into these neighborhoods.

In main urban areas, like Manhattan, it becomes difficult to distinguish between “homeless” and “hipster.” Unkept hair, dirty clothes, a general disdain for life in general? Homeless or hipster? You decide!

Test your skills with these nifty photos so you don’t give spare change to someone with a trust fund. Play the game after the jump: Read More »

If you’re anything like me (extremely poor and continuously sweaty from no AC), dinner has turned into a can of PBR, hummus and baby carrots.

The summer heat and lack of money melt my formerly creative inner cook, and even though I’m slightly decent at preparing a meal, all I can think to do is eat apples, fry eggs and drink beer.

Even worse than cooking in the summer heat is cooking for one. It’s depressing. There are always leftovers and really, who wants to make an elaborate meal if you’re the only one eating it?

Which is why I was so excited to see these 101 simple summer meals that can be prepared in 10 minutes or less.

I’m all for using fresh ingredients and keeping it healthy, but sometimes recipes that call for a dozen different fresh components just end up rotting in the fridge.

These meals, however, don’t require too much and really do spark a little creativity in the kitchen. I’m so pumped about having so many new ideas that I’m already planning how I can use my leftovers (see #89).

Here are some of my favorites: Read More »