— BlogDailyHerald

12 days of Flogmas: TV show winter breaks

By: Jessica Steans-Gail / December 18, 2013 / No Comments /

As I have been informed by many of my friends, finals period for some people actually means watching less TV than you would be able to otherwise. As much as they have tried to explain this concept to me, I remain confused. What are you doing all day? Studying? But you still eat right? And breathe? Okay, then I don’t get it…

As I have tried to explain to them, some individuals, myself included, actually see reading/finals period as a great opportunity to spend a few extra hours watching TV as a way of preserving mental sanity. Sure, I still work, but if I’m going to spend an entire 60 minutes working on a paper, I’m gonna need a 90-minute reprise (I already feel like I’ve been writing this article for an eternity). Continue Reading

12 Days of Flogmas, Day Eleven: The laundry experience at Brown

By: Joe Stein / December 17, 2013 / 1 Comment /

I’m very grateful for laundry machines. I’m glad I don’t have to go out and break ice in the Providence River to wash my clothes. I can afford to have a machine do that for me. But that doesn’t mean laundry is a perfect experience.

Here’s how an ideal laundry load goes:

Put laundry in washing machine. Add detergent. Start.
Wait 34 minutes.
Transfer laundry from washing machine to dryer. Clean the lint out from the screen — fun times! Add dryer sheets if you’re one of those people. Start.
Wait an hour.
????????
Profit.

Here’s how it usually happens at Brown: Continue Reading

12 Days of Flogmas, Day Ten: The SciLi bathroom sitch

By: Hannah Pasternak / December 16, 2013 / 2 Comments /

A long day of studying is like a long night of drinking, in the sense that you always have to pee. Between the absurd amount of water you’re consuming because you don’t have time to eat and the hourly venti lattes, urination (amongst other forms of bodily excretion) is a must. Since the SciLi is such the go-to ~~prison~~ cramming location, you’d think it would be able to accommodate our relentless bathroom needs. Right? Wrong. VERY, VERY wrong.

I do most of my SciLi work in the basement, which fits more people than any other floor. It also happens to have the worst bathroom situation—not only on campus, but perhaps in the world. Let me spell it out for you: there’s one female bathroom and one male bathroom (problem #1 arises: gender neutral, where are yoooouuuu?!). The bathrooms contain a sink and a single stall, in which is a single toilet.

So it appears that the SciLi basement bathroom is single-use, assuming that only one person is using the toilet at a time. Hold up… you’re catering to a room with an occupancy of 336. Only one person per gender can go to the bathroom at a time? If you’re going to make it so exclusive, you might as well put a lock on the bathroom door and call it a day. Enough with the false hope of a swinging door. If you’re only going to present us with one stall in a faux-multiperson restroom, at least make the rest of the bathroom large enough to fit the four people always waiting in line. I’m done with being slammed by a swinging door that shouldn’t even have the ability to swing. Continue Reading

12 Days of Flogmas, Day Nine: Fries and sauce at Jo’s

By: BlogDailyHerald / December 15, 2013 / 1 Comment /

In what has to be the most repressive policy decision on US soil since Abraham Lincoln began censoring the Northern press during the Civil War, Brown Dining Services has decided that you can no longer put the Spicy With sauces on your fries at Jo’s. Now, let’s be clear: obviously you’re still putting sauce on your fries. But now you have to sneak it on, or maybe order a spicy with as cover, rather than just pour that shit on. It’s very frustrating.

Whatever the impetus was for this decision, I have a hard time believing the extra pouring of sauce onto fries was costing an exorbitant amount. I’m no sauce expert, but I’m betting that the price of mixing cheap barbecue sauce and sriracha together is more or less built into the $1.80 for a handful of fried potatoes. And even supposing the rationale is purely financial, and that BDS really felt it was losing big bucks from all this sauce-pouring madness, I would happily pay 20 cents more for sauce. Raise the price, don’t diminish the quality of the experience. Continue Reading

12 Days of Flogmas, Day Seven: Faunce computers

By: Jason Hu / December 13, 2013 / 1 Comment /

When it comes to school computers, there’s really no wrong way to use them. Wanna watch Netflix in the SciLi clusters? Power to you—may I suggest Scandal? Want to use your entire printing budget to print out your textbook? Screw the bookstore, amirite? Hell, if you’re going to even use the SunLab to check your Neopets account, we’ll be the first to join you.

But there’s a special place in non-denominational hell for people who use the Faunce computers for work rather than printing.

Now, I’m sure you have some very valid reason to be on the Faunce computers right now. From peaking over your shoulder, I’m sure it’s incredibly pressing that you review for your neuro final now, or Facebook-stalk the entirety of that photo album. And as someone who suffers from serious cases of both procrastination and FOMO, I’m really not in a position to tell you how to spend your online alone-time. Continue Reading

12 Days of Flogmas, Day Six: Crossing Waterman

By: Jacob Koffler / December 12, 2013 / No Comments /

If I could avoid Waterman Street—potentially the most difficult thing to cross since the Red Sea—I would. But alas, it is smack dab in the center of campus. So, I, like most Brown students, encounter it every day.

What makes crossing Waterman so unpleasant is not the fact that it is a main artery (or at least as main as any street in Providence can be). I have eyes and ears. I can cross the street.

There are two main reasons why the Waterman crossing experience sucks. Firstly, at the corner of Waterman and Thayer, the Walk/Don’t Walk sign never ever displays the “walk” signal. When I say “never ever,” I’m not using it idiomatically. I have actually never seen that beautiful fluorescent man purposefully walking to his destination. Instead, I am greeted every time by that obnoxious red hand.

All posts in 12 days of flogmas