Tonight, hundreds of scantily clad college students will converge on a small waterfront bar. I could use any amount of witticisms to describe this monumental moment, but you know what they say: a picture is worth a thousand words — but a GIF is worth a million. Will the sequence below roughly describe your night? One can only hope.

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Most girls can’t wait to squeeze into their first sexy halloween costume inappropriately early in middle school, but by the time we’re young women we learn that sexy costumes are a double-edged sword. Maybe in your artsy high school you could get away with something like my old costume (shown below), but how will that hold up in the bump and grind world of Brown’s Halloween parties?  Realistically, it’s rather unlikely that you’ll find a costume that’s simultaneously sexy and creative, so you’re probably going to have to make a few tough choices before you head out to celebrate All Hallow’s Eve. Before you take that big step towards either unique or skimpy, consider the pros and cons of donning each type of costume.

The Creative Costume:

My friend came dressed as a Samsung Galaxy S3 but I sued her into leaving the party

Pros:

• Your get-up will serve as an excellent conversation-starter as everyone crowds around the Svedka
• Creative costumes tend to bare less skin, keeping you warmer while you wait in line for parties
• Confident enough that your costume is top notch? Submit it to our second annual costume contest…

Cons:

• Homemade costumes tend to fall apart before the night is over. For example, this weekend I ended up holding my costume up with my teeth on the dance floor.
• You won’t feel like you’re “hot stuff.” If you’re wearing some sort of inanimate object, like a chair or an airplane propeller (don’t ask me, they just seem novel), you’re probably not going to feel sexy, which can be tough on the ol’ ego when you’re surrounded by a bunch of nearly naked classmates.
• You’ll overheat at all of the parties you go to, and nothing can cut short a raucous Halloween evening quite like a woozy collapse on the dance floor. [Read more →]

As Halloween is today and October, Blog’s unofficial Nostalgia Month, comes to a close, we thought we’d take a moment to appreciate HOW FUCKING CREEPY cartoons were in our childhoods. We went down memory lane, remembering all those nights when we slept with one eye open after watching Cartoon Network or a Disney Channel Original Movie that was a bit too dark. Then we thought… how the fuck was this considered suitable for children?! From inappropriate jokes to villains that occasionally still haunt us, here are some memorable spooks from the TV of yesteryear.

Invader Zim

S1E4: Dark Harvest
Firstly, I would like to point out that the creator of Invader Zim is also the the author of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac which features the exploits of, you guessed it, a homicidal maniac. In this particular episode Zim, an alien hidden among a human elementary school class, is afraid that his identity will be revealed. In order to convince everyone of his humanness, he systematically steals organs from the other children until he is gorged with squishy spleens. A cute touch is when a roll of small intestines pops out of Zim’s mouth and he slurps it back.

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Halloween in a simpler time.

Nothing stresses me out more than Halloween costumes. Not midterms, not straight men, not the impending Frankenstorm. Nothing.

I have to be both sexy and creative at the same time? Listen, I know I go to Brown, but I’m not that smart or savvy. I JUST WANT TO DRESS UP LIKE A COW LIKE I DID IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, OKAY!?! Or maybe a sexy Eskimo. It’s gonna be cold.

Now, even though most Brown students may pretend to adore Halloweekend, no matter how much you squeal about fishnets and hair pieces and clever women-in-binder costumes, I know you’re drowning in costume-induced anxiety. How do I know? Much like a school of fish or the majestic African impala, you find safety in numbers by rounding up your friends and going in a group costume. But I’m here to tell you: this is a mistake.

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Ahh, Halloween. Cady Heron was right when she said that it’s the one night a year when girls (and boys. Don’t be so heteronormative) can be more scantily clad than usual and no one can say anything about it. And thanks to Halloween falling on a Wednesday, we get to experience two weekends chock full of bear-it-all costumes. Although the “which weekend should I go out” question might be bothering you (the answer is both, by the way), here’s the REAL question that should plague your every thought: “How am I supposed to come up with a different, hot costume EVERY night?” Have no fear, we have prepared eight simple and oh-so Brown-related costume ideas that will totally make you the hottest Brunonian around. We’ve even added a pick-up lines! Take a look after the jump. [Read more →]

Ready for Halloween? Good, so are we. Here’s how to make a pumpkin keg. Your guests will be impressed with how you’ve put this gourd to good use. (We’re sorry that the background music in this video is so annoying.)

“It used to be that children could go out safely on Halloween, dressed up as whatever they wanted, and collect a lot of candy from many people,” but the tradition of trick-or-treating may be a thing of the past … at least according to The Herald 20 years ago.

The Brown Daily Herald, Nov. 1, 1991

In many neighborhoods, the kids will not just wander through each street, as now they are only permitted to go to houses of people they know. All of the candy they receive has to be checked by their parents, most of which may be considered unsafe.

In some communities, including suburbs of New York and Boston, hospitals offer free x-raying of all candy in order to detect razor blades and other metal that might have been put into the candy. Rhode Island Hospital offered this service a few years ago, but it was discontinued because of lack of response and the hospital’s feeling that they were providing a false safety net for the community.

Twenty years later, we seem to be doing pretty well.

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Happy Halloween, Netflix. Stock is plummeting like never before, down 75% from July, before its infamous price-hike announcement. “Fundamentals are eroding, management credibility is shot, international growth is deteriorating, and margins are imploding,” says market analyst Toby Wible. Deadline has deemed it Netflix’s Nuclear Winter.

While Reed Hastings lives out the ultimate corporate horror scenario, let’s check out Watch Instantly’s selection of scary movies!

Upon first glance at the “Horror” genre page, one might mistake the streaming service’s collection as lacking. The featured films are mostly low-rated straight-to-DVD fare with titles like Mask Maker, Bloodlust Zombies and Vampires in Havana. However, further inspection into the depths of the Netflix archives reveals a relatively impressive library.

Our Top Ten picks for your holiday viewing, in alphabetical order:

Bride of the Monster – Witness the masterpiece of Edward D. Wood, Jr., deemed “the world’s worst director” by TIME Magazine (and the eponymous subject of an excellent Tim Burton film). Features a washed-up Bela Lugosi and some truly awful special effects. The best in schlock.

The Exorcist – Often cited as the scariest movie of all time. A little girl is possessed by a demon and spews obscenities at her helpless mother. Traumatic, controversial and likely to keep you awake for a long, long time–even if it might be a tad cheesy by today’s standards. More after the jump. [Read more →]

And the Halloweekend Saga Continues…

AEPi Presents: Wriston Rising 2010
10 pm – 2 am
Tent on Wriston
$6
This is AEPi’s third year of bringing all types of ghoulish figures to Wriston Quad on Halloweekend. Get there early or be trapped in a truly monstrous line. Consider yourself warned.

Brown Ballroom Presents: Halloween Masquerade Ball
7-10 pm
Sayles Hall
$3 for club members, $5 for students, $10 for community members
Get your semi-formal selves to Sayles and be swept up in the waltz, tango, foxtrot and swing. With the proper persuasion, maybe they’ll even do the Monster Mash. Costumes encouraged, masks provided!

Javaspook
9 pm – 1 am
Tech House
Tech House has a lot to live up to this Halloween - hosting the “biggest non-alcoholic Halloween-themed party of the year” is no easy feat. But with live music, cider and the transformation of 16 pounds of butter and 90 eggs into stockpiles of baked goods, it looks like they’re off to a fine start.