Three words. Five syllables. Twice a year, before finals start in the fall and spring, a merry band of Brown students provides studiers with two of our favorite things: nudity and free food.

If this is your first semester at Brown, take note: the night and time of the Naked Donut Run is always kept secret until immediately prior, but, for the most part, the runs are held the night before finals start. The evening the run is rumored to take place, the libraries are even more packed than a usual night during finals week. It’s also usually pretty obvious that half the people there don’t really have a reason to be in the FriSC at midnight – they’re just waiting for their biannual dose of tasteful nudity and tasty donuts.

If you’re one of those people who stakes out a library spot solely to catch a glimpse of what you could see any day on John Street (plus baked goods), it can get boring waiting for the runners to arrive. Here are some ways you can pass the time other than refreshing Facebook every other minute to see if your friend at the Rock has posted about naked people: [Read more →]

It seems as though finals week is one of the only socially acceptable times on campus to let one’s sense of style and (perhaps) cleanliness fall to the wayside.  Granted, this rare chance to wear sweatpants in public is not to be exploited too much, as your peers certainly probably may continue to judge you.  You don’t want to show up at a party the night before your flight home all dolled up, only to be asked by some hot stranger if you’re the one that licked ketchup off of your shirt in the library – not that anyone does that. Cough. Moreover, you don’t want to risk becoming known as that horrible person who slept for three hours at a desktop computer in the SciLi basement. People will hate you forever. Please abide by the following rules of etiquette in pursuit of a more perfect union library experience.

1. If your laptop battery has more than half of its life left to live, be kind and don’tyoudarepluginyourlaptop, especially in a coveted outlet.

2. If you must nap (and believe me, sometimes it cannot be helped), keep those inter-chapter snoozes to 30 minutes or less.  Learn the art of power napping, and don’t forget to set an alarm so you don’t end up sleeping for hours on end.  Of course, I always advocate closing the books and actually going to sleep, but keep that in the bedroom, please.  Can’t you see that I’m waiting to print my paper??

3. Speaking of bedrooms, keep that in the bedroom.  I have walked past far more moments of self-love in the stacks than I’m willing to admit, and I may have to suffer through years of psychotherapy for it.  [Read more →]

As college students, we’d like to think we have refined tastes and interests. We eat breakfasts of Natty and cold Nice Slice, listen to the esoteric electronica of Nico Jaar (or not) and don’t read pre-Nietzsche philosophy because it’s ignorant. Now it’s hard to believe, but somebody so sophisticated probably watched Rugrats at some point. Nostalgia Trip is here to re-experience the diversions of your youth so you don’t have to.

Before it was a sad advert during a midnight Jersey Shore rerun, Now! That’s What I Call Music was the forerunner in compilation albums, filling the commercial breaks between morning Saved by the Bell episodes with an onslaught of pop music video snippets that screamed: “Buy me, I’m awesome!” The idea behind the NOW! series is quite sensible–people only like pop singles, so make an “album” out of them. NOW! 5 is a particularly salient example of this method, rounding up Janet Jackson, Bon Jovi and ‘N Sync like its Grammy night circa 2000. Since its release, the album has been certified 4x platinum by the RIAA, making it the best selling non-Christmas CD in the NOW! series. We ate it up at the time (most likely downloading all the songs on Napster and burning it to a CD), but how does the beloved compilation of our childhood hold up NOW!adays? Find out after the jump. [Read more →]

Get the bang for your buck and booze in BDS style. Keep it casual and classy, fill a water bottle with your favorite cheap vodka and head over to the Ratty for springtime delights, where all of these ingredients can be found.

• The Cape Codder – equal parts cranberry juice and vodka
• Lemon Drop - equal parts vodka and lemon juice (get resourceful with the lemon wedges), a spoonful of sugar; alternatively, mix vodka and lemonade
• The Salty Dog - one part vodka, three parts grapefruit juice, salted rim (called a Greyhound without the salt)
• Screwdriver – one part vodka, two parts orange juice
• Sea Breeze – one part vodka, one part grapefruit juice, three parts cranberry juice
• Tea Tini

Stay tuned for more as the weekend wears on.