How may I shine your boots, Sir?

Just because President Simmons left its Board of Directors doesn’t mean we can stop caring about the beautiful benefactor that makes so much of the joy in our world possible: Goldman Sachs. To provide us with updates on the personal thoughts of the most benevolent and soft-spoken investment bankers in the business, an anonymous soul has created the uplifting Twitter account “GS Elevator Gossip.” Be warned: this feed will send you running to the consulting info sessions, resume in hand. Let’s get the hashtag #LosingFaithInHumanity trending!

Groundhog Punxsutawney Phil (“the seer of seers, the prognosticator of all prognosticators”) saw his shadow this morning, which supposedly means six more weeks of winter for the rest of us. Boo! How depressing. But you can cheer yourself up with this charming and highly informational OK Go music video, featured on Sesame Street. Red and yellow make orange! Red and yellow make orange!

“Yo Ush!  Whattup Kels!” In this beautiful duet between two of the biggest contemporary R&B artists in the world, R. Kelly and Usher realize, much to their chagrin, that they are in fact “messing around with the same damn girl.”  After a slew of on pitch realizations, the song concludes with some serious scheming between the soulful crooners and a final twist on par with that of Troll 2.  If you have a ton of time to kill today, check out R. Kelly’s 22-chapter rap-opera “Trapped in the Closet.”

Earlier this month, celebrity chef Paula Deen revealed that she was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2008, at which point all Americans replied with a collective “told you so.” Although she has encouraged Americans to “practice moderation, y’all,” you butter believe Deen won’t abandon the recipes and enthusiasm that have made her a culinary legend. Can’t stop, won’t stop.

Even if her zeal for life were to diminish with her diagnosis, some hilarious genius created Paula Deen Riding Things to immortalize Deen’s jaunty and playful spirit. This blog places Paula Deen in various scenes beyond her Southern kitchen in which she, you guessed it, rides things. Check it out, y’all.

The College Hill Troll Community, a Facebook page created a month ago, has seen a meteoric rise in the number of hits in the past few weeks and currently has over three hundred “likes.” It is a haven for Internet trolls and troll-lovers and boasts an extensive collection of Brown related Internet memes that are generated by both the page’s admins and other individual contributors. So waste your shopping period away by either consuming the memes already up there or thinking of new ones to contribute to other people’s time-wasting. Pay it forward.

The question isn’t whether you watched TV over winter break. It’s how MUCH.

Were all those late-night Downton Abbey sessions an escapist waste of time? Does watching three consecutive seasons of White Collar (#underrated) in as many days make you an insane insomniac? Are you high on Videoweed?

No, no, no. You were just culturally informing yourself! Quite understandable. Admirable, even. But now that you’re pop culturally informed, the real time-wasting can begin. With some of the many TV mash-ups the Internet has to offer…

Beyoncé lyrics + Downton Abbey = Downton Abbeyoncé

[Read more →]

For many of us, the time-wasting already happened – last night. We put off our civic duties in favor of other activities that may have seemed more pressing than the economy or national education. If you feel the pangs of guilt or anticipate a pop quiz from your parents, you may want to learn a little more about what was said in last night’s State of the Union address. Here’s a crash course in the main points so you don’t sound ignorant on your first day back at the Ratty.

Yes, that's a cat giving another cat a massage.

There’s no record of anyone dying from an OD of cuteness (yet), but if anyone’s feeling up to the task, there’s Cute Roulette. Joining the plethora of websites featuring the distracting adorableness of the animal kingdom, Cute Roulette brings you and a puppy falling asleep (oh boy can we sympathize), a panda playing soccer (it’s like watching two fat black and white fluffballs roll each other around), and a cat trying to fit into a water bottle (because the internet isn’t complete without a healthy dose of feline).

Not to be confused for that other roulette, which is probably definitely NSFW.

Goodbye productivity, hello adorable hugging cats.

In honor of reading period’s kickoff, we are making the transition from time-wasters to study breaks. Same deal, just more of them (and a different name). Good luck studying (and breaking)!

Today, part three of In Focus‘s photo series “2011: The Year In Photos” was posted.  This is the final installment of the three-day series, and you can view all 120(!) images by starting here and working your way through the galleries.  Ranging from funny to powerful to downright upsetting, these beautiful photos of interesting events, each accompanied by 2-3 sentences of backstory, are all fascinating.

Ryan Gosling may not be Sexiest Man Alive, but he certainly is Sexiest Meme Alive. Spin-offs of the original Hey Girl Tumblr, which pairs adorable pictures of R-Gos with equally adorable captions, are everywhere. And some of them are pretty great.

We first fell in love (in an empowered, 21st century kind of way) with Feminist Ryan Gosling, but these days there are so many we don’t even know who to choose. Public Historian R-Gos? Librarian Gosling, Thesis Gosling and Biostatistics Gosling feel particularly relevant at this point in the semester. There’s even Gosblr, a Tumblr devoted to Ryan Gosling Tumblrs, the existence of which makes me kind of worry that we’re all on the brink of implosion.

Image via.