This summer started with a bang when the BP oil spill spat 4.9 million barrels of oil into the gulf coast, crippling the local economy, destroying marine and wildlife habitats and just generally irritating the hell out of any passing seagulls.
Not ideal surfing conditions but most people, like me, assumed that surely after the largest oil spill in history, things could only get better.
    Oh, but the bad luck just kept pouring in. Here on the prairies we endured one of the rainiest summers on record and any hopes of escaping to the golden coast were extinguished by the fact that massive tracts of British Columbia were simultaneously smouldering during one of the worst forest fire seasons on record. And before that, a massive volcano eruption in Iceland that grounded all air travel to Europe.
   Some time later, a leak of 90,000 highly classified military documents pretty much confirmed that nope, we don’t really stand a chance of “winning” anything beyond a game of hopscotch in Afghanistan. And then Jersey Shore was brought back for a second season. By this point I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if the sun died and a plague of locusts engulfed the Earth.
   And that, in a nutshell, was the summer. One to remember — just not for the right reasons. With the nuclear sunset slowly fading, the leaves have already started to turn yellow and the days have begun to get shorter and shorter — yes, fall is upon us and so is school.
And this is the most pertinent issue of all to you, dear reader: With university resuming, your energy — drained as it may be by the stresses of the doomsdayish summer — will soon have to be put toward deadlines, term papers, rent and tuition payments and a general ramping up of, you know, actual responsibilities.
   To put it another way, all around you, shit is getting real. But rather than confronting that reality head-on, I’ve compiled a list of the top three vices you can (and really ought to) embrace to help take your mind off that cruel fact. Go on, it’ll do you good!Â
   This summer’s G20 summit in Toronto will be remembered for one thing only: that totally bad-ass picture of a police car burning in the middle of Yonge street. It single-handedly helped to remind us that wanton vandalism is one of life’s great treasures. And while it isn’t the most subtle form of voicing opinion, it certainly is a satisfying and exciting one ”“ and thus, the perfect remedy to those back-to-school blues.
   As a side note, you’ll probably want to select a political or social cause for which to go about your hooliganism first (i.e. dolphins, the fresh water crisis, Manchester United). That way, if anyone asks, you’re doing it for the better good! Â
   At some point in the near future, you will inevitably be faced with a painful reality: it’s 10 p.m., and you haven’t even selected a topic for your Generic Class 101 term paper due the next morning. For some, this would be a good time to panic but you, having taken the advice that follows, are as cool as a cucumber. Why? Because nothing puts things into perspective like financial ruin — total bankruptcy, ideally.
   Imagine the following scenario: it’s 6 a.m., and a 300-pound man with facial tattoos is banging on your door, waving a court ordered repossession of your car and shouting through the screen door for you to “clean yourself up or the house is next.” Heck, you’ll be far too busy worrying about how to evade paying off your bills for a day longer to reminisce about the summer that could have been.
   To fast track your road to financial ruin, you may want to look into online shopping and/or online gambling. Whatever path you choose, make sure to live as far outside of your means as possible, and never forget to wear your lucky socks. Â
   Real world addictions went out of style the moment A&E decided to cash in on the craze with Intervention. Wi-fi is the new smack and it’s time you sampled the good stuff.
   But just to clarify, Facebook doesn’t count. Facebook is a gateway drug to the harder stuff, like StumbleUpon and YouTube videos of kittens yawning.
   If you’re a first time user unfamiliar to such terms, StumbleUpon is an application for your browser of choice which brings you to a new and entertaining website with each click of the mouse. If impulsivity, hilarity and sheer time-wasting had a love-child, this would be it. The more you use it, the more specific to your interests the websites which it brings you to become.
   Are you beginning to see how this could quickly develop into a serious habit?
   If it wasn’t for StumbleUpon, my grades would probably be significantly higher; but then again, I would never have discovered the “Two Corgis on a Treadmill” video. If that doesn’t tickle your fancy, World of Warcraft is another option, albeit a far more dangerous and socially isolating one. Seriously, no other online addiction will produce the same life-engulfing, reality-skewing effect as World of Warcraft.
   Life stresses be gone, there are Night Elf battles to be had!
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image: Flickr