By Luke Orrell, Opinions Contributor
My best cheap night in recent memory consisted of making prank phone calls. I don’t mean the house calls when you wait outside of someone’s door wearing a mask and start asking scary movie questions when they step outside. I mean the harmless and humour-filled calls that make the caller—and sometimes the receiver—laugh. The result is metaphysical poetry that would make John Donne’s poem “The Flea” sound like something from Jack Prelutsky.
Usually, my jacked friend who looks like Drago from Rocky will make the call. I never make the calls because my voice sounds like a mix between Chris Colfer and Fran Drescher. I am more of the ‘ideas’ guy. I am like a pusher, but instead of drugs I push jokes. I will also most likely get pushed by someone after they read this article when we call them.
Usually, we call businesses instead of households. From what we’ve gathered, businesses will usually entertain your call and stay online. I think it’s because they lose track of what constitutes a prank call, because so many brainless people call them on a regular basis. If you call a household, they usually get pissed off within the first 15 seconds, and act like a lawyer specializing in prank calls. Also, for some reason I feel like if we call a household, it would turn out like the plot of Joy Ride, and some delusional trucker will hunt us down.
We first started targeting video stores. Video Difference is great because they have a Kim Jong-Il collection of videos. Usually, my friend will call and start asking for preposterous, but almost believable (at least in the eyes of Video Difference) movie titles. For example, one time we focused our selection on parody work-out videos: BICEP-tennial Man, AB-pocalypse Now, The BOD-father, We Were Shoulders, and The Wild Wild Chest. Other times, we call gyms and ask how long it would take them to make us look like Brad Pitt from Fight Club if we look like John Goodman.
Every time we make any of these calls, we are completely in stitches. Maybe it’s because we revert to our childhood when everything was funny and “cares” was nothing but a word with little meaning. Or maybe it is because I am single, making these calls in a desperate attempt to connect to the world I am so disconnected from. I am not sure, but I laugh every time.
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By Samantha Alexander, Opinions Contributor
Late last August, I arrived in Halifax for the first time with no furniture to my name and an unfurnished apartment to move into. I’m no more well-to-do than the next student paying his or her own tuition, so I knew acquiring an entire bedroom set on the cheap would not be easy.
Enter Aug. 31, the start of the busiest period of the year in the Coburg-Quinpool-Robie-Oxford quadrilateral. I watched as students hauled stuff out of their houses and onto the sidewalk. The amount of furniture left lying on the sidewalk was incredible.
Garbage picking, dumpster diving, whatever you want to call it—it was sheer utilitarianism that drove me to strap furniture onto my friend’s car and lug it home. It was a simple means to an end: I needed furniture, and the virtual gold mine left on the sidewalk met this need for free.
Admittedly, I didn’t take to this activity easily. There was the inevitable shame and discomfort: what if someone actually saw me picking up their old furniture? But once I got into it, I actually started to relishthe feeling of turning onto a new street, seeing what kind of hand the used furniture gods would deal me, and the thrill that accompanied finding something good.
That’s not to say I survived those two days with nary a humiliating moment. On Oxford Street I spotted a pristine-looking TV stand that looked too good to be free. Yelling to the people moving stuff into the house behind it, I asked if they were giving it away. “No,” said one of the guys, whose disgust I could see from 20 feet away. “Sorry!” I said, speeding away before he could get a good look at me.
In the end, I ended up with two floor lamps, a desk, a fully functioning TV and a chest of drawers—in impeccable state, might I add. And except for a few light bulbs and a fresh coat of paint for the desk, I didn’t spend a penny. Acquiring half my bedroom furniture for free and the experience of actually getting it was priceless, and I could not recommend it more should you find yourself in my shoes next September.
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By Kathleen Reid, Opinions Contributor
Dalhousie has given me so many life-changing experiences, from an excellent education to incredible friends. In exchange it only asks for one thing: my life savings.
In accordance, I attempted to keep my activities on a low budget while vacationing in Victoria Beach, M.B. this summer. So when a few close friends of mine suggested we make a trip to a national park nearby I accepted without hesitation.
National parks mean vast wilderness with no commercial venders for miles. Elk Island sits at the southernmost part of Lake Winnipeg, attached to the mainland only by a single spit and accessible by a one-kilometer trek through waist-deep water. With the worn-down canvas backpack straps tight around my shoulders we set off toward the white horizon line that balanced on the rocking green water. At times I rested my pack atop my head, keeping its contents safe from the reaches of the lapping waves: a home-packed lunch, a disposable camera, a towel, and my copy of The Third Translation by Matt Bondurant.
Without a cloud in the sky we settled into a spot along the shoreline, surrounded by a semicircle of evergreens. The trees seemed to separate us from the rest of the world, and knowing that, we ate, laughed, swam and explored the trails. I can’t say that there was one specific event that made that day memorable, but watching the sunset and letting my mind sync with the constant merge of waves was just priceless.
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