Dear Gingerbeard,

It’s my third year in college and I still don’t know how to make myself sit down and study for my difficult classes. I find that I spend the four hours I reserved for learning doing anything else. At least my apartment is clean and well-decorated. You seem like a gentleman and a scholar, please tell me how I can overcome my stubborn avoidance without drug dependence? 

-Academic Dish Doer

Well, ADD, if you’re really hoping to reform your study habits, you still shouldn’t completely discredit how you currently use your time. On the bright side, you’ve chosen the moderately efficient, big-kid task of cleaning your living space to avoid your studies. Many of us fall into the rut of becoming slaves to much more menial activities. This could include scanning Facebook albums for unrealistically fat-looking photos of friends, investigating a YouTube timeline of the work of Soulja Boy, or perhaps just laying around drinking on an empty stomach. In short, you are on the right track.

What I’ve found to be an important factor in completing my work is the integration of personal rewards throughout a night of studying. For example, two pages of writing earns me the divine privilege of one episode of The Wire (with roughly 15 minutes of wiggle room to catch up on overly ambitious, religiously-inspired young marriages on Facebook). In light of your current preferred use of time, I would suggest different forms of custodial rewards. Three chapters read would earn you, say, a perfectly white, stain-free toilet or a fridge that doesn’t smell like booty butter. Essentially, it’s just important to maintain checkpoints and goals for yourself, even throughout a single night. In addition, even though you’re hoping to avoid this route, I recently heard that one tablet of Excedrin is equal to like, three cups of coffee, dawg. More on this after midterms.

Dear Gingerbeard,

What do you think about the possibility of life on other planets? And what do you think will happen on December 21st, 2012? I heard some crazy funky shit.

-Pretty Eyes

Well, Pretty Eyes, my illustrious predecessor, I had a suspicion that there would be a question of this nature in this edition of the Oregon Voice. The 2012 New Years Eve party scene was a bitter-sweet occasion for many, including the Voice staff. Without pointing fingers, I will say that even some Top Dawgs here at the Voice have been on edge, finding themselves slipping into conversations reminiscent of those you might hear from unstable locals at the downtown bus station or the alley outside Minit Mart. You know, topics like planetary alignment chaos, solar storms, intergalactic bee extermination, and the ever-present and left-wing nonsense that “science” refers to as “global warming.” Though I myself will not settle on one specific date or process of Earth’s demise, I will say that I hope (fingers crossed), that extra-terrestrials and the violent destruction of humanity are intrinsically related. Maybe I’ve seen Alien vs. Predator a few too many times, Pretty Eyes, but the idea of aliens chillin’ with Latin America’s indigenous people in the past really warms my heart. If our intergalactic babysitters think we need a permanent time-out, then so be it.

Dear Gingerbeard,

Your volunteer occupation as an advice columnist will end as soon as you graduate. What will you do then? Tell me.

-Gingerbeard’s Red-haired Advice is Doomed

Although this question was meant as a personal one, I feel that it pertains to many students at the University of Oregon, dutifully trudging through their last one or two years of classes to earn a bright, shining, deceivingly useless liberal arts degree. Therefore, GRAD, this question provides an excellent space for a discussion of the options for Duck alumni shortly after graduation.

The first, most non-committal option is that of achieving the official rank of Townie. Not only would I have the ability to stay in Eugene’s culturally rich environment and party with younger, less pathetic friends, but I would also have the right to describe my undergrad major using past-tense, nostalgic language at all of my favorite local haunts when approached by strangers. Also, each fall would bestow upon me a slew of naïve California freshmen.

The next, most sensible post-college lifestyle lies in the confines of Portland. A liberal arts major’s wet dream, Portland offers a myriad of options for me to waste my time and defer loans. Perhaps the highest rank one could achieve here is the status of “Portland famous.” Beginning with a cashier position at, perhaps, Elephant’s Delicatessen, an ambitious and lucky twenty-something like myself might soon find great pleasure in being the guy everyone on the whole east-side knows as “that Stumptown barista who wears a boy scout uniform to shows.” Oh, and I could own a motorcycle.

Finally, I could always apply ahead of time for internships and volunteer opportunities that make myself more competitive for grad school, but… Meh.

When heading home to Portland for an all-too-brief academic hiatus, I was looking forward to reading something cooler than the Eugene Weekly, i.e., The Portland Mercury and the Willamette Week. But today, when I glimpsed the words “Navigating PDX’s Bar-Muda Triangle” on the cover of the hot-off-the-press WW, I was all like, “Oh heck no!”

The Bar-muda triangle?! In Portland?! I thought that clever little pun was copyright of the city of Eugene. I have only ever heard the term used in reference to the intersection of Olive Street and Broadway in Eugene’s dilapidated down town, where one drink turns quickly to too many, where the sheer concentration of bars per capita poses a threat to the morning after, where it’s easy to lose sight of where you’re going or who you are.

According to the WW headline, Portland’s Bar-muda is located in the Old Town neighborhood on the west side, where two bar owners are trying to promote an elegant kind of nightlife in place of the prevailing culture of benders, brawls, and vomit. But I can’t tell if the WW is using an actual Portlander’s parlance or just wooing readers with a play on words.

The only entry for “Barmuda triangle” on the user-generated UrbanDictionary.com, however, pinpoints its location in the Southeast Hawthorne Arts District. This ‘hood also has its fair share of drinkeries. Is this the real Bar-muda of PDX?

I realize now after a quick Google search that, duh, “Bar-muda triangle” is used by a great many towns to refer to particularly alcoholic intersections, whether they appropriate the term from elsewhere or invent it independently. Whether Portland or Eugene used the term first is irrelevant. The question is, which cluster of taverns is more deserving of the title?

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Which spot is truly considered Portland’s Bar-muda? And is it more of a shit show than the four beer-soaked corners of the Olive-Broadway intersection?

According to Stereogum, it’ll pull together many divergent sounds, making a hard rock departure from their usual home-spun melodies. I’m offering a special prize to the person who can figure out the name of the ’80s Libyan pop star. Worth a look.

Blitzen Trapper is playing Pickathon this year with Dr.Dog, Thao with The Get Down Stay Down and square dancing?