Three Ways to Create a Home Office

1. Let's be blunt. A home office is just a computer. Got a laptop? Congrats you've got a home office. Got a smartphone? Congrats your home office is the bus.

2. Typically, a home office includes a place to put said computer. A desk or table, perhaps. Maybe the back-half of a refurbished Camaro? Personally, I prefer my lumpy futon. Shoot for the stars, as they say.

3. The real perk of having a home office is decorating it as you please. Hammock? Yes. Magnet collection? Sure. Koi pond with miniature Greek goddess statues circling a sculpture of bacon? Weird, but OK. It's your home office. Whatever you do, make it comfortable—baked potato bean bag chair comfortable.

Three Ways to Appear Older Than You Are

1. Facial hair. Doesn’t matter if you’re a man or woman. Compare Smooth-faced Jim Carrey with Old Man Rivers:

Decent.

VS.

Aaaaaahhhh!

2. Be opinionated while wearing a cardigan. (The cardigan is just an accessory for a strong opinion). Most people assume bold opinions come from years of experience and not mere inanity. Not always true! Young people can be stubborn and stupid, too! Oh, well. Fool them all with your strangely specific opinions on everything from pickles to bank tellers to people who chew pencils that do not belong to them and then put them in their hair and forget about them and have to ask you if you’ve, maybe, by chance, seen said pencil when in fact you’ve been watching the whole spectacle from the get-go. Now’s the time—explore your loud, authoritative side.

Note the cardigan.

3. Softly groan as you stand from your chair. Instant 50 years to your age. For good measure, mumble a curse word as you rise (bonus points for Yiddish swears). When you do this, stop everything else, even if you were in the middle of a sentence or sneeze. Standing up from that chair needs to be your Mt. Everest. Give it 10-12 minutes and you’ll be on your feet. If you can remember why you wanted to stand in the first place, sit back down and try again. 

Three Ways To Freak Out Random Strangers

1. Freeze. Or move in extreme slow motion. People will become concerned, confused and slightly terrified that they've become hummingbirds. Plus, the more you can get in on the action, the more others will worry they're hallucinating. For a bit of inspiration to get you started, check out this list of 24 flash mobs you need to see to believe.

2. Dance in public. Arguably similar to a flash mob, but totally different when you're the only one doing it and you're not a street performer collecting money in a top hat. Think Cool Peter Parker:

(Got any other examples? Put 'em in the comments).

3. Remember Opposite Day in elementary school? Bring it back, but instead of just talking annoyingly ("I'm not talking annoyingly!"), dress for the opposite of the current weather. 70 degrees and sunny? Wear a poncho and galoshes. 50 and cloudy? Wear sunglasses and flip flops. Go for the sunscreen nose if you dare.

Three Ways To Become A Very Mysterious Person

1. Start talking in third person. It confuses the people you want to confuse and intrigues the people you want to intrigue. Either way, they won't want to mess with you. Case in point: Jimmy talks in third person and Jimmy doesn't like misunderstandings.

2. Set your watch alarm to go off every day at an arbitrary time. When people ask what the alarm is for, either shrug and ask, "What alarm?" or tell them it would be unlawful for you to say. Your response—to this question or any other—should be completely deadpan. Don't go Jimmy Fallon on us.

3. Trenchcoats, people.

Three Ways To Seem Culinarily Advanced For Your Age

1. Serve unusually shaped fruit. Extra points for the buddha pear:

2. Refer to the Food Network chefs by first name only. Dish the dirt like their your close dear friends and personal confidants. Spill on Giada and how she's always over annunciating when talking about pasta or how about the time Alton went sleeveless and revealed his honeybee tattoo. People will wonder. (They may just assume you watch too much Food Network, but they will wonder no less.) Here are the pros and cons if you're not yet sold.

3. Add cinnamon or coconut to your dishes. This will blow people's minds. Also, give your dishes extraordinarily long names like Grilled Corn and Tomato Sweet Onion Salad with Fresh Basil Dressing and Crumbled Blue Cheese or Broiled Double Thick Lamb Rib Chops with Slicked Up Store Brought Mint Jelly Sauce. Let no ingredient go unacknowledged.

Three Ways To Be More Midwestern

1. Call it pop. Not soda. See chart if confused.

2. Pop your ears as you walk up hills and gentle inclines. Eventually, they'll go on their own. Make constant comments about how obscene the elevation is (800 feet above sea level?!) and how in the midwest, everything is flat as a pancake. Then tell a story about glaciers.

3. Every time you do something mildly respectable, like not slam the door in a stranger's face, comment on your good, ol' midwestern values. People will nod and whisper in agreement to their friends.

Three Ways To Procrastinate Productively

1. Take the time to learn new skills. Haven't you always wanted to know how to pick a lock? Or use distort, warp and layer effects in PhotoShop?

2. Start getting motivated for the task you're not doing, but would be doing if only you had some motivation. For starters, enjoy this two minute mash-up of 40 inspirational movie speeches:

Now go back to Youtube because they left out Little Giants.

3. Resolve that issue with your landlord.

Three Ways To Sound Like a Grammarian

1. Take a firm stance on the oxford comma (click here for background, click here for background music). Simply knowing the name of an obscure element of English grammar will impress and intimidate people. To keep from becoming the go-to grammar guru though, always complain about this one girl at your old job who apparently never learned how to punctuate copy. Like the time she used two semi-colons in one sentence. One sentence! Stop short of citing any real rules or standards of usage.

2. Moan loudly when you see a misuse of an ellipsis. Read: moan loudly nearly every time you see an ellipsis. [2a. Call it an ellipsis and not "dot-dot-dot"].

3. Dress. The. Part.

Three Ways To Fool People Into Thinking You Know Good Design

1. Take everything off the walls in your home, paint them white and completely SPAZZ OUT whenever someone comes close to touching them.

2. Have strong opinions about colors. Do not defend or support them in anyway. Rather, wear one color and wear it all the time.

3. Throw these words and phrases into your everyday vernacular. (Learning their meanings is optional):
-"how postmodern"
-"an interesting concept"

-"very well executed"
-"lovely composition"

-"simple, almost as great as helvetica"

And when in doubt, sigh and say that it still "feels cluttered."

Three Ways To Fit in When Visiting a Big 10 School

1. Wear sweats. Preferably a gray pair and preferably a pair baggy enough to to pass as Hammer pants. If walking in your outfit doesn't feel like you're still lying in bed, you're doing something wrong. Avoid anything that can be labeled as "fashionable" and stick to your school's colors. Extra points for a matching hoodie.

2. Ignore those moving metal vehicles on the roads. They're called cars, but that's irrelevant. You have places to go, beverages to consume. This is college! You are invincible and should act accordingly. Looking both ways was so four years ago.

3. Talk in semesters. Time is broken up differently on Big 10 campuses. There are no months. It's first semester, second semester or some sort of break. The year begins in late August and ends in early May**. This effectively eliminates any chance for students to make resolutions or consider themselves members of the real world. Advanced: the weekend starts on Thursday night. Tuesdays in good weather.

**Note: Northwestern is the exception and clear outcast of the Big 10.