Winter is a magical time of year, but the best part of the season is the fact you can wear so many layers of clothes nobody can tell you stink to high heaven. Showering is for the birds anyway, who needs water and soap anyway? Unfortunately, sometimes people are repulsed by the stink of festering body odor. We ranked winter activities by how likely they would be to hide the fact you are a rat person who hates personal grooming.
20. Romantic Cabin Getaway
Really? You really want to put yourself and the one person who can stand to be around you and your disgusting body and attitude in a location cut off from the world where they’ll have to interact with you and only you? Any potential romance will be destroyed the second you unpack the one sweater you wear, sleep in, and use as a napkin.
19. Skiing/Snowboarding
Let’s face it, even if you knew how to ski you wouldn’t be able to afford it. And just thinking about how expensive it is will remind you of how little you’re paid because you’re stuck in a job that you hate and isn’t fulfilling while your life slips away faster each day and you’re just an insignificant speck of dust in a cosmic game of chance and misery. So don’t even bother.
18. Cross Country Skiing
A much more painful alternative to regular downhill skiing, but potentially cheaper. The layers you’re wearing will definitely hide any stink lines emanating from your rotting carcass, and your friends will assume you’re wailing and gnashing your teeth because you’re participating in one of the worst winter activities humanity ever created.
17. Winter Camping Trip
Winter camping can be a fun, weekend activity for people who enjoy the outdoors! But no one would describe you as “outdoorsy” since the only time you’re seen outside of your apartment is during your weekly restock of dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, toilet paper, and whiskey. Maybe leave this one to people who can walk farther than five city blocks without getting winded.
16. Decorate A Gingerbread House
You might get lucky and the smell of warm gingerbread will cover up whatever stench you weren’t able to hide with pine-scented candles. But if you do this as a group activity, try not to lose your shit and throw your creation into the wall in front of your friends when you realize your gingerbread family has achieved something you never will: owning a house.
15. Dog Sledding
One might think that dog sledding would be an excellent activity for the lonely and solitary months of winter. Being out in the wilderness with only animals for company could be a good way to spend the short days if dogs didn’t have the ability to sniff out a pack of bacon five houses away. We recommend you skip this one, unless you want to really ruin a husky’s day.
14. Making Hot Chocolate
The sweet scent of hot cocoa will temporarily mask your crotch rot, and also remind you of being a kid when the only thing you had to do was wake up, go to school, endure hours of torment at the hands of your peers, hate the fact that you had no power or control over your life and listen to your parents fight as you tried to fall asleep. A delicious, nostalgic treat!
13. Holiday Movie Marathon
Sure, no one else has to be around as you watch some of your favorite holiday films. But will you really enjoy “It’s A Wonderful Life” when you remember that it was deemed a “subversive” movie by the FBI because you live in the United States and anything less than a full blowjob for bankers and capitalists used to be (and let’s face it, still is) considered communist propaganda? Get back to work, scum.
12. Snowmobiling
Wearing a helmet is the perfect mask for those dead eyes that haven’t looked away from your ex’s Instagram in 6 weeks. Make sure to drive the snowmobile alone, though, otherwise having a passenger will just remind you that no one wants to hold on to you in a romantic way because you’re an unlovable piece of shit with commitment issues, and boy oh boy do you stink.
11. Ice Skating
Ice skating can be a risky choice depending on your skill level. If you’re falling down a lot and generally unstable on the ice, no one will wonder why you’re crying and screaming and covered in blood. But if you have an easier time staying up, that same demeanor might draw a few questions.
Corey Taylor’s “The End So Far”-era mask is a masterclass in not getting that second date. Dead eyes, rictus grimace, lack of tan, it’s a recipe for getting left at the restaurant with the bill after your date shimmies out of a bathroom window and runs for their life.
Chris Fehn’s mask has a distinctive feature that may or may not work on a first date. The long phallic nose on an otherwise normally horrific gimp mask is a real make-or-break. Is he compensating for something? Does the mask stay on in the bedroom? Can he stop knocking over wine glasses with that thing? In the end, it does create a distancing effect that might make it hard to connect on a first date.
Throughout his Slipknot career, Craig Jones has barely changed his look: a gimp mask bedecked with long-ass nails. So if your date is into BDSM, the gimp mask part is a winner. The downside is that the nails are always going to be a barrier to intimacy and your pillows are going to be toast.
Pigs are cute, cut off pig faces less so. Paul Gray’s mask from Slipknot’s self-titled debut album is an image of porcine death staring out from blank eyes that will guarantee that your date becomes a vegan by the end of the night and puts a kibosh on a second date. That’ll not do, pig.
During the ‘We Are Not Your Kind” era when the masks were pretty weak, Jay Weinberg’s Hannibal Lector-style mask was a standout. Staples across the mouth, pentagram carved into the forehead, this is the mask you wear on the first date provided you’re going for a certain type of romantic partner: a satanist who owns an industrial staple remover.
Yes, Alessandro Venturella’s “The End, So Far” mask makes him look like a burn victim, but if you squint he’s got some of that Deadpool without the mask to him. If your date likes Ryan Reynolds in heavy prosthetics, you might be in for a chance of a second date. Just don’t act like Deadpool or Ryan Reynolds and you should be fine.
Jim Root’s evil harlequin mask has been gradually losing parts as the years went on going from full face mask to Phantom of the Opera-style with exposed face and beard. To keep some mystique, wear his “Subliminal Verses” era mask as it is the most “handsome” of the bunch and there’s enough white space on it, your date could write her phone number on it or just draw some doodles if they get bored.
Tortilla Man’s mask for “The End, So Far” is a goddamn nightmare for a variety of reasons. The freaky eyes, mouth rivets and zipper, and the fact it looks like it is made of human skin is all pretty horrific, but that Dracula collar saves the day by saying that yeah, I look like I cooked and ate a human being, but I also ate this sick-ass collar. Perfect statement dressing for a first date.
Clown’s mask for “Vol 3.” (The Subliminal Verses) at first might elicit sympathy from your date as they wonder what kind of accident required that level of haphazard bandage work. They’ll also be impressed that post whatever industrial accident you may have had, you still made the date, that’s commitment and that means something.
Sid Wilson’s gas mask look is a bit 2000-22 COVID-chic but who doesn’t want a person interested in safety? For a first date, we’d suggest specifically his “Slipknot” era mask which was his gassiest. Of course, the mask might be protection from noxious fumes, it won’t hide the fact that Wilson is a DJ, which is something no one wants to think about on a first date.
Jordy Jordison’s mask for “All Hope is Gone” was heavily Jesus-themed so wearing it is a big swing. However, if your date is religious it might work. They may have a crush on Christ, a need for the Nazarene, and there you are: thorn-crowned in Olive Garden just as the Bible foretold.
Any of Mick Thompson’s looks will be best for impressing on a first date. All of his masks are modeled on a hockey mask so full face covering, big wide eyes, and a covered mouth. Show your date you can emote with those baby blues and also, as your mouth is sealed shut, you’re a great listener.
Thank goodness Anberlin released a few EPs, compilation records, and live albums since their seventh, and final as of now, LP “Lowborn,” because this one absolutely and positively shouldn’t be their swan song. While Anberlin is pretty incapable of making a bad record, “Lowborn” as a record and specific album title, is their lowest point since being born. They weren’t necessarily losing it all per se, but we’d love an atonement album from them stat. This record is their most “new wave” effort and overall the least rocking. Anberlin is best when they’re rocking out/free, and we hope that they use their distortion pedals more next time around. Fun fact: The band returned to Tooth & Nail Records after three releases with a major label for this seventh record.
This one is tough to talk about, as many behind the scenes thought that it would elevate the band to Jimmy Eat World or Fall Out Boy territory. But Anberlin’s fifth studio album, despite sounding like the band’s biggest budget record, and utilizing revered and legendary producer Brendan O’Brien of Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Rage Against the Machine, and Millionaires fame showcased such posit for MANY, sadly fell short of the lofty expectations for the mainstream in pretty much every which way. Still, it debuted at number nine on the Billboard 200 chart, which is no small feat by any stretch. We wouldn’t necessarily like to die because of this, but our hearts are down, and dare we say, depraved. All we have is impossible expectations, so take us as you found us.
Anberlin’s debut LP is the first consistent album to be mentioned, and it was a debate amongst our collective brain cells as to whether the opener “Ready Fuels” or closer “Naive Orleans” would be featured as the “play it again” track, but ultimately, track eleven won. If you disagree, and we know that you will about this and everything we have said/will say, make your own list, and you will change the world, but not really. Also, covering a song by The Cure on any album, much less your debut, is a strong and confident statement, and the band executes “Love Song” in brilliant form, and eventually does so with other classic acts like The Smiths, Depeche Mode, Radiohead, and BABYMETAL on a record that is not technically a studio effort called “Lost Songs”… The band mapped out their future in epic form here!
Anberlin’s sixth LP altogether and last for a major label, is without question or hesitation their most underrated LP, and a rockin’ return to form. Sadly, the band would falter and lose more momentum after “Lowborn,” the follow-up to “Vital,” but we digress. If you missed “Vital” in 2012, you may have caught it in re-release form just one year later as “Devotion,” which is almost as cool as the rare Weezer B-side of the same name. We theorize that the band would still be on a major label if this was the follow-up to “New Surrender,” and if its predecessor was an EP instead of an LP, but that’s what makes horse racing!
Anberlin’s major label debut opens with their best song “The Resistance,” and there is zero hyperbole here, and “New Surrender” ends in epic fashion with a song with a Latin, but not Pig Latin title. Neal Avron, producer for such scene stars as New Found Glory, Say Anything, Yellowcard, and Rick James, absolutely slayed it here, as the loud songs rock very hard and the softer ones are solemn and lovely. While we like “The Feel Good Drag” slightly more than this album’s “Feel Good Drag” and the word “the,” the version from “New Surrender” went gold and broke some records on the Alternative Songs chart. Also, this album cover would make a solid painting in your kitchen or screen saver on your MacBook. “Speak for yourself,” you say? Too late to make demands, we like to burn out brighter!
If their debut was silver and working towards a fit bod, this one certainly was gold and filled with antioxidants sans steroids/Ozempic. Far from a sophomore slump, “Never Take Friendship Personal” had a stronghold on the underground, and still resonates with elder scene kids to this day. Fun fact: “The Feel Good Drag” is excellent, but isn’t even an official single, as “A Day Late” and “Paperthin Anthem” are the songs here that can claim such. This record foreshadowed its follow-up “Cities” in a great way, and that the band would continue to grow as songwriters and musicians. 2005 was a particularly novel year for the Hot Topic world with huge releases from The All-American Rejects, Panic! at the Disco, MxPx, and The Gap Band, and Anberlin totally rounded it all out succinctly.
You know that we’re right, but we know that you’re still going to complain, as there is no mathematics to love and loss: “Cities” is BY FAR Anberlin’s finest hour, rather, forty-six minutes and thirty-one seconds, and never truly lets up until the last moments of “(*Fin)”. Because of that and so, so much more, this LP, which was their last full-length studio album before the band’s major label deal, is a “no skip” masterpiece. Dismantle and repair your hearts whilst you bitch. Anyway, Anberlin went “mature” here in the best way, and the songs are a perfect combination of dark, hopeful, a whisper, and a clamor. Also, try not to headbang to the riff of track two and single one “Godspeed”; spoiler alert, you can’t. Don’t fall asleep, do not pass go, do not collect $200, and always remember that they lied when they said the good die young.