Why live college when you can watch it?

If the buzz on "Old School" is any indication, fans of lowbrow collegiate humor are in for quite a treat. Early word indicates that Saturday Night Live veteran Will Farrell gives a performance of Belushi-esque proportions as a drunken, oftentimes naked, thirtysomething frat rat. Throw in the expertly honed motor-mouthed hilarity of Vince Vaughn, and we're looking at a college comedy masterpiece in the making.\nI would have seen the flick already, but advance screenings coincided with IU basketball games and the 300th episode of "The Simpsons," both important cornerstones to my existence (not really, but entertaining nonetheless).\nObviously, college serves as a natural extension to the four wasted years otherwise known as high school. Comedies concerning both levels of academia work in a similar manner. As a precocious middle-schooler, I looked to films such as "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and "Dazed and Confused," as a point of reference. I wanted to catch riptides and smoke myself silly alongside Spicoli (Sean Penn). I yearned to "dog chicks out" with the aplomb of Randy "Pink" Floyd (Jason London), all the while avoiding the vicious paddlings of nefarious seniors. Years later, toward the end of my high school career (paddle free, thank God), the granddaddy of collegiate comedies, "Animal House," spoke to me, as I'm sure it's spoken to many horny, misdirected young men.\n"Animal House" serves as the iconographic representation of what college should be for any red-blooded American male. Who hasn't wanted to implement Eric "Otter" Stratton's (Tim Matheson) sleazy methods of courting? Drinking, toking, screwing and decimating all became synonymous with college as a result of the flick. Unfortunately, college isn't as much seedy fun these days. Sure, many of us enter the occasional drunken stupor, hit the pipe or get laid with some regularity, but not without repercussions. Don't believe me? Just read the IUPD blotter or rent "Campus Invasion No. 32." "Animal House" and latter films of its ilk represent a world void of these problems. This is what college should be.\nWhere else but in cinema could geeks be as cool as Booger, Wormser and Takashi of "Revenge of the Nerds?" How are "PCU"'s two fogies, Droz (Jeremy Piven) and Rand McPherson (David Spade), still in college? How does one make a sex tape with an Amy Smart caliber babe ala "Road Trip?" What else but weed and a poorly written screenplay could plunk rappers Method Man and Redman into the depths of Harvard in "How High?" How did the eldest Pete (Michael C. Maronna) of Nickelodeon's beloved "The Adventures of Pete & Pete" perform such daunting acts of penis puppetry in "Slackers?" And how does the titular character of "Van Wilder" (Ryan Reynolds) not only remain in college for seven years doctorate free, but also wind-up bedding dunderheaded hottie, Tara Reid? \nThe aforementioned questions, while silly, should be answered in an ideal world.\nSure, most of the previously mentioned films are bad. But they're funny and entertaining pieces, which give us insight into what college might have been and still could be. Instead of worrying about how much you paid for an overpriced textbook, which in all likelihood, you'll only read a quarter of, go out, have fun, find your inner Bluto. In the meantime, "Old School" or any of the aforementioned flicks should serve as ample Cliff's Notes. "Carpe the Diem. Seize The Carp"