Don't be a schmuck

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Hooray for Kwanzaa, and whatever other Winter Solstice-like holidays you’re celebrating this week. No doubt your week is going to be a hodge-podge of eating hearty meals with your family and/or getting together with friends at nice restaurants (or, not so nice place) and/or pulling some kind of end-of-year meals and parties with your co-workers and possibly your boss. In other words, this week you’re going to eating a whole hell of a lot. And it’s important that during these meals you don’t fuck it up by doing something terribly.

Which is why we’re pointing you towards this compelling article over at AskMen.com all about the most offensive things that someone can do at a restaurant. While a lot of these may seem like obvious faux pas, there are also a handful of offensive moves we didn’t even think were that offensive. Or, there are some that are so offensive it doesn’t even make sense that someone would think to do it. For example, this:

Live-blog your meal
You’ve heard the expression “Everyone’s a critic,” right? That isn’t just an empty slogan; it’s a set of instructions on how to live a fulfilled existence. That means if you didn’t have a good experience at a restaurant, it’s your sworn duty as an officer of the internet to get the word out. No slightly-less-than-stupendous dining experience should ever go unpunished. It’s the same idea behind holding your camera phone in the air the entire time you’re at a concert. If you don’t broadcast it to your social network, did it ever really happen?

Oh, man. If we ever see someone pulling that maneuver, don’t be surprised if you have trouble eating over the next few months with your jaw wired shut after us punching you hard, repeatedly, right in it. For more dinner no-nos, head over to the above link. And then take notes. Because we’re just WAITING to start punching people!

(Oh, happy holidays, once again, everyone.)

Fiber One

We know how easy it is to fall into the trap of constantly eating unhealthy foods. You’re sitting there, playing your video games for hours and hours and you suddenly realize that you haven’t eaten in 10 hours so you head over to the local fast food establishment. Or you’re pounding down the brews and need that final street meat taco before heading to bed. The reason that we all eat unhealthy is because of nothing but laziness; if we had some just extra snacks lying around we could turn to when your stomach turns into full panic mode, we’d all be better off.

Which is why today we’re highlighting this list over at Men’s Health about the 50 best snack foods around. These are small things that you just need to pick up at the grocery store, don’t worry about actually having to (gasp!) prepare something, and instead just snack on these whenever you feel the urge. And best of all, they’re not all terrible tasting. For example, number 50:

50. Best Fiber Bar
Fiber One Chewy Bars Oats & Peanut Butter

Per bar:
150 calories
4.5 g fat
10 g sugars
3 g protein
9 g fiber

With about a third of your day’s recommended fiber intake, this is the ideal snack for those days when your produce and whole grain intake are below par.

So make the choice to fill your cupboard with these items and watch the weight just melt off of you.

Between talk about how not having enough sleep could kill you, to today’s little piece about how video games can be fatal, apparently it’s Fear Week here on The Campus Throne. But this article is dealing with a pretty topical story about a 20-year-old from Britain just died last week after playing his XBox all night without sleeping. Here’s what Men’s Health has to say about how to avoid that (besides, you know, avoiding playing video games entirely):

Take a break!

The cause? Deep-vein thrombosis, a blood clot in the lower limbs caused by prolonged sitting that can come loose and work its way up to the heart or lungs, triggering a heart attack.

As many as 2 million Americans are diagnosed with DVT annually, but thousands of cases go unreported, especially among younger desk jockeys and marathon gamers. “Since the pain is similar to a cramp, men write it off,” says John Laird, M.D., medical director of the vascular center at the University of California at Davis.

And don’t forget to drink plenty of water: Keeping hydrated (8 ounces every 2 hours) during long sitting spells ensures healthy bloodflow and prevents clotting, Laird says.

But yes. If you notice that the sun has gone down and come back up, let’s go ahead and set the video games down for a few days.

Tell your tales

You know the guy. He’s the one at the party standing in the corner, holding a drink in his hand, sipping from it gently more to wet his dry throat than just working his way to an alcohol obliteration. You see, his throat is dry because he’s been holding court for the past half-hour, keeping a semi-circle of guys and girls enraptured with the story he’s telling. No doubt, he’s a badass. And no doubt, he’s going to get laid.

Being a master storyteller is not a natural gift. Look at the early videos of any successful stand-up comedian and you’ll see the struggles that one has to go through before “getting it.” But there are a few tips that can help you get over that first hump and become good at storytelling. AskMen.com has a list of them worth looking through before your next party. Here’s a snippet:

Give details
When you tell a story like a stand-up, choose only the best detail about each person and item in the story. Since this isn’t a romance novel, forget the details of her flowing hair and her sea-blue eyes. If she has a big nose, she becomes the girl with a ginormous nose in the story. Only list the elegant details if the story is about someone pushing her into the pool. After picking the detail, make an exaggerated comparison, such as: “Her nose looked like the blue-ribbon zucchini at the Montgomery County Fair.” Be specific in your details and comparisons. Saying that “the fat guy crammed himself into his Volkswagen Beetle” is funnier than saying: “The big guy got into his car.” Also, don’t forget to use all five senses. Many storytellers forget smell, but think about the effect of a well-described smell when it hits and triggers the brain: “The fat goth girl’s bedroom had all the sadness of a pork slaughterhouse, and smelled about the same.”

Important stuff, people. Check out the link for the rest of the tips. They are vital and will help you become great at storytelling.

Sack Eli!

For me, college and Madden are completely intertwined. I must have gone from 30-40 seasons worth of gameplay in franchise mode, staying up into the wee hours of the morning playing with whoever happened to pass by my door at 2am. (I scheduled it out so my classes didn’t start until 11am at the earliest. How people did anything else was a shock to me.) Sometimes it was stone cold sober, but other times there were drinking games involved. One terrible night (and an even more horrendous morning) was the result of a drinking game where the player would drink a shot if the other person scored on them. Which is all fine and good, until you remember that game scores regularly went into the 50s.

This is all a big lead-up to this preview of Madden NFL 12 over at Wired. Seeing as there still might not be an NFL season, looks like this might be all the football action you’re going to get this fall. Sounds awesome, still. For example:

Lack of Suction: “Suction” is the term that EA Sports uses to refer to defensive players’ tendency to draw in the player they’re tackling, sometimes making contact from much further away than they should. For example, running backs might have gotten stuck between linemen during in past Madden games and defensive linemen might have been inadvertently “sucked in” by their offensive counterparts.

Madden NFL 12 changes that, using its new engine to create more accurate points of contact for defensive players. Your backs will be able to juke and swerve between defenders on the line just like Chris Johnson or Adrian Peterson might in real life. And your defensive linemen will do their jobs much better — unless they’re the Bills.

Count us in.

Perhaps you’ve seen the commencement speech by Conan O’Brien at Dartmouth University over the weekend. It is literally on 85% of the Internet currently. It is pretty great. (If you haven’t seen it, follow the link that’s coming and check it out.) So many commencement speeches are kind of an iffy proposition. You’re generally dealing with a crowd of kids who are either hungover from the night before or exciting about the night of celebration to follow. And mostly, the speeches are by boring people. But now all the time.

AskMen.com has a list of the Top 5 Inspirational Graduation Speeches of all time. (That link, by the way, is where you’ll find the Conan speech.) They went through the archives of YouTube to find the best ones around, with a little encapsulation of why they are so powerful. Those are great and all, but the best one I’ve heard of (funny, touching, important, meaningful) is the speech by the now-deceased David Foster Wallace. I couldn’t find video of it, but here’s the audio. Enjoy it, if you’d like:

Awesome, right?

There’s a reason that every guy focuses relentlessly on having a threesome: they are awesome. You know how they say that sex is like pizza, even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good? Well, threesomes are like that, except more so. Yeah, listen. Maybe that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. The point is, we’re talking about threesomes, and when that happens I start to get a little crazy just thinking about them.

This is all a long way of going to introduce a VITAL piece of reading over at AskMen.com, detailing the ways that you can make a threesome happen for yourself. Ha-cha-cha! Among the advice they’re dolling out:

Set some ground rules

Setting up some threesome rules are a crucial part of pulling it off. Research shows that women can be awfully protective of their emotional bond with their boyfriend or husband. It’s important to realize that if she feels threatened by your “guest star,” your threesome is going to end pretty badly — and so might your relationship. Talk about the ground rules before the night begins: Are you OK with her kissing the third party? Is she all right with you penetrating another woman? Discuss all the potential outcomes so you both know what to expect. Don’t push your partner into anything she’s not ready for.

Obvious? Maybe. Vital for anyone thinking about it? Definitely. Head over to AskMen.com for more.

Tiger Woods' Cristina Del Basso Naked

Best Weekend Reading

Mark Manson posted a good article about using the 50% rule for improving your game.

Speaking of game, Roosh V posted about the future of game. And its bleak.

Here are 3 rules for texting a girl.

Check out the 3 ways to know when its time to break up.

Weekend Eye Candy:  Rosie Jones is so hot it hurts

Just posted 2 new articles on TSB, here is one filled with flirting tips for the unfunny guy… and this one is all about how to talk to women.

Here are 10 reasons a woman will reject you.

Rob Judge writes a eulogy for the death of the pickup artist.

Here are some tips on how to be funny.  Or watch this video on how to make women laugh.

The Art of Manliness explores the art of conversation.

Speaking of conversation, check out Conversation Escalation: Make Small Talk Sexy.

Here are some of the stories that are circulating around the web:

Dumb Twitter Posts

10 Funny Basketball Quotes

Stupid Japanese Clips

10 Most Overused Movie Lines

15 New Text Terms

14 Crazy Japanese TV Clips [videos]

Tired of hearing the words “sexting” and “chexting”? Here are the Top 15 New Texting Buzzwords

What It Would Look Like If Politicians & Pundits Were On Chatroulette

Russian woman goes to McDonalds without pants. Objections, anyone?

The DUKES OF HAZARD must still be popular in Holland. Why else would anyone do this?

Do Not Throw Objects Out The Window

$300,000 Cellphone is World’s Most Expensive

40 Fools Getting Dunked On

10 Reality TV Personalities Most Deserving of a Grisly
Death