I’m allergic to smoke. By allergic, I don’t mean that it simply bothers me. I mean, if exposed to smoke my lungs and throat swell shut. I have to literally take steroids to breath freely (after getting the hell away from the smoke obviously), and a ton of anti-histamines to keep my nose from shutting down and running like a faucet.

So, most of my friends that smoke know not to get near me when they’re doing it, and kindly go have a cigarette elsewhere before getting near me. But of course they always come to talk to me right after they have one, and then all that crap lingering in their lungs fills the room I’m in. And it bothers me. Not as bad as if they were actually smoking – but about 30% as bad. Still, I don’t say anything about it because I don’t want to sound like an asshole.

Well, a group of doctors from MassGeneral Hospital for Children in Boston coined the term “third-hand smoke” to refer to the heavy metals, carcinogens and even radioactive materials that come out of smoker’s lungs and get ingested by kids and non-smokers around them. Their study was just published in the Official Journal of Pediatrics. So to all of you parents who “only smoke when the kids aren’t around”, guess what. You’re still killing them.
Read the rest of this entry »

So, it looks like thanks to the new Guns and Roses album being released soon, Dr. Pepper is going to give us ALL a free one. But you have to print out your coupon on Sunday! Enjoy.

Dr Pepper to deliver on its free-soda promise
TX State Wire
Published: November 20, 2008

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Dr Pepper is making good on its promise of free soda now that the release of Guns N’ Roses’ “Chinese Democracy” is a reality.

The soft-drink maker said in March that it would give a free soda to everyone in America if the album dropped in 2008. “Chinese Democracy,” infamously delayed since recording began in 1994, goes on sale Sunday.

“We never thought this day would come,” Tony Jacobs, Dr Pepper’s vice president of marketing, said in a statement. “But now that it’s here, all we can say is: The Dr Pepper’s on us.”

Beginning Sunday at 12:01 a.m., coupons for a free 20-ounce soda will be available for 24 hours on Dr Pepper’s Web site. They’ll be honored until Feb. 28.

Dr Pepper is owned by Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Inc.
___

On the Net:
www.drpepper.com
www.gunsnroses.com

Today I was feeling especially lazy. I thought about excercising… for about a minute. Then, since I knew I wasn’t going to actually do it I decided to do a little browsing on the Intertubes and find out what kind of activity other people were engaging in.

It didn’t take long before I decided that jumping rope was the way to go – if I were going to actually do exercise. Which I’m not. But luckily for us, these folks are jumping rope like crazy!
Read the rest of this entry »

Sure there are 42 million Americans without health insurance. But that’s not such a problem! After all, those people can still get some health care anyway, right?

This little cartoon is pretty funny.
Read the rest of this entry »

You know how sometimes you’re walking through the mall or down the street and you see someone who is about 100 pounds overweight wearing Britney Spear’s clothing? And you turn to the person beside you and go, “I did not need to see that!”

Yeah, well you might as well just move along and not read this article now, because I’m gonna show you one of those things. If you continue at your own peril, don’t say you haven’t been warned!
Read the rest of this entry »

Ok. This is awesome. Wired magazine has published an article that proves once and for all that Women get as hot and bothered by exotic cars as men do (or more)!

A study commissioned by a phallically named insurance company proves beyond all doubt that the unbridled roar of an Italian supercar turns women on but the soft purr of a fuel-efficient econobox doesn’t stimulate anyone’s MPG-spot.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well, yesterday I posted about the fact that men who are polygamists live longer, but today I’m bringing you the news that men may indeed be predisposed to either being monogamous, or not!

New Scientist is reporting that men who have multiple copies of a gene called RS3 334 make for horrible partners. I know a couple of guys who probably have 10 of these genes. He, he.
Read the rest of this entry »

He, he, he. I couldn’t resist with the title… A new study from the University of Sheffield, UK’s Dr Virpi Lummaa says that men over 60 from 140 countries that practice polygamy lived on average 12% longer than men from 49 mostly monogamous nations.

Using data from the World Health Organization, Lummaa and Russell scored 189 countries on a monogamy scale of one to four – totally monogamous to mostly polygamous. They also took into account a country’s gross domestic product and average income to minimise the effect of better nutrition and healthcare in monogamous Western nations.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well, here’s something you don’t see every day…

A sick but very wealthy man was caught lying about purchasing a kidney for a transplant, and then sentenced to one day in prison. Why the short sentence? Well, he wasn’t allowed to have the organ, and heck… he’s gonna die anyway!

But this brings up a serious question. Why the hell shouldn’t he be allowed to buy a spare organ from someone willing to sell one to him?
Read the rest of this entry »

A growing number of Chinese women are experimenting with the country’s newest, and most controversial, fitness activity.

Clad in knee-high leather boots, spandex shorts and a sports bra, Xiao Yan struck a pose two feet off the ground, her head glistening with sweat and her arms straining as she suspended herself from a vertical pole.

“Keeping your grip is the hardest part,” she said. “It’s really easy to slide downward.”

Ms. Xiao, 26, who works as a supermarket manager, is one of a growing number of women experimenting with China’s newest, and most controversial, fitness activity: pole dancing.
Read the rest of this entry »

People ask me for advice nearly every day of my life. And I’d say that 95% of the time I have to give vague answers like “…in most cases…”, or “…usually…”. But every once in a while I’m able to hand out some advice that I feel is absolute. This is the best kind of advice, and Baz Luhrmann dished out some of this advice back in 1999 with the release of Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen.

“Wear Sunscreen” or the “Sunscreen Speech” are the common names of an essay actually called “Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young” written by Mary Schmich and published in the Chicago Tribune as a column in 1997.
Read the rest of this entry »

Did you know that there are a total of 29 human blood group systems? Yeah, this means that you’re walking around with different blood than just about everyone you meet on a daily basis!

And did you know that if you got in a car accident and a nurse accidentally hooked up a blood transfusion for you with the wrong type it could kill you!

Well, it happens, and here is the proof:

In 2003 Tawnya Brown was awaiting bowel surgery in a Northern Virginia hospital when she decided to switch beds to be closer to the window. The move ultimately killed her. During surgery, Brown mistakenly received two pints of A-negative blood. She was O-positive.

Read the rest of this entry »