New Year’s Eve – a sparkly dress, a glittering party, a bubbly drink, and if you’re lucky, a kiss that lingers minutes past midnight. What better way to send off 2009 (good riddance!) and ring in the next decade? Yet, anyone who’s ever experienced a New Year’s Eve knows the expectations are higher than for almost any other night of the year – and the pressures, dangers, and stresses are doubled as well. Whether it’s how to tell your boyfriend that you’d like to remain a virgin into 2010 or that tonight’s the night to try something new, it’s... 

I am shedding light on the sustained periods of personal “growth” we as women get thrown into like gladiators left to fend for themselves with no advanced notice or appropriate armor or weaponry. I am talking about the week you were let go from work, found out your man was getting cozy with the bartender at your favorite watering hole (how dare he make me switch bars), your credit card interest rate just about doubled and your pms seemed to have kicked in about two weeks two early. WARNING: Do not down all the spirits in your liquor cabinet, much less ingest all items in your pantry... 

Or to put it another way, do you know the difference between real food and food that was designed to fool you into believing it is real? It might not be as easy as you think. (Spoiler Alert! If you haven’t seen the original Matrix film yet, crawl out of your cave and go watch it real quick before reading. We’ll wait.) In the classic film The Matrix, machines of the future create a sophisticated computer program that produces an alternate reality for their human slaves. The program, the Matrix, placates humans into believing they are living normal lives while their bodies are imprisoned in suspended... 

My friend Benny Woo’s pop has a real flat dick and has to eat those boner pills called Viagra all the time so he can bang his new girlfriend Tina. I never met her but I guess she’s like 25 and a hellcat in the sack. Benny says she’s one hot chick with massive gazungas and an upside down heart for an ass. …………“I’m hoping she gets to be my step mom real soon,” he told me, a faraway look in his eyes. …………Benny’s pop is like 55 but he’s loaded and drives around in a Vette so I’m not surprised he snagged such a fine specimen of femininity. Hot ass is one of the many... 

In the world of sexuality, perhaps nothing is so misunderstood as Premature Ejaculation. It is the butt of an endless onslaught of jokes and the cause of just as many worries, as men around the world continue to lose all kinds of confidence with every new penis drug that is released. Masters and Johnson defines PE as the condition where a man ejaculates before his sex partner achieves orgasm, in more than fifty percent of their sexual encounters. Other sex researchers have defined premature ejaculation as occurring if the man ejaculates within two minutes of penetration; however, a survey by Alfred... 

There hasn’t been a lot of clarity in the sturm und drang over the so-called public option in current health care reform schemes. The best discussion of the public option I’ve read is in a column by Robert J. Samuelson in The Washington Post. The political divide over the public option, like so much else in Washington, is defined by raw partisanship. Most Democrats want it, some because they see it as the first step in their march toward single-payer health care. The single payer, of course, is the government. Inevitably, because there’s only so much money to meet health care... 

The snow white tiger ran down the path towards me as if it were chasing a rainbow.  The rider, skinny, pretty makeup, and ocean blue hair, laughed as she instructed her animal with her keyboard to run around me in circles.  I then controlled my priest to turn towards her hunter and typed in, “Your ride is awesome.” She wrote, “I know.  lol.” As I looked at her character, accessorized and equipped for wicked battle, I realized that she had sold her soul to World of Warcraft; hope still within my grasp and only 1/24th of my time being torn by a breach – I considered myself lucky. ... 

Falling asleep in class is no new obstacle to college students today.  The classes can swell to as many as 200 students which provides handy camouflage to safely doze off, there’s still only one teacher, and the seats are usually more comfortable than those hardback plastic ones in high school.  Even if you’re one of the few (very few) people who have never fallen asleep in lecture, you may find yourself spending most of the class surfing Facebook or talking to friends on AIM.  Distractions abound when you own a laptop, and it can be really hard to focus your attention on the professor so... 

Summer’s coming to a close, class will soon be back in session, and for many students that means the familiar onset of stress and worry (unless you’re in summer school; you’ve already started suffering weeks ago). No more sleeping in or staying out late, class and homework everyday, working on your major, that internship, planning for your future… yikes. It’s easy to become overwhelmed, and you wouldn’t be the first student to flip out if you did. That’s why it’s important to keep a steady pace and set your priorities while at the same time making time for relaxation. “All... 

Last week The New York Times published a story on the life prolonging effects of a low calorie diet in primates. The study in question found that like other organisms (from yeast to worms to mice), rhesus monkeys that eat 30% fewer calories age more slowly and develop fewer diseases than animals on a traditional diet. Those of us who follow the scientific literature on nutrition and aging are not surprised by this at all. A few days after the story was published The Times published an op-ed questioning the value of the research. Roger Cohen argues that Canto, the healthier monkey, has suffered... 

Last week the New York Times and many other reputable news sources reported on a Canadian study that claims people with a normal body mass index (BMI) had a slightly increased risk of dying over a 12-year period than those with a BMI in the overweight range (25-29). The use of the phrase “overweight was protective” landed this article just a hair’s width from being labeled Summer Tomato’s B.S. of the week on Friday. An observational study cannot determine cause and effect, as implied by the word “protective.” This study does not prove that extra body weight protects against all cause... 

A new study published yesterday in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggests that both weight loss and risk factors for heart disease can be improved following a vegan version of the low-carb, high-protein Atkins diet. The “Eco-Atkins” diet focuses primarily on soy, nuts and wheat proteins (gluten) to increase the amount of vegetarian protein in the diet. Carbohydrates were restricted to 130 g/day, which is on the higher end of most low-carb diets. All starchy foods such as bread, baked goods, potatoes and rice were eliminated. Carbohydrates were provided in the form of whole, intact grains...