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I know you can’t really explode your eyeballs if you try to stop a sneeze but suppressing a sneeze is never a good idea. The fact of the matter is that a sneeze can leave your mouth and nose at speeds in excess of 200 miles per hour. Trying to stop such a force isn’t something I would advise. In fact, doing so could cause damage to your eyes, nose, and/or eardrums.

However, there is a way to stop a sneeze without causing damage. You have to stop it before it starts. It is possible to simply relax, clear your mind, and concentrate on stopping the involuntary spasm that is a sneeze, however, that’s not very reliable and its not easy to summon the will power to subdue something as powerful as a sneeze. Imagine that you’re an international super spy, you’re on a stealth mission, you’re in someone’s office trying to steal top secret plans and as you open up the drawer to the desk your nose begins to itch, then tingle and you sneeze. This alerts the guards outside who promptly rush into the room and shoot you in the face, mission over. Oops! I sneezed!

It’s actually really easy to stop a sneeze. Just one conveniently easy pressure point will do the trick. That’s right, all you have to do is take your index and middle finger and press them to the little indention that your super-orbital ridge (your eyebrow bones) make where they meet just above your nose (between and slightly above the eyebrows).

If you trace your eyebrows with your fingers you can feel the bones. You want to press right where they join up with the forehead. The bones form a shape that’s almost like a “W” that will perfectly fit two fingers. I’ve provided the illustration to help… well, illustrate this.

Now, I’ve got to lay out a few things. This pressure point will stop most sneezes. However, it won’t stop all sneezes, including:

• Those brought on by high concentrations of irritants (such as pepper up the nose).
• Those caused by extreme allergy attacks (such as sneezing fits that last several minuets).
• A sneeze that’s right about to happen.

It’s also very important that you catch the sneeze early. If you wait too long to apply the pressure point, it won’t work. Upon applying the pressure to this point, you should immediately stop feeling like you have to sneeze. If you can still feel the sneeze building up, get your fingers away from your face before you poke your eye out.

I personally use this technique all the time. Sneezes actually do serve a purpose, so I use it sparingly. I tend to use this when I’m on the phone, with a customer at work, when I’m trying to be sneaky, etc…

Give it a shot, you’ll be amazed at how well it works.

Caffeine is a wonderful thing right? I know plenty of people who can’t even start their day without a cup of coffee or a nice cold coke. That caffeine rush sure is invigorating isn’t it? Heck, once you’re hooked on the caffeine, water just doesn’t compare to a cold bubbly soda. But have you ever thought about what happens to your body after drinking a Coke? This Article lays it out in detail and it’s some narly stuff. To summarize, you consume 100% of the daily recommended intake of sugar (in one serving), your blood sugar spikes, your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, and it increases dopamine production (not unlike the effects of heroine that make it so addictive), it severely dehydrates you and depletes you of vital nutrients.

The dehydrating qualities of caffeine where somehow kept from me in my youth. My assumption was “if I’m thirsty, I should get a drink” Apparently, however, the type of drink is VERY important.
Read the rest of this entry »

I recently discovered an interesting strategy for bathroom etiquette that results in benefits for both myself and my wife that I thought so helpful that I simply had to share. Before you read on, I should mention that I do not have any shame… just something you should be aware of.

You see, my wife often complains about the odor produced by my bowel movements. In fact, the restroom is generally off limits as a biohazard zone for quite some time afterwards. I understand this is also a problem for many other men. Generally speaking all the females I’ve known are completely repelled by the odor produced by male feces. They tend to avoid it like the plague, spray all manner of odor eliminators and scents in an effort to cover it up, and make funny faces while rebuking the source of the odor.

With this in mind, I sat down to think about what I could do to help ease my wife’s olfactory discomfort. Because it is often difficult for anyone to wait several hours for the stink to clear before they can use the toilet, I decided that it might be more considerate to wait until just after my wife uses the toilet to “take the browns to the super bowl”.

Judging by both common sense and anecdotal evidence, we can all agree that people tend to relieve themselves every few hours and are thusly unlikely to need to use the toilet within a few hours of relieving themselves. By waiting until my wife has just used the toilet to “drop the kids off at the pool” I can maximize the amount of time that the air has to clear before next she must visit the restroom, thusly sparing her from as much of my foul reek as possible. I find this to be the most considerate course of actions possible. It’s also very easy to do so long as there happens to be no immediate urgency to your situation.

As an additional benefit, because a woman must always sit in order to use the toilet, using the toilet right after her ensures that the seat is nice, warm, and ready for your posterior. The only exception is when your wife is a germ-aphobe who simply “hovers.” However, baring that one exception, this situation will likely be the same across the board. I must admit, I do not miss the cold seat, and although my wife thinks I’m a bit of a jerk to specifically wait for her to “warm up the seat” for me, she does appreciate the less frequent assault on her nostrils.

Someone once said that marriage is about compromise. I think this is a perfect example of this. There are obvious benefits for both parties and very little effort is required to reap these benefits. Because of this, I’ve got a new rule for toilet etiquette: if at all possible, wait until directly after my wife has used the toilet to “take a dump”. By sparing her of my noxious fumes, I am rewarded with a freshly warmed seat. Seems fair enough to me.

As some of my readers may know, I am also the owner of a budding Free Traffic Community called Free Traffic Works. This site is completely dedicated the various methods through which website owners can generate free traffic to their sites. Before it was just one big ad page. People could sign up and have their links shown on that ad page. Now the site is COMPLETELY different.

Now users can actually see the various free traffic services and rate them according to their own personal experience with them. They can also suggest new free traffic generating services for us to rate and to advertise for. On top of that every user can leverage the ENTIRE SITE to display their affiliate links. That’s right, when users advertise their FTW affiliate link, those that surf the site from their links will see that user’s affiliate links for those services. Even if they visit the site and come back to it weeks later, they will still see that user’s affiliate links.

It’s a powerful system with great potential. The best part is, there is MUCH more to come. I also intend to monetize the site so that users can not only use the site to advertise for them, but to also generate them actual affiliate sales to earn them money! And it’s all free, forever, I’ll never charge a dime.

Go on, check it out, it won’t hurt to take a peek. Free Traffic Works and it can work for you.

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I managed to actually finish a Rubik’s cube for the first time yesterday. I would have to say however, that is was mainly a fluke.

It comes with instructions that are actually fairly easy to follow… but I must admit that I don’t do most of the first steps because it’s easier just to do it my own way. However, the sequences of moves to get the last few steps are quite useful as they show you how to manipulate small parts of the cube at a time without disturbing the rest of the pieces. The process is supposed to only take 7 steps. Not bad really. I can get to the seventh step in a matter of minuets without any problem. However, the 7th step has you doing the same sequence of moves either 2, 4, or 8 times. Each time I would do that sequence it would just mess it up more and more. It never made any sense. Read the rest of this entry »

I just happen to be a poor college student. That being the case, I like to share the things I’ve learned as a poor college student with other poor college students. One thing that always was difficult for me was finding the right gifts for everyone during the holidays. However, it didn’t take me long to figure out a quick and cheap way to give gifts that I knew everyone would love. Read the rest of this entry »

Several things. Inspired by this post over at wifeadvice.com I decided to write up a post about what I am thankful for in my marriage. It’s a little late for Thanksgiving but I still like the idea.

I am thankful that I have someone to:

1. Keep the bed warm on those cold nights.
2. Bring me lunch while I’m at work.
3. Scratch my back when I can’t reach it.
4. Help me do the chores.
5. Take care of me when I’m ill.
6. Keep me in  line when I’m being a jerk.
7. Navigate when I get lost (which happens often).
8. Joke around with.
9. Talk to about anything.
10. Serve as my personal memory (because my memory really is terrible, I rely on my wife in this role).
11. Make me laugh.
12. Share my dreams with.
13. Make fun of people with (yep, we do that pretty often… there is no shortage of morons out there. It’s pretty fun to point them out… and have a laugh at their expense).
14. There’s more, I’m sure… but I would have to ask my wife because I’ve forgotten them. :P

Yeah, our relationship isn’t perfect, we fight from time to time, and we really are two different people… but it’s fun most of the time. Our biggest problem is that we don’t get to spend enough time with each other. I am thankful for the time we do get to spend together though.

I liked this little exercise, I would certainly encourage anyone who is married or even dating to sit down and make just such a list. Even if it is funny and joking around. It’s worth a try anyhow.

Type to you later,
~Nathaniel

An ongoing theme/ability in my dreams is actually the ability to create swords from my own body. I’ll outline a few of the dreams (in chronological order) that illustrate this ability.

Read the rest of this entry »

Another little bit of advice for college goers. Veggies will keep your brains alive! I am a big carnevore. I just love meat. I eat large amounts of meat at every meal. Protein keeps me from becoming anemic and it settles my stomach. Now, meat is good for you but you also need veggies. Yeah, I know, that green stuff. Trust me, it can be good. In fact, I have noticed that if I do not eat my veggies that there is a marked decline in my mental state. That is to say, that I am more stupid when I’m not eating my veggies. I have noticed simple things like the fact that my vocabulary will increase after eating plenty of veggies in comparison to eating none at all. I just recently noticed that I was having problems coding pieces of my new online community website only to figure out that a few simple misspellings where the culprit (which I only noticed several hours after eating a large salad… when the previous few days where mostly burgers, bacon, and pizza… yes those are the three main staples of my diet).

Now, I know that fat is good for your brain, or rather the right kind of fat… mostly the kind found in fish. However, there are plenty of vitamins and minerals found in plants that we need too. Perhaps these vitamins are the reason for my mental incline after consuming veggies. Who knows. All I know is that if you don’t eat your veggies, your brain will suffer.

On another note, for general health, eat a ton of garlic. No one will like you… because your breath will stink… but your body will love you for it. Whenever I start to feel the slightest bit ill, I start eating copious amounts of garlic. The good thing is that I usually don’t get sick because of this… the downside is that my wife won’t kiss me when I smell like garlic. My only consolation is that she wouldn’t kiss me if I where sick either, so it’s not like I’m missing out on anything. Garlic is actually a pureative, and an antibiotic. It kills germs. If you’re spiritual, it also wards off evil spirits (which isn’t to say that it won’t ward off evil spirits if you aren’t spiritual). Garlic is just plain good for you because its so bad for almost everything else. I suppose it helps that I like garlic, huh? It’s great for knocking out a cold or the flu. But works best if you start eating it in large amounts right after your first symptoms.

If you don’t like garlic, cinnamon also helps… although it’s not as strong as garlic and tends to have adverse effects if consumed in large amounts.

Figured that was worth knowing, and certainly worth sharing,
Type to you later,
~Nathaniel

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I just found a cool article about some crazy transgenic mice. These mice have been engineered to have their neurons display random amounts of certain pigments. The end result is what is called the “Brainbow” mouse. The images of these mouse brains captured are not only stunningly beautiful, but also reveal a great deal about how nerves interact. I must admit, the images produced are much cooler than any abstract artist I’ve ever seen.

With the creation of such transgenic animals it really makes me wonder about the connection between art and science. Obviously, science is producing greater technology every day. With this technology, we (artists) are able to create new, and perhaps better, forms of art. In this case, the reason behind the creation of this transgenic mouse was purely scientific but managed to create something very artistic.

It really is fascinating to see such a progression. I know that 100 years ago, computer generated art wasn’t even an option, let alone an idea. Now, a great deal of art is digital. I have always argued that our bodies are works of art created by nature. Nature itself is one large work of art, and a beautiful one at that. Now we’re taking control of nature and creating new and exciting pieces from it. I can’t wait to see what new technology will lead to the next big thing in art.

Type to you later,
~Nathaniel