How to Stay Awake in a Boring Lecture

Unfortunately, not everyone can keep you at the edge of your seat like I can. Some people in this world are boring as shit and, all too often, that person is your professor or lecturer. Staying awake and avoiding death by boredom is crucial in a situation like this. No one wants to be the asswipe who falls asleep in his seat and makes a fool of himself when he lets out a snore or awakes in a panic. That having been said, here's how you stay awake in a boring lecture:

Keep a Level Head

Always keep your chin parallel to the ground. Tilting your head too far back or too far forward will pinch your windpipe slightly and cause you to snore loudly when you’re not paying attention to your breathing. A level head ensures smooth, noise-free air flow, Proper breathing will also provide your brain with fresh oxygen, If you think the whole “oxygen to your brain” business is bullshit, then consider the fact that casinos regularly pump oxygen into their halls to keep patrons awake and gambling.

Play With Yourself in Public

Soldiers, in the case that they be held hostage in silence for a prolonged period of time, are taught to play mind games with themselves to avoid insanity. This sounds a bit too extreme a lesson for your lecture hall, but the lesson carries over. Keeping your mind occupied will keep you mentally alert and hold off total boredom. Try to see how far back you can remember what you had for dinner. Look up riddles or math problems and solve them in your head.

Break your Water

If possible, have a cool water bottle with you. You’d be surprised how much you’ll drink when you have nothing else to do. This will keep you busy when you have little else to do or think about. Where this stone hits the second bird is in the fact that you’ll also be preventing dehydration that would sap your energy. As if keeping yourself occupied and hydrated wasn’t enough, filling your belly with water will have you urging for a piss in no time. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been able to fall sleep on a full bladder.

Dalai Lama Masochism

Buddhist monks pray late into the night in total silence. Should a monk nod off in what should be an intense praying session, he’ll receive a quick smack from a whipping stick. How can you take this method to your lecture? Keep an elastic band around your wrist. Don’t worry; no one will think it’s a hair elastic, you wuss. If you stick to the tan colored ones that blend right in with your skin color no one will know. When you feel yourself becoming drowsy, pull the elastic band and let it snap on your wrist. Don’t crap your pants, it doesn’t hurt that much. While it may seem slightly sadistic, the sharp signals of pain will give your brain a stimulus to process and prevent it from shutting down.

Get Nippy

When your body is at a comfortable temperature, it relaxes a lot of it's systems. This relaxation is causing your mind to slow down on you and relax as well. To wake up your lazy-ass anatomy throw your mind a sobering curve ball. Cooling your body down will send it back into alert, warm-up mode. To achieve this, take off your sweatshirt, if wearing one. If you have a cold water bottle, you can use it to cool down your wrists. Why the wrists? It's an accessible area of the body with little insulation and decent blood flow.

There's no way to defeat the sandman. All these solutions are temporary, superficial fixes. If you find yourself using any of this advice to keep awake, you should be sleeping more at night. How about you stop looking up porn tonight and get to bed at a decent hour? Wondering about the random model pic? It's to get hits and keep it's keeping you awake. I'm all up in your mind, sucka. Stay cool and don't make a fool of yourself.

How to Smoke a Water Pipe

Shisha, nargila, hookah, whatever you choose to call it, it's increased in popularity in the last few years. With the recession still among us, creating a lounge atmosphere at home is becoming a fashionable and cost efficient way of spending an evening. Here's what you need to know if you want to hit the ground running in the hookah bizCoals

There are two kinds of coals you'll be seeing: natural and quick light. Natural coals need to be lit on a stove, bbq or coal chimney. Quick lights can easily be lit with a plain lighter. If you're just starting out with shisha, you shouldn't be hassling yourself with natural coals. Just get yourself some quick lights and don't complicate your life. When you get a bit

more adept at preparing your hookah and feel yourself wanting to fine-tune the quality of your smoke, natural coals generally burn longer, maintain a constant temperature and produce less ash.

Buying Shisha Tobacco
If you're lucky enough to live in a place where flavoured tobacco isn't outlawed (like Canada. Haha. Americans, envy my fruity-tasting tobacco and the way I write flavoUred!) then you should find yourself a source of shisha tobacco. It's different from cigarette rolling tobacco in that the cut is a lot thicker and the dried leaves are glazed with fruit preserve and molasses. If you can't find a tobacconist near you that sells it, there's a brand being sold on eBay for a very reasonable $3 a box. They get away with it because it's sugar cane bagasse and not really tobacco. Personally, I prefer it over the tobacco varieties. In any case, your shisha should be sticky and moist. Should you happen upon a dry batch or your batch dries up, glazing the dry leaves in honey and letting it sit for about an hour should breathe new life into your tobacco. To prevent having to resort to this, it's advised to store your nargila boxes in the fridge.

Coal Handling
Whenever handling a coal it's important to use a set of coal tongs (for obvious reasons).
Avoid smoking the hookah while quick light coals are in the process of lighting. The smoke the let out is quite unpleasant.
To light a new coal, just put a new coal on top of the lit one and blow gently. It should catch in no time.
If you're transitioning to a new coal, you may want to keep you old coal on for a bit until the new one reaches full heat. Pay special attention to the flavor of the smoke. If you notice it becomes harsher, you're burning your coals too hot and that's your cue to remove one.
It's normal to go through 2-3 coals depending on the size of the bowl, quality of the coals, moisture of the tobacco, etc.
Start your coal on the edge of the bowl and gradually, over the process of the full smoking session, shift it around the entire perimeter of the bowl. This will ensure a full and pleasant burn of your tobacco. Leaving the coal in the middle for the entire session will lead to a charred center bowl and an unburnt circumference. On top of that, the tobacco is more likely to heat up past the optimal temperature and produce a harsher smoke


Preparing the Hookah

• Fill the vase with water
• Wet the rubber gaskets of the stem, connect the stem to the vase and twist it a bit to form a good seal.
• Connect the hose to the stem and, again, twist it a bit to form a good seal.
• Wet the gasket of the bowl and twist it on.
• Fill the bowl with tobacco and cover it in foil as if you were wrapping a serving bowl of food.
• With a fork or tooth pick, punch a few holes in the aluminum.
• Light the coal and set it on the foil
• Let the coal sit for 30 seconds.
• Start smoking the shisha.
• As you draw, the smoke will gradually get thicker.
• When the air filled part of the vase turns opaque with smoke, you know your hookah's smoking at full capacity.

Filling the vase:
Since the water in the vase is what's going to be filtering and cooling your smoke, it should come as no surprise that altering the contents will lead to new flavors and a better smoke. Firstly, the colder the water the better. You can even add ice to the vase and/or put it in the freezer. Cold water makes a thicker and cooler smoke. Instead of water, you can choose to put in a variety of liquids like wine, coffee, juice, spirits, milk. Of all of them, the most successful for me has been some cold juice with a few sprigs of mint. One thing that's great about shisha is that you can fine tune the recipe to produce your signature tobacco/liquid blend.

Filling the bowl:

The tobacco should have a good smell and be very sticky. If you notice it's dried up, just drizzle a bit of honey on it and let it absorb. When you do pack your bowl, pile the tobacco down and gently press down. Your mound should rise slightly above the level of the lip of the bowl. Cover it with a piece of aluminum and poke holes in the foil with a fork, toothpick or any fine poking device.

Cleaning

Vase
Hookah vases tend to be in intricate shapes and are almost always a chore to clean. Sure, the dummies solution is to pop it in the dishwasher but, since the opening is so narrow in comparison to the rest of the vase, the inside won't receive a steam bath at best. If you actually want to get you vase clean and not gross your friends out with crap floating in your hookah water, you'll head to a place where you'll go to a kitchen store and look for one of those bendable scrubbing sticks for wine decanters. The poor man's solution is to put a small handful of uncooked rice in your bowl along with two cups of hot, soapy water. Shake and swirl your vase up like a lychee martini. The rice should act as an abrasive that'll scrub the walls.

Bowl
The bowl, being a simple piece of ceramic, can be scrubbed or put in the dishwasher like any other ceramic piece.

Stem
The importance of stem cleanliness is highly underrated. A dirty, sooty stem leads to a less pure, harsher smoke. Put the stem under a hot faucet and let the water run through the length of the stem to remove the loose soot and soften the encrusted layer. Next use a pipe brush to remove all the crap from the inside.Hose
Unless you know for a fact your hose is washable, it probably isn't. Running water through the inside could crack the rubber. Instead, blow as hard as you can through the hose while rapidly block and unblocking the end.

Tongs
Pop ‘em in the dishwasher. Shame on you for making me explain that.

Shisha Etiquette
Shisha, unlike cigarette smoking, is a social event. While your typical Tau Bro Phi probably won't know a thing about any sort etiquette associated with smoking nargila, if you find yourself in a Middle Eastern shisha lounge (or country) it's expected that you respect a certain level of decorum. Here are the basic rules you should keep in mind:

1. The hookah bong is built tall for a reason. It's meant to be placed on the floor next to you, not on the table. Putting it on the table is seen as a form of idol worship - a no-no in a monotheistic culture.


2. Never pass the hose hand to hand. Rest in on the table to the next person in rotation and rotate the hookah if need be.


3. If it's your turn with the hose, don't rest it on the table unless your passing it. It's seen as rude to not let others smoke just so you can take a breather while the tobacco's still smoking. Either puff or pass.


4. On the flip side of rule #2, it's rude to hurry a person with the hose or ask that he pass it. Basically it's a mutually understood manner that one person won't delay too long and the others won't pressure him. It's all for the sake of preserving the friendly, relaxed atmosphere.


5. Don't think that just because people are smoking, it's okay for you to light up a cigarette. There's something to be enjoyed about the mellow, fruity aroma of the nargila in the air.

And that's all she wrote. It may sound like an intricate process but it's all really common sense. It's just the close attention to detail that separates the truly enjoyable, relaxing smoke experience from the two high school seniors chuffing on ash in their parents' poorly heated garage. Whatever your situation may be, keep in mind that shisha smoking isn't about getting your nicotine fix. It's all about relaxing, socializing with friends, and occasionally just sitting back and enjoying smoke patterns. So take it easy and don't work too hard.

How to Smoke a Tobacco Pipe

Though it may seem a bit too nostalgic (or downright weird) pipe smoking is starting to make a significant comeback; especially in the 21 - 30 age demographic. Some appeal to the classy/manly look and feel of a pipe as they sit down with a friend, catch up on some reading, or sip some fail-me-not bourbon on the rocks. Others find more appeal in the fact that it is form of smoking that is less harmful than cigarettes. Whatever your reason, your looking to get into pipe smoking. Let's go over some basics.

Tobacco
Pipe tobacco varies greatly from one brand to the next. A good tobacconist will have a big enough selection to help you find exactly what kind of tobacco suits you.
To start off, the are two types of tobaccos you have to choose from- english or aromatic. The generalization is that beginners tend to like the sweet aromatics and more experienced pipe smokers will prefer a more full-bodied english tobacco. You can believe that if you want, but not everyone learns to appreciate Smirnoff Ice before they can enjoy Guiness, if you catch my metaphor. Whatever your preference, it's generally a good idea to find at least one aromatic tobacco you enjoy since, in a case where you find yourself smoking in front of others, people tend to like the smoke of aromatics. It's somewhat less intrusive. I've also heard of people hiding their pipe smoking session by using an aromatic tobacco and, afterwards, lighting an incense stick to blend with the smell and fool people into thinking the stick is the source of the odor.

Pipe tool
A pipe tool is super basic and doesn't need to be sophisticated at all. Basically, a pipe tool consists of a tamper, scoop and probe. The tamper is the flat foot used to “tamp” down the tobacco to let the embers spread. The probe is the long poker that’s used for stirring ash and aerating the tobacco. The scoop, through process of elimination and logical semantics, is used to scoop out the “dottle” – the ash and unburnt tobacco.

Filters
A pipe filter is an optional addition to your smoking experience. The filter is a piece of either cotton with carbon in it or balsa wood. Filters advertise that they absorb many of the carcinogens in the smoke. Along with that, the filter will also absorb some of the steam let off by the burning tobacco; leading to a cooler, drier smoke. Filters may also be something you'd want to try if you find yourself in the possession of a pipe that, all too often, begins gurgling from a moisture buildup.

Packing your pipe
This is where skill comes into play. Many people won't pack a pipe properly and might have an experience that discourages them from continuing. A properly packed pipe is like writing a short story. If you structure it properly and are conscious about the subtle details, you'll be drawn in with an intriguing introduction, held in place by a consistently enjoyable journey and, finally, be left satisfied with the gradual conclusion.
The predominant method of packing a pipe is the "Child, mother, father method." In this method, you grab your first pinch of tobacco, put it into the bowl of your pipe, and press it down gently with your finger - as a child would. Your next pinch of tobacco is put into the bowl and stuffed in with a press firmer than before. The third, and final, pinch of tobacco is placed into your bowl and pressed down firmly. By doing this, you're packing your bowl with layers of firmness that ensure a pleasant, even smoke.

Lighting your pipe
There are three main devices you can use to light your pipe. As with anything some tools are better suited for the job than others.

Matches: best - matches impart the perfect heat to the bowl. If your tobacco is burnt at too high of a heat, the smoke will be stingy and unpleasant. Matches tend to burn at relatively cool temperature. One thing to always remember is to let the match burn out the head before you bring it to the bowl. You don’t want the sulfuric, phosphoric properties of the match head affecting your smoke.

Butane lighter: Good – If you find yourself in a situation without matches, a butane lighter will do fine. Zippo makes a specialized pipe lighter that can be turned sideways and still have flame exposed below (see pic). Other lighters have a little extension that points the flame downwards. These are both just to make life easier for you.

Jet lighter: Worst – A jet-style lighter is probably the worst thing you could use to light your pipe. Your tobacco will char and produce a smoke that will scorch your tongue. If a jet lighter is all you have, then just don’t smoke. It’s like adding orange juice to your cereal because you don’t have milk. There is no possible reason to be using a jet lighter.

Whichever device you use to light, always keep the flame just above the tobacco and move it in a circular pattern while drawing in. The initial light is actually called a “false light.” The top layer of tobacco will light and puff up. The puffing up means the rest of the bowl won’t light. That’s why, after every initial light, you have to tamp the tobacco down and re-light to make sure you have a nice, last, even light.

It’s completely normal to have to relight your pipe 2-3 times throughout your smoke, the ash buildup tends to choke the embers of oxygen. Use your probe to gently stir and collapse the layers of ash then have another pass with your lighter/match.

Concluding the Experience
When your smoking experience is done, simply empty out the contents of the bowl using the scoop and let your pipe rest for about 24 hours before smoking again. For the first smoke, it’s especially important to let the pipe rest since it’s still being broken in. Also, for a new pipe, go very light on the scoop tool. Try not to scratch the walls of the bowl. You’re trying to buildup a carbon “cake” on the wall so as to give the bowl a bit of a burn protection layer for future lights.

As with most hobbies, you should invest in quality equipment for when you first start. Sure you can cut your spending to under $20 if you buy Captain Black and a pipe from China but that $20 is a complete waste if you end up having a bad experience and get turned off pipe smoking all together. Cheap tobaccos taste crappy. Cheap pipes can have a hot smoke, be prone to gurgling, have loose seals, break easily (happened to me), and even stain your hands with their varnish.

Anyone can buy a pack of cigarettes from a gas station and get their quick nicotine fix. Pipe smoking is about something completely different. It’s about appreciating smoke consistency, flavor, intensity, temperature, etc. I hope you enjoy your venture into pipe smoking. Keep it classy and take it easy.

I want to thank PipeFriendCHS for being my professor in Pipe Smoking 101. I recommend checking out his YouTube channel and how-to playlist.

How to Cure/Avoid a Hangover

The holy grail of every decent drinking man is the ultimate cure to the anything but elusive hangover. By "decent" drinking I don't mean the 3 Smirnoff Twisteds you slurp down while watching figure skating with your gal pals. I'm talking about the kind of drinking that would get Dracula smashed off your life juice. It's the kind of drinking that makes you swear off alcohol for life...then has you crawling back a week later. I had a look (and try) at all the popular remedies, here's what works and why:

Black coffee the next morning - Not Effective. While I don't particularly enjoy my coffee black, it is helpful. In my

opinion, it doesn't have to be coffee. It just has to be strong in caffeine. Alcohol shrinks your red blood cells when it enters your blood stream. Once it leaves, your blood vessels re-expand causing severe discomfort. Caffeine, like alcohol, also has the ability to constrict your blood vessels. Doing so relieves the discomfort caused by the rapid expansion. The reason this only works slightly is because the relief is fleeting. Coffee, being a diuretic, causes your body to lose even more fluids. When your lacking fluids as it is, draining out even more won't help your cause. Stay away from the caffeine.

Multivitamin - Somewhat effective. Vitamin C and Vitamin B both help the body break down and metabolize the alcohol that' s been suddenly introduced into your system. A multivitamin will also replace some minerals lost in the drinking process. A simple vitamin isn't hard to obtain or ingest and it's just a good habit to take your daily vitamin.

Tall glass of water before bed - Very effective. The main reason for your hangover is because of dehydration. A night of binge drinking drains your body of it's vital water. Forcing yourself to drink a full glass of water ensures that your body won't become a California raisin overnight.

Advil - Not effective. Any pain relief is quite temporary. Also, you have a chance of upsetting your already sensitive stomach and making the situation worse for yourself.

Choose vodka - Somewhat effective. Earlier I mentioned that the main cause of the hangover is dehydration. The second cause is the methyl alcohol you ingested. While ethyl alcohol is the good type that gets you drunk, methyl alcohol is the toxic type that will cause you to go blind and, eventually, kill you. Vodka, by nature, is voided of as many impurities as possible. Also the finer the vodka, the better the filtration, meaning less methyl to give you a hangover. Next time it comes to choosing between your fifth Jaeger bomb or a Ketel One with lime cordial....you know where to go, Boris.

Eat a juicy fruit before bed - Somewhat effective. Again, this follows the principle of rehydrating yourself as well as replacing lost nutrients. Also, drained in the drinking process are your blood sugars. A juicy, sweet pair before bed should help keep your blood sugar level within range through the night.

Ginseng - Not effective. Your local Chines herbal remedy store owner might be quick to prescribe ginseng for your morning-after cranial contractions but don't fall for it. Ginseng, like coffee, is a diuretic and will have you even more dehydrated than before.

Bloody Mary - Effective. Mrs. B Mary has her way of replenishing drained vitamins and mineral, reshrinking blood vessels and rehydrating the body slightly. There is good reason why the Bloody Mary is the classic hangover recipe. I like to add extra Tabasco because not only do spicy foods make you feel full quicker (read my article on slimming foods), but it also speeds up your metabolism, helping your body burn off the unwelcomed alcohol.

Exercise - Effective. A quality exercise will bring cleansing oxygen to your lungs, loosen your stiffened muscles and return proper blood flow to all the areas that need it. While a good workout can do wonders for your hangover, the wrong movements at the wrong pace at the wrong intensity will just make your throbbing head and achy muscles much worse. There are a few important things to remember when choosing your routine. Before you do anything, drink heaps of water. Your body is dehydrated and you're about to sweat out even more water.

• Don't do movements that involve compressing your body. This will sporadically raise your blood pressure and will cause added nausea
• Don't lower your head past your heart. The blood rushing to your head will put unneeded pressure on the blood vessels and will amp up that incessant throbbing
• Opt for light, low impact workouts like yoga, ellipse machine or light weight/high rep workouts
• Give yourself a slow, proper stretch before and after your workout. The last thing you want is to add cramping to the list of why your body is killing you.
• Take frequent sips of water. Remember, you're still on the red line for dehydration
• Some laps in the pool could be the ideal relaxing, low impact workout if your able to do so.

Drinking lime juice - Not Effective. Apparently this helps with your blood sugar level and vitamine c. In my opinion it's too little too late.

Berocca - Not Effective. For those who don't know, Berocca is a tablet made by Bayer that's said to prevent or relieve hangovers. Essentially, Berocca is some vitamin C and Bs. A multivitamin with a glass of spicy V8 will do a much better job.

Of course, the #1 cure prevention for a hangover, which never fails, is don't stop drinking ;)

I encourage you to message me with other hangover preventions/remedies you've heard of. I'd like to take a look into them. Until next time, have fun, party hard and know that everyone around you would prefer your half digested food remain inside your stomach, so moderation is key. Lates, sucka.

How to Properly Drink a Beer

While it seems like a simple enough chore, you'd be surprised how many people screw up the task of prepping a standard beer. I'm not talking about the gallons of beer you think you can consume in a keg stand with all your (imaginary) friends cheering you on. I'm talking about the hearty beer you have when you come into a warm pub on a dark and snowy night. I'm talking about that thirst-killing, chilled beer you enjoy on a restaurant terrace on the day when thermometers start sweating. Those are the beers for which you take every measure to fully enjoy. Here are some tips of which you might not hav known that'll ensure you get the most out of your beer.

Handling

Before we get into the serving part, we have to discuss you handling your beer. While beer is the hearty drink of men, as an alcohol it’s very sensitive. There are very strict precautions that need to taken in order to fully enjoy the drinking experience. Beer easily degrades in quality from every factor imaginable. Beer needs to be treated like a hemophiliac; limit shaking, light, heat, sudden cold, dust.

Light Exposure

Minimize your beer's exposure to light. Beer is in a brown bottle to reduce the light getting in. Corona's clear bottle is purely aesthetic since it allows more light to get it and potentially skunk your beer faster. Be extra careful with the clear ones.

Agitation

Go easy on the speed bumps as you and your man-date, Craig, blaze through 5th avenue in your Jetta. Unlike Craig, the beer doesn't appreciate being jerked around. The last thing you want is your beer to go flat within 30 seconds of opening.

Cool Storage

Different beers are best served at different temperatures. Your lighter pale ales will be fine on a cellar floor. Spicier, darker stouts are served at room temperature so that you can fully appreciate all the aromas. Making the beer as cold as possible just dulls all the flavors by numbing your palate and inhibiting aroma. While that may be cool for the frat party you'll never remember, it's not favorable when sampling a quality beer.

Glassware:

Choosing the proper glassware for your beer is the first crucial step. Not all beers are best flaunted in the same glass. Firstly, make sure the glass is super clean and free from any settled dust. Any impurities will make the beer go flat faster as well as degrade the flavor.

Pilsner, flute - Tall & slender. Best for light ales. Slim shape holds a head as well as carbon dioxide

Pint Glass, chalice, goblet, tulip - Wide & Tall. Best for dark beers. Large surface allows for a better palate spread and aromas

Pouring

A lot of bars will serve you your beer in a chilled glass and you, being a novice drinker, don’t know that a sudden change in temperature will “shock” your beer. If you’re planning on enjoying a quality ale, colder seldom means better. Under 11 degrees, the flavors of your beer get dulled out. The myth of the cold, refreshing, quality beer was most probably created by commercial beer companies who tried to find a way of reducing the quantity of ingredients without their clientele noticing.

When pouring from a tap, hold the glass straight until a nice little head forms. The second it does, tilt your glass 45 degrees to allow the beer being poured in to slide under the head you created.

Should you be served a bottle and a glass, never simply opt to drink from the bottle because it's "more comfortable." Firstly, your bottled beer was meant to be poured out. It's over carbonated in the bottle. Drinking it straight won't allow you to enjoy the proper flavor of your beer. It'll also cause you to be quite gassy because due to the excess carbon dioxide. It's especially important to make good use of your glass when you have a very large bottle of beer. The constant up and down of the bottle will give you a very flat 2nd half of a beer. Instead, fill your glass and let the large bottle sit still so as not to encourage unneeded fizz release.

Mixing beer

I don’t assume that, when you buy beer, you’re buying a case of imports. I know you and your frat buddies are getting two-fours of Coors Light, Budweiser and Labatt Bleue. What happens when the ladies (or the effeminate men of Phi Alpha Gamma) come over? How do you make your commercial beers enjoyable to people not downing them in a keg stand? Making beer cocktails is quite easy since the preparation is minimal and the results are quite novel.

Fuzzy Peach – Add a shot of peach schnapps to your light beer
Beer Buster – Add a shot of vodka and a few dashes of Tabasco
Mexicano – Add tawny or dark tequila to your Corona
Boiler Maker - Add a shot of whiskey to your Amber Ale
Black Velvet - Add a 2 shots of cider to your Guinness 

The rest is up to you. Drink slowly, try to enjoy every aspect of the beer. Let it hit all your taste buds, your palate and pay attention to the aftertaste. Happy drinking, Sucka.

How to Find Deals on the Web

So you're the type of person that will spend an extra day shopping around just to save a couple of bucks and, when you do, you feel so proud of yourself. Do I have you pegged? Of course I do. I'm the all-knowing. Whenever you see an item in the store you say to yourself: "Meh, I can get it for half the price online. The only problem is that, even though it is online. You can't find it and you never end up getting that item. Well that's all about to change now that I teach you the ways of the cyber bargain hunter.

1) Deal Extreme - Your first rule for finding that random trinket you just have to have is checking Deal Extreme. There you'll find cheap items direct from China. With free shipping also, your new USB key will only run you 5 bucks.

2) eBay tricks - You obviously know how to search up an item on eBay. Even you can figure that out. The tough part is finding the good deals. Occasionally, sellers will make typos in their listings. The result is that their listing doesn't turn up in searches. That's where you come in and nab the auction with little to no competition using www.missing-auctions.com . This free site allows you to search for typos on eBay. Another tactic for getting a low price is sniping. Sniping means you wait until the last minute and 30 seconds before the end of the auction, you place a bid, giving your opponents little time to react. A good program for that is Baygenie auction sniper.

3) Shopwiki - Sometimes you just don't have the time to shop around for the lowest price online. That's why you'd make your work easier by using ShopWiki. I, for example, am trying to find a pair of all-terrain skates. When I searched it up on Shopwiki, I easily found the lowest online price. Afterwards, I'm probably going to decorate my room with some cool samurai shit. You can pretty much find anything there. If you search up Kitchen and Dining, you'll find things there much cheaper than home outfitters.

4) Smart Canucks - Sometimes, the cheapest way to get something is to get it for free. Smart Canucks is a forum where Canadians share freebie offers, hot deals and coupons they've found online. So far, I've gotten iPod travel chargers, t-shirts, dog treats, and more. It's definitely worth checking out if you're a cheapass.

7 Easy Ways to Improve your Face (for men)

Pluck Your Eyebrows
Let me tell you a love about two eyebrows that were made separately but desperately wanted to join up and form a single entity. Through thick and thin, they struggled to join and share their affection. The part that I didn’t tell you is that they’re two male eyebrows and, as such, their union should be prevented at all costs. That’s where you come and pluck the shit out of their bond. Getting all the little buggers out of the middle is the easy part. It’s shaping each brow that gets tricky. A bushy mess of a brow is just as bad as a uni-brow. Try to focus your energy on getting the stray hairs underneath the brow since it’ll improve the neatness without making your brow look too catered. Two tips on making the process easier to bear – take a warm shower first and pull in the direction of hair growth. The shower will open your pores and the follicle will come out much easier.

Chew gum
A facial feature that’s very desirable in men is a strong, chiseled jaw. A sharp jaw line gives the impression of strength and confidence, at least in your face. An easy way to add some nice shape to this area of the face is to work your jaw muscles. This can be accomplished by chewing gum – lots of it. The constant chewing is like a workout for your mouth. For those without patience or who want a little more of a challenge, try drinking water with the gum in your mouth then continue to chew. The gum should toughen up after having been exposed to the water and will give your jaw more of a workout.

Wash and Exfoliate Your Skin
This may sound like the most feminine of all the tasks but that’s a notion that has to be broken. Being manly doesn’t mean you walk around with a pimple on your forehead after clogging your pores when you wiped your forehead when you and your large mammal friends went out for all-you-can-eat ribs. First exfoliate with hot water. This will remove the crud that’s encrusted on your mug while opening your pores. After rinsing with warm water, use a cleanser to remove the microscopic dirt that’s clogging your pores. It’s important that you rinse the cleanser off with cool water to close up your pores otherwise you’ll dry out your skin. Avoid using oil astringents. They may work for a bit, but after a few days, your skin will start producing extra oil to compensate for it. The last thing you want it for your slightly shiny skin to suddenly turn into an Exxon Valdez.

Trim your facial hair
Whatever your facial hair status, ALWAYS keep it evenly trimmed. However you chose to style your facial hair, not shaving for a week will make you look a disgruntled hobo. If you have a facial hair design (ie: goatee, side burns), it needs to be re-defined and trimmed. If you have a full beard, it needs to be trimmed so it looks neat and uniform again.

Trim your nose/ear hair
Nothing will repulse your date more than a rebellious nose hair rising up against nasal oppression. An easy way to rid yourself of those pesky revolutionaries is to get yourself a nose/ear hair trimmer. It doesn’t need to be something expensive, just something that’s specialized for the job. Hacking away at your nose and ears with a pair of scissors will do more harm than good. You’re aiming to just trim the ends, not shave yourself bald. After all, those hairs are stopping dirt particles from getting inside your body. You can get yourself a good trimmer for under $5 at Deal Extreme. It’s my favorite spot for getting crap like this. Shipping is free with them and, if you try to get the trimmer from the store, you’ll get the same, made in China, product for $20.

Scrape Your Tongue
You probably haven’t thought of the fact that most of your bad breath is actually coming from decomposing particles on your tongue. Brushing your tongue could help but not 100% and a lot of people gag from it. Personally, as a manly man, my mouth wasn’t designed to deftly take in long hard objects whilst delaying the gag reflex. If you can, then all the power to you. You might have a career as a sword swallower….or a pillow biter. Getting back to the point, a tongue scraper is guaranteed to make your mouth feel 10x better. Don’t knock it till you try it. You can pick one up from your pharmacy, or you can get it for less than half the price on Deal extreme.

Moisten your lips
The winter months are just around the corner and with the cold weather comes extremely dry air. That dry air is exactly what’ll cause your lips to get crack and bleed like a leper. If you think applying lip balm is reserved for women, then your enjoy the chapped life and good luck getting anyone to kiss you when they worry that they might be getting a blood transfusion should they lock lips. Balming your lips falls in the same category as brushing your teeth. It’s just another step in making your mouth-area look presentable.

Disclaimer: This is the first article where I made gay jokes. Just to note, I have nothing against the gay community nor do I condemn gay marriage. The purpose of the jokes were to make my homophobic readers more comfortable with taking care of their skin in ways that is wrongly seen as overtly feminine. If you're still offended then too bad. I've wasted enough time writing this disclaimer for your pouty ass. Lates, sucka.

How to Fall Asleep at Night

You know the feeling; you have to wake up early tomorrow but the sandman just won't come. You're stuck watching the clock next to your bed. Every 5 minutes you calculate how much sleep you could get if you fell asleep at that exact moment. Not surprisingly, the next morning you're so dead tired that you can't understand how you could possibly have had trouble sleeping. Well that's about to change. Here's how you're gonna get your 40 winks without delay tomorrow night.

Cereal - the morning crusader also works nights

A bowl of cereal about 30 min before bedtime will help you on your journey to La-La Land. Don't confuse this suggestion with an invitation to eat anything that you can think of before bed. Heavier, prepared meals will get your body in digestion mode and you'll find it much harder to sleep. A light meal like cereal is ideal. I made the mistake of looking this up in the forums. People tended to disagree with the cereal before bed since they had a bowl and they still weren't asleep. That brings me to my next point...

Avoid electronics like the plague

Look at all the cool shit you have! You can listen to music while checking your email while chatting with your friends about Dungeons & Dragons while getting a colonoscopy! As great as all that sounds, none of it should be a part of your routine 30 minutes before you plan on getting to sleep. Devices like computers are highly interactive and will keep your mind fully stimulated. As long as your brain is at this level of activity, no amount of cereal will ever get you to bed. Do everyone who's there on the message boards, bitching that conventional sleeping methods don't work, try shutting down the porn and open a book.

Knockout Tub

For the man who's "in touch with his emotions" a warm bath with some lavender oil added could be just the thing that'll crack this streak of insomnia. Lavender is widely known to be a sleep aid. Combining it with a hot bath makes it even more potent because your not only inhaling lavender infused vapour, but the hot water opens up your pores and you'll absorb more of that nighttime goodness. For those of you who have a bit too much testosterone or are worried that your friends might find out about your late night aquatic escapades, a few drops of lavender oil on your pillow will yield similar results.

Bedroom Association

You should only be doing 2 things in your bedroom, the less exciting of which is sleeping. Other than that, you should be keeping out of your room. Try not to sit on your bed while you have late night chats with your 230 lbs. cybersex buddy, Bambi420. The more things you do in your room, the more your brain associates that area with mental stimulation. If your brain learns that when you’re in bed (alone), it’s sleep time, you’ll eventually find yourself getting drowsy when you enter your bedroom. That’s because your brain will recognize it’s environment and begin to decrease its activity. This is almost the same concept as the environmental tolerance I mentioned in the alcohol tolerance article.

Take a Trip to Palmsdale

If you didn't have a proper workout before going to bed, you're muscles will have trouble entering a state of relaxation. A quick way of putting your entire body and in a state of total relaxation is, obviously enough, masturbation. Playing a solo on the devil's clarinet releases a chemicals called endogenous opioid peptides into your brain. Opium, if you couldn't tell by the name, is also an opioid. Opioids will have a muscle relaxing and sleep inducing effect similar to that of morphine. This, combined with many other hormones released in the process, will have a sedative effect and should have you dreaming in no time.

At the end of the day, we each have something that works best for us. Nothing will work for everyone all the time. Should none of these methods even remotely help, you should consider seeing a doctor and ask about the possibility of insomnia. Staying up late for anything isn't cool. Sleep deprivation result in a lower IQ, impaired driving, poor social skill and, worst of all, ugly bags underneath your eyes. Sleep tight and don't tell your boyfriend you really dream about me at night.

Your Nose And You: a man's guide to boogers

So you've got a nose full green plasma. Some people call it disgusting but it's snot. (HAHA) Boogers come in many shapes and textures. Each one requires you to take the proper actions and precautions to ensure safe ejection. Improper action can lead to sticky, mucous covered hands or worse: a nose bleed. Be sure to read the following article very carefully before your next pick or it could be you last.

Species

The Mossy Rock

This is pretty much your standard, run-of-the mill boog. The out side is slightly goopy but the center is pretty solid and well built. There's no need to panic for this one. It's harmless. You have 2 options for dealing with this bad boy. The first option is using a Kleenex. Thanks to the slightly slimy exterior of the specimen, it will form a semi-seal in the nostril and will allow for a pressure buildup great enough to fling it into a Kleenex. Your second option is going in for a manual extraction using the index finger. The nougat-like center will allow you to nab that sucker without too much mess. Keep in mind that before you flick it, you'll have to roll it. (See Methods & Techniques below).

The Meteor

The meteor is the bastard son of the mossy rock. Unlike it's father the meteor does not have a soft, lubricated coating. This means that going in for the pick puts you at risk of pressing it's jagged surface against the wall of your nostril. This will produce a very painful sensation. If the meteor is big enough, it might just have enough air resistance to be shot into a Kleenex. If it's too small for this, a quick hot shower will transmogrify the rebellious ingrate into a more manageable species. For those brave souls, if the situation call for it, you can use good ol' index to coax the evil menace out of your nose but proceed with extreme caution.

The Comet

The Comet is the athletic, studious and legitimate son of mossy rock. It still has pops solid core and semi-gushy exterior. Though it is slightly less lubricated than the mossy rock, it hides behind it a magnificent secret. Its tail is a soft endoplasm that extends deep into the nasal cavity. This leads me to the best way to remove it. The fun and joy behind a comet is picking it out. You think you're just getting a regular mossy rock but suddenly you discover that your removing a full umbilical cord and you're suddenly able to breath 90% better. You can always use Kleenex, but why would you want to?

The Blob

99% of the audience already know what I'm talking about. Yes, the blob is morbidly obese, jobless uncle who we all hate. The blob is that oozy drippy unpleasantness that comes along and ruins your perfect date walking through the park on a beautiful fall afternoon. Nothing is less attractive than a man who is producing a sound out of his nose that many experts would claim is a dolphin fart. Picking is like sticking your finger into a package of ground beef and hence is futile. All your base are belong to blob. Your only option is to blow your nose. Your only option is to blow your nose. Your only option is to blow your nose. Your only option is to blow your nose. See how fucking annoying blowing your nose over and over gets!?!? There's no end in sight! The blob just keeps regenerating and haunting you. The worst part is that, should you take a stand and just don't blow anymore, you feel like it's full out dripping out of your nose even though it's really not. Damn you blob! You're deceiving and relentless!

The Clingon

The Clingon is a vicious little demon. He's known for clinging onto nose hairs and refusing to let go. A clingon can be brought about by either a blob exposed to Canada's winters or by a meteor that has just so happened to form around a hair. The only way to remove a clingon is through a masochistic display of follicle extraction. Blowing into a Kleenex won't help. Clingons have been said to hold onto hairs in the presence of winds exceeding 130 mph. Blow all you want but that sucker's holding on tighter than a bulimic chick to her uvula.

The Paint Scraping

Some people love 'em, some hate 'em. Paint scrapings are the semi-solid boogers that'll stick close to the wall of your nostril. Due to their ergonomic and aerodynamic design, trying to blow them out simply won't work. It's obvious that your going to need to go in there with a motion that's strangely reminiscent of getting the leftover cake batter off the walls of a bowl. Under no circumstances is this picking to be done in public. Scraping your nose paint is the most obvious and disgusting style of nose picking. The application of pressure to the walls result in you pushing your nose outwards and causes your upper lip to lift up slightly. Needless to say, you do not want to be caught in this position. Try and reserve this simple pleasure for the privacy of your own home.

The Constipation

Say goodbye to quiet breathing when you've got a constipated nose. You've got a blob so viscous that not even your full lung pressure can dis-lodge it. Trying will only make your ears pop. Your only option is to melt away the the dam with a nice steamy shower or bath.

Methods & Techniques

The Roll

Semi-moist goblins require a slight amount of rolling to get them into their most aerodynamic shape and also to reduce their sticky properties. Rolling is as easy as touching your index finger to your thumb and moving it in a clockwise pattern.

The Flick

After you're done rolling, you gotta get rid of the evidence. I mean where are you gonna put it? Your pocket? With the nasal C4 on your index, flick normally, as you would to an insect who's wronged you.

The Shnot-Rocket

Tilt your head back slightly, block one nostril with your index finger and blow out of your nose vigorously. The pressure should fling out the contents of your nose without dirtying your fingers. WARNING: Attempting this technique with the blob may result in a toxic loogie oozing out your nose. Women immediately report to one another when they spot a guy whose got a toxic loogie. They have a universal online database of this but I haven't been able to crack the password...or find the site...or find anyone who would admit to it.

5-Fingered Tissue

In the absence of a tissue one, one may pinch his nose slightly and use his hand as if it was a tissue. When the deed is done, a quick snap of the wrist will rid the hand of it's congealed mess. Acceptable places to practice this are: in the shower or on a hiking trip. Unacceptable places to do this are at a pool or at the office. Know your limits.

How To Win An Eating Contest

In their strange culture that is manhood, the man that can eat the most is considered the manliest. Why this is, I'll never know. Since my the point of my blog is to teach you how to be better than everyone else, here's how to win an eating contest.

Expand Your Walls

The day before the event, drink as much water as you can. Water will stretch out your stomach and quickly exit it. Just like pulling a balloon before you blow it up, this will make it less painful to eat so much food.

Satan's Cereal
For lunch, the day before your big eat, have a bowl of fiber cereal with prune juice. You can guess what you'll be doing that evening. This technique will help clean out your digestive tract and make sure that everything will function poperly on the big day.

Speed Eating

It's a bit obvious that you have to eat quickly in an eating contest but, in case the competition is about volume not speed, remember that slow and steady does not win the race. You have a 20 minute time frame from the time your stomach says you're full to the time you actually feel full. In that short span, you have to down as much as you can. After that, you're gonna really start hurting halfway through you meal, lard-o.

Chewbacca

It's important to chew your food properly. No, I don't care about you choking. If you're stupid enough to engage in a primitive eating contest, odds are no one cares about you choking. Food that isn't chewed properly get swallowed with air. That air in you belly means you'll have added discomfort while your eating and may just be the difference between you becoming an fatso and a fatso-so.

Cardio Your Hunger

Some research shows that cardiovascular exercise increases one's appetite. That's right, Porky Pig. Ironically enough, to show your friends you can eat more, you're going to have to pop your jiggly butt onto a treadmill and get that hunger into high gear.

Obviously Genetics plays a lot into how much you can eat but these tips might just be that extra little boost you needed. In my opinion, competitive eating is among the stupidest things guys can do. If you win, you're ultimately a fat loser. If you lose, you're still a loser...only you're a less capable loser. Chew on that, sucka.

How to Curb Your Appetite

I recently posted an article about how to lose weight. I wanted to include a paragraph on curbing your appetite, but I quickly realized that this was a whole article on its own. There are so many tricks you could learn that would help you put the fork down, Rosie O'Donnell. I understand that you're frustrated about your helpless, dead-end life. You eat because you're sad and you're sad because you eat. Well it's time to break that vicious cycle. It's time to have you eating less and here's how you'll do it:

What: Eat watery foods
Why: Foods that are high in water will fill you faster and have you'll take in much fewer fats
How: Instead of raisins, eat grapes. Have a watermelon wedge for dessert. Apples are ok but a nice juicy pear is better.

What: Have carbs
Why: Before I even start, I know what you're thinking "but the Fatkins diet says I can't have carbs, they lead to fat." That's a load of bull. Are you going to listen to the words of a man who suffered a heart attack the year before he died? News flash, Atkins got rich of duping people and was able to have a steak dinner every night. All that meat contains cholesterol that'll clog the shit out of your arteries and eventually kill you. Now, onto scientific matters. Carbs will inhibit the production of ghrelin (a hormone that makes you hungry) longer than meats will.
How: Have a nice carby cereal for breakfast. A nice pasta lunch will keep you surprisingly satisfied and may even stop you from guilty snacking until dinner.

What: Press on your ear
Why: I'm not sure if I fully believe this, but it's definitely worth mentioning. In acupuncture, the appetite can be controlled from the ear. Pressing on the part just above your earlobe will apparently stop a hunger pang dead in its tracks.
How: When you feel the hunger bug biting and you're eyeballing the candy bar on the top shelf of your pantry, press on your hunger spot and maybe that'll stop you from inhaling that Mars bar...that and the fact that the Mars company tests on animals.

What: Keep a water bottle on you
Why: When you're sitting at the cubicle on in class, you may not notice it, but you start to fiddle with things. Some people bite their nails, which gives them fugly hands. Others will rub their foreheads, which will give them fugly a complexion. Keeping a water bottle near you will put you in the habit of constantly drinking. Before you know it, you're stomach will be feeling quite full and you'll find yourself turning down the donuts in the office cafeteria.
How: Quit being cheap and splurge on a $2.99 case of 12 water bottles. Take one to work/school with you every morning.

What: Eat Breakfast
Why: Being hungry from the morning will almost guarantee you overeating at lunch. Another near certainty is you cheating with a snack until lunch. Eating a decent, healthy breakfast will curb your appetite until lunch.
How: Chuck some fruit, yogurt and milk in the blender.

After having said all this, I'd like to mention that these methods are to stop you from eating unhealthy and (all too readily available) vending machine snacks. Never starve yourself to be skinny. Not only is it not healthy, but it doesn't work. When your body realizes that it's in starvation mode, it'll begin to hold onto its fat and won't let you burn it off. You'll end up feeling fat, sluggish and cranky.

Lose Weight With Little Effort

Everyone is looking for a magic fix. Nobody wants to work to lose weight and the reality is that, sometimes, they don't need to. Funny, huh? The truth is that a suprisingly significant weight loss can be achieved through a series of small decisions. There's no secret to any of this. You can find it out on your own through surfing but I'm going to deliver them all to you because: a) I'm an amazing and sympathetic individual and b) You're a lazy shlub who's constantly looking for the quickest, easiest way to squeeze into a bathing suit this swim season. So, without further adieu, here's what you're going to do to shed pounds and why.

What: Eat spicy foods.
How: Order the spicy meals at restaurants and buy a bottle of hot sauce for home. Whatever you feel can be spiced up (i.e. chili, pasta, bbq meat)
Why: There are many reasons why spicy foods will help you lose weight. You'll end up eating less. You'll drink more water. Your metabolism will go up causing you to burn more fat. Your digestive system works harder to break down spicy foods. All together, you can't go wrong with a little spice in your life. While it's a myth that spicy foods will cause an ulcer, it's true that spicy foods may aggravate pre-existing stomach conditions.

What: Eat early in the morning.
How: Eat as many quick, healthy meals as you can in the morning (i.e. instant oatmeal, an apple, egg in the microwave)
Why: The sooner you eat in the morning, the sooner you get your metabolism running in the day. In this way, you can maximize your bodies fat burning efficiency each day.

What: Eat sparingly and frequently
How: Ziplocs will become your new best friend in this task. Cereal, dried fruit, almonds, etc. can all be placed in Ziplocs and whipped out when you're feeling even a fiendish. You'd be surprised at how well a snack-sized Ziploc of almonds will crush a hunger pang.
Why: This works to make you lose weight in two ways. Firstly, it prevents you from gorging when a big meal comes along. Secondly, frequent food intake lets your body know that it isn't in a situation of starvation and it has the green light to go ahead and burn as much fat as is needed since fat storage isn't required.

What: Eat with chopsticks.
How: Not too hard to figure this one out. When the meal allows (stir fry, chicken pieces, chinese noodles) eat with chopsticks.
Why: Your lack of cultural diversity will inevitably cause you to eat your meal more slowly and will give your stomach the proper time to tell your brain when it's full. Surprisingly, there's a 20-minute gap between the time you've eaten enough and your brain knows that you've eaten enough. Some people will eat an extra 20 minutes worth of extra food that will become fat and leave you with that painful stomach-bursting sensation.

What: Use ankle weights.
How: Ankle weights are these straps that wrap around your ankle with velcro. Some models contain a series of half-pound sand bags that allow you to adjust the weight. Most models are quite discreet and will go unseen when covered with pants.
Why: Every step will have you burning more calories. A trip up the stairs becomes an amped-up mini workout. This is one of my favorite methods because it totally blends a full leg workout into your day.

What: Use small spoon, tall glasses, and small plates without patterns.
How: The wonders of capitalism make this quite the easy task.
Why: All these items will trick your mind into thinking that your consuming more food than you actually are. This will cause you to eat and drink less. How much less? Using a tall, slim glass will cause you to pour yourself about 34% less drink than you would if you used a short, stubby glass. Using a small, plain plate will have you eating about 23% less than a large, decorated plates. Using a smaller spoon will sometimes cause you to eat up to 36% less food than you would with a larger spoon.

What: Sit up
How: Stop slouching, you lazy shmuck.
Why: Sitting up straight will cause you to contract your lower back muscles and will stretch out your abs. This gradually works your core and might just be the final step into getting some defined six-pack line in your stomach.
What: Have a soup/salad
How: Tell the nice waiterman that you'd like the soup du jour or a salad
Why: A warm soup or a fresh salad 15 minutes before your meal is likely to have you eating less of your meal. Odds are, your meal will contain much more fat than a soup or salad.

What: Eat brown bread
How: When the waiter at your favorite breakfast joint asks if you want white or brown bread, take the brown. When at the grocery store, forget about your bleached white bread. Opt for something multi-grain
Why: White bread is garbage. It's chemically bleached and has absolutely no health benefits. Whole wheat bread has the fiber and nutrients you'll need to have a slim figure

So there you have 10 ways to lose weight without any hard work on your part. That's right, Benny Hill, even you can shed a few pounds. If you think this is all you'll need to do, you're wrong, as usual. To get the body everyone wants you to have, you're going to have to sweat but until you get your lazy ass off the couch, these tips should help you get started on the road to sweating off your jello butt and rubber love handles. Lastly, as glorious as I may be, I'm not your doctor. Before making any big dietary decisions, you should discuss your hair-brained ideas with a physician. See ya soon. Don't come back until you're slim.

How to Survive Torture

We all pray that no harm will ever come to us but sadly, that's not always the case. Since I'm the man who takes you under his wing, I'll teach you how to survive the unthinkable. One day, when you're a covert spy being tortured, you'll think back and thank me for this. Without further adieu, here's how you'll withstand torture.

Plan your escape

If you're fortunate enough to be unmasked when you're brought to your cell, you can already begin to plot your escape. It's important to realize that, even if you co-operate, your captors aren't likely to let you go with a fruit basket and a "thank you" card. Try to remember any codes or hallways you spot. Try to find flaws or patterns in the building. These may just save your life when you're making your daring escape.

Wimp out

When you're being tortured, remember that you're lower than a piece of shit. You should be fearful and submissive at any moment. Though acting like a tough smartass may work for James Bond, it'll piss off your guards and label you as useless or uncooperative. That'll get you killed or tortured harder. Instead of being a rock, be more like a gelatine. Gelatine will mold, squish and give in to any sort of force but it will never let go of its moisture. In the same way, you should show pain (even exaggerate it) but you'll never let go of your information.

Transcend the physical

If you're not a man of religion, then it's time to find God. Many have reported that meditation can help you overcome extreme stress and pain. Buddhist monks have managed amazing physical feats like surviving Himalayan winters or burning to death without moving an inch simply through the power of meditation. Try to take yourself to a better place and, as impossible as it may sound, leave your pain behind.

Pass out

I know you pass out real quick after 4 beers at every frat party you've ever been to, but this is very different. Passing out in this situation can buy you some mercy from your captors if they believe that you are passing out from pain. Their motivation isn't to knock you out with pain, but rather apply as much pain as you can consciously tolerate. There are two ways to manually pass yourself out. The first way is to hyperventilate yourself. Instead of taking regular, shallow breaths, start taking heavy, lung-filling breaths in and out. This disruption will actually mess up with the oxygen getting to your brain. You should go into a trance-like, painfree state just before you pass out. The second way of passing out is by crounching down and taking a few deep breaths. After 5 minutes of heavy breathing, exhale everything in your lungs and stand up quickly. The lack of blood and oxygen in your brain should knock you right out.

Stay Positive

The final, and most important, piece of advice is to never give up. When you give up hope psychologically, your body physically gives into the stress and begins to weaken and shut itself down. You must always remain calm and confident. Freaking, panicking and acting irrational is also negative. It puts additional stress on your body and mind and will only result in an increased probability of you dying.

That, in brief is how one would survive a torture situation. Once again, you should pray that you never have to draw upon any of these skills, but it's always good to be prepared. Try to stay safe and, no matter what, always be strong. Peace out, SuperSpy.