Six Unconventional Ways to Deal with Stress

With a tanking economy, rising unemployment, and a surge in foreclosure rates, everyone’s feeling a little stressed out these days.  If you’re feeling a overwhelmed, I’m offered six unconventional coping mechanisms to get you through these hard times.  These stress busters may not be “healthy” or “normal”, but at least they work!

Get Physical
Many so-called “experts” suggest that going to a gym is a great way to relieve stress.  They must think that money grows on trees.  The fact is that gym memberships are expensive.  Not to mention that adding another item to your to-do list will lead to even more stress.  Ever try to get out of a gym membership?  Stressful!

Instead of paying money to exercise, try breaking something.  Smash your TV, throw a brick through someone’s window, or throw a book across the room.  You’ll be surprised at how much better you feel after physically releasing the pressure that built up inside you.  As long as you only break inanimate objects, you are not really hurting anybody.

Tobacco
There’s a reason why cigarettes have been around for hundreds of years –they work to relieve stress!  Why else would millions of Americans light up every day, knowing damn well about the health risks?  Stress is also bad for your health, so you might as well join the bandwagon and light up.  Smoking really does look cool, so make sure you do it in front of as many children as possible, so they know exactly how cool you are.

If you don’t smoke, start.  Not only will it chill you out, but you will also lose weight -which will make you happier!

Write An Angry Letter, Then Send It (Instead of Deleting It)
Hack advice columnists like Dr. Phil suggest that if someone upsets you, it can be therapeutic to write a nasty email to that person -then deleting it before you click the send button.  The problem with this is that your emotions will bottle up inside if you don’t send that letter.

It is better to let your boss/child/significant other know exactly how much of a soul-sucking jerk they really are, so the rage doesn’t snowball.  Send the letter –don’t be a wimp.  If you don’t send it, why waste your time writing it in the first place?

Re-direct your Hostility
If you’re too much of a wuss to tell your boss what you’re thinking, consider redirecting your rage at your partner.  You’ll feel much better after you yell, and won’t risk getting fired.  After all, this is what significant others are there for -to put up with your bullshit during good times and bad.

Play with a Puppy
I’m not advising you to ever physically hurt an animal (as fun as it sounds, that would be illegal), but if you haven’t noticed, puppies make really cute faces when they are sad.  Try waving a treat around a puppy’s face to get it all excited.  Then put the treat back in the container.  Those cute, sad puppy-dog eyes will cheer you up from even the most venomous moods.

Treat Yourself to McDonalds
Go to McDonalds and place a very specific custom order.  When the staff inevitably screws up, flip out on them and demand to talk to a manager.  McDonalds employees are at the bottom of the economic food chain, and there is little they can do to argue.    Most of them are immigrants (or single mothers) that are too afraid about losing their job to fight back.  Trust me, you’ll feel powerful.

There is always a McDonalds nearby, so there is never a shortage of peons to berate.  If you’re lucky, the manager may even give you a free ice cream to calm you down.  Who doesn’t like ice cream?

The Real Meaning of Christmas - PARTY!

The Christmas holiday season dates back thousands of years, and it’s always been a favorite amongst party animals.  The long December nights and extreme cold give plenty of reasons to stay in and curl up with a bottle of vodka.  Since there isn’t much work to be done on the farm in the winter, ancient people treated the entire holiday season like Spring Break -but without the bikinis.

In spirit of the holidays, I’ve done a little research to find 5 ways that mankind has partied on Christmas (and the Winter Solstice) throughout history.

5)  Magic Mushrooms:  Why We Really Put Gifts Under the Tree

Some ethnobotonists (and dreadlocked stoners) suggest that many Christmas traditions –including leaving gifts under the tree –can be traced back to ancient magic mushroom use.

A psychedelic mushroom known as the Amanita Muscaria grows under evergreen trees in Siberia.  Reindeer are quite fond of eating them, and are known to prance around like maniacs afterwards.  How else do you think reindeer learned to fly?

When these mushrooms fruit, Siberian Shamans rush to collect these “gifts” from under the trees before the reindeer come and eat them all.  Once these Shamans got their haul of ‘shrooms home, they’d string them up and hang them on their fireplace to dry.  Then they’d use them for “Sacred Shaman Rituals”.  In other words, they’d eat a bunch of mushrooms, put on a Pink Floyd album and look at some Magic Eye Posters.

These mushrooms make the user feel much stronger.  Some believe the Vikings ate them before their berserker raids to increase their endurance.  I think that Santa uses them too –how else could he deliver all of those packages in one night?

Ever wonder why Santa still uses reindeer, even though they are an obsolete form of transportation?  That’s because the urine of an intoxicated Reindeer is just as hallucinogenic as the mushroom itself.   Technically, it’s safer to drink the urine of an intoxicated person or animal than it is to eat the mushroom directly, since many toxic compounds are removed on the first pass through the body.  Siberians would often drink each other’s piss to keep their trip going.  No wonder Santa is so attached to Rudolph and his friends!  The milk and cookies are just to get rid of the aftertaste.

If this evidence of the link between Amanita and Christmas isn’t enough for you, take a look at some Amanita Muscaria Christmas decorations:

Santa has got to be high on magic mushrooms ALL the time.  The man lives on the North Pole in a toy factory full of Elves, for crying out loud.  If he isn’t on drugs, he’s got some serious problems.

4)  Cannibalism in Ancient Greece

The Maenads were the crazy female worshippers of Dionysis, the Greek god of mystery, wine, and intoxication.  They were known as wild, violent women that would get wasted, dance around in skimpy outfits, and overindulge in sex.  Just like that girl you met at Spring break!

The Maenads had a winter solstice ritual was called Lenaea, or the Festival of the Wild Women.  Just the name makes most guys think of hot, bi-curious women running around naked -like some sort of ancient version of Wild Woman Vacations.  As you can imagine, they never had any shortage of willing male participants.

Sounds erotic, doesn’t it?  It wasn’t –they’d dress the guy up like Dionysis, kill him, and serve him for dinner.  The poor guys thought they were getting into a wild group orgy, but instead were torn to pieces and eaten by a gang of cannibal women.  It was just like the 1989 Bill Maher film, “Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death”.

3)  Naked Boys Singing:  Our First Christmas Carolers

Back in the good ole’ days in Ancient Rome, the Christmas season was a week-long period of lawlessness known as Saturnalia, during which young men would get drunk and run through the streets naked and sing for their neighbors.  I don’t know why anyone would want to go caroling naked in the snow, but I’m pretty sure it started as a Fraternity prank that spiraled out of control.  Anyway, it was the one time of year when you could run amok and do whatever the hell you want.

Another popular Saturnalia tradition was that slaves and their masters would switch roles –masters would prepare the food and serve the slaves.  We still have a similar tradition today –the Office Holiday Party.  It’s the one time of year your boss is actually nice to you.

2)  Human Sacrifice in Ancient Mesopotamia
Marduk sounds like the name of a monster from the World of Warcraft, but he is actually one of the head Gods of Babylonia.  Every winter, this idiot God would somehow get trapped in the Underworld.  In his absence, the Gods of Chaos would devour the sun.  To ancient Mesopotamians, this idiotic story explained why the days got shorter in the winter every year.

The Mesopotamians never stopped to think that maybe a God that allows himself to get captured every year isn’t worth worshiping.  Yet every year, they’d throw a twelve-day festival called Zagmuk to help him out.  On the eighth day, the high priests would sacrifice their King so his spirit may travel to the spirit world to help Marduk fight the monsters of Chaos.  I don’t know what kind of God would need help from a mortal, but he sound like kind of a shitty god to me.

After a while they realized that they were wasting perfectly good kings, so they started dressing up prisoners in royal clothing and executing them instead.  Then the real king would select a “high priestess” to have sex with.  This ritual intercourse was thought to regenerate the cosmos through a re-enactment of the primordial coupling of the cosmic parents An and Ki, who brought the world into being at the dawn of Time.  I’ve tried this line on girls, and I can’t believe it actually worked back then!  The best part of all was that these priestesses took a vow of refusal to bear children, so the king didn’t even have to wear protection or worry about paying child support.

To this day, Marduk lives on –not as a God, but as a nineties Swedish metal band.  You can friend them on MySpace here.

1)  The Original War on Christmas

Every December, FOX News does a story about how the “War on Christmas” is destroying our mainstream American way of life.  The War on Christmas is nothing new –it’s been going on ever since the first colonists landed in Massachusetts.

The Puritans celebrated Christmas by outlawing any celebration at all.  They hated the debauchery of the old-World Pagan customs, and outlawed the celebrations from 1659 until 1681.  Anyone caught celebrating or enjoying themselves was fined five shillings.  The only celebration allowed was quiet and respectful prayer.  Even after Christmas was legalized, many colonists still abstained from celebrations because they were too prude.

In 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant signed a law to make Christmas a national holiday, essentially telling the Puritans that remained in Boston to suck it.  To this day, Massachusetts is still lame.  It’s still impossible to buy a six-pack on Christmas Day, so you’re on your own when it comes to dealing with your annoying Aunt Patty.

Massachusetts wasn’t the only place to ban Christmas revelries.  A similar ban took place in England in 1647, when England’s puritan rulers banned Christmas.  Pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities -led by some angry parents that just needed to have a Tickle Me Elmo for their kids.

The True Meaning of Christmas

The true meaning of Christmas has been lost because it’s become such a commercial holiday.  Just remember -it’s not about the presents.  It’s not about the birth of Christ either.  It’s about getting smashed, getting naked, and sacrificing small mammals in the streets.  Don’t ever forget that.

Budgeting tips for the uber-wealthy…

Now that Barack Obama will be President, a lot of Wall Street CEO’s are worried about how to make ends meet now that they’ll pay a little more in taxes.

These CEO’s worked hard to drive their companies into bankruptcy, and it’s a shame that the government wants to “spread the wealth around” to the laziest 95% of Americans.  For the CEO’s that can’t just say “fuck it” and move to Dubai, I offer these great budgeting tips for the uber-wealthy that won’t make you feel like a middle-class peon:

Limopool to work.
Do you live near another CEO that takes a limo to work every day?  Why not limopool to work, switching drivers every other day?  You’ll both save money –and you might even make a new business partner!

Use a shopping list –and stick to it!
It’s easy to get carried away at Saks Fifth Avenue’s –with their huge selection of $2,395 Armani Blazers and $8,575 watches, even the most frugal CEO can get tempted.  Here’s a trick the poor have used for generations –if you bring a specific list of the luxury goods you want to purchase, you’ll be less likely to succumb to impulse buys.  Then you’ll be sure to only buy the $2,000 suitcases you actually need.

No more $175 cheeseburgers.
This is going to be a tough one, but the days of buying $175 burgers with real gold flecks in them are gone.  Have one of your personal assistants shop around a little -you’d be surprised to find a few places sell bargain cheeseburgers for as low as $125!  That’s the kind of savings your investors would be proud of!

Downgrade from a yacht to a sailboat.
With gas prices being so high, it’s more expensive than ever to take your yacht to the Hamptons.  Why not consider switching to a sailboat?  The guys at the country club might make fun of you, but you’ll save money on gas.  As an extra bonus, you can pretend it’s because you care about the environment -even though your company dumps toxic chemicals into the water!

Hire an American nanny instead of a British nanny
It’s great to have a nanny that sounds like a character from Harry Potter films, but it’s expensive to pay your British nanny in Pounds -especially considering the dollar’s weak exchange rate.  Why not consider hiring a Southern nanny?  Their accents aren’t quite as cool, but your kids can pretend that they’re characters from the Beverly Hillbillies –and they cost a fraction of the price

Trade in your diamond-encrusted Mercedes…
…For a cubic-zirconium encrusted Mercedes.  No one will know the difference –and contrary to popular belief, you’ll still be able to get from point A to point B.

Get your cosmetic surgery done overseas.
Plastic surgery is expensive –why not get it done next time you’re doing business in a third world country?  There are plenty of good doctors that are willing to leave their dirty, overcrowded health clinics so they can perform cosmetic surgery on you –at a fraction of the cost of getting it done in the United States!  You can buy an entire nation’s water supply and get a new nose on the same trip!

5 Best Video Games of 2009

2nd Annual Junk Food Drive

A few weeks ago I worked at this charity food drive that was organized in part by this Nutrition Club.  All of the food they rasied was very unhealthy.  It was mostly junk that had no real nutritional value, like ramen noodles and such.  I thought it was funny -especially since they were supposed to be the Nutrition Club.  It inspired me to do this.

Next Page »