IaMW

Alternative Uses for Bourbon

sickwithamouse — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 21:10:57 +0000

Have you ever sat down and through to yourself, “I wonder what else I could do with this bourbon? I mean…It’s tasty but does it have any more practical purposes?” I thought so. Well even if this post does nothing else than provide you with some interesting conversation piece at your next sausage-fest, the March issue of Esquire Magazine provides us with the answer to that very question! Here are a few alternative uses for that bourbon that has been on your shelf since you bought your house:

Mouthwash. Ethanol kills the bacteria that live in your mouth by denaturing their proteins and dissolving their lipids.

Local Anesthetic. Interferes with neutral signal transmission, slowing the function of your nervous system but can cause tissue damage due to its ability to break down cells, so it should not be poured on open wounds.

Cough Suppressant. A hot toddy can help beat a cold. The vapor breaks up mucus and honey soothes the throat.

Temporary Vivaciousness. Easy.

DIY Workout: Make Your Own Medicine Ball

sickwithamouse — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 20:59:04 +0000

Looking for a good workout but don’t have a medicine ball? You could be in luck. The March issue of Men’s Health (with Matt Damon on the cover) provides a cost-effective way to turn an old basketball into an awesome piece of workout gear.

Step 1: Use a pair of needle-nose pliers to remove the rubber plug from the basketball. Set the plug aside.

Step 2: Insert a funnel with a tip small enough to fit into the ir hole. Fill the ball entirely with a fine-grain play sand. A 50-pound bag will make three medicine balls.

Step 3: Brush rubber cement in and around the rim of the air hole. Immediately plug the hole with the rubber stopper, using the nedle-nose pliers to push the stopper in if needed.

Step 4: Brush more rubber cement over the stopper. Allow it to dry.

Esquire Rules of the Day: 7-12

sickwithamouse — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 20:19:42 +0000

Well here we are again. More rules of life by Esquire…rules of life, because being a man has gotten much harder.

Rule No. 7: Wow is not a verb.

Rule No. 8 : Sitcom characters watching porn always tilt their heads.

Rule No. 9: In movies, Italians can play Jews and Jews can play Italians, but neither Jews nor Italians can play Lutherans.

Rule No. 10: Actors are short. Comedians are shorter.

Rule No. 11: There is nothing that can be marketed that cannot be better marketed by using the voice of James Earl Jones.

Rule No. 12: No talking at the urinal.

Man Skills: Start a Fire with Your Car Battery

sickwithamouse — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 20:08:57 +0000

The latest issue of Men’s Journal Magazine (the one with a sick green Triumph Scrambler motorcycle on the cover) has a segment called “Survival Skills with Bear Grylls” in which they ask him a series of questions about adventuring, survival, manliness and his active life. One of the questions they asked? What is one skill that every man should have? Bear’s answer? The ability to start a fire with your car battery. “I’ve had to do this a lot while camping with my family when I didn’t have matches or a lighter.”

Step 1: run your fingers through the grass. The dead stuff will come off in your hands.

Step 2: Create a little bird’s nest with this dry grass. Then run your jumper cables to it and ignite it.

Step 3: Add the ignited grass to a big pile of kindling, and you’ll have your fire.

BOOM.

The Movie Theater That Fits in Your Pocket

sickwithamouse — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 19:14:28 +0000

There is a great highlight in the newest Details magazine (March, the one with The Social Network’s Andrew Garfield on the cover) of the new ShowWX+ projector by Microvision. They say “time will only tell if Microvision’s ShowWX+ is mentioned in the same breath as the camera obscura or IMAX, but for now it’s the palm-size reason to give up your flat-screen. The size of a cell phone, the projector connects directly to your iPod, iPhone or iPad (or, with an adapter, to a laptop or digital camera). Aim it at a dark wall and view high-resolution photos, TV shows, sales graphs – anything you have stored – at up to 100 inches wide. Just like that, your home video collection is a movable filmfest.”

$450; www.microvision.com

What to Know about PUBLIC BATHROOMS

sickwithamouse — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 20:08:27 +0000

Men. While almost all manly posts on this butch blog come from magazines, there are rare exceptions. This post is one of those exceptions. There is a hilarious and entertaining book by Thomas Fink entitled “The Man’s Book: The Essential Guide for the Modern Man” that I will be posting about over the course of the next few weeks. Not only is the information funny, it is stuff that most people don’t write about. For example, today’s post is that of the public bathroom: rules, etiquette and general information:

THE PUBLIC BATHROOM

There is an unstated code of conduct in men’s bathrooms that, while more instinctive than prescriptive, remains surprisingly universal.

1. Rules of Conduct:

No Pairing. Unlike women, men visit the lavatory for entirely practical reasons, and it is suspect to immediately follow a friend to the bathroom.

No Talking. Terse conversation in the bathroom can take place either before or after, but not during, use of the urinals.

No Looking. Eyes should be aimed straight ahead or down in concentration; glances toward your neighbor are very suggestive.

No Touching. Hands should be in front of you. A bump of the elbows can be deflated by a sober apology, but without turning the head.

2. Optimal Strategy

When faced with an array of urinals to choose from, which one should you take? The basic idea is that the distance between users should be maximized, at the same time minimizing a newcomer’s chance of getting too close. The latter makes the end-most urinals highly desirable. Never go between two men if it can be avoided.

3. Loo Man

The symbol for a man’s public bathroom is a stylized profile of a man standing with his arms down. Unlike the Mars symbol for a man (A arrow emanating from a circle and pointing northeast; believed to represent a sword and a spear) it is a pictogram: its meaning can be deduced from its shape. The male bathroom symbol differs from the female one in having broader shoulders and straight legs as opposed to a flared dress. Do not mix them up.

Esquire Rules of the Day: 1-6

sickwithamouse — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:38:12 +0000

Esquire has compiled a fantastic book called “The Rules: a Man’s Guide to Life.” complete with the tagline “revised and updated – because being a man has gotten much harder. The book is phenomenal…they could actually be tweets (get on that, Esquire!) because they all seem to be under 140 characters. Some are serious how-to-behave rules and others are just comedic. My plan is to release one page worth of rules every day, and today are rules 1-6. I hope you enjoy this recurring segment on manliness!

Rule No. 1: When Aliens talk, they never use contractions.

Rule No. 2: Old people always have exact change.

Rule No. 3: Do not trust a man who calls the Men’s Room “the little boys’ room.”

Rule No. 4: When someone says he is “pumped” about something, it really means he is about to do something stupid.

Rule no. 5: Women who sound sexy on the radio weight 377 pounds.

Rule No. 6: For every Tom Hanks, there is a Peter Scolari.

And there you have it! I hope you enjoyed the first post on the random and humorous RULES by Esquire. Check back every day to learn and laugh with each new rule.

The Alternative Oscars

sickwithamouse — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:17:50 +0000

Here in this post, we (and the march 2011 issue of Esquire Magazine – the one with Liam Neeson on the cover) are making up for all that the academy ignores: the villainy, the sex, the other severed limbs – and the, uh, acting…

Beard of The Year – Jeff Bridges’s

Ever since its breakthrough role – coated in White Russian in The Big Lebowski – Jeff Bridges’s beard has been his most expressive instrument. On Rooster Cogburn (True Grit), it reeked of whiskey, tobacco, and life experience. And in Tron: Legacy, it was a testament to his character’s humanity, a contrast to his eerily smooth-cheeked digital avatar.

Future Best Actor – Aaron Johnson

Artist-director Sam Taylor-Wood took a gamble when she entrusted the 20-year-old Johnson with the daunting role of young John Lennon in Nowhere Boy, in which he turned in one of the best biopic performances of all time. (Later, she would get engaged to him and have his child.) Then the makers of Kick-Ass cast Johnson as the world’s scrawniest superhero. Beneath his downy, adolescent exterior seems to lurk the weathered spirit of a Johnny Depp or a Daniel Day-Lewis, with commensurate awards to come.

Most Unnecessary Technical Virtuosity In a Comedy or Musical – The Other Guys

The superfluous but masterful montage in the otherwise straightforward buddy comedy The Other Guys, in which scenes of orgiastic debauchery at a bar are frozen in time as the camera moves freely through them Matrix-style.

Most Unnecessary Technical Virtuosity in a Drama – The Social Network

Casting one guy, Armie Hammer, to play the Winkelvoss twins when, presumably, a real-life pair of twin actors would have worked just fine.

2010 Special Award for Achievement in Profanity – Colin Firth, The King’s Speech

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckin’, fuck, fuck, fuckin’, fuck. Bugger, bugger, buggedy, buggedy, fuck, fuck, arse, balls, balls, fuckety, shit, fuckin’ willy, willy, shit, and fuck. And tits.”

Best Special Effect – Unstoppable

In the age of computer imagery, director Tony Scott realized that the best way to make it look like you derailed a train is to derail a train.

Most Convincing Lesbian – Julianne Moore, The Kids Are All Right

Moore’s two takes on homosexual attraction – one torrid and illicit, the other domestic and well-worn – couldn’t have been more different or more effective.

Villain of the Year – Mark Strong

Mark Strong looks like the evil version of that other guy, who, in case you’re wondering, is either Andy Garcia or Stanley Tucci. His villainy is elastic, a function of his multipurpose, vaguely Mediterranean ethnicity. (His father was Italian and his mother was Austrian.) Strong can play everyone: Arabs, Eastern Europeans…he topped himself last year, playing a traitorous English knight (Robin Hood), a ruthless Italian-American mob boss (Kick-Ass), and a lily-livered Russian windbag (The Way Back). He brought humility to all those performances. Not that his characters were humble – quite the opposite – but it takes a certain self-effacement to seek the humanity in the most wretched evildoers.

Best Leonardo DiCaprio Movie About Dreams – Shutter Island

Unlike the clinical logic of the dreams in Inception, Leo’s tormented, surrealistic nightmares in the overlooked Scorsese film are actually dreamlike.

Best Supporting Nonagenarian – Eli Wallach

His performances this year – in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and The Ghost Writer – were short but in no way cameos. As sharp opposite Josh Brolin and Ewan McGregor as he was opposite Clark Gable and Steve McQueen.

Least Erotic Cunnilingus – Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

Even if you think you’d enjoy watching a miserable man go down on his miserable wife in a kitschy motel room in a last-ditch attempt to save their once beautiful but now disintegrating marriage, you won’t.

Judge Reinhold Award for Achievement in Masturbation

By a Male – Zach Galifianakis, Due Date

By a Female – Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Best Documentary – Jackass 3D

The most fascinating examination this year of a man’s courage, stupidity and genitals.

Best Comedic Performance By a Newcomer – Sean Combs, Get Him To The Greek

He steals most of the honest laughs in his scenes. Either he was making it all up, in which case he’s a much better actor than we thought, or he was playing himself, in which case he’s a jackass.

Best Movie Nobody Saw – Animal Kingdom

Take The Godfather, reserve all twisted notions of family loyalty but rinse off the sepia tone and discard any sense that there’s honor and glamor in crime. Replace Italian-American stereotypes with naturalistic Australian grit. Add Aussie actress Jackie Weaver’s brilliant performance as the clan’s saccharine-voiced but ruthless matriarch.

The New ~~Jack Black, Seth Rogen~~, Johnah Hill – Josh Gad

As the sarcastic but lovable pudgy roommate in Love and Other Drugs.

The New ~~Chris Farley, Will Ferrell~~, Zach Galifianakis – Charlie Day

As the alarmingly unhinged roommate in Going The Distance.

Best Line in a Bad Script – Jeff Bridges, Tron: Legacy

“Every idea man’s ever had about the universe suddenly up for grabs…bio-digital jazz, man.”

Least Expendable Expendable – Dolph Lundgren

The most generous thing you can say about the expendables is that by casting all of those over-the-hill ’80s action heroes, director Sylvester Stallone was intentionally going for that era’s good-bad cheesiness. Lundgren was the only one who didn’t seem to get the irony of it all – and who therefore succeeded in recapturing that spirit.

Best Black Comedy – Four Lions

Chris Morris’s farce about inept suicide bombers in England is a hybrid brand of comedy – at once broad slapstick and upsettingly dark and relevant satire – not seen since Dr. Strangelove. It’s also the first movie yet to have truly humanized terrorists. Which is what makes it so terrifying.

The Best of March Madness

sickwithamouse — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:11:36 +0000

In a season of rankings, we keep score of the game’s high points. In the March 2011 issue of Men’s Heath Magazine, the one with Matt Damon and Emily Blunt on the cover, there is a great article on the best parts of March Madness, the tournament that we all hold so dear each spring. They list everything from best seats to best players, and it is all here in this convenient blog post — just for you!

The 3 best NCAA ballers to watch this season

3. Demetri McCamey (Illinois) – McCamey has an impressive combination of size, skill and scoring ability as a point guard. He’s terrific as a passer and ball handler, and he also has a deep shooting range.

2. Kris Joseph (Syracuse) – He’s a gifter scorer with a nice stroke who tallies his points in various ways/ Joseph is an incredibly hard worker. His coaches recognize that, so expect him to play an expanded role this season.

1. Elias Harris (Gonzaga) – With a rare mix of rebounding prowess, shot-blocking ability, and three-point shooting, he can be a 20/10 guy and a major force on both offense and defense.

Sit where it really counts

Good luck scoring (or affording) courtside seats. The owners of VividSeats.com say your next best bet is mid-court, between rows 5 and 10. You’ll see everything and still be part of the crazy crown, which is half the fun of NCAA games. If mid-court is full, call the stadium to find where your team plays offense the second half.

The 3 Places You Must Watch College Ball Before You Die

3. Kansas’s Allen Fieldhouse – You can sense its history as soon as you step inside. It’s basically a big barn that packs in some of the most passionate fans in the game.

2. Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium – It’s cramped and tight – bordering on uncomfortable – but no place is more intimidating for opponents. And you can feel that.

1. Dayton’s UD Arena – With nearly 14,000 seats, it’s the ideal design for an on-campus arena, providing straight sight lines and plenty of team spirit.

Hottest College Cheerleaders

No matter how lousy the game, here’s the countdown of teams worth watching for sideline entertainment, according to Steve Covino and Rich Davis, hosts of The Covino & Rich Show on Sirius XM.

3. LSU Tigers

2. Arizona State Sun Devils

1. Florida Gators

Near-Death At The Movies

sickwithamouse — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:05:57 +0000

This article, from the November 2010 issue of Men’s Journal Magazine, was inspired by the release of James Franco’s new film 27 Hours. In the film Franco gets trapped and has to figure out how to survive, escape or get help (extreme abridged version). That led the writers of the magazine to brainstorm a list of other near-death experiences in movies. The mag calls the folliwing movies “Nerve-racking survival films that are a must-add to your queue.” They are the following:

Touching the Void (2003)

Life, pain, suffering, death, and the hard moral calculus of extreme adventuring intersect in this riveting documentary about two accomplished climbers on a disastrous descent in the Peruvian Andes.

Cast Away (2000)

Tom Hanks lost nearly 50 pounds to play a marooned survivor of a plane crash with the smarts and determination to overcome loneliness and privation. That said, its his close friendship with a volleyball that stuck with us the most.

The Edge (1997)

This overlooked action thriller set in the wilds of Alaska features a brilliant script by David Mamet, a pair of cagey but knockout performances by Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin, and one very hungry grizzly bear.

Open Water (2003)

True story of a couple scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef who are forced to spend a long night in shark-infested waters when their charter boat leaves without them. Simple premise, inspired execution.