Friday night: You’re at a crowded bar, and have to pee. Fearing the toilet seat, you pop a squat, clench your thigh muscles and hold onto the walls while you unleash your last five beers. You make sure you wash your hands (sometimes twice, depending on how filthy the pub is), and maybe even reach into your purse for some hand sanitizer, just to be safe.

Saturday night: You’re at a frat party. You just won three consecutive games of beer pong. You don’t think twice about drinking your cups, despite the fact that you’ve seen the ball land in other peoples’ used cups, roll along the basement floor, and watched the ball pass between thirty-something unwashed hands.

What gives?!?

Obviously, beer pong isn’t the most sanitary party game out there. But you have the “water cup,” right? That cup of tepid, dirty water is totes gonna disinfect that old, recycled ping pong ball (that was most likely found under someone’s bed 10 minutes before party time). Or not.

Some microbiology students at George Washington University decided to test exactly how detrimental to your health beer pong can be. If you like beer pong, you may want to skip this article. Read More »

Remember when you were little and you came down with a cold? Mom or Dad would make you soup, tuck you into bed, and feed you medicine. Well, now you’re on your own, and chances are when you are hacking all over place even your best friend won’t want to get near you. What to do!?

First things first…if you wake up in the morning feeling like total crap, give yourself a sick day. We have a tendency to push ourselves to the limit in college, but remember: even big corporate offices give sick days, and that’s for a good reason. If you try to keep going like normal, chances are you’ll make yourself even more sick, thus forcing you to possibly miss even more time than if you just took it easy early on. Obviously if you have an important exam or test you may have to suck it up and go to class, but otherwise, just stay in bed.

Make sure to sleep in and get some extra rest–close the blinds and don’t turn on the TV (not yet, at least!). When you feel like you can’t sleep anymore, take a hot shower. Sudacare makes these great tablets that you stick on the floor of your shower; they react with the hot water to make a really nice steamy vapor that opens up your sinuses (and calms you down). Read More »

I cannot stand getting sick. About a month ago, I caught a vicious flu bug and completely denied its existence in my system until I woke up one Sunday morning hallucinating and unable to stand.

Had I only taken more Airborne….my feverish mind reasoned as my roommate and I raced to the emergency room…I would be completely healthy right now…

Well, it turns out, I could have popped one hundred little Airborne tablets and it probably wouldn’t have made an ounce of difference (it also turns out that if you’re crazy sick and in an emergency room, crawling onto the floor and lying there gets you in to see a doctor way ahead of everyone else).

The makers of the popular take-it-and-you-won’t-get-sick tablet have recently settled a class-action lawsuit for $23.3 million, a lawsuit which claims that despite Airborne’s compelling advertising campaign, “There’s no credible evidence that what’s in Airborne can prevent colds or protect you from a germy environment”. Read More »

Valentine’s Day. Blah, blah, blah. I really have nothing to say about this holiday other than I’m sure certain people love it. Being stricken with the flu for three days does nothing to brighten a girl’s demeanor, and V-Day has never been high on my list of days to get excited about.

I don’t own a card store. I’ve never dated anyone who’d be pulling diamonds out of his pocket, and it’s always been strange to me that we need certain days to prove we love one another.

Sorry about being a screwup for 364 days, honey. Here’s some chocolates and a bear. Let’s make up.

ANYway, all annoyance aside, I’m aware that there are other opinions about February 14th. Some people love this day. Seriously. Can’t get enough. And other people…?

Well, they use it as an excuse to lie on their bed, stare at the ceiling, eat a box of chocolates all themselves, and go all melancholy about why they have no one.

If you’re one of these, have I got the mix for you.

Below is a list of songs guaranteed to help those tears, and dear god whys?!, flow. Read More »