GroovyMojo.com

NOTE: since writing this, it’s gone out of date and some of the links are dead.  Updating it is on my to-do list … but in the meantime if you have any tips on this to share, please send them to me or put them in the comments.  Thanks!

The scenario:  you just spent $24.95 on a new DVD for your kids.  You pop it in the player, sit on the couch with them, and they have fun watching it over and over again.  You, on the other hand, fall asleep.  Time passes, and you wake up with your youngest one shaking you.  “Watch again!” she says.  “Want to watch again!”

Then she hands you two halves of the DVD disk she mysteriously destroyed while you were napping.

Goodbye $24.95.

Now, without getting into a legal debate [I'm in the camp which believes any laws prohibiting the circumvention of copy protection are invalid because they violate pre-existing fair use laws] I’m going to outline how you can do this, for the explicit purpose of protecting your investment in legally purchased DVDs.

The following programs are free, and they work together:

First, go to www.ripit4me.org and download the main piece of software, RipIt4Me.  This is a small program that coordinates and controls three other programs.  Download and study it.  It goes a long way toward making this complex process simple.

When you run this software it will, in turn, instruct you to download and install the following free programs:

• DVD Decrypter
• FixVTS
• DVD Shrink

Once you have these software applications installed, RipIt4Me takes control of them and makes it a easy process.  This combination gets around most known copy protection schemes (at least, it does at the time of this writing) and enables you to make copies of your legally purchased DVDs, so that you’ll put wear and tear on the cheap copies instead of the valuable originals.  Also, you’ll be able to use single layer discs, and not the more expensive and finicky dual layer blanks.

Now, even though RipIt4Me simplifies the process, it still takes some reading and there is a learning curve.  If you’re not that technically inclined, you might consider buying a commercial DVD copying solution, such as those produced by SlySoft.com.  SlySoft is supposed to make some of the best and easiest to use tools available, and they offer free updates to keep it current, so that newly released copy protection schemes don’t render it useless.

These software titles, both the free and pay versions, also have the added benefit of being able to make good copies of some DVDs that are otherwise damaged.  As in, if you’ve got a scratched up and skipping disc, these give you a good chance of resurrecting a playable copy from it.

Unfortunately if your little girl has already snapped the disk in half, then you’re out of luck no matter what software you have.

I came across this interesting article about how birds in the wild are now imitating mobile phone ring tones. “The birds have an uncanny ability to mimic these ring tones,” states Ornithologist Richard Schneider. “This has picked up in tandem with the boom in mobile phone ownership.”

I can just see it. A future where birds are flying from tree to tree, pooping on your car and saying, “Can you hear me now?”

Lowfat, lactose-free pasta!

• 1 med. yellow onion, chopped (sweet Vidalia if available)
• 1 lb. chicken breast, sliced into approx. 1/2″ X 2″ pieces (NOTE: Though I haven’t tried it, lacto-vegans could probably substitute firm or extra firm tofu for the chicken)
• 2 tblsp. olive oil (extra virgin, if available)
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• 16 oz. ziti or penne pasta
• 5 tblsp. lactose-free margarine (Fleischmann’s Unsalted, if available)
• 1/2 c. flour
• 1/2 c. lactose-free shredded parmesan, mozzarella and Romano (”Veggie Shreds” brand, if available)
• 2 cloves chopped garlic
• 2 1/2 c. fat-free, lactose-free milk (Lactaid, Deans, etc…)
• 8 oz. chopped frozen spinach (defrosted and drained)
• Fresh ground sea salt and pepper to taste (sauce and marinade)

Set aside a lightly greased 13″X9″ lasagna pan (greased with Fat free Pam, if available). Marinate raw chicken breast slices for several hours in oregano, chopped garlic, a dash of ground sea salt and ground pepper, and 1 tbsp. olive oil. Sauté marinated chicken and chopped onion in 1 tbsp. olive oil (enough to coat the bottom of the skillet), until onion is translucent and chicken is lightly browned. Drain extra fat/liquid from chicken/onion mixture and set aside.

In a saucepan, cook milk, 4 tbsp. margarine, and flour until thickened, whisking continuously until bubbly and smooth. Add ground sea salt and pepper to taste, then add cheese and whisk gently until cheese is melted and blended in.

Boil pasta until al’ dente (approx. 12 minutes), toss with remaining margarine, chicken, onion, spinach, and 1/2 the sauce, and spread in lasagna pan. Then pour remaining sauce over the top of the pasta, smooth out sauce so that all of the pasta is covered, and bake in a 375 degree oven for approx. 45 minutes.

Serves between 6 to 8 people. Enjoy!

©2005 T.R. Nunes, Reprinted By Permission

A writer’s trick for keeping words flowing is to do timed writing practice every single day. Doesn’t matter what you write, and doesn’t matter how many words. Just pick a time and start writing. Say, 15 minutes, and set a timer, and write constantly for those 15 minutes.

This is an established practice that’s been around since the 60’s. But here’s a new twist on it.

Go to FutureMe.org and set up an account. It’s free.

This is a place where you write letters to yourself to be delivered to you in the future (up to 50 years in the future).

Every day go there and do a timed writing exercise and set it to be emailed to you one year in the future. Or longer. Or shorter. Whatever you want.

But it would be so cool to read all the random stuff that was in your mind a year ago today. Who knows what will turn up? What it will inspire? What forgotten thing it will remind you of?

Make sure you click their Google Ads everyday so that they can afford to send you the email a year from now!

…from MojoWriter.com

Using the little camera in your phone (or in my case, my Sony PDA) can keep you from getting ripped off. If the camera has a date imprinting feature, make sure it’s on by default.

When renting a car, take pictures of it before you drive it for the first time, especially paying attention to any scratches or dings. Then take pictures right before you turn it back in. This way if they try to claim you damaged the car, you’ll have proof that you didn’t.

Do the same for your own car before you hand the keys over for valet parking. When you get the car back, walk around it once before you get inside, and if you see anything suspicious - anything at all - take a picture of it. You can always compare the photos later, and if you do find a scratch or ding, you have evidence to back up your claim.

Here’s an example that worked for me personally: I suspected a place I used to take my car in for an oil change wasn’t actually replacing my oil filter (I already knew for a fact that they weren’t doing some of the other things they were supposed to do). So I opened the hood and took a picture of the oil filter the day before taking it in for service. Then, after taking it in for the change, I opened the hood right there in the parking lot and took a new picture of the oil filter. The picture was identical to the one I took the day before.

The service manager was on the defensive, but couldn’t explain away the pictures. So he sent my car back into the shop and had them do it all over again, on top of refunding my money.

These are just a few of the ways you can use that ever-present little camera to cover your butt. Any time you’re responsible for the condition of something, or someone else is responsible for something of yours, a few quick little snapshots can save you significant trouble or money. Think of it as insurance that you don’t have to pay for.

Do you buy Coca-Cola and only Coca-Cola?  Do you, in fact, buy collectible plates, clocks, toy cars, or the like with the company’s brand name on it?  Will you buy Coca-Cola even when it costs more than a competitor’s cola that tastes just as good?

No?  Then how about products from Pepsi?  Or Harley Davidson, for that matter?  Or Google?  Or any specific brand?

Do you tend to stick with one company because you know and trust them, even to the point where you don’t even look at a competing brand?

If so, you may have Brand Loyalty Sickness.

You must understand that companies pay an insane amount of money to infect you with this sickness.  You’ll find it in their corporate goals anywhere you look.  “Build customer loyalty.”  A brand with strong customer loyalty is like a rich silver mine, and it’s great for them.

Not for you, however.  This you must also come to understand and accept.  Brand loyalty is bad for you and it’s bad for our economy.

Our Capitalist society is a Darwinian dog-eat-dog arena where only the best and most innovative will survive.  The end result is that you should get the best products for the best price.

Should.

Not always, though, because instead of putting their emphasis on making their products better and more affordable, some companies focus on keeping their customers — YOU — brainwashed into opting out of the game altogether.  If they can only convince you that their brand is the best, and that you need not try any other brand because you already know theirs is better, then what motive will they ever have to improve?  They don’t need to.  They’ve already turned you into their reliable old cash cow.  They’ve successfully infected you with the sickness.

I call it a sickness because that’s what it is.  It cripples your ability to make informed choices.  It costs you money.  It dulls the senses by putting you into a predictable routine.  Large corporations take advantage of you.

I’m not saying that you, say, drink Pepsi even if you don’t like it as much as Coke.  But if you won’t even try Pepsi because it’s not Coke, that’s when you have a problem.  The best thing for you, me, and everyone else is to sample and choose regardless of brand.  This even helps the brand you feel loyalty toward, because it forces them to innovate and improve.

So don’t be a mind-controlled brand-loyal herd animal!  Run with the wolves!  Cull the flock!  Improve the system, save yourself money, and end up with better products.

It starts with just a timid touching of the lips.

You both smile, and she takes a breath and leans into you again. It’s a soft, lingering kiss. You pull away slightly, and she leans forward more. Her lips part, so you part yours as well. Your hands slide up her arms, squeeze lightly below the shoulders. Taking her upper lip in between yours, you pull it gently before letting it slide out. She lets out a little sigh, and then does the same to you.

This is good for you. Literally.

You kiss lightly but constantly for the next few minutes, your heart racing, your breath growing short. Then she touches your lips with her tongue, and you smile slightly and meet it with the tip of your own. It’s like an introduction, the two meeting for the first time. They dance around a bit. Play hide-and-go-seek. Then you run the tip of your tongue lightly around the inside of her lips, then take her bottom lip in between yours and gently pull for a moment before letting go. Your hands caress her neck, her ears. Your fingers slide through her hair.

She sighs again, her passion growing.

What you two are doing burns over 6 calories a minute. It boosts the immune system, slows the aging process, drastically reduces stress, and even helps prevent tooth decay. It also pulls you out of your ordinary day and puts you in an amazing place outside of time and space. The world fades away, leaving just the two of you, and the wonder of what you share.

Now her arms are tight around you, and your bodies are pressed up against each other. Your kisses have built a rhythm, and you’re kissing with more than just your lips. You’re caressing each other, moving against each other, breathing each other’s breath. She gives out the occasional cry of pleasure, almost like a happy whimper, letting you know she is enjoying it as much as you are.

Your body is releasing oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin into your blood, your very own elixir of love. Endorphins flood your system, producing euphoria. All these things are good for you. They work wonders on your physical and mental health.

So kiss often. Kiss as many times a day as you can, every day. It’s a highly recommended therapy with far-flung benefits.

Not to mention that it’s a lot of fun.

This is not really a diet; it’s a simplified version of eating awareness training as originally developed by Molly Groger.  While her excellent book is currently out of print, you can usually find copies on Amazon and eBay.  As with any major lifestyle change, you may want to consult with your doctor beforehand.

Body vs. Mind

The human body didn’t evolve to be a couch potato.  We were meant to hunt gazelle and climb trees for fruit and to throw spears at saber-toothed tigers.  By some fluke of nature our brains became supercharged, which has allowed us to systematically outsmart just about everything — including nature.  The result is that, as animals, we’re overachievers, able to fend for ourselves so well that the days of chasing gazelle are long gone.  To go hunting we merely have to walk 30 feet to a car then drive to a supermarket.  In some cases we don’t even have to do that — a simple click of a computer mouse will result in the delivery of groceries, or fresh hot pizza, or an order of Chicken Lo Mein.

At the same time, our big brains are constantly inventing new and ever more fascinating ways to entertain ourselves without exerting physical effort.  So now more than ever, we’re more likely to be exercising our fingers on a TV remote or game controller rather than exerting entire body effort to beat a flying ball around four bases, or to race a bunch of other people to a finish line.

So you see we’ve already put ourselves at a disadvantage.  But add to that the fact that since we were babies, our parents used food as a reward and as a pacifier, programming our bloated brains to eat for reasons other than hunger.  We now eat because we’re happy, sad, bored, frightened, or nervous.  That would be a bad idea even if food still consisted of berries and gazelle spleens.  But no — our misguided intellects have designed for us much more tasty morsels: chocolate bars, Oreos, French fries, Whoppers, and Big Macs.  Yum!  I don’t know about you, but I love these things — or at least my brain does, because the flavors are so refined they directly stimulate the mind’s pleasure center to almost sexual intensity.

Face it, we’re way too clever for our own good.

That’s the bad news.  The good news is that only a few simple changes can make a significant difference in this dilemma.

Demote Your Brain

Here’s where you begin to unlearn and then relearn.  For some of you this initial stage can be a bit tricky and seem weird, but that’s because you’re about to question some fundamental behaviors.  The goal is to take the decision to eat away from your mind, and give it back to your stomach.

The idea is simple enough.  When you’re hungry, eat.  When you’re no longer hungry, stop eating.

For many people that seems to be a no brainer.  To them it’s already natural.  You’ll notice one thing these people all have in common:  they’re thin.  And in America they’re in the minority.

I once was one of those people, back before I got my first car, in those long-ago days where I had to ride a bike or walk everywhere.  It was also before video games.  I used to ride for miles and hike through the wilderness, and climb trees, and dig big holes in the ground with a shovel.  I also was much less into eating, because back then there always seemed to be more important things to do.  Sure, I watched TV, but there were only three channels, and I usually only had two favorite shows at a time … and they were on only once a week.

Things are much different today.  I sit at a computer and type all the time.  I love good food.  I have hot and cold running DVD’s at the push of a button — I figure if I get into an accident and both my legs are broken, I have enough quality TV to watch for three months straight.  Add Netflix to that and it could stretch to infinity.

Then there’s those bugaboos from childhood:  You didn’t finish your dinner!  You’re not a part of the “Clean Plate Club!”  There are poor starving children in Africa.  And left over from babyhood, when food was used as a pacifier:  If I feel unhappy, a box of cookies will make things better.  If bored, eat a tube of Pringles.  Nervousness brings on munchies for candy like you wouldn’t believe.  When things are going good, it’s time to celebrate by going out for a huge steak dinner … with ice cream for desert!  Ice cream drowned in 5 pounds of caramel and hot fudge.

My peak weight was over 350 pounds.  My doctor used to give me alarmed looks while checking my blood pressure, and began prescribing pills.  I started noticing lots of little problems, like my back had become fragile, and my knees would make breaking-celery noises when I went up stairs. 

Things didn’t begin to get better until I learned there was a difference between being “full” and being “no longer hungry.”

Learn To Listen To Your Stomach

Listening to your stomach doesn’t mean waiting until it growls and gurgles.  It means relaxing your mind and letting yourself feel those signals it’s sending you.  There are levels of hunger, ranging from slightly-maybe hungry to gnawing-open-pit-of-pain hungry.  What you need to do is try an experiment, and practice it a few times during the next week.

Pick a time when you don’t have a lot of distractions, and skip a meal.  Feel free to drink water (and I mean water, not coffee or soda, or anything with caffeine — which is an appetite suppressant).  You’ll find that in the beginning, when you’re just starting to feel hungry, it’s hard to tell the difference between hunger and thirst.  So when you start to notice that feeling, take a drink, and see it that makes the feeling subside.  In many cases it will, and you’ve just learned your first important lesson.  Sometimes when you think you’re hungry, you’re actually thirsty.

Continue the experiment, paying close attention to your feelings of hunger as they grow over time.  When water no longer does the trick, then you know you’re experiencing real hunger.  Memorize this feeling.  This is your cue — your ONLY cue — to eat.

When you feel you’ve mastered the art of identifying genuine hunger, the experiment is over.  It’s time to take the next step.

You’ve established you’re hungry, so go ahead and eat something.  Don’t worry about carbs or calories, just make sure it’s real food and not Hostess Twinkies or an ice cream cone.  If you’re craving  pizza or fried chicken, then indulge yourself.  But eat slowly without distractions — no TV, no talking on the phone — and pay very close attention to signals from your stomach after each swallow.  The moment your hungry feeling goes away, stop eating.  You’re done.

This is one of the hardest things to get used to, because here is where your mind — not your stomach — is going to tell you to keep eating.  Your mind will say things like:

• I can’t possibly be full.  That was only seven bites!
• This food is too good, there’s no way I’m stopping now.
• I paid for this huge meal.  If I don’t eat more than this I’ll be wasting money.
• If I don’t eat more, he/she will think I don’t like his/her cooking.
• Etc.

Here’s where you’ll come to a startling realization: we really do eat way too much food!  Also, here’s where we must accept an unpleasant fact: when we do eat too much, we are abusing our bodies.

I’m going to repeat this because it’s so important.  We as a society eat too much food, and when we do, we are abusing our bodies.  We are abusing our bodies just as sure as a smoker is abusing his lungs; as sure as a demented glue sniffer is abusing his poor damaged brain.

Is saving food, or money, or someone’s misguided feelings worth shortening your life?  Is it worth wrecking your health, causing you to spend more on healthcare and the like?  Is it worth the stunted self esteem of being labeled a fatso?  The shame, humiliation, and the self-loathing?

Freaking no, man!  No!  It is not.  And so you must ignore your brain when it sends you these signals to keep eating, or to begin eating in the first place, and listen ONLY to your stomach.

Only your stomach!

So continue practicing the art of listening to your stomach, determining when it is really hungry (as opposed to thirsty), and only eating until the feeling of hunger goes away.  If you eat until you feel full, then you’ve eaten too much.

Don’t freak out if just a tiny bit of food satisfies your hunger.  Remember that the moment you feel hungry again, you can eat again.  This is not about starving yourself.  You can eat as many times a day that your stomach tells you to eat.  You can eat just about anything.  But only eat until your stomach tells you it’s no longer hungry.  If that means seven tiny meals a day, then so be it.

Also, begin to really trust your cravings.  Once you get in tune with what your body actually wants, and not what your mind wants, you’ll realize that you’re craving things because of what’s in them, like specific vitamins you may be low in.  Once you’ve been doing this a while, you’re going to begin craving certain vegetables,  like carrots, or perhaps specific proteins like fish or chicken.  You might think to yourself, for example, “Mmm!  Jell-O sounds good!”  Yes, Jell-O is good for you — your body may be craving the gelatin it needs to grow your fingernails.

Your body instinctively knows what it needs.  It knows when it needs food, and it knows what kind of food.  All you have to do is listen to it.  Trust it.  There’s millions of years of programming in your DNA, the result of millions of generations of your ancestors who survived the harshness of live, all leading up to you.  You inherited all that wisdom.  Trust it.

Help Your Body Outsmart Your Brain

As clever as your human intellect is, it’s really a spoiled brat.  It’s used to being in control of when, what, and how much to eat, and now that you’re shifting the job back to your stomach where it belongs, your brain is going to fight it.  It will complain, throw tantrums, and try to sabotage you.  You must accept this and be ready for it with a arsenal of tricks to help your stomach retain control:

• Prepare smaller portions:  As you begin to get a feeling of how much you’re likely to eat before your stomach says “enough,” only prepare that amount.  Maybe even less, and if afterwards you still feel hungry, follow it up with something like apple or orange slices.  Make it a habit to keep healthy, readily available snacks that you can use to top off your meal and sate your hunger.
• Order a to-go box up front:  At restaurants you know that they’re going to serve a portion that’s more than enough, and you know that there will be some left over.  If you have the to-go box right there and handy, you can put the extra food away the moment you need to.  This sabotages the brain’s penchant for sitting there and picking at the food just to have something to do while you’re talking.  Box the leftovers up and put them on a chair or under the table — out of sight, out of mind.
• Deface the food:  Say you’re in a situation where there will be no to-go boxes, and you can’t just get up and leave.  Say, a business meeting in an all-you-can-eat Chinese Buffet.  You’ve served too much, they won’t let you take it home, and it is sitting there on the table tempting you to pick at it.  Now is the time to deface the food.  Put something ugly on top of it.  Mix a inappropriate sauce into the plate, or dump an entire shaker of salt on it, or take your napkin and squish it into the food.  Make it unappealing.  Short circuit your mind’s temptation for mindlessly continuing to eat.
• Sip water:  Unconscious eating is a nervous habit.  You can replace the act of picking at food with sipping a glass of ice water.  It will satisfy the nervous habit, and it’s good for you.  Extra food turns to fat, but extra water does nothing but clean out your system.  The only downside is that it may cause repeated trips to the bathroom.

Besides all these tricks you can pull on yourself (and I’m sure you can come up with an endless supply of your own), you can also enlist the help of your friends and family.  Explain to them what you’re doing and why.  Get them in on it.  Help them help you.  Who knows, they may even join you — then you can help each other.

This is also important:  if you succumb to your brain’s urgings and do overeat, don’t beat yourself up over it.  This is a learning process, not a fad diet.  What you’re attempting to do here is modify your lifestyle.  It’s not going to be an overnight cure.  You will no doubt stumble from time to time, but when you do, simply shrug it off and keep going.  If in a moment of weakness you eat an entire box of Oreos, or a jumbo two pound mushroom Swiss cheeseburger, then make it a learning experience.  Pay attention and memorize the feeling of being over-stuffed.  Memorize how uncomfortable your stomach feels.  Take a mental picture of how awful you feel, and show it to yourself the next time you sit down in front of the same type of meal.

Falling down once or twice doesn’t mean you just give up and lay there until you die.  You pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and keep going.  Life is like that anyway, so why should eating be any different?  The point is to enjoy yourself while you’re here, and you can enjoy eating, too.  Eat when your stomach says you’re hungry, eat something you enjoy eating, and stop the moment you’re no longer hungry.

Amazing how difficult such a simple thing can be.

What Else?

Surely there must be more to it than this.  Right?

Wrong.

You don’t have to count calories, you don’t have to eat only low carb food.  You don’t have to completely cut sweets out of your diet.  You don’t have to measure your serving sizes.  You can completely disregard anything you’ve ever read about dieting.  The only thing you have to do at the “South Beach” is take a nice walk in the sand.

No fasting is necessary.  Meditation is optional.  Eat organic food if you’d like.  Have an occasional Twinkie, it’s okay.

Listen to your stomach.  It tells you two things:

1. I am hungry.
2. I am no longer hungry.

That’s all you need to know.  Where eating is concerned, your stomach is the boss.  If you feel full, you’ve eaten too much, or you’ve eaten too quickly.  Slow down, pay closer attention to your stomach’s signals, and learn when to detect when the hungry feeling has gone away.  When it has, stop eating.

Period.

You will lose weight.  How fast it happens depends on how far out of balance you are from your natural weight as determined by your DNA.  In most cases you’ll lose more weight up front, and it will gradually slow as you approach your natural balance.  It will take some time, so don’t be in a rush.  Maintain patience.  Even better, simply put it out of your mind.  Don’t obsess on weight loss, but instead concentrate on making your new eating habits so ingrained in your psyche that you do it without thinking — like scratching your nose or breathing.

If you do that, your body will take care of itself, and weight will never again be a problem.

Bonus Objectives

If you live a sedentary lifestyle, commit to walking every day.  Walking is the best exercise.  It’s also the easiest.  Don’t overdo it, but slowly build up to a healthy mile or so a day if possible.  If you do this, it will dramatically increase the benefit of your change of eating habits.

Drink more water and less soda — including diet soda.  Flavor the water if you have to.  Use a squeeze of lemon or lime, or a dash of spearmint extract.

Diet soda can actually keep you from losing weight.  The reason is that your body isn’t smart enough to tell the difference between an artificial sweetener and a real one, and so it still releases insulin to counteract the sugar it thinks you just consumed.  Insulin released in your system makes it harder to lose weight.  You’re much better off drinking water or tea sweetened with just a hint of citrus than you are drinking something with an artificial sweetener in it.

One last but important tip:  accept and learn to love yourself as you are.  Under no circumstances should you compare yourself with a supermodel or hunk actor on TV.  Those people are not normal.  Statistically they are genetic freaks.  Random chance, as well as some very expensive dental and plastic surgery, have given them uber-attractiveness which has been even more augmented by make up, professionally styled hair, and custom tailored clothing.  Repeat after me, right now, out loud:

“IT’S NOT REAL!”

I mean it.  I want you to speak these words to yourself.  I want you to say them every time you see one of those commercials or billboards.

Those images you see are not real, and they’re not realistic.  Don’t compare yourself to them.  Don’t compare yourself to anyone.  You are you.  If you love and respect yourself, you’ll treat yourself better, you’ll treat others better, and things will naturally become better.  You will inspire others.  You will enjoy life more.

And that’s what it’s all about.

Further Reading

• Eating Awareness Training by Molly Groger
• Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch
• The Rules of “Normal” Eating by Karen R. Koenig
• Eating Mindfully by Susan Albers

This is a very embarrassing topic, but my girlfriend urged me to write about it as a public service. “It could make a difference in the relationships for hundreds of couples,” she told me.

The subject is control over how long a guy lasts during lovemaking.

Quoting my girlfriend: “Why is it that so many men don’t care about control when it is so very important? Don’t they realize that it makes such a huge difference to their relationships? Why can they not see that a satisfied woman will do anything for her man?”

This is obviously a wide spread problem, otherwise you wouldn’t see it as one of the most popular subjects for annoying Spam mail.

The ironic thing is that teaching yourself how to last longer in your lovemaking is simple, and unlike what all those junk emails tell you, you don’t have to buy a pill or special cream. All it takes is the willingness to learn. Or, actually, unlearn.

Because of the sexually frank nature of the subject, those who might be offended should stop reading right here. I mean it. Stop reading.

You’re still reading? Okay. You have no one to blame but yourself if you’re offended…

Premature ejaculation in men is nothing more than a bad habit.

The habit is learned usually as a boy during puberty, directly after experiencing his first orgasm. He’s not to blame, either, it’s our sexual prudishness that is the root cause of the problem. The fear of getting caught.

All boys masturbate. All of them. Most men do it as well, and most will lie about it too. It’s extremely embarrassing, and guys would rather die than be discovered.

Why? Because we’ve all been taught that sex is bad. It’s dirty. It’s a sin.

Well, it’s not, but that’s not the point of this article. However it is this stigma over self-gratification that causes boys (and later men) to rush through it as fast as humanly possible. They feel the urge, they find a quiet place, and they take care of business. Over and done with. The original wham, bam, thank you hand.

The human penis is a simple creature. It only has a couple jobs in life, and it only does what it’s been taught to do. It stands to reason that if you spend years teaching it to ejaculate quickly, then that is what it’s going to continue doing. It doesn’t care what the circumstances … or what is doing the stimulation. It knows what it knows.

Fortunately, a penis can learn to change. Slow down. Relax and enjoy the journey instead of focusing only on the destination.

The simplest way to unlearn the bad habit is doing the very same activity which originally caused it, but with a different mindset. There are two feelings you have to master, one which you know and another you may not be too familiar with.

Lesson number one starts with you getting friendly with yourself. That’s right, it’s okay. You have an excuse. This is a class.

Start getting friendly with yourself, but pay close attention to what you’re feeling. There’s a point of no return, and there’s a point right before orgasm. They’re two separate places along the journey. Get to know these two places, but more specifically, get to know the difference between the two.

So it’s feeling good, and you feel it working up to that point, then … pay close attention … you’ll feel when it changes. You haven’t reached the point of imminent orgasm, but there is that place where you know it’s going to happen any moment. There’s a point where there’s no going back, it’s going to blow. Then, anywhere from a split second to maybe ten seconds later, you know the orgasm is about to happen.

Then it happens.

Did you feel the difference? Can you spot these two points? Don’t worry, it may take a while, but here’s the good news. You have permission to keep trying. You’re not going to unlearn this bad habit overnight. Give yourself three or four weeks of practice.

When you start being able to feel that place where you know, if you keep going, the orgasm will happen … back off. That’s right, back off from what you’re doing. Stop and let it calm down for a few moments, then start going again.

This is lesson number two. Play with yourself for as long as you can without reaching your orgasm. Work yourself almost up to, but not past, that point of no return. Having a hard time figuring out where? Keep slipping past it? No problem. Here’s what you do: if you even think you’re near it, stop. I don’t care if you have to stop every five seconds, just stop. Let it calm down. Start again.

Keep going. I don’t care how much you want that orgasm, you goal is not to have it. Why? Let me quote my girlfriend again: “Why can they not see that a satisfied woman will do anything for her man?”

That’s why. There is absolutely nothing in this world like completely satisfying the woman you love. So…

Keep practicing. See how long you can keep it going without passing the point of no return. Challenge yourself to go longer and longer. When you feel you are starting to get the hang of it, it’s on to lesson number three, which is putting it to practice with your lover.

Now remember, you’re still unlearning the bad habit. Don’t be discouraged with failure … just keep trying. You will get better.

Let your lover know what you’re doing. Let her know you need to be in control, and why, and I’m betting she’s going to be more than willing to help. Don’t rush through the foreplay, and when it’s time to enter, pay close attention to what you’re feeling. Move slowly, don’t get too caught up into it. The moment you even think you’re getting close to that point, pull out, and let it calm down. Then continue.

You’ll find something amazing. Your penis is not so dumb after all. It can learn something new, and you’ll find that — as you get used to not rushing headlong toward that orgasm — your penis is going to get better at letting you know when that point of no return is. Also, you’ll find it takes longer to get there as well.

That’s the penis learning.

Aren’t you proud of it? Good penis! Well done!

If you haven’t noticed by now, there’s a benefit to you as well as your lover. The longer you hold back your orgasm, the more intense it’s going to be when you finally reach it. Instead of just an, OOOH! AHHHH! WOW! it will start becoming a OOOOOOOOHHHHAAAA OH MY GOD! AAAAAAHHHGGHH!!!!! YES YES YES!

And she’ll be proud of herself for giving you such a big one, too.

If you’re not convinced yet that this is worth the effort, consider this (especially you married guys) … bad lovemaking leads to less lovemaking, which leads to even worse lovemaking, which can lead to zero lovemaking. A downward spiral. Conversely, good lovemaking leads to MORE lovemaking, which leads to BETTER lovemaking, which leads to EVEN MORE lovemaking. An upward spiral.

That’s the kind of love that makes your world go round. It can make you healthier, happier, and live longer too. And, let me quote my girlfriend one last time: “Why can they not see that a satisfied woman will do anything for her man?”

So guys, what are you waiting for? Get busy. Practice makes perfect!

An email showed up this morning warning me not to feed grapes or raisins to dogs, and I thought … oh that’s BS. I’m checking Snopes.com.

But sure enough, it’s true. It can cause their kidneys to fail. So I read on and found a number of things we eat that are poisonous to our canine family members:

• Grapes
• Raisins
• Chocolate
• Coco
• Macadamia Nuts
• Onions
• Potato peelings and green looking potatoes

I don’t currently have a dog, but plan to adopt one again sometime in the near future, and I’m going to keep this list handy (and updated here on the web) because I’m sure this is just the tip of the iceberg.