Time Square isn’t Only Ball Dropping on New Year’s Eve

According to a newly published report in the New England Journal of Medicine, men who drink more than 2-4 servings of alcohol per day—one serving equals 4 oz. wine, 12 oz. beer or ale, or 1 oz. gin, rum or other liquor--and then imbibe heavily on New Year’s Eve can expect at least one of their testicles to drop 1/32nd of an inch or roughly 0.079375 cm. each year.

In 2005, Dr. Hans Crotis, chief internist at the Hampton VA Medical Center in Hampton, VA, received a $2.4 million dollar government grant to study the effects that various drinking patterns have on a man’s reproductive organs. “Because of my own ball droppage,” said Dr. Crotis,” I had a personal interest in finding out the reason behind this physiological change in men. The best scenario to test my theory as to why men begin to show signs of early ball droppage in their 50’s was the overindulgence on New Year’s Eve. Sure, men overindulge at other times of the year, but for purposes of my study, I wanted to find men who only drink moderate amounts of alcohol during the year and then go a bit overboard at the end of the year.”

The study group consisted of 2,120 United States veterans between the ages of 22 and 34 who were paid for their participation. Each potential study member was asked to fill out a lengthy questionnaire that covered everything from medical conditions to the most important question “how much do you drink per day?” The study participants were then chosen and given a chart each year to keep track of their daily intake of alcohol. The study, which ran the course of a little over three years, from December, 2005 through March, 2009, was concluded on April 1, 2009 and results were compiled over the next few months.

Among the most astounding findings was the fact that men are not usually aware that their testicles are gradually dropping little by little “because this measurement is so minute and only affects one or the other testicle, but not both at one time.” Especially young men who are not heavy drinkers, but who still drink to the point of inebriation on New Year’s Eve may not actually notice any difference until they hit their 50’s or 60’s, when the “ball dropping” is much more noticeable. Said Dr. Crotis, “we now have a rational explanation backed up by medical research data that explains why some men’s testicles drop so much more noticeably than others in their later years.”

It has not yet been determined whether or not this change in physiology is harmful to men and therefore, until further studies can be done, Dr. Crotis advised men to continue drinking as much or as little as they like, but be aware that it may cause a good amount of droppage later on in life. He added, “if our follow up studies indicate that the droppage is indeed harmful to men and can be directly linked to their drinking of alcohol, then we will ask that warning labels be attached to wine, beer and alcohol containers to warn of the dangers that men face.”

2009 Father of the Year – NOT – Awards Announced

The year 2009 saw a plethora of bad daddy behavior around the country and we, at Glossy News, thought we’d take the low road and list some of our favorites. Although we are using a numbering system to count the dads down, in our book, they all deserve to receive the #1 worst father of the year award.

10. On April 2, 2009 at approximately 3 a.m., Robert Daniel Webb had a hankering for a hot cup of coffee, got his little 9-year-old daughter, Meadow, out of bed, and drove the two of them down to the local AM/PM Mini Mart in Ellensburg, Washington where he proceeded to rob the store. The only reason he didn’t make the top of this list is that he told his daughter, “get anything you want, sweetheart, it’s on daddy this time,” as he pointed a semi-automatic weapon at the store clerk.

9. Richard Heene, father of the now infamous “Balloon Boy” 6-year-old Falcon Heene, made headlines on October 15, 2009 when he orchestrated a hoax from his Fort Collins, Colorado home that had the entire country glued to their television sets watching what they thought was Falcon floating above the earth in a home-made “flying saucer-type” balloon.

Why, you ask, would daddy go to such lengths to involve his whole family in this type of behavior? Oh, yeah, money. Seems Mr. Heene was delusional enough to think that if he could pull off a hoax of this magnitude, he’d catch the attention of Bravo or TLC or any number of other cable channels looking for the next big reality television sensation. As much as we would have loved to see another dysfunctional family tear each other to bits on cable TV for the almighty dollar, the only thing Heene and his wife ended up getting from the stunt was some jail time. What a wacky dad you’ve got there, Falcon.

8. Michael Lohan, father of actress, Lindsay Lohan, was arrested for criminal contempt on December 14, 2009 for allegedly violating a protective order by threatening to kill his girlfriend and himself if she left him. Here’s a tip, Daddy Lohan. Acting and “acting out” are two very different things. Lose the anger.

7. Michael Monahan claims he loves his two sons, 3 and 6, and that is the reason he allowed them to play in the trunk of his car, with the lid closed of course, while he ran an errand in Fall River, Massachusetts on November 27, 2009. The judge who heard his case loves the boys too, evidently, because the boys are now in the custody of their mother.

6. Enrique Gonzalez of Fresno, California apparently doesn’t know the difference between branding cattle and branding your own son when, on April 23, 2009, he decided it was time to have a gang symbol of a bulldog tattooed on his 7-year-old son. Accounts differ as to whether or not he should get the worst father of the year award or the best father of the year award, because as Gonzalez tells it, “I just did what my son asked. He asked for a tattoo so he could be just like me.” Ah, fatherly love.

5. On or about February 8, 2009, Bradenton, Florida resident Mark Berlanger was all partied out when he handed the keys of his van to his 8-year-old boy and told him “take the wheel, Buddy, cause daddy’s too tired to drive.” After narrowly missing two pedestrians, the boy crashed into two trees and shortly thereafter police arrived to give daddy his award, some jail time. When asked why he did it, the man told police that he had taken a tad too much Xanax and felt it was the perfect opportunity to “do some bonding with my son.” Word of advice, Mark, it’s tough for your kid to “bond” with you when you’re passed out in the passenger seat of the family van.
4. It didn’t take Adam Manning of Ogden, Utah long to figure out that he wasn’t cut out to be a daddy just yet when, in October, 2009, he sexually assaulted the nurse who was wheeling his wife into the delivery room to deliver their first child. While Adam was being arrested for sexual assault for grabbing the breast of the nearest nurse, his wife was giving birth to their first child. Nice going, dad. Won’t you have some funny stories to tell the kid on future fathers’ day celebrations. Betcha can’t wait to get the wife knocked up again, just so you can go on a second date with Nurse Betty.

3. American Idol Runner-up, David Archuleta’s dad, Jeffrey Archuleta, is now known for more than his undying love for his talented son. He is also known as the guy who, on January 14, 2009, was caught with his pants down in a raid on a massage parlour in Midvale, Utah. Seems daddy Archuleta was caught “receiving services” from a masseuse and let’s just say there was more than a little Reiki going on. To be fair, Jeffrey Archuleta’s attorney says that his client was in the wrong place at the wrong time. “He was there seeking relief for a back problem and before he knew it, his pants were down and he was being handcuffed.” Shortly thereafter, the police showed up and arrested him.

2. Here’s a tip for Michael Serrano of Chula Vista, California: If you are going to show up at every one of your kid’s little league baseball games and you’re the district secretary for the local chapter for Little League Baseball, then wear a ski mask, not just a ski cap, when you are robbing the local banks so that your son’s friend’s father, who just happens to attend the same games and who, incidentally happens to be a law enforcement officer, doesn’t recognize you as the robber.

1. Jon Gosselin. Although, to be fair, he had more than a little help from Kate.

Newscasters Appeal to FBI to Create Easy Nicknames for Terrorists

The latest attempt at terrorism by Nigerian nationalist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallabhas, is the straw that broke the camel’s back in the American newscaster business. In a rare show of agreement between the top media outlets, news commentators from every major prime time and cable news program, excluding PBS, has asked the FBI, CIA and other law enforcement and governmental spokespersons to create shorter nicknames for terrorists as soon as any new terrorist threat or action is leaked to the news.

“Not only are we finding it hard to pronounce the names when they come in, but because of the fact that most of our newsroom interns are unpaid students, they don’t have the international spelling skills necessary to get names like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab correct,” said John Smith, newsroom associate producer at Fox News. “If the CIA could create a list of simpler names for news gatherers to follow at the outset of these terrorist acts, we could spend more time on gathering the facts instead of looking up the correct pronunciations of these foreigners’ names.”

Over at MSNBC, associate news producer Jimmy Doe agreed. “We have some of the best typists fresh out of high school writing our tickers at the bottom of every newscast and these kids just don’t have the chops to type that fast when faced with these long names that can’t be spelled phonetically. We’re actually seeing a rise in carpal tunnel syndrome-type injuries in kids as young as 17, 18 years old and our workers’ comp rates are through the roof every time we have another Al Qaida-type attack in our part of the world. I mean, even the word Al Qaida is tough for some when it’s been spelled Al-Qaeda, Alqaeda, al-Qaida, etc., said Doe. “I mean, come on, where’s the ‘u’ after the ‘Q’? When is it proper to use a small ‘a’ and when do we use a capital ‘A’?”

Not only are television news shows having a difficult time with these Arabic names. Newspapers across the country, who are struggling as it is to keep their heads above water after the advent of internet news, are finding it almost impossible to report a story of this type and get every spelling correct. “When we get stories like this latest one, everyone in the newsroom lets out a collective groan because we know it’s gonna be long hours and getting out the Arabic dictionaries to make sure that we have the correct spelling of the names,” said assistant breaking news editor, Joe Jones at the Chicago Trib. “Hell, look at us; we’re willing to shorten our name to the ‘Trib’ so why can’t they cut us a break and shorten something like ‘Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’ to ‘U.F. Abdul’ or even ‘Umar Ab.’ I mean, can you imagine if the guy had had one or two accomplices? We’d still be trying to spell their names correctly and the latest issue of the paper would miss deadline for sure.”

In a related story, stocks of Al Jazeera News Network, or ‘AJE’ as it is known in its English version, continue to soar as advertisers flock to the only news outlet that has the ability to get a correct version of the news out in the least amount of time. When asked how they do it so quickly, news commentator, Khalida Bin Qanna, based in AJE’s newsroom in Qatar said, “look, we speak Arabic, the main language of these terrorists. Although the Arabic language uses vowels extensively, we don’t use them unnecessarily like putting a ‘u’ after a ‘q’. It is simply not needed, and I think that is where a lot of Americans get hung up. They are so busy looking for reasons behind their spellings that they don’t realize that most of these names can just be made up. At the end of the day, no one really cares. In reality, the guy who attempted the terrorist act is simply an Islamic terrorist. Period.”

Republican “Prayercast” Convinces Santa to Skip Obama House This Year

Malia and Sasha Obama woke up to a pretty lame Christmas morning when they discovered that Santa had not visited their house this year. Said Michelle Obama, “had Barack and I not prepared for this contingency, the girls would have had no Christmas at all. Thank goodness we had the foresight to ask what would happen if some short-minded Republican Party leaders decided to pray against a nice Christmas for our children, and we went ahead and sent over some staff members to get some Elmos and I-pods for the girls at Walmart.”

Unfortunately, with no fireplace in the house the Obamas were staying in, Malia and Sasha insisted on placing milk and cookies on the front veranda for Santa. The contingency plan by Michelle and Barack went horribly awry when President Obama, thinking his staff had taken care of it, did not secretly eat the milk and cookies to make it look like Santa had visited. “I am so used to having every little mundane chore done for me these days that it didn’t even occur to me that one of my staff members wouldn’t think to get rid of the milk and cookies before morning.”

“The first thing those girls did when they woke up in the morning was to go out on the veranda to see if the milk and cookies were gone. They were not.” said Barack. “The kids were heartbroken when they realized what that meant. Santa Claus did not make a visit to the Obama home this year.”

Upon hearing the news, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), in a joint news conference Saturday jubilantly praised God, Tony Perkins and Lou Engle for the success of the “prayercast” they had commissioned to see to it that if the Senate Healthcare Reform Bill passed, then Santa would either put lots of dirty coal in Barack Obama’s stockings or would just pass over the Obama household altogether. Said Michele (Bachmann), “we have no idea why our original prayercasts didn’t work in bringing down the Senate vote on healthcare reform, but this small victory, seeing to it that Santa passed over the Obamas this year, was a major coup for the religious right and shows us that with a little more effort, these prayercasts can change the direction of this country.”

No word on how much Perkins and Engle were paid for performing what is being touted as a “major act of God,” but there are reports that each woke up Christmas morning to find brand new Hummer SUTs parked in their respective driveways.
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Psychic to the Stars Makes 2010 Predictions

Chrystal Ball, self-proclaimed Psychic to the Stars has just released her predictions for the upcoming year in the entertainment industry. “Keep this list handy,” cooed Chrystal, “because you are going to have shivers running up and down your body when all my predictions come true.” Here are her top ten predictions for 2010:

1. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are teaming up yet again to make a movie that is so big it will not be able to be shown in any movie theatre. It will have to be shown holographically into the atmosphere. Since, hypothetically speaking, it will be visible by anyone whether they buy a ticket to view it or not, Spielberg and Lucas will ask President Obama to force all Americans to purchase the ticket with an expected price tag of $24.95 adults, $23.95 children, and $12.95 seniors. Legislators will be exempt from having to purchasing a ticket.

2. Rosie O’Donnell is coming out with a book entitled “Madonna Was My Love Slave.” Unfortunately, nothing in the book will be substantiated and O’Donnell will be labeled a liar. However, during the last quarter of the year, a tearful Madonna will go public with the admission that O’Donnell was, in fact, telling the truth.

3. Rosie O’Donnell will make the headlines again when she is mistaken as an Al Qaida operative and arrested for questioning. Although the misunderstanding is quickly cleared up, upon release, Rosie issues a statement that she is no longer taking male hormones and will try one last-ditch effort to act more like a lady.

4. Michael Jackson’s father, Joe Jackson, having gone through all of the money left behind by Michael Jackson, convinces a Los Angeles County Judge to allow him to adopt a 6-year old child prodigy for purposes of turning him into another singing sensation. Protesters are outraged but back down when they see how cute the child looks in an afro and suede fringed vest.

5. Adam Lambert continues to face cancellations by major networks for upcoming appearances and is forced to take a job reprising the role made famous by Paul Reubens. The “New Pee-Wee’s Playhouse” starring Adam Lambert will premiere on the USA channel on April 1, 2010.

6. Patti LaBelle sues Lady Gaga for copyright infringement. At issue is Lady Gaga’s re-recording of LaBelle’s “Lady Marmalade” wherein the lyrics are changed from “Gitchi gitchi ya ya da da
Gitchi gitchi ya ya here,mocha chocolata, ya ya, Creole Lady Marmalade” to “Gitchi gitchi ya ya Ga Ga, Gitchi gitchi Ga Ga here, I am so Vanilla mama, Gotcha Lady Gaga right here.”

7. In an ironic twist of fate, Michael Vicks is mauled by several pit bulls outside an exclusive St. Louis BBQ pit, while waiting for the valet to bring his car around. He is rushed to the hospital where he receives dozens of stitches and is forced to undergo painful rabies injections.

8. Levi Johnston releases his memoirs covering the short span of time that he was involved with Sarah Palin’s daughter, Bristol. Sarah Palin goes on the defense when it is implied in the book that instead of being a mama bear, Palin acts more like a mama cougar, and Johnston is forced to put a lock on his bedroom door from the inside.

9. Susan Boyle announces engagement to 29-year old Guillermo Pazzoli from Italy. Knowing he is just in the relationship for the fame and money doesn’t faze Boyle as she lavishes her “boy toy” with expensive gifts and purchases a love nest for the two of them on the Isle of Capri.

10. Still stewing over the dissing by Kanye West at the VMA awards, Taylor Swift negotiates a deal to purchase the copyright to West’s hit song “Heartless” and records a Country version of the single. Swift’s version wins “Best Song of the Year” award at the Grammys.

*Tiger Woods was purposefully left out of this article due to the fact that while trying to channel the predictions surrounding Woods, Chrystal Ball suffered serious psychic injuries as a result of TMI (Too Much Information).

In Rio de Janiero, Buy Guns, Get Free Homes

A Brazilian gun dealer has offered to give a free home to the first five customers of the New Year if they buy any quality rifle from his gun shop. Jose Arma de Fogo says he got the idea from a news item he picked up off the Globo International newswire where a Kansas City, Missouri real estate broker is offering a free gun voucher to anyone who signs a contract to purchase a house in the Kansas City, Kansas area.

In Brazil, standard real estate is extremely affordable and in fact, a home on a small plot of land can actually cost less than a decent gun. In recent years, illegal gun traffickers in the favelas have driven the price of guns to black market levels not seen since the 1970’s. For bona fide gun dealers in Rio, it is difficult to sell guns for anything less than a small fortune. In order to increase traffic to his gun store, Arma de Fogo bought five one-room houses in the Precludo de Violencia suburb of Rio and is offering the homes to the first five customers who purchase any gun worth more than 15,000 Reais.
Taking his cue from Arma de Fogo, Ricardo Negotiante is offering a similar deal to anyone who purchases a car from his used car lot in Bairro de Tapeador. Guns aren’t the only thing in the favelas of Rio that are more valuable than real estate. In fact, a used 1974 AMC Gremlin can fetch as much as 20,000 Reais or more, depending on whether or not it has a back seat.

While Kansas City real estate brokers are offering guns to entice buyers to buy homes in the area, and Brazilian gun dealers are using houses to entice purchasers into their gun shops, one Chinese real estate broker takes the prize this year for being the most creative in its offer to prospective home buyers with the following promotion: “Buy a House, Get Free Wife.”

A company out of Beijing has all avenues covered. It has contracted with a matchmaking agency to hire their “unwanted” girls as sales persons. It is now encouraging future homeowners to date the sales girls and if “magic” happens, they will give a prize of RMB 60,000 (Chinese Yuans) toward the purchase of one of their condominium apartments. Someone did the math and determined that the company stands to make much more money in bonuses from the matchmaking company to get these “unwanted” girls married off than they would spend giving it to potential apartment buyers.

What a year it has been. Guns and houses, houses and wives, can it get any more romantic than that? Why, yes it can. In fact, in February of this year in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Brian Zinn of the General Coin and Gun Exchange offered his male customers a deal they just could not refuse: “Buy your girl some diamond earrings, and get yourself a free gun.” According to Zinn, the more expensive the earrings, the bigger the gun. Once the word got out, the women of Eau Claire were the ones telling their lovers to take advantage of the deal. Seems the women in Eau Claire really love big guns.

So there you have it. Just when you thought you knew the value of something, it gets all blown to hell by some creative salesperson trying to make sense of this crazy, mixed-up global economy. For those who are without the funds to purchase guns, houses, used cars, or diamonds, there are still some things you can afford so that you get something free in exchange. Just take your sweetheart down to the local Waffle House and buy yourself a waffle, because for a limited time only, you can get another waffle free.

Top Ten Medical Questions of 2009

It’s that time of year again when every conceivable list known to man is counted down before the big ball drops and ushers in a new year of question making. We combed the internet for the most common questions asked of the medical community, and here is our unofficial and indefinitive list of the top ten medical questions asked and answered in 2009.

1. Cerebrum and Cerebellum – what’s the difference?

None, they are the same thing, only one is spelled in Latin and the other is spelled in French, like Antecedent and Antebellum.

2. Why do men have nipples?

Good question. We all know why women were given nipples but why men? Well, as the story goes, God had just finished up making Adam and left him nippleless. When God then took one of Adam’s ribs and made Eve, he gave Eve nipples so that she would be able to nourish the children she and Adam would make together. Adam threw a hissy fit; he wanted nipples.

The conversation went something like this:

Adam: Hey, just a cotton-pickin’ minute there God. I notice something a lot different about Eve. She’s got a bigger chest than me and a couple of cool round things in a rosy hue sitting atop them. I want what she has.

God: Pretty cool, huh? I call them nipples.

Adam: I don’t care what you call them, I want some.

God: Would that I could Adam, but I don’t have enough rosy stuff left to give you nipples like Eve’s.

Adam: Then just give me what you got.

And so, Adam got nipples but they were not even close to being as impressive as Eve’s.

3. Why do foods that are bad for us, for instance, sugar, taste so good, and foods that are good for us, like fish oil, taste so bad? Is this a cruel joke?

The short answer is yes, it is a cruel joke. But scientifically speaking, there is a reason for these anomalies, and that reason is if sugar tasted bad, how could we even attempt to make a decent bar of chocolate?

4. How soon before we’ll be able to get our pharmaceuticals directly from drinking tap water instead of having to go to the pharmacy and pay to get them?

As a matter of fact, recent water test results from every major U.S. city show that if every American drank just 2-3 glasses of tap water a day, they would be able to lower their cholesterol, keep their blood pressure within normal limits, maintain an erection for at least 2 hours, and cure their depression. However, drinking any more than the daily allowance could trigger all sorts of abnormalities in the human body. For instance, men could begin to develop breasts from too much estrogen in their drinking water due to an increased consumption of soy products, especially in California.

5. I read somewhere that you can become allergic to a person just as much as you can become allergic to dust mites. Is this true?

While there have been rare cases of people finding it necessary to divorce because they develop ugly rashes while in the presence of their spouses and there are no dust mites to be found, this is rare and most doctors can spot a fake case of hives a mile away. So, if you are thinking of using this as an excuse to get out of a crappy marriage, you’re out of luck, at least from a medical standpoint.

6. What is the Glycemic Index and if someone wrote a book on the Glycemic Index, would the book contain an additional Index or would the entire book be an Index? And if so, what would the book be about?

We do not know.

7. Why does food smell so good when it goes into our bodies but smells so terrible when it comes back out?

This has to do with the molecular bonding of foods. When all food is molecularly bonded before eating, it has to send out an enticing aroma to make the intended ingester want to eat it. However, once that same molecular structure is introduced to saliva, it begins to break down the good-smelling cells in the food, replacing them with bad smells. All the way down the esophagus and into the stomach, saliva is mixing in with the molecular structure of the foods making them more and more stinky, and by the time the food comes out the other end of the spectrum, it is at its smelliest, and there is no way to reconstitute it to its original aroma.

8. Can you get athlete’s foot even after you’ve quit playing sports?

That’s like asking if you can get “tennis elbow” if you don’t play tennis or if someone can really be a “pain in the butt.” The answer is yes.

9. Why do we have hair under our arms but not under our knees?

Because when we perspire, sometimes we do not know whether or not we stink. The simple perspiration smell test involves lifting up your arm and turning your head to the side and catching a whiff of underarm odor. The hair under your arms is there to keep the odor you emit intact until you are able to determine whether or not you need to either shower or apply another coating of anti-perspirant to the area. Since we cannot reach down far enough to smell under our knees, the most practical place to have this odor-trapping hair is under our arms.

10. My nose looks like it belongs on a moose rather than a human. Can it be improved by plastic surgery?

Plastic surgeons, contrary to popular belief by many Hollywood stars and starlets, are not miracle workers; however, you may be able to find one who could at least reduce your nose down from the size of a honker to the size of a snout.

While this list is by no means meant to be exhaustive of all the swell questions we found on the internet about our bodies and the medicines we use to medicate them with, it is the beginning and, hopefully, if we’ve just helped one person understand the reasons behind the more simple bodily functions, we have done our job.