Month: May 2024

New Year’s Eve is often a night filled with celebratory shots and champagne toasts. But as the party night fast approaches, one doctor is gently reminding folks the importance of partying responsibly during the holidays. Really, it’s a piece of advice that’s important all year long.

Dr. Brian Hoeflinger, an Ohio based neurosurgeon with over two decades of experience, has a TikTok channel filled with educational videos and lifestyle tips. But it’s his latest clip explaining just how long it takes our bodies to break down alcohol that has gone viral.

In the video, which was shared on Christmas Day, Dr. Hoeflinger sets the scene of a party where “a lot of drinks are going down” by setting up a bunch of shot glasses filled with water.

“Say you’re having five drinks in the first hour,” he says, taking five fake, water-filled shots. “As you’re taking them, that alcohol is building up in your system fast. [It] goes to your brain within five minutes and starts to affect you.”

---

The same can’t be said for other parts of the body. As Dr. Hoeflinger noted, “your liver only metabolizes one ounce of alcohol per hour.” And according to Northwestern Medicine, that process only begins 20 minutes after consumption.

Hoflinger continues, “I’ve got five ounces of liquor in my system right now, and at the end of the hour I’m only going to burn off an ounce…so I’m going to have [four] ounces left in my bloodstream.”

@doctorhoeflinger Knowing this about drinking could save your life! #fyp #party #drinking #alcohol #foryou #holiday #christmas ♬ Storytelling – Adriel

Of course, there are different factors—such as body mass, hormones, medications, etc.—that affect someone’s rate of absorption. And yes, we might be able to form a functional tolerance where behaviorally, we show no signs of intoxication. However, even with all these variables, for the most part all bodies are affected by alcohol similarly. In other words, your blood alcohol level will be more or less the same, and the risks will remain even if you don’t “feel drunk.”

Hoeflinger continues, saying “the party’s rockin’, so we’re gonna have some more,” while taking three more shots and reminding viewers that he still has only burned off one ounce of liquor during the hour that’s passed.

Now he’s had a total of eight ounces of alcohol in two hours. He’s burned off two, but still has six ounces left in his system—meaning that in this scenario, it will take another six hours to completely burn off.

In hour three, Hoefligner takes one shot since the party is “winding down.” This brings him up to a total of nine ounces of alcohol over three hours. His liver has metabolized three ounces, leaving him (still) with six ounces of liquor left in his bloodstream.

“You’re going to be drunk well into the wee hours of the morning, it doesn’t wear off,” he warns, noting the common misconception people have that “they stop drinking an hour or two and can hop in the car and drive.” But in reality, “you can’t do that as you’re still drunk five, six hours down,” he explains.

Dr. Hoeflinger concludes his video by saying:

“For this holiday season the whole point is I really want to tell people that’s how alcohol can stack up in your system easily when you’re drunk and you won’t know it and it won’t wear off for hours and hours down the road.” This is followed by an urge for people to take an Uber or Lyft home to avoid potentially taking their own or another’s life.

The informative clip, which has been viewed over 13 million times, received a flood of praise from viewers online, especially from parents with kids of a drinking age.

“This is the first time I have ever had anyone explain this in this way. I am forwarding this to my son,” wrote one parent.

It also resonated among designated drivers. One person commented “thank you for caring and educating. I’m the sober ride. I’ve seen the devastation from drinking and driving.”

The topic hits Dr. Hoeflinger on a personal level as well. In a previous video, he shared that he lost his 18-year old son, who died nearly a decade ago from drunk driving. Coming from a medical professional, the plea to not drink and drive is important to hear. But as a parent, it hits different. As he shared in the clip, “losing somebody you love is one of the worst experiences you can have in your life.”

Though Hoeflinger focused on the effect of liquor in his party example, the principle applies to wine and beer as well. Healthline recommends only having one large glass of wine every three hours, and one pint of beer every two hours.

It also gives some best practices to avoid intoxication, including:

• Eat at least 1 hour before drinking.
• Sip your drinks slowly.
• Avoid shots, which you’re likely to down rather than sip.
• Don’t drink more than one standard drink per hour.
• Alternate between alcohol and nonalcoholic drinks, preferably water.
• Limit or avoid carbonated drinks, like champagne, sparkling wine, and cocktails mixed with soda.
• Sit down when drinking, since doing it while standing tends to make people drink faster.

And of course, don’t be afraid to get another ride home. For New Year’s Eve (and beyond), feel free to kick back and have fun. But let’s look out for one another by doing it safely.

This article originally appeared on 12.31.22

A recent story posted on Reddit shows how sometimes trusting your gut can be the best thing you can do, even if following it will seriously impact your friendships. It all started when a 24-year-old woman with the username Yslbabycat went to a bachelorette party with 5 other friends in Italy.

For brevity’s sake, we’ll call our main character YBC.

One night, the six girls went bar and club hopping and met some new friends. “We met some young people, and they invited us to a party. We went and danced and met more people. The night kept going on longer, and we were very far from our lodgings. These young men with 2 women in their group told us to stay with them for the night,” she wrote.

That’s when she had the first strong gut feeling.

---

“I wasn’t feeling this situation. It felt unsafe, but the group voted and I was in the minority,” she continued.”I didn’t trust these men. Something seemed wrong. But I was at a loss as I could not split from my group and didn’t feel safe separating from them in the middle of the night.”

Even though the girls locked their doors that night, the men could enter their rooms. But the girls, besides YBC, all wanted to stay another day because the men promised to show them around Italy.

“I didn’t want to get into a car with them because I found them creepy. There were women in their group but it didn’t matter. They seemed even more suspicious to me, being overly friendly,” She continued. “The whole morning, I found the men staring at me a lot and also making some comments about my ethnicity—I am Korean and they could tell and it seemed that they were interested in me because of my ethnicity, asking me strange questions …including if I’m a virgin or not.. so in my head I could only think of perverted reasons for these questions because I thought these guys were sketchy and sizing us all up for some reason I couldn’t figure out yet.”

YBC’s friends tried to tell her that it was just cultural differences and that the men weren’t being creepy, but she decided that she wanted to leave. So, she called her boyfriend in France, a few hours’ drive away, to come get her. She met him at a local store, where YBC called the bride-to-be and informed her she was leaving.

The bride-to-be screamed at her on the phone and chastised her for spoiling the “mood of the trip” and told YBC to essentially “f*** off.”

After YBC left, the other 5 girls went on a boat with the men who all tried to get them “extremely” intoxicated. They then began to aggressively pressure the girls into having sex. At the night’s end, the girls got away from the men and found another hotel.

Even though YBC’s suspicions were confirmed, the bride-to-be was still upset with her, and YBC did not attend her friend’s wedding.

In the end, Reddit commenters overwhelmingly thought that YBC did the right thing by trusting her gut.

“So all the other girls but the bachelorette confirmed that you were right and the guys were super creepy and yet the bachelorette is still pissed at you for getting yourself out of there?” YouSayWotNow wrote. “All of them are very lucky nothing really bad happened, and frankly, they should be embarrassed they didn’t take you seriously at the time.”

“You may have saved the entire group by leaving early, as the men realized that you knew where they lived and could ID them,” RobinC1967 added. “Please don’t ever feel bad for getting yourself out of a sketchy situation. Stay Smart!”

Most would agree that YBC did the right thing by trusting her gut and trying to lead her friends out of a potentially dangerous situation. Psychology Today supports her decision to trust her feelings. In an article entitled, “3 Reasons Why You Have to Trust Your Gut,” Susanna Newsonen says that your intuition is encoded in your brain like “a web of fact and feeling” and is helpful because it’s “shaped by your past experiences and the existing knowledge that you gained from them.”

This article originally appeared on 3.16.24

New details have emerged following a tragic incident on the set of Lil Baby’s music video.

On May 14, Fox 5 reported that the “Crazy” rapper was forced to halt filming in Atlanta, Georgia after a shooting supposedly took place, injuring three people.

In its initial report, the outlet included gruesome details about the alleged victims (a 23-year-old man, a 24-year-old man, and a 27-year-old). Now, TMZ has obtained and shared the 911 call audio from the supposed day in question.

During the frantic conversation, an operator shifted between two unnamed individuals. The first caller seemed to be in closer proximity to the incident. As the person attempted to identify the nearest cross street for emergency medical services (which the public later learned was near a commercial strip on Verbena Street), other individuals decided to transport the gentleman suffering from a gun shot wound to the neck to avoid a delay.

Later in the recording, another individual provided a calm, detailed account of what happened. Before the call ended, the operator instructed the caller to call back if the alleged assailant returned to the area.

In a statement to Fox 5, Atlanta’s mayor Ralph Woolfolk seemingly confirmed that Lil Baby was not harmed or injured in the shooting. “The people who were shot were not part of the video production team,” he said. “But there may have been individuals involved in the totality of the production.”

Lil Baby has not released a statement regarding the incident. Instead, today (May 18), he took to his official Instagram to further tease his upcoming collaboration with Central Cee.

A mother’s love is unconditional. But according to Wiz Khalifa, so is their level of cool. The “We Dem Boyz” rapper is known for his laid-back, easy going personality. But in his eyes, he is simply an extension of his mother, Peachie Wimbush’s free spirit.

Yesterday (May 17), during his appearance on The Jennifer Hudson Show, Wiz outlined just how down to Earth his mother is, which included a family trip to the strip club. As Hudson and Wiz discussed Mother’s Day, the musician gushed about their tight-knit relationship.

“Mother’s Day is every day for my mom,” he said. “Peachie’s a superstar. If you meet her, you’ll fall in love with her. So every day is her day. Me and my mom do everything together.”

When asked what mother and son quality time consisted of, Wiz answered: “We go to the strip club together, we went to Mexico. We went to Coachella together. We do everything. That’s my dog.”

Well, the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. When it comes to parenting his son, Sebastian (whom he shares with Amber Rose), Wiz confessed that he’s also a cool dad. Earlier in the interview, he talked about throwing a West Coast gangsta themed party, fulled with low riders and more.

Watch the full interview below.

Kendrick Lamar’s musical melee with Drake has finally ended. However, its impact can still be felt — not only across the charts, but apparently in Lamar’s pockets.

According to HITS Daily Double, across Lamar’s fiery tracks, in just this week (week ending 5/09), he supposedly pulled in an estimated $562,368. In the age of streaming, several musicians (such as Snoop Dogg) have expressed their frustrations with each platform’s pay model. On the flip side, for Lamar the feud has seemingly proven to be lucrative, specifically in relation to his streaming income.

“Not Like Us” alone reportedly grossed a total streaming revenue of $264,325 (58,739,000 counted streams). The second highest streamed (45,755,00) solo diss track from Lamar, “Euphoria,” is estimated to have earned $205,896. Lastly, with a total stream count of 20,478,00, Lamar’s “Meet The Grahams” supposedly brought in $92,147.

According to the outlet, the track to set it all off, Metro Boomin and Future’s “Like That,” also generated a pretty penny. With 29,978,000 counted streams, that track is estimated to have generated $134,900 in streaming income alone.

Now, these numbers could fluctuate based on Lamar’s royalty percentages (sound recording, mechanical rights, and the performance rights). Still, even if the final number dropped significantly, this is quite a massive payout for essentially airing out your grievances. Most people have to pay a therapist big bucks for that.

Sabrina Ionescu‘s first signature sneaker with Nike was a massive hit, gaining traction with fans and other players — in both the WNBA and NBA.

Ionescu’s shoe felt closely aligned with the ever-popular Kobe Bryant line, fitting for a player that had close ties to the late-Lakers legend. After seeing so much success with her first show, there was plenty of anticipation for what Nike and Sabrina would come up with for her second edition in 2024.

On Saturday, ahead of the Liberty’s home opener, Nike unveiled the first official look at the Sabrina 2, and also announced a global release date of June 28.

The Sabrina 2 features a similar silhouette to the popular first model, but they were able to shave 28 grams of the weight to make it even lighter. It’s not a surprise Nike and Ionescu wanted to keep a lot of the look and feel of the first shoe given how well it was received, working mostly to update and refine the original.

From a tech perspective, there’s a Zoom Air unit in the forefoot, with a Cushlon 3.0 foam midsole, and an updated band system in the midfoot area to provide better lockdown and a more snug fit.

Ionescu’s sneaker is the first of what will soon be three Nike women’s basketball signatures, with Caitlin Clark and A’ja Wilson each having shoes coming out in the coming years.

In a weird twist of 2024, Ancient Rome is alive in well at the movies and on TV. Ridley Scott’s Gladiator 2 will revisit the world once traveled by Maximus and Commodus. The Boys has also thematically referenced Julius Caesar in its lead up to Amazon series’ fourth season. And now, there’s Roland Emmerich with a full-on TV series about the nitty-gritty of arena dominance.

That would be the same Roland Emmerich who destroyed cities and the world in movies like Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow and who also likes to blow sh*t up almost as much as Michael Bay does. What can we expect from Emmerich taking the historical-epic route on television? He likely had a difficult time restraining himself while directing several episodes in an hour-long format, but he got the job done. Here’s what we can expect.

Plot

Russell Crowe’s infamous “Are you not entertained?” line from Gladiator will come to mind with this show, which portrays (as revealed in a new Entertainment Weekly feature) the “entertainment underbelly” of Ancient Rome. In particular, the real-life Flavian dynasty will take center stage with Anthony Hopkins as ruler Flavius Vespasian , whose sons — Titus (Tom Hughes), a military officer, and Domitian (Jojo Macari), a slimy politician — are at odds over who will eventually ascend to the leadership position.

As Hopkins told EW, Flavius took on his duties while attempting to save the Roman empire from its corruptive practices. He used “bread and circuses, he entertained the people.” From there, the dynasty “fortified a strong empire,” but oh, the brutality. Expect, as always, for Emmerich to spare no spectacle while directing several episodes in the first season in this series created by Robert Rodat (Saving Private Ryan). From the synopsis:

Those About To Die is an epic drama set in the corrupt world of the spectacle-driven gladiatorial competition, exploring a side of ancient Rome never before told — the dirty business of entertaining the masses, giving the mob what they want most… blood and sport. The series introduces an ensemble of characters from all corners of the Roman Empire who collide at the explosive intersection of sports, politics, and dynasties.

Cast

The vast ensemble cast is headlined by Anthony Hopkins. Expect to also say hello (and possibly quick good-byes) to Tom Hughes, Jojo Macari, Moe Hashim, Johannes Haukur Johannesson, Rupert Penry-Jones, Iwan Rheon, Sara Martins, Gabriella Pession, Dimitri Leonidas, Gonçalo Almeida, Eneko Sagardoy, Romana Maggiora Vergano, Emilio Sakraya, David Wurawa, and Pepe Barroso.

Release Date

On July 18, Peacock will release all 10 episodes of the first season.

Trailer

This teaser trailer previews the battles to come:

For the third straight game in the Pacers-Knicks series, the home team picked up a blowout win, as Indiana protected homecourt in Game 6 to the tune of a 116-103 win (that wasn’t as close as that final score indicates), sending things back to the Garden for a Game 7 on Sunday.

It looked like we might finally get a competitive game, as the two teams traded punches and leads through the first quarter and a half, with Indiana playing much more inspired team ball at home and Deuce McBride providing a big lift off the bench for New York.

However, as the second quarter wound to a close, the Pacers ripped off a big run to take control of the game with a 10-point lead going into the halftime break.

Tyrese Haliburton got going in the third quarter, as his home-road splits continue to be maddening, and the Pacers extended their lead further.

The Knicks would trim the lead down to 13 going to the fourth and seemed like they might make one last push to get things close, but the Pacers quickly shut down those hopes, pushing their lead out to 20 and ending the threat.

It was a balanced attack from the Pacers, but Pascal Siakam led the way with 25 points and 7 rebounds on the night.

In support, the Pacers saw Tyrese Haliburton (15 points, 9 assists), Myles Turner (17 points, 8 rebounds), Andrew Nembhard (15 points, six assists), TJ McConnell (15 points), and Obi Toppin (11 points) all get into double figures. What is maybe most encouraging for Indiana is they didn’t win thanks to a red-hot shooting night (34.6 percent from three), but by imposing their will physically and taking the fight to the Knicks — something New York did to them in Game 6.

The Knicks looked like a tired, worn down team once again on the road, with Josh Hart being the latest Knick to pick up an injury with an abdominal injury that limited him to 31 minutes and had him in clear pain on the bench. McBride was the bright spot offensively, with 20 points on 8-of-12 shooting, but it was otherwise a grind for New York to get much of anything going on offense. Jalen Brunson finished with 31 points but shot just 11-of-26 from the field, while Donte DiVincenzo added 17 points on 6-of-14 shooting. As a team, New York shot just 43.9 percent from the floor and 69.2 percent from the free throw line, as they just could not get into a rhythm with their shot from anywhere.

Now the series shifts back to New York and the same question persists: Can a road team finally get a win in this series? The first three games were all tight, but since then it’s been blowout after blowout, and the Pacers will have to prove they can get this kind of effort, intensity, and focus to travel to New York on Sunday afternoon for Game 7 at 3:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.

Even though the world has seemingly shrunk due to transportation and technology connecting people like never before, we still regularly encounter major barriers when it comes to language. There are around 7,000 officially known languages in the world, and most people don’t speak more than one or two. If you’ve ever tried to communicate with someone when neither of you speak each other’s language, you know how frustrating it can be.

But the reverse is also true. When you’re in another country and unexpectedly encounter someone who speaks your language, it’s a refreshing and delightful surprise. Americans are pretty familiar with that experience, as it’s not uncommon to find people who speak English in other countries, but that’s not the case for everyone.

It’s especially not the case for Chinese people living in the U.S., where only around 1% of people speak Chinese at home, and those numbers are split between Mandarin, Cantonese and other dialects. Finding an American who comfortably speaks Mandarin is a rarity, which is why a video of employees of a Chinese restaurant reacting to a customer doing just that has gone viral.

---

That customer is musician Kevin Olusola, most well known as one of the vocalists in the a cappella group Pentatonix. Olusola was picking up some food at Okome Asian Grill in his home state of Kentucky when he surprised the crew by responding to them in Mandarin, and their reaction was sheer surprise and delight.

Watch:

See on Instagram

Olusola shared in the comments that it meant a lot to him and filled his heart when the woman said, “You’re one of us.”

He joked in the video about being born and raised in Beijing, but he actually only lived there and studied Chinese for a year and a half. But as he said, he loved the language and put his “whole heart” into studying it. And apparently, however he learned it was incredibly effective.

“As a native Chinese speaker I need people to realize how amazing this is: not only is he speaking Chinese fluently and pretty quickly, he’s also slurring certain words/speaking in a certain accent, using sentence patterns, and using phrases that’s specific to Beijing: he is literally in every sense speaking like a Beijing locals, it’s so cool to see 😍” shared one commenter.

Another commenter explained what he said after “The food is” in the video: “Se Xiang Wei Ju Quan, literally ‘colour,’ ‘aroma,’ ‘taste,’ ‘complete,’ the first three are the three basic requirements of well made food in the philosophy of Chinese cooking, so essentially it means ‘Your food is amazing, it looks good, smells good and tastes good.'”

Another person wrote, “I’ve been watching videos like this on YouTube..it’s always so interesting. Once that language barrier comes down we are so much alike.” That comment hit home for Olusola and he responded to it with another video.

“Once language barriers go down you realize that we’re all alike—that statement resonates so deeply with me,” he said. “I remember living in Beijing and hanging out with my Chinese friends, speaking to them in Chinese, and once the language barrier was down I realized that they had the same hopes, dreams and fears that I had…I think that’s why empathy and understanding are so embedded in language learning.”

See on Instagram

Empathy and understanding really are the key to shared humanity. Ideally, one day we will have a universal language that we all learn to speak in addition to our native tongues, so that we won’t have to navigate those language barriers that artificially separate us. But in the meantime, learning another culture’s language can be a bridge that unites people in moments of delight like this one.

“Follow your passion” is a cliche you will hear in almost every graduation commencement speech. But we all accept it as a golden rule for life because we hear it so often and it feels right.

We tell ourselves that if we are passionate about something, we will be good at it and it will sustain us throughout our lives. However, Scott Galloway, a self-made millionaire and marketing professor at New York University Stern School of Business, thinks that telling people to follow their passions is bad advice.

In 2005, Galloway founded the digital intelligence firm L2 Inc., a venture that would go on to be acquired by Gartner for a staggering $155 million in March 2017.

---

″[Return on investment] and sex appeal are inversely correlated. What do we mean about that? Simply put: Don’t follow your passion,” Galloway told CNBC Make It. Instead, Galloway proposes a more practical approach. “Find out what you’re good at and then invest 10,000 hours in it — and become great at it,” Galloway says.

The 10,000-hour theory Malcolm Gladwell explains in his book “Outliers,” states that to become exceptionally good at something, you need about 10,000 hours of practice. In his book, he emphasizes that it’s not just talent that matters; putting in the time and effort is key to mastering any skill or profession.

In “Outliers,” Gladwell notes that highly successful people, including Bill Gates, The Beatles, and Robert Oppenheimer, all put 10,000 hours into their particular skill sets before reaching incredible heights of success.

“People often come to NYU and say, ‘Follow your passion’ — which is total bulls***, especially because the individual telling you to follow your passion usually became magnificently wealthy selling software as a service for the scheduling of health care maintenance workers. And I refuse to believe that that was his or her passion,” Calloway continues.

Calloway adds that one of the benefits of focusing on our natural gifts is that it will eventually inspire passion. “What they were passionate about was being great at something, and then the accouterments of being great at something — the recognition from colleagues, the money, the status will make you passionate about whatever it is,” Galloway said.

A 2018 report by Stanford researchers came to a similar conclusion. The researchers believe that following one’s passions isn’t a clear road to success for numerous reasons. The maxim assumes that we have only one passion in life and that it will not change over time. It also gives the impression that when we follow our passions, we’ll always magically fall into our dream jobs and become successful.

Finally, just because one is passionate about something doesn’t necessarily mean they are good at it.

While some may think Calloway’s advice is cynical and heartless, there’s something extraordinary about nurturing our natural gifts and using them to achieve success in life. In a world where our talents and passions may not always align, embracing what makes you unique and sharing it with the world in your own special way is a beautiful gift that you can offer.