October 31, 2009

Hey Jude


For the Beatles' fan...some people just have lots of time in their hand.

Via

October 29, 2009

October 23, 2009

10 Things Guys Don't Get about Women (Spot on! lol)

Maybe we're biased, but guys like to think of ourselves as pretty easy to understand (sex, food, sex, sports and, um, sex). Women, on the other hand, have a trailer-load of quirks that just don't translate in the male universe. Here are a few female obsessions that guys think are totally weird.


10. What does our zodiac sign have to do with anything?

If the sun, moon and stars have so much control over our compatibility, we wonder what a bowl of Lucky Charms can do. Got milk?

9. Why do you need so many pillows?
Unless there's a surprise orgy scheduled for later, we don't see the need for 20 "decorative" pillows on the bed. Wait, there aren't any secret orgy parties, right?

8. Why are greeting cards so important?
It may have taken you hours to select the perfect card with just the right message, but it'll take us five seconds to toss it in the recycling bin. Sorry, we don't do Hallmark moments. Lingerie makes for a much better memory and memento.

7. Who needs candles when we have electricity?

If you're looking for low lighting, the glare from the TV as we're playing Madden should suffice. If it's the pretty flame that fascinates you, feel free to utilize the one on the stove to make us a grill cheese sandwich.

6. Why do you need to post everything on Facebook?

We don't smile for pictures and we definitely don't spend hours in the mirror practicing our pose, but apparently you girls do and build digital shrines to yourselves. Unless there are a few naked shots in the bunch, we're not interested in seeing slideshows of your entire life -- or how cute your cat is.

5. Why do you like bubble baths so much?

When it comes to bathroom activities, we enjoy standing as much as possible, so give us a shower (and a urinal) any day. Besides, since when is lying in a tepid pool of your own filth sexy? The bubbles don't help either.

4. Is that a purse or a suitcase?

The good thing about a home is it provides a great place to store all your stuff. There's no need to lug a week's worth of items around in a bag that's bigger than most small dogs. When we go out, we only carry what we need in a lovely invention known as the pocket. We're sure you've heard of it.

3. Is crying the answer for every emotion?
You cry when you're sad. You cry when you're mad. You even cry when you're happy. We just don't. It's less confusing that way.

2. If you don't like her then why is she your "friend"?
We just don't get why y'all hang out with someone on a regular basis and then talk smack about her behind her back. We don't like catty, but be sure to call us if there's a catfight.

1. Four words: "Sex and the City"

We thought show's cancellation would help, but with a second film adaptation on the way we'll have to suffer through even more comparisons to guys who don't even exist. What grown man wants to be called "Burger"? Now if there was a character with a cool name like "Mr. Big" we might be more inclined to pay attention. Oh, there is a guy named Mr. Big? So, how much sex actually happens in this city again?

Via

October 19, 2009

Laptop Radiation

We have all heard of the dangers of electromagnetic radiation coming from laptops, and what this radiation might be doing to our bodies. The fact is many appliances give off some radiation including television sets, DVD players, satellites, microwave ovens, computers, and of course mobile phones.

The risk of developing health problems because of radiation exposure is supposed to increase dramatically if we spend a great deal of time in close proximity to this radiation and particularly when we use wireless technology, which many of us do when we use our laptops. The main concern with laptops is that they sit on your lap, which just happens to be incredibly close to your genitals and therefore the word on the street is that it can make you infertile and can cause cancer. It sounds terrifying doesn’t it?

According the World Health Organisation there is no danger from Wi-fi as the radiation levels are much lower than the threshold for an effect on humans. It’s all so terribly confusing making it difficult to know what to believe. What we do know is that radiation can be harmful in large doses. So how do we know if we are suffering from the effects of radiation exposure?

Symptoms associated with Electromagnetic radiation exposure

Although the following symptoms are associated with radiation exposure, it doesn’t mean that radiation is the cause of the symptoms.
- Fatigue
- Inability to concentrate
- Headaches
- Psychological problems
- Anxiety and Depression
- Insomnia
- Memory lapses
- Dizziness
- Feeling breathless
- Nausea

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October 17, 2009

Life Lessons from an Ad Man



Advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception, rather than the product itself. Rory Sutherland makes the daring assertion that a change in perceived value can be just as satisfying as what we consider real value -- and his conclusion has interesting consequences for how we look at life.

October 1, 2009

Tom Waits: The Piano *Had* Been Drinking

So, here we are, 50-odd years later, and Tom Waits has made a career out of distorting the world in an often disturbing way. His songs often sound like they have been bashed out of shape, put through a wringer, then left to dry in the sun until they are parched and somehow pure of spirit.

Waits talks like he sings, in a rasping drawl and with an old-timer's wealth of received wisdom. It's as if, in late middle-age, he has grown into the person he always wanted to be. His tales are often tall, and his metaphors and similes tend towards the surreal. 'Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them,' he quips. 'Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers.'

Way back, when I first stumbled on Tom Waits while rooting though a friend's record collection, every song seemed to be about drinking and losing your way in the fog. His first record was even called 'Closing Time', but it sounded more like a lock-in at the loneliest bar in the world. Just Tom in the corner slumped over the piano serenading the last few nighthawks with his slurred songs about heartaches and hangovers, and the girl that got away.

His persona had already been perfected by the time he started living in the Tropicana Motel in Los Angeles in 1975, a faded establishment that also housed a couple of aristocratic junkies and several call girls who worked Sunset Strip. For six albums on Asylum Records, from his aforementioned debut in 1973 to 1980's Heartattack and Vine, Waits was the gravel-voiced, beer-stained bard of the barstool, a latter-day beatnik with a bad liver and a broken heart, whose fans were few and far between, but utterly devoted. And, boy, did he pay his dues.

For a long while, it looked like Waits would remain a cult figure, out on the furthermost horizon of the Seventies music scene, a stumblebum troubadour raised on bourbon and Bukowski. His music suggested and, to a lesser degree, still suggests, that the Sixties utterly passed him by; that, in his self-contained universe, the Beats were far more important than the Beatles, and Sinatra took precedence over the Stones.

'You imitate what you grow up around,' he says, when I mention this. 'If you grow up around Sinatra, Crosby and Louis Armstrong as a kid, it goes in and stays in. But some of that Sixties stuff went in too.'

He pays homage to them one more time on Orphans, singing Kerouac's forlorn road song 'Home I'll Never Be', and reciting Bukowski's beautiful poem 'Nirvana', both, in their own way, odes to rootlessness, restlessness, the fleeting, irrevocable moment when things could have been different. The essence, in fact, of a good many Tom Waits songs. Why, I ask, were the Beats so crucial to him?

'They were father figures,' he says softly, his long fingers tracing small circles in the coffee spill on the table. 'They were the ones I looked to for guidance. See, my dad left when I was 10, so I was always looking for a dad. It was like, "Are you my dad? Are you my dad? What about you? Are you my dad?" I found a lot of these old salty guys along the way.'

In 1978, Waits met Kathleen Brennan whom has become his wife and saved his life.

Kathleen was the catalyst for the dramatic sea-change in Waits's music that occurred with the release of Swordfishtrombones in 1983. 'I didn't just marry a beautiful woman,' he says, 'I married a record collection.' When Waits was once asked what his wife brought to the table, he replied, 'Blood and liquor and guilt.' Which is handy, because Waits himself hasn't had a drink for 14 years. When he says that Kathleen saved his life, he means it literally.

Does he miss the odd night-cap? 'Miss drinking?' he says, sounding genuinely surprised. 'Nah. Not the way I was drinking. No, I'm happy to be sober. Happy to be alive. I found myself in some places I can't believe I made it out of alive.' That bad, huh? 'Oh yeah. People with guns. People with gunshot wounds. People with heavy drug problems. People who carried guns everywhere they went, always had a gun. You live like that,' he says, without a trace of irony, 'you attract lower company.'

I ask if he wrote a different kind of song when he was drinking. He thinks about this for an instant, then says, 'No. I don't think so. I mean, one is never completely certain when you drink and do drugs whether the spirits that are moving through you are the spirits from the bottle or your own. And, at a certain point, you become afraid of the answer. That's one of the biggest things that keeps people from getting sober, they're afraid to find out that it was the liquor talking all along.'

'I was trying to prove something to myself, too,' he says, revealingly. 'It was like, "Am I genuinely eccentric? Or am I just wearing a funny hat?" All the big questions come up when you get sober. "What am I made of? What's left when you drain the pool?"'

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