Teddy bears in need of a vacation?

Some love for your 'teddy bear'?!



Is your favourite teddy bear or stuffed animal desperately in need of a vacation?

Finnish firm 'Teddy Tours Lapland' has come up with one solution: holidays in northern Finland for that special stuffed friend costing from 110 euros to 170 euros (93.7-144.4 pounds).

The "Standard Journey" for teddies includes a trip around the northern town of Rovaniemi and is capped off with a visit to Santa Claus. The stuffed animal will also receive a gift, send a postcard to its owner and be sent home with holiday photos.
The "Luxury Journey" includes, on top of the standard journey package, a trip to a reindeer farm where the bear can feed Santa's reindeer.
"This is followed by a snowmobile safari. On safari, Teddy will try ice fishing on the frozen waterway and savour hot chocolate by the campfire," the firm said on its Web site, adding the whole trip will also be recorded on videotape.

Teddy Tours Lapland will also provide the bear, should you not want to send your own abroad or don't own one yet.

Currently the company only offers trips during the winter, but it is also planning summer programmes as well.

"People or living pets may not participate on these trips," the firm said on its Web site.

Source: Teddy Tours Lapland

What to do with your old books!

You have an old used book and you plan to drop it in garbage? Well, after seeing the following pictueres you might change your mind about that and try to make some cool paper-cut sculptures from its papers.









Website artist Su Blackwell

Bulldog Beauty Contest 2010

Some love for Bulldogs????











Bulldog Beauty Contest 2010 took place February 28 at the Marketplace Long Beach, California.

http://www.hautedogs.org/bulldog.html

Bed ladder

Sometimes I whish I would have a bed ladder…!



Bed ladder makes getting out of bed easy. The sturdy wooden rungs provide stability and comfortable grips for pulling yourself up without help from others. A great aid for the elderly and people with disabilities. Great for hospitals and care centers. Simply loops around bedposts or bed legs.

More information:Bed Ladder

Sleep well!!!!

The art of sleeping!

"Men in Black" – In 3D

Will Smith returns to the Men In Black franchise, with a new 3D sequel heading to cinema screens in summer 2012…



Columbia Pictures has confirmed what's been rumoured heavily for the last few weeks, namely that it's pressing ahead with a third Men In Black movie.

The new film, which will inevitably be a 3D affair, will be arriving in the summer of 2012, and Will Smith has signed up to reprise his role as Agent Jay. Tommy Lee Jones hasn't yet signed on the dotted line to return as Agent Kay, but negotiations are ongoing to secure his return. The long-rumoured casting of Josh Brolin looks to be on the mark too, as he's reportedly in talks about playing a younger Agent Kay.

The script this time round is being written by Etan Cohen, who hopefully can overcome the lame retread of the original that Men In Black 2 ended up as. Cohen also penned Tropic Thunder, which does offer some promise.

The release date for the film has also been announced, too. For Men In Black 3 is set to do battle with Batman, Spider-Man, Wolverine and Star Trek in the summer of 2012. It's marked for release on May 25th of that year. Barry Sonnenfeld is the man charged, once more, with directing the film.

Source: Columbia Pictures

Sébastien Tellier – Video

Some love for eroticism or art?!




Sébastien Tellier

Goodbye to '24'

Some love for Jack Bauer?

Eight seasons in, "24" was 86'd. By the time the last episode airs on May 24, there will have been nearly 200 hours of "24." To date, there have been 18 Emmy wins.




"I think over the course of the eight years, we've had 16 marriages and 30-something children have been born," said star Kiefer Sutherland, who portrays federal agent Jack Bauer on the series. "We were like a family. So, it's very hard to say goodbye."
Sad as the end may be, Sutherland said the time is right.

"It was a lot of different things. It's a very, very difficult show to write. And (executive producer) Howard Gordon . . . normally halfway through the season will say, 'I've got a great idea for next year.' And he just wasn't feeling it. And all his energy was focused on this season eight. He said, 'This is where I feel it should end, and we should be making the films.' And once he says that, you've got to go with him."

The "24" feature film, still in development, will stray from the show's format in at least one key way: It won't take 24 hours to tell its story of a day in the life of Jack Bauer....

'Dark Knight' – Batman 3 – Official release date!

Warner Bros officially set a date for the follow-up to The Dark Knight. Tentatively known as Batman 3, the movie will debut July 20, 2012 in conventional and IMAX theaters, almost exactly four years after The Dark Knight opened to record-breaking numbers.

The studio has barely begun the process of developing the movie; Nolan is in postproduction on “Inception,” but is hammering out a story with David Goyer.

There is no title as this point and no start date.

July is becoming Nolan’s month. “The Dark Knight” opened on July 18, 2008, and “Inception” debuts July 16.

With Batman 3 on the docket, summer 2012 is shaping up to be one of the greater geek movie seasons. Marvel’s “The Avengers” is slated to come out May 4, board game adaptation “Battleship” leaves port May 25, the “Star Trek” sequel beams up June 29, and the rebooted “Spider-Man” swings into theaters on July 3.

Amazing hybrid animals

Take a look at some of these otherworldly hybrid animals......

Though they rarely occur in nature, individuals from different but closely related species do occasionally mate, and the result is a biological hybrid — an offspring that shares traits from both parent species.

Here are six bizarre, but truly unique half-breeds.

Zebroids

(Photo: Wiki Commons / GNU)

A zebroid is the offspring of a cross between a zebra and any other equine, usually a horse or a donkey. There are zorses, zonkeys, zonies, and a host of other combinations.
Zebroids are an interesting example of hybrids bred from species that have a radically different number of chromosomes. For instance, horses have 64 chromosomes and zebra have between 32 and 44 (depending on species). Even so, nature finds a way.

Savannah cats

(Photo: Jason Douglas / Wiki Commons / public domain)

Savannah cats are -- contrary to popular belief -- from a coastal town in Georgia. But what they are is what you get from mixing your everyday domestic cat with an African Serval cat. Historians believe the first one was bred sometime in the mid 1980s by a cat breeder in, of all places, Pennsylvania. The International Cat Association first recognized the cat in 1996. The hybrid cat can now be purchased or perused in copies of 'Savannah's Illustrated' magazine.

Ligers

(Photo: aliwest44 / Flickr)

Ligers are the cross of a male lion and a female tiger, and they are the largest of all living cats and felines. Their massive size may be a result of imprinted genes which are not fully expressed in their parents, but are left unchecked when the two different species mate. Some female ligers can grow to 10 feet in length and weigh more than 700 pounds.
Ligers are distinct from tigons, which come from a female lion and male tiger. Various other big cat hybrids have been created too, including leopons (a leopard and a lion mix), jaguleps (a jaguar and leopard mix), and even lijaguleps (a lion and jagulep mix).

Wholphins

(Photo: Mark Interrante (aka pinhole) / Flickr)

A cross between a false killer whale and an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, wholphins are hybrids that have been reported to exist in the wild. There are currently two in captivity, both at Sea Life Park in Hawaii.
The wholphin's size, color, and shape are intermediate between the parent species. Even their number of teeth is mixed; a bottlenose has 88 teeth, a false killer whale has 44 teeth, and a wholphin has 66.

Grolar bears

(Photo: via Inhabitots.com)

The offspring of a grizzly bear and a polar bear, a grolar bear is one beast you don't want to meet in the woods. Interestingly, unlike many hybrid animals on this list, grolar bears are known to occur naturally in the wild.
Some experts predict that polar bears may be driven to breed with grizzly bears at an increased frequency due to global warming, and the fact that polar bears are being forced from their natural habitats on the polar ice.

Beefalo

(Photo: via readthesmiths.com)

Beefalo are the fertile offspring of domestic cattle and American bison. Crosses also exist between domestic cattle and European bison (zubrons) and yaks (yakows). The name given to beefalo might be the most suggestive, since the breed was purposely created to combine the best characteristics of both animals with an eye towards beef production.
A USDA study showed that beefalo meat, like bison meat, tends to be lower in fat and cholesterol. They are also thought to produce less damage to range-land than cattle.

Source: Bryan Nelson, Mother Nature Network

German Man Marries Cat !

Is this a joke or some real love?

Depressed? Eat some chocolate?!

People who are depressed eat more chocolate than people who are not, U.S. researchers said on Monday last week, in a study that puts numbers behind the link between mood and chocolate.



They said people who were depressed ate an average of 8.4 servings of chocolate per month, compared with 5.4 servings among those who were not.
And people who had major depression based on results of a screening test ate even more -- 11.8 servings per month. A serving was considered to be one small bar, or 1 ounce (28 grams), of chocolate.

"Depressed mood was significantly related to higher chocolate consumption," Dr. Natalie Rose of the University of California, Davis, and University of California, San Diego, and colleagues wrote in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Many people consider chocolate a mood-booster but few studies have actually confirmed the connection between the confection and mood. And most studies have looked only at women.

Rose and colleagues studied the relationship between chocolate and mood among 931 women and men who were not using antidepressants. People in the study reported how much chocolate they consumed and most also completed a food frequency questionnaire about their overall diet.

Their moods were assessed using a commonly used depression scale. What they found was a marked association between chocolate consumption and depression. And unlike other studies that looked only at women, the link was true of both men and women.

What the study could not say was why people who are depressed eat more chocolate.
It could be that depression stimulates chocolate cravings, and people eat chocolate as a sort of self treatment, confirming some studies on rats that suggest chocolate can improve mood, the authors said.
Or, it could be that depression may stimulate chocolate cravings for some other reason without providing any mood benefit. People in the study did not have any such "treatment benefit" from chocolate, the team said.
And they said it may be that eating a lot of chocolate actually causes people to feel depressed, another possible explanation for the association they saw in the study.

It may be something physiological about chocolate, such as providing additional antioxidants. Or the mood-boosting effect of chocolate could be fleeting, like the temporary euphoria from drinking alcohol, leaving people feeling even lower after the brief euphoria has passed.

"Distinguishing among these possibilities will require different study designs," the team said.

They said future studies will be needed to determine whether chocolate is a cause of depression, or a temporary salve.

Human Labrador?

It's dinnertime!!!!!

Dog Brain Trainer

If you want to really test your dog’s intelligence, we recommend these three games. Each one is a little different, but all are fun ways to keep your dog occupied and mentally stimulated. Hide the treats in the compartments, place the bones in their slots, give it a little twist, and leave it for your dog to figure out.

We should mention games like these are excellent for dogs with separation anxiety. All the hard work to get to the treats will keep your anxious pup busy, preventing their brain from entering that dangerous CHEW UP EVERYTHING mode. In the meantime, if someone has both a Poodle and a Basset Hound, we’d like to know who is REALLY smarter in a battle of Interactive Intelligence Games!

Source: ThinkGeek

JEWELRY IN DISHWASHER

Some love for your jewelry!

Dishwasher Cleaning Jewelry "Egg" makes diamonds look like new! No harsh chemicals necessary. Simply hang the egg in the dishwasher with your jewelry locked safely inside and let hot water and detergent's built-in degreasers rejuvenate lackluster surfaces into a brilliant shine in no time. Safe for use with most fine jewelry with faceted stones (not glue mounted).

More info: Jewelry "Egg"


And some love for your daughter??????

Video: Where's the love?

Where's the love? Here's some love!

World's smallest horse?

He was just 14 inches tall and only weighed six pounds when he was born - is Einstein the pinto stallion the smallest foal in the world?





Einstein is just three days old, after being born on Friday at a farm in Barnstead, New Hampshire.

It's thought that Einstein could lay a claim to the title of the world's lightest foal - his 6lb weight at birth being normal for a human baby, but not a horse, even a miniature breed like Einstein.

Unlike other miniature horses - notably the current claimant of the world's smallest horse title, Thumbelina - Einstein doesn't show any signs of dawrfism.

Judy Smith, the owner of the Tiz A Miniature Horse Farm where he was born, at first feared that he was dead when his mother, Tiz Fenisse, gave birth. 
'I have been at this for 20 years plus but I have never seen one this tiny or even close to it,' she said.

Dr Rachel Wagner, Einstein's co-owner, told Sky News: 'Most of the ones that are really tiny are what we call dwarves and they have some sort of dysmorphic features, or features that aren't really normal or healthy. This little guy is like all horses - he's almost all leg.'

Pic1:Tiny Einstein the miniature horse with his mother, Tiz Fenisse, at the farm in New Hampshire (Pictures: AP)
Pic 2:Einstein's owner, Dr. Rachel Wagner, holds a ruler next to the three day old pinto stallion .

Smiling could help you live longer

Smiling could add years to your life, according to researchers.



The wider you grin and the deeper your laughter lines, the more likely you are to have a long existence.

Broader smiles and wrinkles around your eyes point to a positive outlook on life which translates to better long-term health.

It has long been thought that a happy disposition can impact on life expectancy, and the recent study by experts at Wayne University in Michigan, America, seems to back this.

They came to their conclusions by studying 230 pictures of major league baseball players printed in the 1952 baseball register.
Each picture came with a listing of the player's vital statistics, including age, weight, height and marital status.
Researchers then ranked to players according to their smiles and laughter lines, spanning from none at all, to partial and then those with a full blown toothy grin and crinkled eyes.
They then compared the chart to the lifespan of each player to reach their conclusions.

Of the 184 players who had since died, those in the "no smile" section lived an average of 72.9 years while the "partial smile" group lived to around the age of 75.
Those with the widest grins lived an average of 79.9 years – a full seven more years than their glum colleagues.

The study also found that putting on a false smile did not work, as only those who looked genuinely happy had the extra life expectancy.

Video: Axis Of Awesome - 4 Four Chord Song

Four Chord Song with song titles!

Stephen Hawking - 'Don't talk to aliens'

Some love for aliens? Don't even think about it!

Stephen Hawking has reportedly warned against attempting to contact aliens in case they try to colonise Earth.

The theoretical physicist claimed in a Discovery documentary that extraterrestrials could ravage our planet's resources should they know where to find us.

According to Metro, Professor Hawking said: "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet.

"Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach. If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans."

He added: "To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like."

Source: Metro

World Malaria Day

April 25th 2010. Be a part of history: Protect a life, End deaths from Malaria!



http://www.facebook.com/MalariaEnvoy

How Apple lost iPhone

The Gourmet Haus Staudt. A nice place to enjoy good German ales. And if you are an Apple Software Engineer named Gray Powell, it's also a nice place to make the honest mistake of losing the next-generation iPhone.

Gray Powell—a North Carolina State University 2006 graduate and talented amateur photographer—is an Apple Software Engineer working on the iPhone Baseband Software, the little program that enables the iPhone to make calls. A dream job for a talented engineer like Powell, an Apple fan who always wanted to meet Steve Jobs.

On the night of March 18, he was enjoying the fine imported ales at Gourmet Haus Staudt, a nice German beer garden in Redwood City, California. He was happy. After all, it was his birthday. He was turning 27 that very same day, and he was celebrating. The place was great. The beer was excellent. "I underestimated how good German beer is," he typed into the next-generation iPhone he was testing on the field, cleverly disguised as an iPhone 3GS. It was his last Facebook update from the secret iPhone. It was the last time he ever saw the iPhone, right before he abandoned it on bar stool, leaving to go home.

It's a simple, honest mistake in the middle of celebration. Something that anyone, from Steve Jobs to Jonathan Ive, could have done. Knowing how ferocious and ruthless Apple is about product leaks, those beers may have turned out to be the bitterest of his life.

Source: Gizmodo

T.J. Pluhacek - Youngest iPad App Developer

Some love for devoloping?




The 16-year-old developer from Oregon has already landed his first iPad-specific program in the App Store--NoteLook.

Tyler Jordan Pluhacek--but he goes by the name of TJ--is a 16-year-old high-school student from Lake Oswego, just south of Portland, Oregon. His favorite subjects are Math and Spanish, and he's an accomplished guitarist and harmonica player with a passion for Blues and Ragtime from the '20s and '30s. He lives at home with his Mom and younger sister and he's designed a $.99 app for the iPad.

You might expect a teen developer to come up with a frivolous app--a game, perhaps, or something more throwaway. Not TJ. NoteLook is a pretty serious tool aimed at both students and business people, and it helps you organize your note-taking. But then, TJ is not your average teen. He's extraordinarily focused--when asked what he wanted to do after school, this was his response. "I've spent more time than most people looking at my options. When I go to college, I want to obtain degrees in both computer science and business management, and my plan is to become an entrepreneur and start up my own software development business."

T.J. Keep on going with the good work!

Iceland's Volcano - Generates Lightning

Amazing capture!!



Photographer: Skarphéðinn Þráinsson

Video: Iceland volcano

Amazing!!

Cat Love

Isn't he/she lovely???????

Cat awarded!

Cat awarded for using paw to warn of gas leak.

A 3-year-old cat credited with saving lives by tapping its owner's nose with a paw to alert her of a gas leak has been awarded the Purple Paw by the Great Falls Animal Foundation. Schnautzie received her award Saturday at the foundation's annual Fur Ball.

Trudy Guy says Schnautzie was just 6 months old in 2007 when Guy awoke with Schnautzie on her chest and a paw on her nose.
In checking the house she heard a roaring sound in the bathroom and found a gas pipe outside the bathroom had broken above the shut-off valve.
She said responding firefighters told her the house could have blown up due to the gas levels.

Source: Paw Print Post

World's largest banana museum saved!

Some love for banana?!



The future of the world’s largest banana museum has finally been secured.
‘Top banana’ Ken Bannister had painstakingly gathered some 17,000 banana-related exhibits but it all went pear-shaped when he was turfed out of his premises in January.

He put the likes of his banana-shaped golf putter and banana tent in storage and thought it was time to split – until fellow fruit loop Fred Garbutt saw his a-peel on eBay and stumped up £30,000 for the collection.

Mr Garbutt runs an off-licence and hopes to drum up business by launching the ‘Intern­ational Banana Museum’ next door (though he will be leaving out the more ‘adult’ exhibits).

Californian Mr Bannister – who started the Guinness World Records-approved collection in 1972 – is confident he has found the best custodian, and hopes for a smoothie transition.

‘When they told me they were going to buy a little Beamer [BMW] and have it painted golden yellow, I thought, “This guy’s really serious. He’s got to be a real banana man”,’ he said.

Mr Garbutt – the ‘big banana’ – has equally ambitious plans. ‘We’re going to add to the collection – we’re going to sell banana-leaf wallpaper and make banana-printed clothes for kids,’ he said.

Source: Metro.co.uk

Northern Lights - Amazing images

The beautiful images were taken by Linda Drake, a photographer who braved temperatures of minus 20 degrees to capture them.




"Most people travel to Churchill in Manitoba to photograph the polar bears coming out of hibernation in February and March, but I like to set up camp and wait each evening for the dancing lights and nature's most breathtaking show," said the San Luis Obisto based photographer.
"It never ceases to amaze me how grand the shows of colour are and how each one differs so wildly from the last.
"Hopefully in these pictures I have managed to capture the beauty that has transfixed me."

Usually catching the light shows between midnight and two in the morning, Ms Drake uses a variety of different camera exposure times to photograph the aurora.

"Sometimes I leave the lens open for two to three seconds and on other occasions go for 30 seconds to one whole minute," she said.
"The longest display of the northern lights that I have seen has lasted for up to two hours."

Caused by photon emissions in the upper ionosphere around 50 miles up, the light shows are the result of ionised nitrogen atoms becoming excited by solar wind particles funneling through the Earth's atmosphere.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk
Linda Drake captured the images of the Northern Lights in Northern Manitoba, Canada. Photo: LINDA DRAKE/BARCROFT USA

Musical Rats?

All animals are cute in their own way. Dutch photographer Ellen van Deelen has got to an idea to train a few of white rats to hold different instruments and objects.

The result of that is a beautiful gallery of photos of little rats.








For more beautiful pictures look at Ellen van Deelen's portfolio.