Let Me Share With You Why Night Owls Are More Productive
30 June 2008
Labels: Living
Stumble It!
Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.
Labels: Living
Labels: Food For Soul, Living
Labels: Breaking News
For Gmail: LdoGred37G
For eBay: YdoGred37e
For Amazon: NdoGreD37a
Labels: Blogging Tips, Living
Labels: Breaking News
Labels: Health
1. A list of the world's most powerful "ultracelebrities" has been released by US publishing company Forbes. Oprah Winfrey, whose face is recognised across the world, retains the top spot.
2. Golf star Tiger Woods takes second place. His huge sponsorship deals propel him into the list, which is based on earnings and fame.
3. Angelina Jolie slides into third position. She has worked to highlight the plight of people in war-torn Sudan. And she is half of two celebrity couples on the list...
4. Beyonce belongs to the second star couple to make the top 10. She is said to have raked in £40.7 through a concert tour, film work and endorsements this year.
5. David Beckham's wealth and global fame have grown since joining LA Galaxy - a move which sees him into the top five.
6. Johnny Depp continues to enjoy film success and earned an Oscar nomination this year for Best Actor. So it's no surprise to see him in the top 10.
7. Jay-Z follows his new wife Beyonce into the top 10, thanks to a lucrative recording deal.
8. The Police show they are not past it by slipping into the eighth spot. Sting and his bandmates are in the middle of a world tour.
9. JK Rowling released the last book of her Harry Potter series last year but shows no sign of losing her power just yet. An 800-word prequel to Potter raised £25,000 at a recent charity auction.
10. Brad Pitt claims the tenth spot in the list behind partner Angelina. The film star has backed a project to build eco-friendly homes for Hurricane Katrina victims in between acting and raising his growing brood.
Labels: Money Talk
Anxious people, it turns out, may make better decisions. Gregory Samanez-Larkin, a graduate student in psychology at Stanford University, scanned the brains of healthy people (none of them had anxiety disorders) and found that a particular region, the anterior insula, lit up when the subjects anticipated losing money. But those who were more anxious showed even more activity in the anterior insula.
Later he brought the same group back to the lab to play a computer game for real cash. Those with greater insular activity—the more anxious ones—were better at learning how to avoid losing money in subsequent games. "Their anxiety over losing money perhaps led them to be more precise in the way they played the game," Samanez-Larkin says.
Anxiety isn't the same as stress per se, but if your body is in a stressful state and you don't feel happy about it, (as you would when keyed up for an exciting or fun event), then you will likely feel anxious.
Martin Paulus, professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Diego, studies anxiety's effects on decision-making. "Under certain circumstances anxious people are more sensitive in detecting potentially bad outcomes associated with choices. They do avoid harm, so, as a consequence, it may be useful to be anxious," he says.
But those who are too sensitive to threats in their midst will make decisions that err on the side of caution. "Highly anxious people may decide not go to a mall, for example, because they feel extremely uncomfortable. Over time they may avoid engaging in interactions with other people, and this could hurt them," Paulus says.
Paulus and his team have found that anxious people tend to take a "bottom-up" approach to life—their emotional reactions to events are stronger, while their ability to reason and intellectually interpret events is weaker. "Chronically anxious peoples' brains experience everything as aversive," he says. Less anxious people, in contrast, take more of a "top-down" approach—the rational parts of their brain take over when they experience something potentially anxiety inducing, and they essentially talk themselves into not getting worked up.
Paulus hopes to eventually identify a specific therapy that would employ, say, meditative exercises to calm anxious people's emotional reactions (possibly in tandem with anti-anxiety medication) and also cognitive-behavioral therapy to help them think in ways that would also help them interpret situations as not dangerous.
Since a little stress is good for you and a lot is bad, how do you know if you are in the "just right" zone? Depending on what state you are in, Paulus says, you respond differently to touch and to temperature. Physiological tests built around these insights could eventually help tell us if we're stressed out a good amount or not. In the meantime, just relax and rely on your own intuition.
Labels: Health
Labels: Living
Imagine you are Mr. Bill Gates, czar of the wealth. Life is great; you're the richest man on the earth. You can buy anything in life, right? Wrong. Before you ride on the jet of euphoria and focus your entire life on earning money, know there are simply things that a roll of hundred dollar bills cannot get for you, not even if you are Mr. Gates.
If you are perplexed, let me explain my theory. It may sound like an oxymoron but money has its Achilles’ heel. All of our false perceptions about money have one common flaw - they identify money as something external to us, they identify money as the tool to accumulate abundance to please others by accumulating possessions.
What money can't buy mostly lies within us. Nonetheless, trading our life energy for money can deprive us from inner nourishment that can eventually lead our lives into a downward spiral.
1. Time: Money is a tool for trade. With that said, we spend a good chunk of our allotted time on this earth getting, spending, worrying and fantasizing about money. You can't buy the time and save it in your storeroom even if you are Mr. Gates. On the contrary, money takes away your time that could have been spent playing with your children or having a long walk with your alter ego. When the sun sets, a day goes away from our life forever. No money has power to bring that back to life.
2. Self Awareness: Ignorance is bliss, right? It's a curse. Not having self-awareness and self-consciousness lead to decisions that can cost you dearly. Well, the cost may be life itself. As a result, many people live a mediocre life without living for a true purpose. Their ignorance can't be transmuted into awareness with money. They believe that their ignorance is their awareness.
3. Self esteem: I have a plethora of examples to prove that no money can purchase self-esteem. Self-esteem is earned from within. If you are your worst enemy, gods of money can't rescue you from the self-destruction you inflict on yourself. King of rock Elvis Presley had the best life one can imagine with no dearth of cash. He took his own life with the deprivation of self-esteem.
4. Health: As I write this, I found out that Senator Kennedy has brain cancer, and it is terminal. Of course money can get him the best health care possible but no money can buy insurance for a life. We buy insurance for just about everything including our life but money can never bring life back.
5. Respect: Try this. Slap someone on his face and then hand him $100 to get his respect. Will you get it? I doubt it. We all live our life in pursuit of self-respect from peers, from family members, from our alter ego and even from strangers. No money can buy respect from others if our actions speak volumes about our negativity - insult, rudeness and lack of respect for others.
6. Happiness: This is controversial. Money can buy happiness if it is spent on to bring grater financial security for the family. However, money can't buy happiness if the purpose is to make money to make other people happy. The chase of possession of possessions can never find its destination with incessant desire to accumulate more possessions. Happiness comes from within. When we trade so much time and energy to get money, we deprive our inner self from the food of happiness.
I'm sure that you either are nodding you head in disbelief by now, or you've been enlightened by the revelation that, after all, money can't buy some of what matters most in our life. I'll be glad to get a zap or a hug from you.
Labels: Living, Money Talk
Even singer Christina Aguilera has removed all her famous piercings - except one. Only a nipple has been spared a cull of 11 pieces of body jewellery.
Gone are her piercings in her ears, belly button, eyebrow, lip and tongue "in a kind of rebellion", she said."I've taken out all my piercings apart from one in my right nipple. That's for me," she is reported as saying in The Sun.One of her friends said Christina was "well past the piercing thing" and was enjoying life with record executive boyfriend Jordan Bratman."At least now airport metal detectors won't go crazy when she passes through," she said.
Labels: Health


I used to be a big fan of Pete Sampras. I consider him as one of the greatest tennis player of all time. When I was young, my dad introduce me to tennis game by providing many videos of great tennis players. Then slowly it grow a great interest of tennis in me. My dad even enrol me to tennis classes coach by one of the reknown coaches around.
On this one fine day, a week before Wimbledon, my dad drive me to this classy tennis lounge. Before entering the place, I can see many people from all walks of life. The environment start to trigger my curiosity. As I walk towards to entrance hall, I receive one of the biggest surprise of my life! The great Pete Sampras is standing just 6 meters away from me! I just couldn't believe my eyes. I start looking at my dad and he say, "Yup, there's nothing wrong with your eyes. It's Mr. Pete Sampras, the current world number 1 tennis player!". I start hugging my dad telling him how happy am I to be able to see my idol in person.
Dad pass me a big poster of Pete and I manage to get an autograph plus a photograph with him as well. This is one of the happiest moment of my life. Words just can't describe my feelings. On that very same year, Pete won the Wimbledon proving his tennis prowess. Since then I never fail to follow Wimbledon. Danny just bought me several Wimbledon tennis tickets for me and my family. I just can't wait for the tournament! Who am I going to watch this time? Definitely Roger Federer!
Labels: Breaking News
Summers are on and it's time to take that trip you've had been planning since last year. There is no doubt that the internet has a lot to offer for those who are planning to travel or go on a long vacation. Starting from finding a taxi which takes you to the airport, booking flights, hotel reservations and planning the visit to different tourist attractions, you can do it all over the internet.
Since there are different needs for everyone planning to go on a vacation, there are huge number of websites on the internet offering different solutions to those needs. Today I decided to pick seven such general websites which can be of immense help to a traveler, irrespective of his travel destination.
1: WikiTravel
WikiTravel, like Wikipedia, is a user-powered travel guide offering thousands of articles, reviews, pictures, etc., of different travel destinations around the world. Since it is user-powered, you will find both positive and negative reviews of places. Hence this can be useful if you want to check out merits and demerits of your travel destination, in terms of different aspects like weather, transport, locations etc.
2: Google Maps
Google Maps undoubtedly is a must-have resource for a person planning to go on a vacation. Apart from giving accurate directions from one point to other, it also locates the local businesses and hot-spots like restaurants, theaters, malls, etc., on the map. You can take printouts of the various maps, before you travel.
3: Kayak / Sidestep
As I mentioned, there are lot of websites offering you various deals and travel packages. So how do you figure out which are the best deals on hotels, flights, cruises, lodgings or rental-cars? That's when Kayak or Sidestep come into picture. Both the sites act as travel search engines and let you find the best deals by searching through hundreds of travel sites.
4: Lonely Planet / iExploreBoth
Lonely Planet and iExplore have extensive information about the various regions of the world including minute details such as a Chinese restaurant in a particular locality in a city. They offer travel guides, videos, pictures, facts, figures and a lot more. Another nice feature is that they have forums and communities, where you can ask your travel related questions and get relevant answers from other members. You could also find a fellow traveler through these sites and probably team-up with him.
5: Airlinemeals.net
If you travel a lot on airplanes then you must be one of those who are concerned about the meals airlines offer and usually tend to choose a particular airline over another due to the fact that it offers better meals. Airlinemeals.net is an amazing website which has a huge collection of information about meals provided by different airlines around the globe. It is user-contributed and you'll find thousands of images of different meals on different flights. You will also find meal details based on the airline, the class, the flight and if you browse further, you can find special meals, crew meals and almost every thing which can relate to an airline meal. Worth browsing.
6: Weather.com
The details about the weather of a particular region are not difficult to find on the internet and many websites offer that. However weather.com goes one step ahead and shows weather forecast for a particular city for the very next day and up to 10 days and also provides further details about the climate. So you may want to check this website before you leave in order to be prepared for that sudden change in weather of your travel destination.
7: Google local search
No matter how many websites you browse through, there may be some questions in your mind about your vacation, which remain unanswered and unexplained. Hence, last but not the least, mighty Google is always there to the rescue. Just do a Google search for that particular city and browse through the results. I am sure you'll find what you were looking for.
I hope the above websites help you in planning your trip in a better manner and let you have a great vacation.
Labels: Holiday


Aid agencies are warning of a new famine in Ethiopia with 4.5 million people in need of emergency food aid, after months of drought and rising food prices.
The crisis is one of the most serious the country has faced in decades.
Children under the age of five are the worst affected, with more than 126,000 suffering from severe malnutrition, according to Unicef.
In the stricken regions aid organisations are working with the Ethiopian government to set up therapeutic feeding centres for those most at risk.
One, operated by Médecins Sans Frontières in the western town of Shashemene, is crowded with mothers clutching listless infants with stick limbs and dead eyes.
Three-year-old Mitchu weighs just 11lbs - a little more than a newborn baby.
Her flesh has been stripped from her bones by starvation and malaria.
She has been receiving food every three hours for two weeks but has not gained any weight and doctors admit she is unlikely to survive.
Others recover quickly, revived by the high calorie, high protein plumpynut paste which has saved millions of lives in food crises around the world, but in Ethiopia it is in short supply.
The lack of resources means that the clinics can only treat the children with medical complications as a result of malnutrition - the merely thin and hungry are turned away.
One desperate father circled his thumb and finger around his daughter's tiny leg.
"She needs help," he pleaded with one of the nurses.
She had to explain that his daughter was not ill enough to be admitted.
"It's difficult but we have to prioritise to save lives here," nurse Meike Steenssens said.
The relief operation is lagging far behind the unfolding crisis and some organisations have criticised the Ethiopian government for being slow to act.
But global factors have contributed to the spread of hunger in the country and complicated the response.
The UN's World Food Programme has a shortfall of 180,000 tons of food in the country, in part because the price of grain has soared on the world markets, and is appealing for £75m to bolster its supplies.
The famine is taking hold in a country which appears green and lush rather than barren, but the crops poking through the soil are months away from being harvested and the cattle being herded through the fields are too scrawny to produce much meat.
Severe drought has affected six of Ethiopia's nine regions and now the rains have finally started, some of the same areas are being stricken by flash floods.
Nature has made self sufficiency almost impossible.
Ethiopia's last major famine between 1984 and 1985 claimed a million lives and prompted a worldwide outcry that sparked Live Aid.
A quarter of a century on, the scale of the problem is much smaller but the images of starving children are the same.
Labels: Breaking News
Bigfoot and lake monsters, beware: There's a price on your heads.
Binocular manufacturer Bushnell, along with "Field & Stream" magazine, have teamed up to offer $1 million to anyone who can "provide an unaltered photograph/video, verified and substantiated by a panel of scientific experts [including a zoologist and biologist], the evidence required to prove a Sasquatch/Bigfoot/Yeti exists."
The contest started a few days ago and ends Dec. 15, but before heading out to claim your million, note that the rules' fine print states that they are not liable for any injury incurred during a Bigfoot attack. A good quality Bigfoot image would make history; most photos are of such consistently poor quality that within the Bigfoot research community there's even a name for a typical blurry "Bigfoot" image: blobsquatch.
This is, of course, a marketing promotion and not a genuine search for Bigfoot. There's no way to authenticate a Bigfoot photograph by itself; the image is simply a two-dimensional pattern of pixels. To truly prove a Bigfoot exists, you'd need corroborating hard evidence like a body, teeth, or bones.
Bigfoot isn't the only monster whose proof of existence commands cash. Larry Nielson, a boat owner from Lake City, Minnesota, is offering a reward for their local lake monster. Pepie, the mysterious beast said to lurk in Lake Pepin, was supposedly seen on April 28, 1871, and only rarely since then. According to Nielson, you don't actually have to capture the beast: "The Lake City Tourism Bureau has announced a $50,000 reward for undisputable evidence that proves the existence of the real live creature living in Lake Pepin. The proof should include photographics (sic) and/or samples of skin or fins that can studied for a DNA analysis."
Savvy marketers have been using monsters in promotions for over a century. In 1873, the great American showman P.T. Barnum offered a $50,000 reward for Champ, the monster supposedly living in Vermont's Lake Champlain. He planned to exhibit the creature in New York, but even that fortune wasn't enough to snare the creature, and in 1887, Barnum offered $20,000 for the monster, dead or alive. He still had no takers. More recently, Bigfoot has been used to promote everything from pizza to monster trucks to beef jerky. And virtually every town near a lake with a reputed monster has profited economically from increased tourism.
People have been searching for these mysterious creatures for years. Why is conclusive proof still elusive? There are only two alternative explanations: the monsters' non-existence or the searchers' incompetence. It's possible that the animals simply don't exist, and the "evidence" is either hoaxed or the result of honest mistakes. Or, if these monsters do exist, the searchers apparently aren't good enough at their task and can't find the huge animals despite decades of effort and employing high-tech equipment.
Perhaps putting a price on Bigfoot's head will finally solve the mystery. But if history is any guide, it will just turn up more blobsquatches.
Labels: Breaking News