Looks that Kill

Was surfing the internet, and came across this article. Thought some of you might find it sad, yet funny. Its about a teenage boy who meets the girl he's been chatting to face to face for the first time, and was so disappointed with her looks that he actually killed himself. It puts an end to guy's denial that looks aren't everything for them.

Read all about it here.

Phallic Stress Reliever Ends College Girl in Jail

A college student was arrested at an airport and put in jail for 3 weeks as she had condoms filled with flour, given to her as stress relievers as a college gag. The police claimed that field tests showed that it was not flour but cocaine. She was immediately arrested with a USD500,000 bail. After 3 weeks and when tests were carried out again, it was found that there were no traces of drugs at all and that it was indeed flour that was in the condoms. Read all about it here.

So if you're ever in need of a stress reliever and need something to squeeze, reach for a squash ball or two. It would certainly have saved this young lady from a 3 week traumatic stay in a prison cell.

Free Beethoven & Mozart Podcasts

As the title suggests, you can download musical masterpieces from the great maestros themselves from a german site. It downloads to your iTunes program and is readily synced to your iPod for listening pleasure. Free classical music can also be downloaded from Wikipedia.

Download them here.

Map Addressed Christmas Card

When a steel worker wanted to send a holiday card to a coworker but forgot his address, he tried his luck and drew the map of his coworker's home. He sketched the map onto the front of the envelope from the map his coworker had shown him, and where he had pointed where his home was.

Amazingly, the holiday card arrived at his coworker's place after 9 days. The postman who delivered the post card had remembered his coworker's name when sorting out mail at the post office. Read all about it here.

Other Animals in Trees

It's Amazing What Goats Can Climb

MatchStick Eiffel Tower

Paris is the city for lovers, and its indelible landmark is unarguably the Eiffel Tower. So famous and loved is this symbol that a guy from Ukraine actually made an exact 3.3 feet replica of it in his living room using matchsticks. While it didn't say how long this feat took, the matchstick Eiffel Tower took 7464 matches to make, with 15,000 details. There are too many photos to attach, so I am uploading just a few to demonstrate the level of intricacy of the model.

To truly capture the romance of Paris, the matchstick Eiffel Tower even has LED lights installed which lights up to create that magical Paree feel.

PS. What I found funny was that next to the Eiffel images were ads with headlines reading "Beautiful Russian Girls" and "Looking for Polish Girls". Hmm... is this the new millenium standard of romance??

Plagiarism @ Work

Sound familiar? While we hear about bosses and superiors taking credit for what their direct reports have done, I recently encountered a colleague who actually reversed the order. A powerpoint presentation created by her counterpart from our US head office was sent to her, and she promptly sent it out to managers in the region, with the audacity to claim that she had pulled the presentation together. Of course, her boss at our head office was not copied on that email.

And how did I find out? She did not spot that one of the persons on her recipient list to whom she sent the presentation to was also on the cc list of the email correspondence between her and her US counterpart. Another important lesson on email threads and being careful who you forward them to. Shocking isn't it? Tsk tsk.

HQ Sighting

Just for fun and out of curiousity, I have Google Analytics installed on my blog. This way, it tells me who from blogger's have visited my site so I can pay them the same courtesy, and informs me which site I "publicise" my blogs on are giving me the most number of hits.

So far, my number of regular visitors make up 75% of my hits, with 50% as direct links. This week, as usual, I have 2 major hit sites - Singapore and Australia. In addition, I have 1 hit from SR where my company head office is. It could be a freak coincidence, or someone from my headquarters could actually be reading my blog...

There are Creeps Exploiting the Internet

There's this blog I visit regularly - Fireflies In The Cloud - apart from his dry sense of humor, he puts his photoshop skills to good use by providing visual illustrations which can be quite hilarious.

Anyway, while reading his blog, I came across the story of Michael Crooks. I thought he was such a creep and sore loser that I decided to blog about it. His story serves as a good reminder of what can happen when you send personal information over the net to strangers you know nothing about.

As the exchange of information becomes more common over the internet, people are led to a false sense of security, and many times forget that personal information, pictures and videos posted on the web, and/or sent to people can be easily posted up on YouTube, on the forums, etc. without your consent to a very public community. And some of the channels to which you send your personal information can seem so innocent.

Michael Crook is a guy who put up a fake identity as a 19 year old female student on dating sites in 5 states. With the promise of casual sex with any man, single or married, he extracts information about these men who are looking for a casual sexual relationship, and posts them up his site with their real names, occupation, yada yada yada, and even the names of their wives. That was how he found his place to "stardom" on the Fox News Channel, after which his picture on Fox News was posted all over the internet. He proceeded to send Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notices to all the sites who put up his picture, ordering them to remove it claiming that he had the copyright of the picture, which in fact belonged to Fox who had given free use of his picture. Read all about it here.

So next time, when someone asks you for personal information or a picture of yourself - think twice, think hard. The person at the other end might be a pervert who could broadcast all your personal details to anyone and everyone - your enemy at work, your ex-boyfriends/girlfriends, your parents, etc. Or they could photoshop your photos and send it out as a misrepresentation of where you were and what you were doing...

Wise Winery

After weeks of being busy with class, a minor accident which caused massive muscle bruising to my ribs area (Ouch!!) and lazing over the holidays, I remembered that I'm not done in finishing my holiday posts.

I have to admit that at this moment, I'm more keen in digging up "dirt" about the Saddam Hussein hanging (Did he die? Did he REALLY die???). However, my trip was so great that it deserves a proper finishing, especially for the best part, so here it is. This post is on one of the highlights of the trip.

As I would be passing by the famous Margaret River on my way to Albany, where my friends stay, I thought it would be a waste for a wine connoiseur poser like me to miss out on. Truth is, while I like Red Wine, I can't hold my liquor at all - A maximum of 2 glasses and I'm ready to go home.

In any case (no pun intended), a colleague of mine got married in one of the vineyards in Margaret River a week before my trip. At her recommendation, I decided to drop by the same vineyard (for lack of recommendation) to have lunch on the restaurant deck which according to her had a gorgeous view. Browsing through the travel brochure, we could see the whole "sweeping view of the geographe bay" from there. I had no idea what "geographe bay" was, but I'm a sucker for copywriting (being one formerly) and succumbed to the beckoning description before me.

There was definitely no regrets. While I wouldn't say the "sweeping view of geographe bay" was the most stunning that I saw on my Australian trip, the food was certainly fantastic for a really good price, and the wine was just too good and cost less than a fraction of what we would pay for here in Singapore. All that good food and wine with a dropping view of azure sky and clear view of where the sea met the sky amidst a forest of trees, it was leisure at its best.

As my friend's husband was driving, he couldn't have his share but made up for it by buying a case of wine with vengeance. I purchased my modest portion of 3 bottles (and regretted that very night for not getting a whole case) and enjoyed the rest of the Margaret River Shiraz for the rest of my stay in Albany from my friend's purchase. At $12 per bottle for something we would buy for $26-30 per bottle, it wasn't hard to be generous.

After a gastronomic treat in the peaceful and beautiful Wise Vineyard, we were all sublimely contented and imbibed, and were too happy to be happy. Putting an end to a gorgeous afternoon of 22 degrees celsius in Summer at Albany, life couldn't get any better.