Lifestyle

Switch Off For Earth Hour 2010

Earth Hour 2010 takes place on Saturday 27 March at 8.30pm (local time) and is a global call to action to every individual, every business and every community throughout the world. It is a call to stand up, to take responsibility, to get involved and lead the way towards a sustainable future.

Earth Hour 2010 is set to be the biggest Earth Hour yet, with more participants expected to take part than in 2009, when 1 billion people switched off. 121 countries have signed up for Earth Hour 2010, and 812 iconic landmarks will turn off their lights. They include the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, the Sydney Opera House, El Ángel, the Empire State Building and the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Please do your bit by turning off all non-essential lights and electrical appliances for one hour at 8:30pm local time on March 27 and spread the word so others do the same. What a great way of saying thank you to our planet.

Earth Hour Website | Facebook | Twitter

Europe’s Worst Tippers Revealed

A new study by TripAdvisor has revealed that Spanish tourists are the least generous tippers in Europe.

80% of Spanish travellers who were questioned said that they do not always tip when they visit other countries. They were closely followed by 78% of Italians and 76% of French tourists.

Commenting on the study, Emyr Thomas, director of concierge and lifestyle management company Bon Vivant, said: “Tipping can be socially awkward and can cause endless embarrassment, especially on holiday when we are unfamiliar with local customs.

“In some countries it is considered rude not to tip, so you might need to justify yourself, just as in others, such as Japan, it is often considered rude to tip at all.”

Top 7 Most Popular Crazes of the Nineties

#1 – Pokémon Cards

Upon its release in 1996, Pokémon immediately became one of the most sought after card games in history. Whilst an 11 pack of cards should normally have cost around $5, rare individual cards were being traded for over one hundred times that, with some booster packs selling for as much as $9,000.

(more…)

No Beer On St Patrick’s Day? (WFOTD)

When you think of St Patrick’s Day, I’m sure that for most of you, the first thing that springs to mind is beer. Lots and lots of beer, partying in pubs, drinking Guinness out of taps and generally consuming copious amounts of alcohol. However, this wasn’t always the case.

In 1903, Saint Patrick’s Day became an official public holiday in Ireland. This was introduced by the Irish MP James O’Mara. O’Mara later introduced a law which required pubs to be closed on March 17 because drinking was getting ‘out of hand’ and he felt that the holiday should be celebrated religiously.

The law was only overturned in 1970, so the Irish had to go sober on St Paddy’s day for 67 years. I’m getting thirsty just thinking about it.

Top 5 Irish Contributions to the World

#1 – St Patrick’s Day

Celebrated on March 17th annually, St Patrick’s day is one huge party that goes on all around the world. It’s a celebration of all things Irish and remembers the death St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland.

Parades and parties take place in many countries including Great Britain, Canada, the USA, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Montserrat and of course Ireland.

(more…)

Top 5 Unluckiest People Who Ever Lived

#1 – Jason and Jenny Cairns-Lawrence

They have been caught up in three separate terrorist attacks during their vacations.

Jason and Jenny Cairns-Lawrence, from England, were in New York during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Having experienced such a tragic event, they never imagined that they would ever be caught up in another terrorist attack in their lives, but four years later they were.

Jason and Jenny happened to be in London during the worst terrorist attack, the country had ever seen. A series of bombings took place, targeting the underground and overground transport systems, killing 52 people.

By now, Mr and Mrs Cairns-Lawrence could class themselves as the unluckiest tourists in the world, but just three years later, they would be in the wrong place at the wrong time once again.

In 2008, the couple took a vacation to the exotic Indian city of Mumbai. They couldn’t believe it when they were faced with yet another terrorist attack. This time there were more than ten coordinated shooting and bombing attacks across, killing at least 173 people and wounding at least 308.

Jason and Jenny weren’t injured in any of the attacks, so there is a case to say that they are the luckiest couple that ever lived, but I sure hope they warn us about the next time they go traveling.

(more…)

World’s Oldest Woman is 130 Years Old

A Georgian television station says it has located the world’s oldest woman. The station says that documents show that Antisa Khvichava was born in 1880, making her 130 years old – the oldest living person by almost two decades.

Man Marries Pillow

They say you can’t help what you fall in love with, but in the case of one Korean man, it’s more like ‘what’ you fall in love with.

Lee Jin-gyu fell in love with, and has just got married to, a pillow. It’s not any ordinary pillow though, it’s a “dakimakura” – a large pillow from Japan, which translates as “hugging pillow”. It’s similar to a body pillow as some may know it.

Lee, 28, dressed the pillow in a lavish wedding dress for the ceremony, which was held at a local church.

A friend said: “He is completely obsessed with this pillow and takes it everywhere. They go out to the park or the funfair where it will go on all the rides with him. Then when he goes out to eat he takes it with him and it gets its own seat and its own meal.”

I assume it was a mutual agreement to get married. Maybe Lee was worried dakimakura might leave him for another pillow. Each to their own, i guess.

Link

The Human Body Subway Map

Sam Loman created this human body using a typical subway map to illustrate how our bodies are structured and how they work. Click here for larger image.

Link

Top 5 Most Extreme Bodybuilders

#1 Greg Valentino – Biggest Arms in the World

Gregg Valentino is one of the most controversial bodybuilders of all time. He started bodybuilding at the age of 13 and by the time he was in his late teens he had already developed huge 18 inch arms. It was only after 23 years of natural training that Greg started to experiment with steroids. During this time his arms grew to an in-human 28″. You may be familiar with Greg from the documentary, ‘The man whose arms exploded’.

(more…)

Human Behavior is ‘93 per cent’ Predictable

Location data from mobile phones has revealed that the vast majority of human behavior is predictable, suggesting that we really are creatures of habit.

Location data from mobile phones has indicated that 93 per cent of human movement is predictable. A study published by peer-reviewed journal Science examined anonymised data culled from mobile phone service providers and found that it was possible to accurately predict movement and location up to 97 per cent of the time for the majority of people, and 93 per cent of the time for the entire set of data.

The study also found that the majority of people did not stray outside a 6 mile radius for the bulk of the period investigated, and that at any one time people were 70 per cent likely to be at their most-visited location.

Link Image: Getty

Weird Fact of the Day (02/24/10)

Walt Disney was once told by his doctor that he was too stressed. He suggested that Disney should find some way of relaxing, so he took up golf. Whilst this was good in the beginning, Walt became so obsessed with perfecting the game that he ended up getting up at 4.30am to play, making him more stressed than ever.

Procrastination Animated

This is Johnny Kelly’s graduation project at the Royal College of Art in 2007. Here, the illustrator explores the many ways that we “put off” doing things. Sometimes the only way to get something done is to do two dozen other things first.

Link

New World’s Shorted Man Contender

An 18-year-old is heading to Europe to get his name in the Guinness Book of Records after claiming that he is the world’s smallest man.

Khagendra Thapa Magar, who is only 22 inches (56 centimeters) tall, left his homeland of Nepal on Sunday, bound for Italy to campaign for the record. Once in Italy, his father, Rup Bahadur Thapa, will decide on their next destination.

The current record is held by China’s He Pingping, who is a relatively large 29 inches (73 centimeters) tall. Second’s not that bad is it, Pingping?

Link

‘Irresponsible’ Website Tells Robbers When Victims Are Not Home

A website which provides real-time updates on the location empty homes has been criticized by privacy campaigners, who say it is ‘irresponsible’ and a “one stop shop” for burglars.

PleaseRobMe.com provides minute-by-minute updates on people who have just left their house and their current location. It does this by tracking Twitter user’s activities in real-time as they tweet.

The Dutch website, which was launched last week, has hit back saying they were simply highlighting the dangers of the newest social networking craze.

So, is this website an aid to robbers or an aid to our safety? Surely everyone knows that there are many potential dangers to using social media, but is providing criminals with a sorted database of opportunities the right way to go about helping us become aware of our privacy?

iDo: The First Apple Wedding

An Apple obsessed couple have become the first to get married inside an apple store.

Josh and Ting Li, from New York, tied the knot at 12.01 on Valentine’s Day, in the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue. The ceremony was dominated with Apple products and references to the technology giant.

Their priest was dressed as Steve Jobs, they read their vows from iPhones, and the rings were tied to a ribbon wrapped around a first generation iPod.

Part of their vows included a passage from the Apple CEO that said: “You have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down.”

Mrs Ling, dressed in a strapless wedding dress, had her vows written on a card that said “I love you more than this” followed by a picture of an iPhone.

Let’s not even get started on the honeymoon…

Link

Three-Legged Bear Walks Like A Human

This video shows a bear with three legs which has adapted to walk upright, like a human. The details as to why it only has three legs are unknown, but presumably it was either born without a front leg, or lost one at a later stage. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether it’s real or fake.

Man Gives Away Every Penny of His £3 million Fortune As It Made Him Miserable

Austrian born, Karl Rabeder dreamt of being rich and awed at the comfort money would bring ever since he was a young boy. However, once Karl had made his £3 million fortune, he decided to give it all away because it didn’t make him happy.

My idea is to have nothing left. Absolutely nothing,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “Money is counterproductive – it prevents happiness to come.”

Instead, he will move out of his luxury Alpine retreat into a small wooden hut in the mountains or a simple bedsit in Innsbruck.
His entire proceeds are going to charities he set up in Central and Latin America, but he will not even take a salary from these.

“For a long time I believed that more wealth and luxury automatically meant more happiness,” he said. “I come from a very poor family where the rules were to work more to achieve more material things, and I applied this for many years,” said Mr Rabeder.

But over time, he had another, conflicting feeling.
“More and more I heard the words: ‘Stop what you are doing now – all this luxury and consumerism – and start your real life’,” he said. “I had the feeling I was working as a slave for things that I did not wish for or need.

Link

It’s Pancake Day!

So here we are again. It’s that Tuesday during Easter where we stuff our faces with a mixture of flour, eggs, milk and butter. Yep, it’s Pancake Day. Don’t know what I mean? How about Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday? No? Tuesday of Carnival? Mardi Gras? You got it! So throw those New Year’s resolutions out the window and enjoy a batch of delicious, circular-cut pastry. Oh, and the above video is probably the best pancake recipe video on the internet, so check it out!

Valentine’s Day Trivia

Valentines Day is over for another year, and I’m sure you’re all glad it’s Monday and back to work. No? Ok then, how about we reminisce, and celebrate the day that Saint Valentine gave to us by reading about some mindless Valentines Day trivia. Here it goes:

• Valentine’s Day the is the second-most popular greeting-card-giving occasion after Christmas, with over 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards sent annually.
• Valentines Day is a time for procrastinators. More than 50 percent of all Valentine’s Day cards are bought in the six days before February 14.
• Teachers receive the most Valentine’s Day cards, followed by children, mothers, wives, and then, sweethearts. Children ages 6 to 10 exchange more than 650 million Valentine’s cards with teachers, classmates, and family members
• Of the 73% of people who buy Valentine’s Day flowers are men, while only 27 percent are women.
• 70% of those celebrating the holiday give a card, followed by a telephone call [49%], gift [48%], special dinner [37%], candy [33%] restaurant meal [30%], and flowers [19%].
• About 3% of pet owners will give Valentine’s Day gifts to their pets.

There is more, but I’m sure you’ll agree that’s enough lovey dovey for one day.