Are you a person who uses handphone accessories? Although I am not much into accessories but I do like to protect the keypads of my mobile and also the screen from getting oily and smudged. I do like bells though. I have bells on my key chains. I have yet to see any guys into these handphone accessories though. Not even those belt type for easy handling. 
I was so happy with Motorola's photo/picture quality. When I transfer the pictures to online, it is small and not clear. Sony also has the Blog It feature because it is powered by Googles. So for those moblog (camera phone mobile blogging) lovers, this is a dream come true. 
Features of the Sony Ericsson K550i include:
“It was not easy or comfortable to keep up a conversation with girls. I had no idea of what they were thinking, how they felt, or how they looked at things.”—Tyler.
THE world has become a smaller place. In recent decades the development of low-cost air travel, a globally linked telephone network, speedy mail delivery, and the Internet has opened up new possibilities in the realm of romance. And in many ways the idea of carrying on a long-distance courtship across hundreds or even thousands of miles might seem appealing—especially if marital prospects at home seem limited.
1. Get out now and walk fifteen minutes. It will get your feet moving and help you feel you are at least able to do something.
2. Go immediately and be with someone who loves you. It will give you the feeling that you are wanted.
3. Religious? Say a prayer. Ask God to help you get through this.
4. Think of a situation, a place where you were very happy. Visualize yourself in that situation once more.
5. Power of suggestion can do wonders. Say to yourself, "I think I can get better. I have to take it step by step. I will work my way out of this."
6. Go out and buy a plant, or some flowers. Having something living in your house makes you feel more alive.
7. If possible, get outside in the sunshine. If it's not possible, turn on some bright lights. Sunshine and bright light are known to make people happier.
** To fight off the depressed feelings is really not an easy task. It is an uphill battle all the time. Hope these steps can help relieve a little of the blues. I am personally not on any medication for depression but the depress feelings kept reoccurring.
(Word Count 205)
A complicated crab... hmm does one want to be buried in a crab?
A coke bottle may be a different story altogether!
| Are you a runner? Choose your favourite brand of running shoe. |
| |
| Are you a carpenter? Take your saw into the afterlife |
| |
This is a site that pays for posts at your blog or blogs. Advertisers are looking for bloggers who can write about the advertiser's products or create some buzz for them. Bloggerwave will compensate bloggers who qualify with monetary rewards.
What better way to earn some extra cash while doing something that is fun and enjoyable like blogging for Bloggerwave?
BEIJING - People living in communities surrounding a large shallow lake have been overrun by field mice after floodwaters drove the rodents out of islands on the lake, state media reported Monday.
The mouse invasion began on June 23 when the Yangtze River flooded, raising the water level in central China's Dongting Lake and submerging mouse holes on lake islands, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Now, an estimated 2 billion mice are ravaging crops in 22 counties around the lake, and authorities were rushing to construct walls and ditches to keep the rodents out. Residents have killed more than 2.3 million field mice — or 90 tons of the rodents, Xinhua said.
In Hunan province's Yiyang County, a ditch along the lakeshore was filled with mice. Residents were using clubs and shovels to beat them to death, while others scooped the furry animals out using fishing nets.
Mice have already damaged dikes and ruined crops in areas where authorities were slow to build walls and ditches, Xinhua said.
The rodent problem was expected to worsen as more floods were forecast for the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and Dongting Lake.
** Hmm...I was just talking about something known as the "luncheon meat" here in Malaysia and it is a canned food product from China. Friends who had visited some factories in China said that it could be rat meat...these luncheon meat. Oh boy...this used to be one my favourite food. Yucks!!!
Caption: Pork or rat meat?
Oh, I really enjoyed the Transformers cartoon as a kid! I was thinking when they will make this cartoon into a movie and here it is in 2007. Hurray!
What put-downs really are
Let me begin by saying what they are not. Put-downs are not "harmless jokes." The test of the difference between a put-down and a joke is this: Would the jokester be happy if someone he respected used that very same so-called joke on him?
Put-downs are not "constructive criticism." At a construction site, people are building something. To construct is to build. To give the kind of criticism that is constructive, you must see evidence of it helping the receiver to grow. For instance, when my children were little, they took music lessons. When they hit a wrong note after having practiced long and hard, the teacher would say, "I can tell you have been practicing well." She would then recite, very specifically, five or so things they did well. Then-and only then-she would say, "Now play that [name of note] again for me." If it was right this time, she would say, "Do you hear the difference from before?" This helped the child feel good about what was done right and turned the mistake into an opportunity to train the ear.
In contrast, "You played the wrong note!" is just plain criticism, not constructive and, "You played the wrong note again. I don't know what's the matter with you" is a put-down guaranteed for the child to hate music and ruin your relationship.
Put-downs are not the best way to express exasperation with those you love. What is heard and received is rejection and the response is to reciprocate that rejection, to feel depressed over that kind of treatment, or to get out.
Put-downs are anything that attacks the other person or what that person holds dear. They can be as subtle as eyeball-rolling or a cold tone of voice. They can be as obvious as cursing. They can be things in between such as referring to your son's friends as "oh, those people," and your husband's skill at softball as "it was great 30 years ago." The best way to know if you have put someone down is ask your heart what your feelings really are about the person it was directed to. The best way to know if you have been put down is to ask your heart if it feels proud after hearing that remark. The heart knows.
The damage they do to the soul
Unfortunately, unlike a courtroom in which the judge can instruct the jury to "please disregard that," once said, a put-down enters the soul in much the same way a virus enters a cell: destructively. Each and every time a put-down is leveled at someone, the soul is injured badly. You can actually see this on the outside: the smile is not so bright; grades drop; work suffers; car accidents occur.
People who hear put-downs long enough begin to doubt themselves. They begin to think there must indeed be something wrong with them or those they love wouldn't hurt them so. They go beyond thinking there is something-some aspect of themselves-that is wrong; rather, they think their whole selves are wrong. God, somehow mis-made them; the essence of their being is wrong.
No matter how angry you are with someone, you don't want to do this. You may think you do, but when you act out of anger, the damage boomerangs: Doing it injures your soul too. And you can easily tell that it has: You somehow don't feel happy afterward; you are not relieved or unburdoned. Rather, you feel as miserable and perhaps as angry as you did before. Look in your heart; you will see you are angry with yourself now in addition to being angry with your loved one.
How they escalate
Let's look at this further: Joan is furious with Tim and tells him off. She sees the dagger enter his heart. She sees the look on his face. He is quiet and there is a moment of peace. But in that moment, Joan does not feel relief. How can she? Whatever it was that Tim did that hurt her did not change. Nor did she give him a chance to apologize or make it good. Nothing was corrected. Joan thought she got even but what her heart craves is love, attention, and acceptance, and she sure didn't set up the situation for that. Tim meanwhile has only the foggiest idea of what he did wrong in the first place, if he has any idea at all. But he is really mad, now and who knows where that will lead?
Surveys of thousands of fighting couples show that bad words can escalate into physical violence. The probability is there. But even if that doesn't happen, at the very least-and this isn't small potatoes-the couple (or the child) becomes alienated.
How to respond
If someone puts you down, first you have to recognize it for what it is. Once you do, here are four possible types of responses.
Name it. Giving the down-putter the benefit of the doubt, maybe he didn't realize that it was a put-down. Maybe he just thought it was a joke or constructive criticism. Maybe he just thought "Well, that's what I do to vent anger" without meaning to put down. The solution here just might be to tell it like it is and say, "That was a put down."
Throw the ball back to her court. By asking, "Did you really want to say it that way because it was a put down," a reflective person might think about it and realize that she didn't intend that and make some correction or apology right on the spot.
Say it hurt. This suggestion comes with a warning: Only do it with a person of good will. If the person who said it is so angry that she just wants to inflict wounds, saying it hurt can, unfortunately, lead to more abuse. For all others, saying the put-down hurt can, indeed, put a stop to it.
Challenge. When the sender of the message honestly cannot see that the message is highly critical and not constructive at all, challenging the statement on a purely logical basis can be a wonderful experience in empowerment. For example, Sue hurts her daughter, Rochelle's feelings. Rochelle tells her it is a put-down and it hurts. Sue replies with, "You're too sensitive." That itself is a put-down because (a) the word "too" is judgmental and (b) it devalues the characteristic of "sensitivity." Rochelle can challenge this with: "How do you know I'm too sensitive? Maybe you're too insensitive."
Put-downs are not jokes and they're not constructive. They are virulent soul-destroyers which can lead to total alienation from those you care about most. Sometimes naming it, saying it hurt, throwing the ball back into the sender's court or direct challenge can put a stop to it.
(Word Count 1137)
Here are some facts about the relationship between coffee and asthma. Regular coffee drinkers have about 1/3 less asthma symptoms than those of non-coffee drinkers according to a Harvard researcher who studied 20,000 people.For the past several years, many experts have touted how horrible coffee was for our health and that the drinking of caffeinated coffee should be immediately ceased. Recently, however, several studies have shown that caffeinated coffee can actually be extremely good for people. One of the groups of people who can reap health benefits from drinking caffeinated coffee is those people who suffer from asthma.
In particular, drinking caffeinated coffee in the situation of an emergency onset of asthma can allow the patient to breathe easily. Doctors have recommended coffee as an emergency way of treating asthma patients who find themselves with a sudden onset and no medication for many, many years.
In Scotland, as evidenced by the Edinburgh Medical Journal, asthma and coffee are good for each other. While not recommended for exclusive treatment, one to two cups of strong coffee may help open airways.
This coffee and asthma treatment can help a patient who is suffering from an onset of asthma symptoms and finds himself without an inhaler breathe more easily until the inhaler can be obtained. This emergency treatment has proven extremely effective due to the similarities between caffeine and a tried-and-true asthma medication known as theophylline.
The similarities between these two chemicals lead doctors to routinely advise patients who are about to undergo tests for lung function to avoid coffee and other caffeinated beverages for one to two days prior to the time of the test.
Several large coffee and asthma studies conducted in the past few years have examined the relationship between drinking coffee and the prevalence of asthma. A study of over seventy thousand Italians showed that there was a significant reduction in the appearance of asthma amongst patients who would regularly drink coffee.
The risk of asthma symptoms fell by 28% when patients drank three or more cups of coffee every day.
In 1992, the Second National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES II) examined over twenty thousand Americans. The study found that the risk of symptoms from patients with asthma going into the study fell dramatically (over 29%) when patients who regularly drank coffee were compared with patients who did not drink coffee on a regular basis.
In addition, the risk of patients suffering from wheeze fell almost 13%. A relationship was also found between the amount of coffee consumed and the effects gained by the asthma patients. Those who drank more coffee had fewer symptoms; those who drank less coffee had more symptoms.
Another smaller coffee and asthma study was performed on nine adult asthmatics using four daily doses of caffeine similar to the doses contained in coffee. This study showed a dose response effect of caffeine on forced expiratory volume (FEV), forced expiratory flow (FEF) and specific airway conductance (Gaw/VL). This data also suggests that caffeine is an effective tool to use in opening airways during an onset of asthma.
While doctors will never advise drinking coffee as the sole treatment for asthma as they did hundreds of years ago, they do agree that the caffeine found in coffee is particularly beneficial in an emergency situation. Anecdotal evidence shows that people have used coffee in situations where inhalers were completely unavailable, such as when on vacations and on an airplane. Coffee is particularly useful in these situations, as the patients might otherwise suffer serious consequences due to their inability to breathe properly.
