Theodore & Clementine

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

to be fat or not to be fat ?!



yup, that is the question ...

obesity is not only an epidemic it is a humanity issue ... would you let your kids eat a tub of lard ...? coca cola, oreo cookies, mc donald fries ... etc

moderation is the key ... diet soda is not a solution ... you think you are not gaining fat drinking or eating diet labeled whatever ... think again.


Do Diet Sodas Make You Fat?

Posted Tue, Dec 04, 2007, 11:12 am PST


The short answer(s) to this question is no and, maybe, yes. One recent study has shown that people who drink diet soda still have a 41 percent chance of being overweight.

What is even more interesting about this research is that these diet-soda drinkers have a greater risk for obesity than do those who drink regular sodas.

How is this possible? It can't be that the diet sodas are causing obesity, since they contain no calories.

Some researchers believe that the problem with diet sodas is this: When people consume diet drinks, they think they're doing something "good" for their body — and then they feel free to splurge on other, high-calorie items.

For example, if you are eating at McDonald's and order a diet soda in place of a regular soda, you may think, "Now I can super-size my meal." People don't do this intentionally; it just happens and we don't pay attention to it — and then the extra pounds slip on board and stow away.

There is also some research that suggests diet sodas may actually stimulate the appetite. This explanation of the relationship between diet sodas and obesity is that the overly sweet taste of diet drinks actually creates a craving for still more sweet things, thus upping calorie consumption.

What then should you do about your drink choices?

First, remember: Everything in moderation. If you are drinking a lot of regular or diet soda each day, decreasing your intake of either may help you lose weight. Also, think about when during the day you drink diet sodas; do you then tend to splurge on other calories?

Although escaping the obesity epidemic isn't as easy as avoiding diet sodas, you should think about what you drink.

© 2007 Johns Hopkins University. All Rights Reserved. This article from Johns Hopkins University is provided as a service by Yahoo. All materials are produced independently by Johns Hopkins University, which is solely responsible for its content.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

showcase 01 : heather gill with her pmc and chain maille

i am very glad to have met heather. she is a jewelry designer and also a customer of mine who found a wonderful design using those greek washer beads.

this is an interview with her. i hope you enjoy her work as much as i did.

what got you into designing jewelry? who influenced you?

i got into jewelry making and designing after the birth of my daughter. i am a culinary trained chef and i wanted to stay home with my daughter after she was born. i wanted to do something creative so i took a class in basic stringing. i was bored with that within a couple of days so i started to look around for other things to learn how to do. i found pmc [precious metal clay] and have really loved working with it. i am currently taking classes on traditional metal smithing and i really love all that i am learning.





so many people and things have influenced me. i would have to say that some of my culinary training has influenced me and the designs i make. my sisters and my daughter. i grew up in hawaii so i would have to say that still has an influence on me. we get back ‘home’ every chance we can. nature and living in the southwest has really influenced me and my designs.




doesn't this look delicious


how did you come up with the idea of this piece that you made for your sister?

i have wanted to try chain maille but i’m a little out of time for another class. in one of my metal classes we had to make jump rings. so i had extra and was just going to link a few together and make earrings but once i got started i thought it would make a great bracelet. i sometimes don’t name pieces because i come up with really silly names, but i called this one, “Copper Coins.” it reminded me of pennies.




what is your favorite material to use in your designs? what makes it special?

my favorite material still has to be pmc. i really love to work with it. since i’ve been making things with traditional metal i think that my pmc pieces have gotten much better and have a little more substance to them. i love to use semiprecious stones because i think that just makes the fine silver that much more beautiful. i also love to mix metals as you can see from the bracelet.






some pointers for setting up for a show? what must you do and what you shouldn’t do?


i did my first show on the 3rd of november. i wasn’t sure what to expect so i planned for everything! i brought way too much jewelries for the space i had. so don’t put them all out at once.

make sure you bring the following:

01. business cards

02. something to display your earrings and necklaces so that you have levels of jewelry not all lying on the table.

03. someone to help you!

04. bags for items that are purchased and tissue to wrap them in! i got small kraft bags that i stamped my company logo on so if they didn’t take a business card they still knew how to get hold of me.

05. tablecloths and one that is dark – black is perfect. just something that the jewelry will pop off of. i have a lot of silver so that seems to work best for me but anything that doesn’t take away from your pieces is fine.

06. mirror so that they can see what it looks like on.

07. chairs because you’ll do a lot of waiting.

08. something to read because you’ll do a lot of waiting. when a customer comes up or you see them coming put it away but there were many times through out the day that there was just no one around.

09. receipt book and pens

10. cash – ones, fives, tens and twenties. i priced all my jewelry with the tax and made all the prices even – example instead of $11.99 just say $12.00. then you don’t have to worry with all the change. i did bring a little change but not much.

if you have time to visit other shows before yours make notes of what you like and don’t like. have fun with it. make sure you smile A LOT! and engage people in conversation without bugging them!

i am working on my own website so you can find me at http://www.hawaiiheather.etsy.com for now.

my next show will be a local craft show in gilbert, arizona on the 24th of november.

all contributed content © heather gill

Sunday, November 04, 2007

microfinancing and the internet

have you thought about making a loan to a mother of 4 children living in paraguay to help buy more material to continue her business as a tailor or a father in bolivia who needs $1000 so he may continue his water supply business and hopefully send his children to college.

with the internet and money transfer you can do anything to help the poor and support the economy. is it that hard to fathom, yet possible. Dr. Muhammad Yunus the founder of Grameen Bank and winner of the nobel peace prize started microfinancing in 1976 giving out a loan of $27 to 42 women in a village in Bangladesh.

i found this interesting organization called kiva.org and that is what the organization seek out to do ... connect people to make change ... just using that simple idea and make it grassroot.

* kiva in swahili means agreement or unity

don't let your money just sit in your checking account do something with it and make a change!

checkout www.kiva.org

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

an interview

i have to say i was flattered to have someone interview me for her blog space about my little shop petitespoon.etsy.com and my designs ... thank you kara for such opportunity.

check it out at:
http://innocentcharmschats.blogspot.com/2007/10/to-say-thanks-to-fab-lady.html

her blog is fabulous =D

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

stuff for free, why not

who doesn't want free stuff?

i really do hate those sign up website for free stuff and all you end up getting is really free junk e-mails that clog up your time into deleting them all. there is always a catch 22 ... i get all those e-mails about free $500 gift cards from home depot or target at the end it is a waste of time. so when it is too good to be true ... it is. nothing is really for free.


From CNNMoney.com

How to find free stuff

Monday September 24, 2:09 pm ET

By Gerri Willis, CNN

Everybody likes free stuff. So put your wallet away and get out those pencils. We went out to find the best deals out there for the taking.

1: Free Samples

Let's face it...free stuff is the best stuff. You have to be careful of free-product programs...your inbox may be flooded with ads or there may be hidden fees. So read the fine print carefully.

Here's one Web site that connects manufacturers with consumers who test products. That's www.startsampling.com. You'll also want to check out company Web sites directly like tide.com and olay.com to sign up for discount coupons and new-product samples.

2: Free Phone Aid

We've all been charged for dialing 4-1-1, but now there's free directory assistance. That number is 800-FREE-411. You will have to listen to a few seconds of advertising. But you'll get your number at no charge.

And here's another handy phone tool...If you really want to get out of a meeting...or a date, you can "receive" a fake call. Check out popularitydialer.com. Set the time you need to receive the call and which excuse you want to use...(like the "return to the office" call), and voila! you'll receive a "fake" call with a recorded message that demands you leave whatever you're doing and go back to work.

3: Free Memory

If Post-its just aren't cutting it as your scheduling tool, there are some free tools on the Web that can help. Check out memotome.com. You'll never have to say a happy belated birthday again. Just put in your e-mail, and program in the events and dates you need to be reminded of. There's also birthdayalarm.com. Membership is free and you'll even get free invites and party planning tools.

4: Free Books

If you're an avid reader, you may really love paperbackswap.com. All you have to do is choose a book you'd like to read from a list and you'll receive it in the mail.

At the same time, you list the books you want to get rid of. When someone requests to read it, all you have to do is pop it in the mail. You will have to pay for postage, but it's usually around $2.13.

5: Financial Planning

Before you invest in a financial planner, check out some of these online tools. To figure out how much you'll need in retirement, check out this calculator. All you have to do is punch in some basic info about your income and savings. If you want to take a peek inside your portfolio to see how your funds are doing, Morningstar.com has a great tool on its Web site called Instant X-ray.

Friday, September 21, 2007

welcoming baby clémentine



we all welcome baby Clémentine

on september 21st, 2007 at 7:03 AM pacific time

8 pounds 12 ounces and 21 inches tall

Love, mama Yvonne, papa JP and big bro Théodore

a link to more photos at www.chialu.com/clemmie

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

greek ceramic beads are hot hot hot

i haven't post for a long time what is happening at my petite shop ... these are the beautiful and color greek ceramic beads that i have been carrying in my shop since june.

greek ceramic beads or round washers come in bright colorful tone, earthy shades assortments and metalized gold, silver, copper etc you name it. these kiln-fired, dyed terra cotta beads often have the look of wood, metal, or stone. they keep up well except for when it goes through some crushing at the post office cause they were fed through a letter machine.


the bright colorful tone comes in 8mm and 13mm



the earthy tone comes in 8mm and 13mm



the metalized 24 k gold finish comes in 8mm



the metalized 100% fine silver finish comes in 8mm



the metalized pure copper finish comes in 8mm


these hand-formed ceramic beads are truly a labor of love. they are kiln-fired terracotta biscuits then fired again with rough copper and lastly the finishing coat of either pure copper, 100% fine silver, or 24 k gold is applied. these beauties also come in green patina copper and antique patina silver.

* Mykonos is an island of Greece part of the Cyclades. it is believe that this island is named after an offspring of the god Apollo. this happening destination is among the best of Europe nightlife.

visit my petitespOOn at http://petitespoon.etsy.com

email me at petitespoon@gmail.com about flat rate s/h special to US $1, to Canada $2, to everywhere else $3 on wires, findings and beads order till the end of the year using google checkout

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

made in china

what a recall by mattel and fisher-price?!? if you want to cut cost you cut safety issues for sure this is a backlash for doing so. it shouldn't be a surprise ... i look at the european toy market and all toys made local in germany or france they cost 3 to 4 times as much than counterpart made in china products ... so what do parents choose if they have limited budget and still want to get toys that is worth their money?


Mattel recalling more Chinese-made toys
By NATASHA METZLER, Associated Press Writer

Toy-making giant Mattel Inc. issued recalls Tuesday for about 9 million Chinese-made toys that contain magnets children can swallow or which could have lead paint.

The recall includes 7.3 million play sets, including Polly Pocket dolls and Batman action figures, and 253,000 die cast cars that contain lead paint.

Nancy A. Nord, acting Consumer Product Safety Commission chairman, told a news conference no injuries had been reported with any of the products involved in the new recall.

"The scope of these recalls is intentionally large to prevent any injuries from occurring," she told the news conference.

At least one U.S. child has died and 19 others have needed surgery since 2003 after swallowing magnets used in toys, the government said. Several injuries had been reported in an earlier Polly Pocket recall last November.

Mattel, in a full-page ad Tuesday in some U.S. newspapers, said the company was "one of the most trusted names with parents" and was "working extremely hard to address your concerns and continue creating safe, entertaining toys for you and your children."

Tuesday's recall was the latest blow to the toy industry, which has had a string of recalled products from China. With about 80 percent of toys sold worldwide made in China, toy sellers are worried shoppers will shy away from their products.

It was also the second recall involving lead paint for Mattel in two weeks. Earlier this month, consumers were warned about 1.5 million Chinese-made toys that contain lead paint.

"There is no excuse for lead to be found in toys entering this country," Nord said. "It's totally unacceptable and it needs to stop."

Toys recalled Tuesday include 253,000 "Sarge" cars from the movie "Cars," because the surface paint could contain lead levels in excess of federal standard. The 2 1/2-inch, 1-inch high car looks like a military jeep.

Lead is toxic if ingested by young children, and under current regulations, children's products found to have more than .06 percent lead accessible to users are subject to a recall.

Also recalled Tuesday were 345,000 Batman and "One Piece" action figures, 683,000 Barbie and Tanner play sets and 1 million Doggie Day Care play sets.

In the newspaper ads, presented as a letter to "fellow parents" from Mattel chief executive Bob Eckert, the company said "nothing is more important than the safety of our children."

"We have already taken steps to further ensure the safety of our toys," Eckert said.

Nord said the company has stopped selling the recalled products, instructed retailers to pull them from the shelves and made a production change. Mattel is also offering replacement products.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission, which negotiated details of Mattel's recalls, reported that in the previous recall of Polly Pockets play sets in Nov. 11, three children had been injured by swallowing more than one magnet. All three suffered intestinal perforations that required surgery.

When more than one magnet is swallowed, they can attach to each other and cause intestinal perforation, infection or blockage, which can be fatal.

In March 2006, another toy company, Mega Brands Inc., recalled 3.8 million Magnetix magnetic building sets after one child died and four others were seriously injured after swallowing tiny magnets in them.

Two weeks ago, Mattel's Fisher-Price division announced the worldwide recall of 1.5 million Chinese-made preschool toys featuring characters such as Dora the Explorer, Big Bird and Elmo. About 967,000 of those toys were sold in the United States between May and August.

Mattel discovered the latest problem while they were investigating the earlier recall, Nord said.

Mattel officials maintained that a European retailer discovered the lead in some of the lead-covered Fisher-Price products in early July. On July 6, the company halted operations at the factory in China that produced the toys and launched an investigation.

Days after the Fisher-Price recall, Chinese officials temporarily banned the toys' manufacturer, Lee Der Industrial Co., from exporting products. A Lee Der co-owner, Cheung Shu-hung, committed suicide at a warehouse over the weekend, apparently by hanging himself, a state-run newspaper reported Monday.

Lee Der was under pressure in the global controversy over the safety of Chinese-made products, and it is common for disgraced officials to commit suicide in China.

After Mattel announced the recall of its Fisher-Price toys, it launched a full-scale investigation into all of its factories in China.

Before this month, Fisher-Price and parent company Mattel had never recalled toys because of lead paint.

Consumers should call Mattel at 888-597-6597 for information about the recalled toys with magnets, or 800-916-4997 for information about the recalled cars.

___

Mattel: http://service.mattel.com/us/recall.asp

Consumer Product Safety Commission: http://www.cpsc.gov/

Sunday, July 29, 2007

congrats to business.com

business.com got acquired by r.h. donnelley aka yellow pages company!
the bid went up to $345 million ...
i read on some discussion board some people questioning the purchase price to be outrageous because some of them thinks that the price tag is for the domain name only. if you go to business.com it is like yahoo.com or google.com, but only it is a b2b search engine. and beside purchasing the domain name you get all the technology and people who works behind the scene and business.com is generating revenue. so what is there to complain about?



R.H. Donnelley to Acquire Business.com Inc.

CARY, NC UNITED STATES

Business.com's CEO, Jake Winebaum, To Be Appointed President of R.H.
Donnelley's Interactive Operations

CARY, N.C., July 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- R.H. Donnelley
Corporation (NYSE: RHD), one of the nation's leading Yellow Pages and online local commercial search companies, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Business.com, a leading businesssearch engine and directory and pay-per-click advertising network.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060731/NYM044LOGO)
Through this transaction, R.H. Donnelley will add to its existing interactive portfolio a rapidly growing and profitable business-to-business company, with online properties that include Business.com, Work.com and the Business.com Advertising Network. These online brands attract an audience of highly qualified and motivated business decision makers. Business.com optimizes the revenues from these properties through the use of its Performance Based Advertising (PBA) platform, which is considered to be one of the most advanced systems in the marketplace.

In addition, R.H. Donnelley's Triple Play(TM) business-to-consumer integrated marketing solutions will also benefit from a significant infusion of leading-edge search and directory technology and interactive thought leadership from Business.com, particularly in the areas of performance based advertising technologies and corresponding ad network capabilities. Business.com employs approximately 100 highly-skilled technologists, strategists and businesspeople and serves more than 6,000 business-to-business advertisers and their agencies. The company is profitable and is expected to generate revenues of greater than $50 million in 2007. It is widely recognized as a leader in the online business-to-business commercial search space and has been named to the "Inc. 500" and BtoB magazine's "Media Power 50".

"With this transaction R.H. Donnelley takes another significant step forward in the online local commercial search marketplace," said David C. Swanson, chairman and CEO of R.H. Donnelley Corporation. "Upon closing, we will immediately gain a profitable business-to-business vertical that is widely recognized as one of the leaders in the market. We also gain technology and talent that will accelerate our capabilities with DexKnows.com and other aspects of our digital strategy." Business.com is led by Founder and CEO Jake Winebaum, a highly-regarded, successful leader of Internet and media companies. Upon closing of the transaction, Winebaum will be appointed as President of R.H. Donnelley's interactive unit (RHDi), which will now include DexKnows.com(TM), LocalLaunch! search engine marketing company, Business.com, Work.com and the Business.com Advertising Network. Winebaum

will lead RHDi from Santa Monica, Calif., and will report directly to
Swanson.
Prior to starting Business.com, Winebaum led the Internet activities of
The Walt Disney Company, serving as the Chairman of Buena Vista Internet
Group, which managed high-profile brands such as Disney.com and ESPN.com.
His leadership and contributions to the Internet industry have been
acknowledge by Time magazine, which included him as one of the Top 50 Cyber
Elite and Wired magazine, who placed him on the Wired 25.
"We are very excited about joining the R.H. Donnelley organization,"
Winebaum said. "Business.com and the platform we built over the past seven
years are a perfect complement to R.H. Donnelley's interactive strategy.
The solutions that we have created for business decision makers and
advertisers are directly applicable to what is required to service the
local search and directory needs of consumers and local merchants. It is
exciting to become part of an organization with such substantial reach,
capabilities and resources. Business.com is already a profitable and
growing enterprise, but together we will accelerate this growth and ensure
our combined leadership position in the business and local markets."
Swanson added, "We are very pleased to welcome Jake and the
Business.com team to R.H. Donnelley. Jake's track record of success and
significant experience in building and running successful interactive
organizations make him the perfect choice to lead RHDi's fast-growing
interactive business."
Under the terms of the agreement, R.H. Donnelley will acquire
Business.com for $345 million in cash and deferred purchase consideration.
The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2007 and is subject
to customary terms and closing conditions, including compliance with the
Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976.
Conference Call Information
R.H. Donnelley Corporation will discuss this transaction and 2nd
quarter earnings on a conference call scheduled for Thursday, July 26,
2007, at 10:00 a.m. ET. Individuals within the United States can access the
call by dialing 888-387-9606 -- others should dial 517-645-6055. The pass
code for the call is "RHD." In order to ensure a prompt start time, please
dial into the call by 9:50 a.m. (ET). A replay of the teleconference can be
accessed from within the United States by dialing 800-793-2380 and
internationally by dialing 203-369-3339. There is no pass code for the
replay, which will be available through August 9, 2007. In addition, a live
Web cast will be available on RHD's Web site at http://www.rhd.com, and an
archived version will be available for up to one year.
About R.H. Donnelley
R.H. Donnelley connects businesses and consumers through its broad
portfolio of print and interactive marketing solutions. Small- and
medium-sized businesses look to R.H. Donnelley's experienced team of
marketing consultants to help them grow their companies and drive sales
leads. Consumers depend on the company's reliable, trusted, local business
content to deliver the most relevant search results when they are seeking
local goods and services. R.H. Donnelley's Triple Play integrated marketing
solution provides the most comprehensive print Yellow Pages, Internet
Yellow Pages and search engine marketing/search engine optimization
(SEM/SEO) tools for local businesses to attract ready-to-buy customers. For
more information, visit http://www.rhd.com.
About Business.com
Business.com (http://www.business.com) is the leading business search engine
and directory and pay-per-click advertising network, serving more than 30
million business users and thousands of advertisers every month.
Business.com helps business decision makers quickly find what they need to
manage and grow their businesses, and enables advertisers to reach these
users wherever they are across the business Internet through premier
partners, including The Wall Street Journal Online, Forbes, BusinessWeek,
Hoovers, Financial Times and Internet.com. The company recently launched
Work.com (http://www.work.com), a b-to-b community publishing platform featuring
more than 1,800 business how-to guides contributed by business experts.
Business.com was named to the 2006 Inc. 500 and BtoB magazine's Media Power
50. Business.com was founded in 1999 by eCompanies and is headquartered in
Santa Monica, Calif. Its investors partners include Benchmark Capital,
Institutional Venture Partners, Evercore Partners, Reed Business
Information and McGraw-Hill.
Safe Harbor Provision
Certain statements contained in the release regarding RHD's, RHDi's or
Business.com's future operating results or performance or business plans or
prospects and any other statements not constituting historical fact are
"forward-looking statements" subject to the safe harbor created by the
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Where possible, the words
"believe," "expect," "anticipate," "intend," "should," "will," "planned,"
"estimated," "potential," "goal," "outlook" and similar expressions, as
they relate to RHD or its management, have been used to identify such
forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements reflect only our
current beliefs and assumptions with respect to future business plans,
prospects, decisions and results, and are based on information currently
available to us. Accordingly, the statements are subject to significant
risks, uncertainties and contingencies, which could cause actual operating
results, performance or business plans or prospects to differ materially
from those expressed in, or implied by, these statements.
The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to
differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements: (1) the risk
that the conditions to closing will not be satisfied; (2) the risk that the
transaction will be delayed or fail to close; and (3) the possibility that
the expected strategic advantages of the transaction will not be realized
or may take longer to realize than expected. Additional factors that could
cause RHD's results to differ materially from those described in the
forward-looking statements are described in detail in RHD's Annual Report
on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2006 in Item 1A "Risk
Factors" as well as RHD's other periodic filings with the SEC that are
available on the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov.

Monday, July 23, 2007

bead faire

it was a sunday morning and my cousin and i spend an hour and half at the bead faire. it was a bead lover's heaven for all those who love beads!
a line was already formed at the ticket booth when we arrived at 10am. it was also a pretty hot day especially with my huge belly. thank goodness we didn't wait that long to get in or i would have just have a heat stroke out there.
the first thing we checkout was polymer clay beads. the lady must have a lot of patient to make those beads. everyone of them were so detailed and they are all little art sculptures.
there was tons of beads!!! as we walked into the main hall with probably 100 of booths displayed of mostly semi-precious gemstones and freshwater pearls. at the via murano booth, i really love the vintage venetian glass beads. those were selling for $5-10 each. they were showing demo on how to use their snapeez jump rings and twisted tornado crimps. those are just great findings! i have to get some for my little shop.
i bought some thai karen hill tribe silver beads and charms. those where a bit expensive but well worth the money. the designs on those beads were intricate and just beautiful and they were not light weight. i bought my mix of ocean themes: fishes, seashells, starfishes, sea turtles and little swirls of waves.
i also purchased some potato pearls and some semi-precious gemstones.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

bye bye, plane

are nowadays flight attendants retarded or what? at least for the one that a mom and her 19 months old son met on express jet airlines is ... after trying to tell the mom to drug her baby boy so he can shut up from saying 'bye bye, plane' ... i would be concerned if it were a 19 years old person, but what can a 19 months old do beside throw a tantrum, yell and scream, cry ... and saying 'bye bye, plane' should be the least of a concern. at least the baby is not yelling 'bomb bomb, plane.'

From Associated Press on Yahoo! News:

Mom says she, toddler kicked off plane
Thu Jul 12, 2:15 PM ET

A woman said she and her toddler son were kicked off a plane after she refused a flight attendant's request to medicate her son to get him to quiet down and stop saying "Bye bye, plane."

Kate Penland, of suburban Atlanta, said she and her 19-month-old son, Garren, were flying from Atlanta to Oklahoma last month on a Continental Express flight that made a stop in Houston.

As the plane was taxiing in Houston en route to Oklahoma, "he started saying 'Bye, bye plane,' Penland told WSB-TV in Atlanta. The flight attendant objected, she said.

"At the end of her speech, she leaned over the gentleman beside me and said, 'It's not funny anymore. You need to shut your baby up,'" Penland told WSB-TV in Atlanta.

When Penland asked the woman if she was joking, she said the stewardess replied, "You know, it's called baby Benadryl."

"And I said, 'Well, I'm not going to drug my child so you have a pleasant flight,'" Penland told the TV station.

Penland said other passengers began speaking up on her behalf, and the flight attendant announced they were turning around and that Penland and Garren were going to be taken off the plane.

Penland and her son were let off the plane and did not complete the trip to Oklahoma, said Kristy Nicholas, spokeswoman for Express Jet Airlines, which flies as Continental Express on behalf of Continental Airlines.

Attempts by the Associated Press to reach Penland under a telephone listing that matched her last name were unsuccessful.

"I was crying, I was upset and I was thinking, 'What am I going to do? I don't have anything with me, I don't have any more diapers for the baby, no juice, no milk," Penland told WSB.

Nicholas said, "We received Ms. Penland's letter expressing her concerns and intend to investigate its contents."

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

4th of July and hot dogs

well, only in america ... do we have the celebration of independence and finally an american gaining back the title of nathan's hot dog eating contest winner. yup you got it ... the sport of competitive eating aired on espn. joey chestnut ate 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes beating the 6 times champ takeru kobayashi who finished second eating 63 hot dogs.
joey chestnut is from sunny california!

we also survived a 105 degree fun in the sun in the valley. even with 50 spf applied every 30 minutes my skin still got a slight tan.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

i am a verified member of paypal!

okay so now i am proudly displaying my paypal seal of approval ...


a link to official paypal verification seal statement

apple vs microsoft ...

on fonts.

jp emailed this article today about computer fonts and apple and microsoft are not really on the same page on how fonts should be displayed on computer screens.
apple is for the design of the fonts so blurriness doesn't really matter just as long as the typefaces look great. microsoft seemed to be on the practial side of the thinking in the readability of the fonts even if the design of typefaces are lost in the mist.
as a designer of course i prefer the typefaces to be true to their designs, why would we have so much typefaces out there to began with if all we need is something like arial to solve the problem of readability. it just seem too monotone, don't you think?

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/06/12.html

Font smoothing, anti-aliasing, and sub-pixel rendering

This item ran on the Joel on Software homepage on Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Apple and Microsoft have always disagreed in how to display fonts on computer displays. Today, both companies are using sub-pixel rendering to coax sharper-looking fonts out of typical low resolution screens. Where they differ is in philosophy.

Apple generally believes that the goal of the algorithm should be to preserve the design of the typeface as much as possible, even at the cost of a little bit of blurriness. Microsoft generally believes that the shape of each letter should be hammered into pixel boundaries to prevent blur and improve readability, even at the cost of not being true to the typeface. Now that Safari for Windows is available, which goes to great trouble to use Apple's rendering algorithms, you can actually compare the philosophies side-by-side on the very same monitor and see what I mean. I think you'll notice the difference. Apple's fonts are indeed fuzzy, with blurry edges, but at small font sizes, there seems to be much more variation between different font families, because their rendering is truer to what the font would look like if it were printed at high resolution.

(Note: To see the following illustration correctly, you need to have an LCD monitor with pixels arranged in R,G,B order, like mine. Otherwise it's going to look different and wrong.)



The difference originates from Apple's legacy in desktop publishing and graphic design. The nice thing about the Apple algorithm is that you can lay out a page of text for print, and on screen, you get a nice approximation of the finished product. This is especially significant when you consider how dark a block of text looks. Microsoft's mechanism of hammering fonts into pixels means that they don't really mind using thinner lines to eliminate blurry edges, even though this makes the entire paragraph lighter than it would be in print.

The advantage of Microsoft's method is that it works better for on-screen reading. Microsoft pragmatically decided that the design of the typeface is not so holy, and that sharp on-screen text that's comfortable to read is more important than the typeface designer's idea of how light or dark an entire block of text should feel. Indeed Microsoft actually designed font faces for on-screen reading, like Georgia and Verdana, around the pixel boundaries; these are beautiful on screen but don't have much character in print.

Typically, Apple chose the stylish route, putting art above practicality, because Steve Jobs has taste, while Microsoft chose the comfortable route, the measurably pragmatic way of doing things that completely lacks in panache. To put it another way, if Apple was Target, Microsoft would be Wal-Mart.

Now, on to the question of what people prefer. Jeff Atwood's post from yesterday comparing the two font technologies side-by-side generated rather predictable heat: Apple users liked Apple's system, while Windows users liked Microsoft's system. This is not just standard fanboyism; it reflects the fact that when you ask people to choose a style or design that they prefer, unless they are trained, they will generally choose the one that looks most familiar. In most matters of taste, when you do preference surveys, you'll find that most people don't really know what to choose, and will opt for the one that seems most familiar. This goes for anything from silverware (people pick out the patterns that match the silverware they had growing up) to typefaces to graphic design: unless people are trained to know what to look for, they're going to pick the one that is most familiar.

Which is why Apple engineers probably feel like they're doing a huge service to the Windows community, bringing their "superior" font rendering technology to the heathens, and it explains why Windows users are generally going to think that Safari's font rendering is blurry and strange and they don't know why, they just don't like it. Actually they're thinking... "Whoa! That's different. I don't like different. Why don't I like these fonts? Oh, when I look closer, they look blurry. That must be why."

About the Author: I'm your host, Joel Spolsky, a software developer in New York City. Since 2000, I've been writing about software development, management, business, and the Internet on this site. For my day job, I run Fog Creek Software, makers of FogBugz - the smart bug tracking software with the stupid name, and Fog Creek Copilot - the easiest way to provide remote tech support over the Internet, with nothing to install or configure.

Monday, May 28, 2007

star wars 30th

okay we are crazy as usual. we went to the star wars 30th anni convention at the la convention center saturday. we took théodore of course! it took an hour to get the ticket/badge to get in and it cost $45 per person except for children under 6 years of age so théodore got in for free . and we didn't even plan on staying that long, but we stayed for 4 hours. théodore enjoyed the scenery change from staying home most of the week and he had a blast running around in open space and people watching.
i haven't been to a convention for a long time ... this is by far more fan crazy than my x-files days. if you are a hardcore fans like some of the folks ... they come dressed up as their favorite star wars characters. they were all there.

well click here to view our photo of that eventful day --->>
a saturday at star wars 30th


yup, this is my badge. i love the cartoony drawing of 3cpo.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

domestic Queen

i was bored today when théodore was taking his nap. so i designed this logo for tees. what do you think?





well just check out my tees shop to see what i have so far petite spOOn tees shop

welcome to the world baby erin!

we are so happy to see the photo of baby erin sent by papa Sammy via mms.
congrats to mama Donna and papa Sammy. she is just so adorable. look at her cheeks!!! don't you just love those cheeks!!!

Friday, May 04, 2007

article on the top 25 web hoaxes

don't you just hate it when people start bombarding you with emails that has to do with urban legends. well before you read about a "must forward to your friends" email, please at least use some sense of your own to stop the chain emails by reading this.

this article is great and SNOPES is a great website to gain all the brains about hoaxes, pranks and urban legends.

The Top 25 Web Hoaxes and Pranks

Steve BassThu May 3, 4:00 AM ET

Copyright © 2007 PC World Communications, Inc.

Whether they take the form of a comic image of a giant cat or a desperate plea from a sick child, chain e-mail messages and Internet frauds are elements of the online landscape that we've all encountered. No topic is off limits: a medical warning, a promise of free money, or a believably (or shoddily) Photoshopped image. But at the end of the day, they're just elaborate hoaxes or clever pranks--and we've collected 25 of the most infamous ones ever to have graced the Internet or our inboxes.

Though some of these deceptions originated years ago, the originals--and dozens of variants--continue to make the rounds. If you keep a patient vigil over your e-mail, you too may eventually spot a message urging you to FORWARD THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!! And if you haven't had enough when you finish reading this article, take a hoax test at the Museum of Hoaxes, and then hop over to Snopes, the premier myth-dispelling site for coverage of zillions of other falsifications.

Hoaxes 1 Through 5
From the supposed last photo taken at the top of the World Trade Center to the endlessly revised request for assistance from a Nigerian functionary, here are our top five Web and e-mail hoaxes.

1. The Accidental Tourist (2001)
Quite possibly the most famous hoax picture ever, this gruesome idea of a joke traveled around the Web and made a grand tour of e-mail inboxes everywhere soon after the tragedy of September 11. It depicts a tourist standing on the observation deck of one of the World Trade Center towers, unknowingly posing for a picture as an American Airlines plane approaches in the background.

At first glance it appears to be real, but if you examine certain details, you'll see that it's a craftily modified image. For starters, the plane that struck the WTC was a wide-body Boeing 767; the one in the picture is a smaller 757. The approach of the plane in the picture is from the north, yet the building it would have hit--the North tower--didn't have an outdoor observation deck. Furthermore, the South tower's outdoor deck didn't open until 9:30 a.m. on weekdays, more than half an hour after the first plane struck the WTC. The picture is a hoax, through and through--and not a particularly amusing one, under the circumstances.

Image courtesy of Snopes.com.

2. Sick Kid Needs Your Help (1989)
This gem had its roots in reality. It all began in 1989, when nine-year-old cancer patient Craig Shergold thought of a way to achieve his dream of getting into the Guinness Book of World Records. Craig asked people to send greeting cards, and boy, did they. By 1991, 33 million greeting cards had been sent, far surpassing the prior record. Ironically, however, the Guinness World Records site doesn't contain any mention of Craig Sherwood or a "most greeting cards received" record, presumably because the fine folks at the site don't want to encourage anyone to try to break his mark. (Astonishingly, Guinness doesn't have an entry for world's stoutest person, either, but it does honor the World's Largest Tankard of Beer.)

Fortunately, doctors succeeded in removing the tumor, and Craig is now a healthy adult, but his appeal for cards has turned into the hoax that won't die. Variations on the theme include a sick girl dying of cancer, and a little boy with leukemia whose dying wish is to start an eternal chain letter. A recent iteration tells a tragic tale of a girl who supposedly was horribly burned in a fire at WalMart, and then claims that AOL will pay all of her medical bills if only if you forward this e-mail to EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!! Okay, enough already.

Image courtesy of Snopes.com.

3. Bill Gates Money Giveaway (1997)
No, it's true. I thought it was a scam, but it happened to a buddy of mine. It seems that Microsoft is testing some new program for tracing e-mail, and the company needs volunteers to help try the thing out. He forwarded me an e-mail that he received from Microsoft--and get this, from Bill Gates himself! Two weeks later, as a reward for participating, my pal received a check for thousands of dollars! Sure he did. Another version of this hoax claims that AOL's tracking service is offering a cash reward. Tell you what--when you get your check, send me 10 percent as a finder's fee, okay?

4. Five-Cent E-Mail Tax (1999)
"Dear Internet Subscriber," the e-mail starts. "The Government of the United States is quietly pushing through legislation that will affect your use of the Internet." It goes on to reveal that "Bill 602P" will authorize the U.S. Postal Service to assess a charge of five cents for every e-mail sent. Not a bad way to cut down on the number of dopey e-mail chain letters and lame jokes people let loose on the world. But credulous curse averters and connoisseurs of boffo laffs can relax: This e-mail alert, which popped up in 1999 and comes back for a visit every year or so, just isn't true. Still, it sounded plausible enough to fool Hillary Clinton during a 2000 debate when she was running for the Senate.

5. Nigerian 419 E-Mail Scam (2000)
"DEAR SIR," the e-mail starts. "FIRSTLY I MUST FIRST SOLICIT YOUR CONFIDENCE IN THIS TRANSACTION; LET ME START BY INTRODUCING MYSELF PROPERLY..." I'm sure you've received one of these--a confidential, urgent e-mail message promising you a reward of mucho dinero for helping this person convey money abroad. All you need do in return is entrust your name and bank account number to the government bureaucrat (or his uncle, aunt, or cousin, the ostensible "credit offficer with the union bank of Nigeria plc (uba) Benin branch") who needs your help.

It's the Nigerian con, also know as an Advanced Fee Fraud or 419 scam (so called because of the section number of the Nigerian criminal code that applies to it). Ancestors of these scams appeared in the 1980s, when the media of choice were letters or faxes--and they're still wildly successful at snagging people. In fact, Oprah recently featured a victim of the Nigerian scam on her show. And if you think that smart, educated folks couldn't possibly fall for it, you'll be surprised when you read "The Perfect Mark," a New Yorker magazine article profiling a Massachusetts psychotherapist who was duped--and lost a fortune.

To see how the hoax works, visit Scamorama, a fascinating site that features a progression of e-mail messages stringing along 419 scammers, sometimes for months at a time. Finally, check out the 3rd Annual Nigerian E-Mail Conference, an absolutely perfect spoof.

Hoaxes 6 Through 10
The lower half of our top 10 ranges from a kidneynapping scare to a cookie recipe worth its weight in saffron.

6. It's Kidney Harvesting Time (1996)
The subject line is laden with exclamation points: "Travelers Beware!!!" If that's not enough to get your attention, the chilling story certainly will. The message warns that an organ-harvesting crime ring is drugging tourists in New Orleans and Las Vegas, snatching their "extra" kidneys, selling the organs to non-Hippocratic hospitals, and leaving the victims to wake up in a bathtub full of ice and find a brief note that explains the situation and conveniently identifies the phone number of the nearest emergency room. Hey, maybe they'll get lucky and the hospital will have a compatible replacement kidney on hand. But travelers, fear not!!! According to the National Kidney Foundation, this scenario has never actually occurred--though it does have the makings of a great horror flick. (Freddy's Last Harvest, anyone?)

7. You've Got Virus! (1999 and on)
There's isn't a Teddy Bear virus. Nor is there a sulfnbk.exe or A Virtual Card for You ("the "WORST VIRUS EVER!!!...CNN ANNOUNCED IT. PLEASE SEND THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!!").

The jdbgmgr.exe hoax (also known as Teddy Bear because the jdbgmgr.exe file is represented by a teddy bear icon) warned recipients of the e-mail message that they were at risk of infection from a virus sent via address books or Microsoft Messenger, and that they should delete the file immediately. But in reality there was no virus--and unfortunately, jdbgmgr.exe was a necessary Java file. The sulfnbk.exe hoax nailed even advanced users with its insistence that the file--a legit one that's used for fixing long file names--was a virus. Lots of people removed it.

Similarly, A Virtual Card for You claimed that McAfee had discovered a virus that, when opened, would destroy the hard drive on an infected system and would automatically send itself to everyone on the user's e-mail contacts list. Of course, it didn't do anything except scare people. So before you forward an e-mail virus warning to anyone (especially to me), look it up on Sophos or Vmyths to make sure it isn't a fraud.

8. Microsoft Buys Firefox (2006)
Talk about scaring the entire open-source community. In October 2006, a previously unknown Web site popped up, announcing Microsoft's acquisition of Firefox and promoting the company's new Microsoft Firefox 2007 Professional. The site talks glowingly about the browser's new features and provides a video advertisement for the product. It was a great prank, and the image of the Microsoft Firefox 2007 box was so elaborate and professional looking that the blood pressure of real Firefox users went sky-high.

9. The Really Big Kitty (2001)
There are big cats and then there are even bigger cats. This one, reportedly tipping the scales at almost 90 pounds, was enormous. The claim seemed plausible and even snookered a lot of e-mail cynics (I'm raising my hand)--until they read the accompanying copy, that is. With nonsense about the owner working at Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, and more balderdash about nuclear reactors, the jig was up. Eventually, the cat's owner fessed up to a creative Photoshop session, though he claimed that he never expected anyone to believe the photo was real.

Image courtesy of Snopes.com.

10. $250 Cookie Recipe (1996)
The woman loved the cookie she had just nibbled at a Neiman Marcus cafe in Houston, so she asked her waiter for the recipe. "Two-fifty," he said, and she agreed without hesitation, instructing him to add it to her tab. But when the woman's Visa bill arrived, it read $250, instead of $2.50. Bent on revenge, she proceeded to ask you to blast the recipe to--okay, ready?--EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!! Like many hoaxes, this one predated the Internet, only to resurface in the electronic age. It appeared in a cookbook in the late 1940s as the $25 fudge cake, popped up in the 1960s as the Waldorf-Astoria red-velvet cake recipe, and re-emerged in the 1970s as the Mrs. Fields cookie recipe.

Hoaxes 11 Through 15
This group of five begins with a phoney e-mail message promising money and other prizes from Disney, and ends with the classic deaf-to-reason arguments of the Apollo moon landing deniers.

11. Free Vacation Courtesy of Disney (1998)
Dear Goofy... Forward this e-mail chain letter to everybody under the sun and, once 13,000 people have received it, Walt Disney Jr. will send five grand each to 1,300 lucky people on this list. And "the rest will recieve a free trip for two to Disney for one week during the summer of 1999." Is that Disney World, Disneyland--or Walt's house? The "Jr." after Disney, in reference to a nonexistent person, ought to have been the first clue that this was a hoax. And the misspelling of "receive" was the clincher--remember, hoaxters, "i" before "e" except after "c"). Yet people forwarded the message around the world using the time-honored e-mail chain letter adage: I'm sending it to you... just in case it's true.

12. Sunset Over Africa (2003)
Now that's a dazzling photo of Africa and Europe, taken right around sunset from the Space Shuttle Columbia. What makes the image especially amazing is that, while London remains in daylight, night has fallen in Italy (a little to the southeast) and the bright lights of Rome, Naples, and Venice are blazing. Too bad it's a digitally altered photo, most likely layered from multiple satellite images. To see an accurate, computer-generated illustration, check out the World Sunlight Map.

Image courtesy of Snopes.com.

13. Alien Autopsy at Roswell, New Mexico (1995)
Roswell, New Mexico: ground zero of UFO controversy. It's also where the movie of the Roswell alien autopsy was filmed 60 years ago. The story goes that a UFO crashed at this site, and the U.S. government performed a hush-hush autopsy on the dead alien.In the mid-1990s, unnamed individuals "discovered" the secret film and posted it for the edification of a disinformed public. Looks pretty real, right? Now fast-forward to 2006 and a conspiracy-deflating admission: The movie is a hoax created in 1995 by John Humphreys, the animator famous for Max Headroom, in his apartment in north London....Or was it???

14. Real-Time GPS Cell Phone Tracking (2007)
SunSat Satellite Solutions knows where you are.Have you heard about the Web site that can track the location of your cell phone in real time? It uses satellite GPS in combination with Google Maps, and it's amazingly accurate (not to mention a disturbing invasion of privacy). Go ahead, check it out yourself by going to the SunSat Satellite Solutions site and tracking your own cell phone's location. Select your country, type in your cell phone number, click the Start Searching button, and wait for it. (This is one of the year's best pranks. And I won't give away the ending.)


15. Apollo Moon Landing Hoax (1969)
You're aware that we never landed on the moon, right? It was all just an elaborate hoax designed to score Cold War points for the United States against the Soviet Union in a world of falling dominoes. The whole lunar landing thing? It was a video staged at movie studios and top-secret locations.

Okay, you can stop laughing now, but some sites, such as Apollo Reality and Moon Landing, still insist that the Eagle never landed. Of course, enemies of Flat Earthism will point to the Rocket and Space Technology site, which does an in-depth job of debunking the hoax. But true disbelievers should check out this terrific video spoof, complete with outtakes showing lights and cameras.

Hoaxes 16 Through 20
The world of weird eBay auction items starts off this page, which concludes with a photo hoax purporting to show a 1950s-era vision of the home computer of tomorrow.

16. Sell It on eBay! (1995)
You won't believe what people have sold on eBay--some of the items pranks, some of them for real, and some, well, it's hard to tell. For a sampling of the weird, you need look no further than a haunted tree stump and a pork chop shaped like a grizzly bear. The Internet itself once went on the market at a modest starting bid of a million bucks, as have a dozen spontaneous images of the Virgin Mary (on toast, on windows, and heaven only knows where else). Bidders have also had a shot at someone's soul, a guy's virginity, and a human kidney, with the price of this last item having reached $5.7 million before eBay pulled the plug. (Hey, guys, don't you know that what you lose in Las Vegas is supposed to stay in Las Vegas?)

But my favorite eBay offering involves a tattooed guy who, as a joke, dressed up in his ex-wife's size 12 wedding gown and put it up for auction. Only, the dress ended up selling for $3850, and the guy got five marriage proposals. Nice.

17. Chinese Newspaper Duped (2002)
Information on the Internet may want to be free--but if it's posted by a for-profit publisher, you'd better take it with a grain of salt. That's the lesson learned by China's Beijing Evening News, which was taken in by the Onion's Capitol Dome spoof. Famous for its authentic-sounding but tongue-in-cheek articles steeped in the language of the Associated Press, the Onion reported that Congress had threatened to leave Washington, D.C., and head for Memphis unless the District agreed to erect a new domed Capitol building with a retractable roof and luxury box seating. Having accepted most of the Onion article at face value, the Chinese newspaper at first stood by its source in the face of international derision and refused to back down. When it finally published a retraction, it blamed the Onion for the confusion: "Some small American newspapers frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into noticing them with the aim of making money." Right.

18. The Muppets Have Not Already Won (2001)
Osama and Bert: a Sesame Street connection to terrorism?In early October 2001, just prior to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, protesters at an anti-American rally in Bangladesh showed their support for Osama bin Laden by marching, chanting, and waving placards. One of the posters captured on film by Reuters News Agency was a photo-montage of the Al-Qaeda leader, and in one of the shots a yellow felt puppet to his right glowers furiously at the camera. It's...Bert of Sesame Street. Originally a Zelig-inspired creation of San Francisco Webmaster Dino Ignacio, the satirical Web site Bert Is Evil depicted Bert hobnobbing with the worst of the worst in history, tormenting his roommate Ernie, and generally reveling in wickedness. After Ignacio retired from active efforts to expose Bert's career of evil, others filled the Photoshop void, capturing the cone-headed miscreant with all the latest baddies-du-jour.

Evidently, the company responsible for printing the pro-Osama poster found the doctored dual portrait irresistible, although (according to the Urban Legends References Pages) its production manager claims to have produced about 2000 copies of the Osama-and-Bert poster without realizing "what they signified." Well, if you can't trust pictures you find on the Internet, what can you trust?

Image courtesy of Snopes.com.

19. Chevrolet's Not-So-Better Idea (2006)
The ad folks at Chevrolet thought they had a winner: Let site visitors create their own 30-second commercial for the company's 2007 Chevy Tahoe SUV. It'll be fun, they probably thought. We'll give them a choice of video clips and soundtracks, and let them add their own text captions. Yep, viral marketing at its best.

Unfortunately for Chevrolet, a few pranksters decided to use the opportunity to express what they thought of the SUV. One commercial said, "Like this snowy wilderness? Better get your fill of it now. Then say hello to global warming." Another lambasted the SUV as a gas guzzler: "Our planet's oil is almost gone. You don't need G.P.S. to see where this road leads."

20. Rand's 1954 Home Computer (2004)
This intriguing image of a room-size computer made the rounds of the Internet, accompanied by a breathless blurb: "This article is from an issue of 1954 'Popular Mechanics' magazine forecasting the possibility of 'home computers' in 50 years." The steering wheel in the picture is the predecessor to today's mouse, and the keyboard looks like those on teletype machines. It even comes complete with a guy right out of the Eisenhower era.

Cool stuff, and easy to believe--but it's not a 1950s Rand Corporation mockup of what a prototype home computer might look like. It's actually a shot taken of a submarine display at the Smithsonian Institution and subsequently modified for inclusion in a Fark.com image-manipulation competition.

Image courtesy of Snopes.com.

Hoaxes 21 Through 25
Our final five takes you from the ultimate instance of Microsoft hubris to an ill-conceived experiment in Internet democracy (or is that Internet anarchy?).

21. Microsoft Buys Catholic Church (1994)
More than a decade ago, an e-mail press release--from Vatican City, no less--landed in my inbox. Microsoft was announcing that it was in the process of acquiring the Roman Catholic Church in exchange for an unspecified number of shares of Microsoft common stock. The story was a prank, but it sure looked real, circulating for months and perhaps worrying residents of the Holy See.

Just think: If the press release had been true, it might have stopped the Vatican from using Linux. And no, I'm not kidding about the Linux part. Watch this video interview with the woman who helped build the Vatican's Web site.

22. Hercules, the Enormous Dog (2007)
Wow, that dog's almost as big as the horse. That's what I thought when I first looked at this e-mail. The picture depicts a couple, one walking a horse, the other holding the leash of Hercules, a 282-pound English Mastiff and "The World's Biggest Dog Ever According to Guinness World Records."

Horsepucky. Here's my analysis of the Photoshop modifications. First, take a close look at the grass under the people and the animals. The area has been subtly lightened in order to make all of the shadows match and look authentic. Next, examine the shadows and you'll notice two anomalies: First, the shadows of the dog and the man start at their feet, but the same doesn't hold true for the horse. Second, the woman's shadow is missing altogether; instead, the man's shadow extends in front of her. Oh and by the way, the Guinness World Records site doesn't have a listing for Hercules or for the world's biggest dog. Okay, okay, so the pictures of the big kitty and the big dog are both fakes--but have you seen the shot of Craig Sherwood riding the world's largest jackelope?

23. Lights-Out Gang Member Initiation (1998)
People have a tendency to believe e-mail messages that come from authority figures. In 1998, a message purportedly from a police officer working with the DARE program circulated around the Internet. It warned recipients not to flash their lights to inform oncoming cars that their headlamps were off. According to the message, a recently devised gang initiation ritual involved having new gang members drive at night with their headlights turned off until an oncoming car flashed its lights at them; then, in order to become initiated, they were to shoot everyone in that car. It's just another urban myth--and about as silly as the one claiming that gangs mark off their territory by hanging sneakers from power lines.

24. Hurricane Lili Waterspouts (2002)
It's weird, it's disturbing, and it's seemingly plausible--all of the elements necessary for a successful e-mail forward. The image shows three dark waterspouts in the distance. The subject is "here comes lili," and the e-mail began appearing in inboxes at about the same time that Hurricane Lili started battering the Louisiana coastline. But three waterspouts, all neatly lined up? According to About.com, the National Weather Service labeled the picture a hoax and said that it was a modification of a genuine photo taken in 2001 by a crew member of the Edison Chouest Offshore supply boat.

25. Pranks Shut Down Los Angeles Times Wiki (2005)
It seemed like a bright idea. The LA Times' "A Wiki for Your Thoughts" fandango asked readers to chime in on the newspaper's editorials via a Wiki. In their explanation of how it would work, the editors even acknowledged that "It sounds nutty." Yet they went ahead with it--and achieved disastrous results. The Wikitorial (the name was nearly as dumb as the scheme) brought out the best and then the worst in readers. On the first day, an editorial about the war in Iraq prompted civil and thoughtful contributions. On day two, pranksters littered the unmoderated Wiki with rude comments, pornography, and profanity. The Webmaster removed the offending entries, but only after they were available for public viewing. By the next morning, the publisher had dismantled the Wiki.

Hoaxes by Decade
E-mail, Web sites, Photoshop. The digital era has made it easier than ever to pull a fast one on a large audience.

Pre-1990 Apollo Moon Landing Hoax (1969) Sick Kid Needs Your Help (1989)1990-1999 Microsoft Buys Catholic Church (1994) Alien Autopsy at Roswell (1995) eBay Sales (1995 and on) $250 Cookie Recipe (1996) Kidney Harvesting (1996) Bill Gates Money Giveaway (1997) Disney Jr. Free Vacation (1998) Lights-Out Gang Member Initiation (1998) Five-Cent E-Mail Tax (1999) Virus Hoaxes (1999 and on)2000 and on Nigerian 419 E-Mail Scam (2000) Giant Cat Photo (2001) World Trade Center Photo (2001) Bert and Osama bin Laden (2001) Hurricane Lili Waterspouts (2002) Onion Dupes Chinese Newspaper (2002) Sunset Over Africa (2003) Rand's 1954 Home Computer (2004) Los Angeles Times Wiki (2005) User-Created Commercials for Chevy Tahoe (2006) Microsoft Buys Firefox (2006) GPS Cell Phone Tracking (2007) Hercules, the Enormous Dog (2007)

Thursday, May 03, 2007

our new website!

yeah it is finally up ... well at least partially.

ChiaLu

and of course when one is up my design website is down until May 18th!

Thursday, April 26, 2007

it's a girl



i am at my week 20 ... woohoo ... i am half way!
her due date is september 11th, 2007 and she will be a golden pig in the chinese zodiac signs.
her name is clementine and nickname will be clemmie.
we are all excited here.
i will be a mother of two.
jp will be one of those protective dads ... like the t-mobile commerical we saw yesterday with the dad looking at his daugther's boyfriend with a cold hard stare ... maybe in 15 years.
théodore will have a little sister to play with. they will be a little shy of 2 years apart and i hope that makes them great buddies.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Va. Tech massacre

what a crazy shoot out!?!? after i woke up from a great nap with baby, this shoot out was unfolding on the news. during dinner time the feds and others still haven't found out the identity of the gunman ... i told my party ... "you wanna bet it is some crazy asian dude who couldn't take it anymore!" ... and i was right ... i thought it was a chinese dude, but they announced that it was some anti social korean dude.

he came to this country the same year as i did in 1992 ... i guess american style was too stressful for him.

it is just sad that all this has to happen ... and the stupid president of va. tech didn't even think twice about closing down the campus that is just beyond words to me. what a stupid ass. those other 30 students taking classes in Norris Hall shouldn't have died.

it will take a lot of time to heal ...


from yahoo.com news

Va. Tech: Gunman student from S. Korea

By ADAM GELLER, AP National Writer 9 minutes ago

The gunman suspected of carrying out the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead was identified Tuesday as a senior English major from South Korea. But police and university officials offered no clue to his motive.

"He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him," school spokesman Larry Hincker said, a day after the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

The rampage consisted of two attacks, more than two hours apart — first at a dormitory, where two people were killed, then inside a classroom building, where 31 people, including the gunman, died after being locked inside, Virginia State Police said. The gunman committed suicide.

Police identified the gunman in the classroom attack as 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui (pronounced Choh Suhng-whee). Cho held a green card — meaning he was a legal, permanent U.S. resident — and had been in the United States since 1992, federal officials said. Officials said he graduated from a public high school in Chantilly, Va., in 2003.

His family lives in Centreville, Va., a Washington suburb, but he was living on campus, in a different dorm from the one where the bloodbath began, the university said.

One law enforcement official said Cho's backpack contained a receipt for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol. As a permanent legal resident of the United States, Cho was eligible to buy a handgun unless he had been convicted of a felony.

Investigators stopped short of saying Cho carried out both attacks. But ballistics tests show one gun was used in both, Virginia State Police said.

And two law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced, said Cho's fingerprints were found on the two guns used in the rampage. The serial numbers on the two weapons had been filed off, the officials said.

Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said it was reasonable to assume that Cho was the shooter in both attacks but that the link was not yet definitive. "There's no evidence of any accomplice at either event, but we're exploring the possibility," he said.

The gunman's family lived in an off-white, two-story town house in Centreville.

"He was very quiet, always by himself," neighbor Abdul Shash said of the gunman. Shash said the gunman spent a lot of his free time playing basketball, and wouldn't respond if someone greeted him. He described the family as quiet.

Marshall Main, who lives across the street, said the family had lived in the townhouse for several years.

According to court records, Virginia Tech Police issued a speeding ticket to Cho on April 7 for going 44 mph in a 25 mph zone, and he had a court date set for May 23.

South Korea's Foreign Ministry expressed its condolences, and said South Korea hoped that the tragedy would not "stir up racial prejudice or confrontation."

"We are in shock beyond description," said Cho Byung-se, a ministry official handling North American affairs. "We convey deep condolences to victims, families and the American people."

A memorial service was planned for the victims Tuesday afternoon at the university, and President Bush planned to attend, the White House said. Gov. Tim Kaine was flying back to Virginia from Tokyo for the gathering.

Classes were canceled for the rest of the week.

Many students were leaving town quickly, lugging pillows, sleeping bags and backpacks down the sidewalks.

Jessie Ferguson, 19, a freshman from Arlington, left Newman Hall and headed for her car with tears streaming down her red cheeks.

"I'm still kind of shaky," she said. "I had to pump myself up just to kind of come out of the building. I was going to come out, but it took a little bit of 'OK, it's going to be all right. There's lots of cops around.'"

Although she wanted to be with friends, she wanted her family more. "I just don't want to be on campus," she said.

Will Nachlas, 19, a freshman from Hershey, Pa., sat on a bench, waiting for a ride.

"The majority of people are leaving campus, trying to get away," he said. "Lots of people are going home, and lots of people's parents took them home. They don't even know when they'll come back."

The first deadly attack was at the dormitory around 7:15 a.m., but some students said they didn't get their first warning about a danger on campus until two hours later, in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m. By then the second attack had begun.

Two students told NBC's "Today" show they were unaware of the dorm shooting when they walked into Norris Hall for a German class where the gunman later opened fire.

The victims in Norris Hall were found in four different classrooms and a stairwell, Flaherty said. Cho was found dead in one of those classrooms, he said.

Derek O'Dell, his arm in a cast after being shot, described a shooter who fired away in "eerily silence" with "no specific target — just taking out anybody he could."

After the gunman left the room, students could hear him shooting other people down the hall. O'Dell said he and other students barricaded the door so the shooter couldn't get back in — though he later tried.

"After he couldn't get the door open he tried shooting it open ... but the gunshots were blunted by the door," O'Dell said.

The slayings left people of this mountain town and the university at its heart praying for the victims and struggling to find order in a tragedy of such unspeakable horror it defies reason.

"For Ryan and Emily and for those whose names we do not know," one woman pleaded in a church service Monday night.

Another mourner added: "For parents near and far who wonder at a time like this, 'Is my child safe?'"

University President Charles Steger emphasized that the university closed off the dorm after the first attack and decided to rely on e-mail and other electronic means to spread the word.

He said that before the e-mail was sent, the university began telephoning resident advisers in the dorms and sent people to knock on doors. Students were warned to stay inside and away from the windows.

"We can only make decisions based on the information you had at the time. You don't have hours to reflect on it," Steger said.

Until Monday, the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby's Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.

Previously, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history was a rampage that took place in 1966 at the University of Texas at Austin, where Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower and opened fire with a rifle from the 28th-floor observation deck. He killed 16 people before he was shot to death by police.

___

Associated Press Writer Justin Pope in Blacksburg contributed to this report.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

sivvy - Sylvia Plath - her image and words

i have a limited edition of 50 art print of sivvy available at my petite shop

click here to the link sivvy



a confessional poet with a tragic end

she is one of my favorite poets along with anne sexton and sharon olds

this weaved collage was made for a pseudo bookcover after reading her collection of poems called ariel

i made black and white copies of her image and her typed text
cut those into stripes and started weaving away
took a photograph of the collage and manipulated the image further using photoshop

the image is 5 X 7 inches on 8 1/2 X 11 legion paper - legion photo matte
it is a photo quality art paper for professional prints
it is heavyweight and pH netural / archival
printed on epson 2200 and with epson inks

limited edition print of 50 ... signed and dated 2004 (when this piece was created)

price $25.00

click here to the link sivvy

Thursday, April 05, 2007

new pepsi can design - pepsi diamond

since the pepsi contest site sux with uploading ... i am just going to post the image here for fun =P

us postal rate increase

this is not going to help the mail go any faster. yes and it is going to be effective may 14th. oh boy i just bought a roll of 100 of the 39 cents! ... so 7% hike will be about an additional 3 cents to the pot.

i wait in line an average of 15 minutes at the post office and sometimes when it is super busy 30 minutes and the paying booths are not full with postal worker taking your money. if they are going to put a hike on the stamps, they better hire more people and help move the line ... seriously you shouldn't have to wait more than 5 minutes to get your stuff mailed.

"The Postal Service has filed a rate case with the Postal Rate Commission (PRC) asking for a system-wide average rate increase of 8.5%. Standard mail rates would go up an average of 9%, while First-Class rates will rise an average 7.1%. This rate increase comes on the heels of a 5.4% increase in January 2006.

This is the first rate case the Postal Service has filed without reaching a negotiated settlement with mailers in more than five years. The full process of litigating this case before the PRC will likely take about ten months. It is expected that the new rates would take effect around May 2007."

Saturday, March 31, 2007

sweet crochet markers

sunday sundaes - cute lampwork beads charms or crochet markers





available at my petite shop sunday sundaes

you can use sunday sundaes as your sweet charms on your bracelet or necklace
or
if you crochet these will add to your sweet tooth

the lampwork sundaes hangs 1 inches from sterling silver lobster clasps and held together by sterling silver head pins

swEEt

if you like these made into earrings please let me know

Monday, March 26, 2007

basketball madness

i didn't get a chance to watch all the games, but whatever i can. some games were so close. i am glad 2 of 4 of the teams i picked for the final four made it to the final. i have ucla and ohio st. i hope those two teams beat their opponents florida and georgetown respectively. i was sad that unc lost, but oh well.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

did ucla deserve to win?

well, it was a great game to the end and indiana never came to lead. indiana definitely had some great defense for the 2nd half of the game which made the game very exciting. i was glued to the t.v. till to end of the game.

ucla won and they deserve that win ... cause i need them to play pitt!!!

pro bono design work

i worked on something fun.

got craft? identity and collaterals for a local craft fair in vancouver. they are just starting out. if you are in vancouver go check them out and let me know if it was fun!


identity



postcard front



postcard back



poster