100 New Things

And now for this year, BBC gives you 100 things we didn't know last year
Posted Thursday, 28 December 2006 at 12:22 UK time

1. Just 20 words make up a third of teenagers' everyday speech.More details
2. There are 200 million blogs which are no longer being updated, say technology analysts.More details
3. Urban birds have developed a short, fast "rap style" of singing, different from their rural counterparts.More details
4. Bristol is the least anti-social place in England, says the National Audit Office.More details
5. Standard-sized condoms are too big for most Indian men.More details
6. The late Alan "Fluff" Freeman, famous as a DJ, had trained as an opera singer.More details
7. The lion costume in the film Wizard of Oz was made from real lions.More details
8. There are 6.5 million sets of fingerprints on file in the UK.More details
9. Fathers tend to determine the height of their child, mothers their weight.More details
10. Panspermia is the idea that life on Earth originated on another planet.More details
11. An infestation of head lice is called pediculosis.More details
12. The Pope's been known to wear red Prada shoes.More details
13. The fastest supercomputer in the UK can make 15.4 trillion calculations per second.More details14. Online shoppers will only wait an average of four seconds for an internet page to load before giving up.More details
15. Donald Rumsfeld was both the youngest and the oldest defence secretary in US history.More details
16. Spending on Halloween has risen 10-fold - from £12m to £120m in the UK, in five years.More details
17. Coco Chanel started the trend for sun tans in 1923 when she got accidentally burnt on a cruise.More details
18. Up to 25% of hospital keyboards carry the MRSA infection.More details
19. The UK population grew at a rate of 500 per day last year as immigration out-stripped emigration.More details
20. Sex workers in Roman times charged the equivalent price of eight glasses of red wine.More details
21. English is now the only "traditional" academic subject in the top 10 most popular university courses.More details
22. The number of people committing suicide in the UK has fallen to its lowest recorded level.More details
23. More than one in eight people in the United States show signs of addiction to the internet, says a study.More details
24. One third of all the cod fished in the world is consumed in the UK.More details
25. In Kingston upon Thames, men on average live to be 78. In Kingston-upon-Hull it is 73.More details
26. Each person sends an average of 55 greetings cards per year.More details
27. Just one cow gives off enough harmful methane gas in a single day to fill around 400 litre bottles.More details
28. More than 90% of plane crashes have survivors.More details
29. Tony Blair’s favourite meal to cook is spaghetti bolognaise.More details
30. The brain is soft and gelatinous - its consistency is something between jelly and cooked pasta.More details
31. The Mona Lisa used to hang on the wall of Napoleon’s bedroom.More details
32. Barbie's full name is Barbie Millicent Roberts.More details33. Eating a packet of crisps a day is equivalent to drinking five litres of cooking oil a year.More details
34. Plant seeds that have been stored for more than 200 years can be coaxed into new life.More details
35. There were no numbers in the very first UK phone directory, only names and addresses. Operators would connect callers.More details
36. The InterCity 125 train was designed by the same man who came up with the angle-poise lamp and Kenwood Chef mixer.More details
37. Pavements are tested using an 80 square metre artificial pavement at a research centre called Pamela (the Pedestrian Accessibility and Movement Environment Laboratory).More details
38. A common American poplar has twice as many genes as a human being.More details
39. The world's fastest supercomputer will have its speed measured in "petaflops", which represent 1,000 trillion calculations per second. More details
40. The medical name for the part of the brain associated with teenage sulking is "superior temporal sulcus".More details
41. Some Royal Mail stamps, which of course carry the Queen's image, are printed in Holland.More details
42. Helen Mirren was born Ilyena Lydia Moronoff, the daughter of a Russian-born violinist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.More details
43. There is only one cheddar cheese maker in Cheddar, even though cheddar is the most popular hard cheese in the English-speaking world.More details
44. For every 10 successful attempts to climb Mount Everest there is one fatality.More details
45. Cows can have regional accents, says a professor of phonetics, after studying cattle in Somerset More details
46. Involuntary bad language, a symptom affecting about one in 10 people with Tourette's syndrome, is called "coprolalia". More details
47. Watching television can act as a natural painkiller for children, say researchers from the University of Siena. More details
48. Allotment plots come in the standard measure of 10 poles - a pole is the length of the back of the plough to the nose of the ox. More details
49. When filming summer scenes in winter, actors suck on ice cubes just before the camera rolls - it cools their mouths so their breath doesn't condense in the cold air. More details
50. There are 60 Acacia Avenues in the UK. More details
51. Gritters come out in hot weather too - to spread rock dust, which stops roads melting.More details
52. Forty-eight percent of the population is ex-directory. More details
53. Red Buttons - real name Aaron Chwatt - took his surname from the nickname for hotel porters, a job he did in his teens. More details
54. The CND symbol incorporates the semaphore letters for N and D for nuclear and disarmament. More details
55. While 53% of households have access to a garage, only 24% use them for parking cars. More details
56. Mortgage borrowing now accounts for 42% of take-home salary.More details
57. The word "time" is the most common noun in the English language, according to the latest Oxford dictionary. More details
58. Forty-one percent of English women have punched or kicked their partners, according to a study. More details
59. Dogs with harelips can end up with two noses. More details
60. The clitoris derives its name from the ancient Greek word kleitoris, meaning "little hill". More details
61. A domestic cat can frighten a black bear to climb a tree. More details
62. Thirty-four percent of the UK has a surname that is ranked as "posher" than the Royal Family's given name, Windsor. More details
63. The Downing St garden is actually a Royal Park. More details
64. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs is the term for people who fear the number 666. More details
65. The more panels a football has - and therefore the more seams - the easier it is to control in the air. More details
66. One in four smokers use roll-ups. More details
67. Music can help reduce chronic pain by more than 20% and can alleviate depression by up to 25%. More details
68. The egg came first. More details
69. Humans were first infected with the HIV virus in the 1930s. More details
70. Sir Paul McCartney is only the second richest music millionaire in the UK - Clive Calder, is top. More details
71. Publishers have coined the term "Brownsploitation" for the rash of books that have sprung up in the wake of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code blockbuster. More details
72. Modern teenagers are better behaved than their counterparts of 20 years ago, showing "less problematic behaviour" involving sex, drugs and drink. More details
73. George Bush's personal highlight of his presidency is catching a 7.5lb (3.4kg) perch. More details
74. Britain is still paying off debts that predate the Napoleonic wars because it's cheaper to do so than buy back the bonds on which they are based. More details
75. Five billion apples are eaten a year in the UK. More details76. In Bhutan government policy is based on Gross National Happiness; thus most street advertising is banned, as are tobacco and plastic bags. More details
77. Metal detector enthusiasts are referred to as "detectorists"; there are about 30,000 in the UK. More details
78. The Labour Party spent £299.63 on Star Trek outfits for the last election, while the Tories shelled out £1,269 to import groundhog costumes. More details
79. The best-value consumer purchase in terms of the price and usage is an electric kettle. More details
80. Camel's milk, which is widely drunk in Arab countries, has 10 times more iron than cow's milk. More details
81. Iceland has the highest concentration of broadband users in the world. More details
82. There are 2.5 million rodent-owning households in Britain, according to the Pet Food Manufacturers' Association. More details
83. Rainfall on the roof and gutters of a three-bed detached house can amount to 120,000 litres each year. More details
84. Thinking about your muscles can make you stronger. More details
85. The age limit for marriage in France was, until recently, 15 for girls, but 18 for boys. The age for girls was raised to 18 in 2006. More details
86. Six million people use TV subtitles, despite having no hearing impairment. More details
87. Goths, those pasty-faced teenagers who revel in black clothing, are likely to become doctors, lawyers and architects. More details
88. Nelson Mandela used to steal pigs as a child. More details
89. There are an average of 4.4 sparrows in each British garden. In 1979, there were 10 per garden. More details
90. The Himalayas cover one-tenth of the Earth's surface. More details
91. Lord Levy, recruited by Tony Blair to raise money for the Labour party, made his own fortune managing Alvin Stardust, among others. More details
92. In a fight between a polar bear and a lion, the polar bear would win. More details
93. If left alone, 70% of birthmarks gradually fade away. More details
94. There are two million cars and trucks in Brazil which run on alcohol. More details
95. US Secret Service sniffer dogs are put up in five-star hotels during overseas presidential visits. More details
96. Flushing a toilet costs, on average, 1.5p. More details
97. Tufty the road safety squirrel had a surname. It was Fluffytail. More details
98. A "lost world" exists in the Indonesian jungle that is home to dozens of hitherto unknown animal and plant species. More details
99. The term "misfeasance" means to carry out a legal act illegally. More details
100. In the 1960s, the CIA used to watch Mission Impossible to get ideas about spying. More details

100 in 2005

100 things you did not know in 2004 and you won't know until you read this from BBC:

1. The UK's first mobile phone call was made 20 years ago this year, when Ernie Wise rang the Vodafone head office, which was then above a curry shop in Newbury.
2. Mohammed is now one of the 20 most popular names for boys born in England and Wales.
3. While it's an offence to drop litter on the pavement, it's not an offence to throw it over someone's garden wall.
4. An average record shop needs to sell at least two copies of a CD per year to make it worth stocking, according to Wired magazine.
5. Nicole Kidman is scared of butterflies. "I jump out of planes, I could be covered in cockroaches, I do all sorts of things, but I just don't like the feel of butterflies' bodies," she says.
6. WD-40 dissolves cocaine - it has been used by a pub landlord to prevent drug-taking in his pub's toilets.
7. Baboons can tell the difference between English and French. Zoo keepers at Port Lympne wild animal park in Kent are having to learn French to communicate with the baboons which had been transferred from Paris zoo.
8. Devout Orthodox Jews are three times as likely to jaywalk as other people, according to an Israeli survey reported in the New Scientist. The researchers say it's possibly because religious people have less fear of death.
9. The energy used to build an average Victorian terrace house would be enough to send a car round the Earth five times, says English Heritage.
10. Humans can be born suffering from a rare condition known as "sirenomelia" or "mermaid syndrome", in which the legs are fused together to resemble the tail of a fish.
11. One in 10 Europeans is allegedly conceived in an Ikea bed.
12. Until the 1940s rhubarb was considered a vegetable. It became a fruit when US customs officials, baffled by the foreign food, decided it should be classified according to the way it was eaten.
13. Prince Charles broke with an 80-year tradition by giving Camilla Parker Bowles a wedding ring fashioned from Cornish gold, instead of the nugget of Welsh gold that has provided rings for all royal brides and grooms since 1923.
14. It's possible for a human to blow up balloons via the ear. A 55-year-old factory worker from China reportedly discovered 20 years ago that air leaked from his ears, and he can now inflate balloons and blow out candles.
15. Lionesses like their males to be deep brunettes.
16. The London borough of Westminster has an average of 20 pieces of chewing gum for every square metre of pavement.
17. Bosses at Madame Tussauds spent £10,000 separating the models of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston when they separated. It was the first time the museum had two people's waxworks joined together.
18. If all the Smarties eaten in one year were laid end to end it would equal almost 63,380 miles, more than two-and-a-half times around the Earth's equator.
19. The = sign was invented by 16th Century Welsh mathematician Robert Recorde, who was fed up with writing "is equal to" in his equations. He chose the two lines because "noe 2 thynges can be moare equalle".
20. The Queen has never been on a computer, she told Bill Gates as she awarded him an honorary knighthood.
21. One person in four has had their identity stolen or knows someone who has.
22. The length of a man's fingers can reveal how physically aggressive he is, scientists say.
23. In America it's possible to subpoena a dog.
24. The 71m packets of biscuits sold annually by United Biscuits, owner of McVitie's, generate 127.8 tonnes of crumbs.
25. Nelson probably had a broad Norfolk accent.
26. One in four people does not know 192, the old number for directory inquiries in the UK, has been abolished.
27. Only in France and California are under 18s banned from using sunbeds.
28. The British buy the most compact discs in the world - an average of 3.2 per year, compared to 2.8 in the US and 2.1 in France.
29. When faced with danger, the octopus can wrap six of its legs around its head to disguise itself as a fallen coconut shell and escape by walking backwards on the other two legs, scientists discovered.
30. There are an estimated 1,000 people in the UK in a persistent vegetative state.
31. Train passengers in the UK waited a total of 11.5m minutes in 2004 for delayed services.
32. "Restaurant" is the most mis-spelled word in search engines.
33. Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho has only been in an English pub once, to buy his wife cigarettes.
34. The Little Britain wheelchair sketch with Lou and Andy was inspired by Lou Reed and Andy Warhol.
35. The name Lego came from two Danish words "leg godt", meaning "play well". It also means "I put together" in Latin.
36. The average employee spends 14 working days a year on personal e-mails, phone calls and web browsing, outside official breaks, according to employment analysts Captor.
37. Cyclist Lance Armstrong's heart is almost a third larger than the average man's.
38. Nasa boss Michael Griffin has seven university degrees: a bachelor's degree, a PhD, and five masters degrees.
39. Australians host barbecues at polling stations on general election days.
40. An average Briton will spend £1,537,380 during his or her lifetime, a survey from insurer Prudential suggests.
41. Tactically, the best Monopoly properties to buy are the orange ones: Vine Street, Marlborough Street and Bow Street.
42. Britain's smallest church, near Malmesbury, Wiltshire, opens just once a year. It measures 4m by 3.6m and has one pew.
43. The spiciness of sauces is measured in Scoville Units.
44. Rubber gloves could save you from lightning.
45. C3PO and R2D2 do not speak to each other off-camera because the actors don't get on.
46. Driving at 159mph - reached by the police driver cleared of speeding - it would take nearly a third of a mile to stop.
47. Liverpool has 42 cranes redeveloping the city centre.
48. A quarter of the world's clematis come from one Guernsey nursery, where production will top 4.5m plants this year alone.
49. Tim Henman has a tennis court at his new home in Oxfordshire which he has never used.
50. Only 36% of the world's newspapers are tabloid.
51. Parking wardens walk about 15 miles a day.
52. You're 10 times more likely to be bitten by a human than a rat.
53. It takes 75kg of raw materials to make a mobile phone.
54. Deep Throat is reportedly the most profitable film ever. It was made for $25,000 (£13,700) and has grossed more than $600m.
55. Antony Worrall-Thompson swam the English Channel in his youth.
56. The Pyruvate Scale measures pungency in onions and garlic. It's named after the acid in onions which makes cooks cry when cutting them.
57. The man who was the voice of one of the original Daleks, Roy Skelton, also did the voices for George and Zippy in Rainbow.
58. The average guest at a Buckingham Palace garden party scoffs 14 cakes, sandwiches, scones and ice-cream, according to royal accounts.
59. Oliver Twist is very popular in China, where its title is translated as Foggy City Orphan.
60. Newborn dolphins and killer whales don't sleep for a month, according to research carried out by University of California.
61. You can bet on your own death.
62. MPs use communal hairbrushes in the washrooms of the Houses of Parliament.
63. It takes less energy to import a tomato from Spain than to grow them in this country because of the artificial heat needed, according to Defra.
64. New York mayor Michael Bloomberg's home number is listed by directory inquiries.
65. Actor James Doohan, who played Scotty, had a hand in creating the Klingon language that was used in the movies, and which Shakespeare plays were subsequently translated into.
66. The hotter it is, the more difficult it is for aeroplanes to take off. Air passengers in Nevada, where temperatures have reached 120F, have been told they can't fly.
67. Giant squid eat each other - especially during sex.
68. The Very Hungry Caterpillar has sold one copy every minute since its 1969 publication.
69. First-born children are less creative but more stable, while last-born are more promiscuous.
70. Reebok, which is being bought by Adidas, traces its history back more than 100 years to Bolton.
71. Jimi Hendrix pretended to be gay to be discharged from the US Army.
72. A towel doesn't legally reserve a sun lounger - and there is nothing in German or Spanish law to stop other holidaymakers removing those left on vacant seats.
73. One in six children think that broccoli is a baby tree.
74. It takes a gallon of oil to make three fake fur coats.
75. Each successive monarch faces in a different direction on British coins.
76. The day when most suicides occurred in the UK between 1993 and 2002 was 1 January, 2000.
77. The only day in that time when no-one killed themselves was 16 March, 2001, the day Comic Relief viewers saw Jack Dee win Celebrity Big Brother.
78. One in 18 people has a third nipple.
79. The section of coast around Cleethorpes has the highest concentration of caravans in Europe. 80. Fifty-seven Bic Biros are sold every second - amounting to 100bn since 1950.
81. George Bernard Shaw named his shed after the UK capital so that when visitors called they could be told he was away in London.
82. Former Labour MP Oona King's aunt is agony aunt Miriam Stoppard.
83. Britain produces 700 regional cheeses, more even than France.
84. The actor who plays Mike Tucker in BBC Radio 4's The Archers is the father of the actor who plays Will Grundy.
85. Japanese knotweed can grow from a piece of root the size of pea. And it can flourish anew if disturbed after lying dormant for more than 20 years.
86. Hecklers are so-called because of militant textile workers in Dundee.
87. Pulling your foot out of quicksand takes a force equivalent to that needed to lift a medium-sized car.
88. A single "mother" spud from southern Peru gave rise to all the varieties of potato eaten today, scientists have learned.
89. Spanish Flu, the epidemic that killed 50 million people in 1918/9, was known as French Flu in Spain.
90. Ordinary - not avian - flu kills about 12,000 people in the UK every winter.
91. Croydon has more CCTV cameras than New York.
92. You are 176 times more likely to be murdered than to win the National Lottery.
93. Koalas have fingerprints exactly like humans (although obviously smaller).
94. Bill Gates does not have an iPod.
95. The first traffic cones were used in building Preston bypass in the late 1950s, replacing red lantern paraffin burners.
96. Britons buy about one million pumpkins for Halloween, 99% of which are used for lanterns rather than for eating.
97. The mother of stocky cricketer - and this year's Strictly Come Dancing champion - Darren Gough was a ballet dancer. She helped him with his pivots.
98. Nettles growing on land where bodies are buried will reach a foot higher than those growing elsewhere.
99. The Japanese word "chokuegambo" describes the wish that there were more designer-brand shops on a given street.
100. Musical instrument shops must pay an annual royalty to cover shoppers who perform a recognisable riff before they buy, thereby making a "public performance".

Holy Air

Buy this in ebay. The holiest air ever bottled. It was bottled 7 years ago, at Christmas Eve of the New Millennium (December 25th 1999), in the Holy Land of Israel, under the sky of Jerusalem, Nazareth and Bethlehem. It was bottled at the Very Magical Moment when the First Star appeared in the Evening Sky and announced the New Millennium Birthday of Jesus Christ. 0 bid yet.

Are New Yorker cartoons funny?

It's Wednesday afternoon and David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, is picking cartoons. A few minutes ago, Bob Mankoff, the magazine's cartoon editor, entered Remnick's office carrying three wire baskets and 81 cartoons. The baskets are labeled Yes, No and Maybe. The cartoons are the ones Mankoff chose from the nearly 1,000 he received since the previous Wednesday's meeting. Now, with the help of Managing Editor Jacob Lewis, Remnick will decide which ones the magazine will buy.
He picks a cartoon out of the pile. It's by Roz Chast, the New Yorker's queen of modern neurosis. This cartoon is a gallery of fictitious "Excuse Cards." Smiling in anticipation, Remnick starts reading.
"You know, some of these are not great," he says, sadly.
"I like the concept of it," says Lewis.
"I'm not sure this is working," Remnick says and the cartoon goes into the No basket.
Aray ko.

80s!!!!!!!

Trapped in an Escher Illusion

Your life so far. Times forever. Hallucii is an animated movie created by Goo-Shun Wang about a guy trapped in an M.C. Escher illusion.

Merry Christmas

Wait for August 3

Reminder, Mga Ate

SONGYUAN, China -- Qiao Yubo, who is pregnant with at least five babies, walks with her husband, right, in Songyuan, in China's northeast Jilin province. Qiao, who is 1.67-meters tall, has a waistline measurement of 1.75 meters, five months into her pregnancy. Qiao's excessive bulk is causing difficulties in getting around, with taxi drivers too afraid to take her in their cars. Her clothing is all custom-made and she eats up to seven meals a day. (06/16/06 AP photo)

This image turned out to be a hoax. The woman (what a haircut) turned out to have hidden clothes inside her clothes to make her look so humungous. When offered free medical check-up, she ran off. She later confessed but she was indeed preggy.

Santa's Butt

In this image released by Shelton Brothers, the design for a beer bottle label is shown. In a complaint filed, Shelton Brothers accuses the Maine Bureau of Liquor Enforcement of censorship for denying applications for labels for Santa's Butt Winter Porter and two other beers it wants to sell in Maine. The episode is reminiscent of last year when Connecticut told Shelton Brothers it had problems with its Seriously Bad Elf ale

Super Snow

There was much hullabaloo about snow in Baguio. The mayor mentioned that in passing and some journalists heard it and made sure the young mayor would not forget it. Then there were one lady headline-grabber who said it was her idea. The city council denied even talking about it. The DENR said they will not permit it. AND NOT A SINGLE SNOWFLAKE FELL. Well forget all these attempts to produce snow from newspapers. Here's the real deal:

Super Snow expands to more than 100 times its size. Super Snow can be reused and lasts for 4 to 6 weeks. Super Snow lasts ten times longer than other snow, makes four times that of other powders, and actually glistens and sparkles like real snow. Super Snow can be used at parties, weddings, festivals, floats, and much more. Super Snow has been used on movie sets and indoor snowboarding parks. Super Snow is used by farmers to grow more drought-tolerant crops

NOt so Xmas Thoughts

What to ponder during the Holiday break:
1) Shylock Is Shakespeare (University of Chicago Press), by Kenneth Gross of the University of Rochester, a virtuoso critic, identifies the moneylender with the playwright, making Shylock a character into whom the greatest of all writers poured his own ambivalence, anger and insecurity. Gross argues that Shakespeare found in Shylock a way "to articulate his own doubt, desire and rage, his troubled solitude." Gross imagines Shakespeare speaking to us, admitting, "This character I?ve made, this Shylock, is myself. We are both opportunists of reading and speaking, making capital of human weakness, error and accident."
2. Do not trust your biographer as Nadine Gordimer realized too late. ‘Ronald is my biographer,” she says. “ ‘He is dangerous.’ She paused with the kind of grimace easily mistaken for a smile: ‘It’s a very strange relationship.’ ” Indeed.
3. Archimedes did not shout "Eureka!" while having his bath after discovering the laws of buoyancy. But then the truth is not as exciting so Eureka! should stay.
4. There is a new theory on gravity. Quick! What are the old ones?
5. The new Swiss Army knife contains 85 devices, weighs 2lb and costs nearly £500. The Swiss knife issued to the Swiss Army does not have a corkscrew.
6. Nuns are blogging. Few appear to be troubled by their vows of celibacy, although one Filipino nun, calling herself Shireyu-san, confesses in her blog that she is constantly “tempted by the wants of the world . . . I know I must overcome the weakness of the flesh”.
7. One woman had 100,000 sex partners. And BBC is so much happy to be the 100,001st.
8. Almost a century later, a doctor now says that Thomas Hardy might have infected his own wife of syphilis.
9. God killed at least 2,272,365 people according to the Bible. The worst was when "The Lord smote the Ethiopians" (1 million) and when He delivered Israel into the hands of Judah (500,000).
10. How many did Satan killed, according to the Bible? Ten.

I Like New Year Better

The difference between boys and women.

Tabloid Sex Tips

From Nerve:

I'm having sex with a coworker. How can we keep it a secret and evade office gossip?

David Perel, 45 Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer: Forget it, it's
not going to happen. I don't think I've met more than three people in this world
who can keep a secret. Find me the first guy who has never told his friends, and
we'll put him in the Smithsonian. Since it's going to get out anyway, just put
your own spin on it.

Joy Kendra Miller, 30 Red carpet/events reporter for Star: Talk about a
fantastic new boyfriend to everyone who will listen. Then once the gossip starts
about you and the coworker, act incredulous that they would suggest that you
would cheat on your amazing new imaginary boyfriend. They'll feel stupid, and
eventually they'll drop it. Or you could embrace the gossip and ramble on about
the coworker's sexual prowess so much that it makes everyone so uncomfortable
they begin to leave you alone.

What are the ethics on sleeping with someone for information?

DP: Don't get caught, and don't break up until you get the full story.

JKM: Everybody does it. It's an unwritten, completely kosher rule, and
eventually if you need good information, you're going to have to do it.
Hopefully, you'll have to extract information on Orlando Bloom and not Clay
Aiken. Every tabloid reporter eventually does something that they wouldn't agree
to under normal circumstances, whether it's digging through garbage, or showing
up at Ben Affleck's grandmother's doorstep to ask if she likes Jennifer, or
sleeping with a celebrity, assistant, or mail-room clerk for information. Get
over it. I once had to sleep with a celebrity, who thankfully was hot, in order
to find out if he was still with his baby's mama. I was supposed to flirt with
him, and it just went above and beyond. We hung out in his hotel room and had
sex, and I got all the information on his baby and got a picture. I had my
editor pay for me to have a spa the day after to help wash off the shame.

Patrick Huguenin, 22 Staff writer for "Rush & Molloy" at the New York
Daily News: I personally would never sleep with someone for information. But I
think it's only fair to do if you're upfront about your profession, and that
you're seeking information. If you give fair and clear warning, you can let your
seductive wiles do the rest

So it's okay to do it.

DP: It happens all the time whether it's okay or not. You see journalists
with government officials, you see journalists with other journalists, you see
journalists with sources, and the truth is, sometimes that's how you get some of
your best information.

Do you have an example?

DP: Yeah, but I'm not going to tell you. It wasn't me, it was a close
friend of mine. Let's just say it involved a very high-profile national story,
and the story went on for more than a year, and he slept with more than one
female family member — sisters. Everything was going well until the sisters
compared notes. Then it got kind of messy.

I want to fuck a celebrity. How do I do this?

DP: We have a word for people like this: stalkers. But if you insist, the
best way to do it is to go to the clubs where they go in L.A., make sure you're
at the right place at the right time and let nature take its course. In terms of
clothing, it depends on the celebrity, but leave as little to the imagination as
possible. Plus, celebrities are really not that imaginative. If this is your
goal, make it obvious. C-list will be a lot easier to get to and score with.
A-list, you might have to fight your way past various bodyguards to get into VIP
areas, and ultimately, it'll probably make little difference.

PH: There is a lot of loneliness in celebrity culture, so the right
conversation, a little companionship, some warm Christmas cookies and a roaring
fire should do the trick.

Ian Drew, 30 Editor-at-Large for Us Weekly: The best way to get famous is
to attach yourself to somebody more famous, and the best way to get even more
famous than that is to leave somebody famous for somebody else who's famous. So
concoct a scheme where you're seen going to a very public place with somebody
even more famous than [the famous person you're currently dating], then go back
to [the less famous person] the next week. You'll become a tabloid soap opera.
Kristin Cavallari did not end up in the pages of everything without attaching
herself to more famous guys. You've got to find someone who's in the white-hot
heat of it. Jennifer Aniston is an expert at that. People think that she's this
good girl who doesn't want the attention, but it's quite the opposite. She
always seems to date someone who's right in the spotlight at that moment.

I'm a celebrity, and a gossip columnist has some dirt on me. He says he'll print it unless I sleep with him. I really don't want my laundry aired. Do I do what he wants?

DP: No. It's a bad idea because he still has the dirt. You'll just make
yourself beholden to his whims. Give him a better story on one of your costars.

PH: Weigh the ugliness of the gossip against the ugliness of the gossip
columnist, then decide.

Xmas in Deep S$$T

Random News from Harper's

British geneticists investigating the case of a 10-year-old Pakistani boy who could walk on burning coals announced that they haddiscovered a gene that influences the perception of pain. They could not examine the boy directly because hehad died after leaping off a roof to impress his friends.

One of several personal ads posted on Asexual Marriage Net, a Chinese marriage broker.
“I’m an elegant, honest, intellectual woman who likes platonic love affairs and wishes for this kind of marriage. We can establish a family that is warm and sexless. —Feng Yalan, female, twenty-four”

In Baghdad, at a gathering place for poor Shiite laborers,the owner of a truck filled with wheat announced that he was looking for workers. A crowd gathered around the truck and it exploded, killing 70 people and wounding 236.

Police and firefighters on Long Island rescued a veteran who had walled himself in with a seven-foot-high pile of fecal matter and other debris, and Representative Charles Rangel(D., N.Y.) said President Bush was in "deep shit."

What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more?

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store? What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more?
Dr. Seuss

Pugo, Tugo and Bush

The presidential fondness of holding bald heads. Ans dome more important stuff:

1. Smoking can shorten your penis by as much as a centimeter. Erections are all about good bloodflow, and lighting up calcifies blood vessels, stifling erectile circulation. So even if you don't care all that much about your lungs or dying young, spare the li'l guy.

2. Doctors can now grow skin for burn victims using the foreskins of circumcised infants. One foreskin can produce 23,000 square meters, which would be enough to tarp every Major League infield with human flesh.

3. An enlarged prostate gland can cause both erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation. If you have an unexplained case of either, your doctor's looking forward to checking your prostate. Even if you're not.

4. The average male orgasm lasts 6 seconds. Women get 23 seconds. Which means if women were really interested in equality, they'd make sure we have four orgasms for every one of theirs.

5. The oldest known species with a penis is a hard-shelled sea creature called Colymbosathon ecplecticos. That's Greek for "amazing swimmer with large penis." Which officially supplants Buck Naked as the best porn name, ever.

6. Circumcised foreskin can be reconstructed. Movable skin on the shaft of the penis is pulled toward the tip and set in place with tape. Later, doctors apply plastic rings, caps, and weights. Years can pass until complete coverage is attained. . . . Okay, we'll shut up now.

7. Only one man in 400 is flexible enough to give himself oral pleasure. It's estimated, however, that all 400 have given it their best shot at some point.

8. There are two types of penises. One kind expands and lengthens when becoming erect (a grower). The other appears big most of the time, but doesn't get much bigger after achieving erection (a shower).

9. An international Men's Health survey reports that 79 percent of men have growers, 21 percent have showers.

10. German researchers say the average intercourse lasts 2 minutes, 50 seconds, yet women perceive it as lasting 5 minutes, 30 seconds. Are we that good or that bad?

11. Turns out size does matter: The longer your penis, the better "semen displacement" you'll achieve when having sex with a woman flush with competing sperm. That's according to researchers at the State University of New York, who used artificial phalluses (ahem) to test the "scooping" mechanism of the penis's coronal ridge. Next up: curing cancer.

12. The penis that's been enjoyed by the most women could be that of King Fatefehi of Tonga, who supposedly deflowered 37,800 women between the years 1770 and 1784 -- that's about seven virgins a day. Go ahead, say it: It's good to be king.

13. Better-looking men may have stronger sperm. Spanish researchers showed women photos of guys who had good, average, and lousy sperm -- and told them to pick the handsomest men. The women chose the best sperm producers most often.

14. No brain is necessary for ejaculation. That order comes from the spinal cord. Finding a living vessel for said ejaculation, however, takes hours of careful thought and, often, considerable amounts of alcohol.

15. The most common cause of penile rupture: vigorous masturbation. Some risks are just worth taking.

Merry Christmas

The Virgin Mary is actually called Miriam – she was Jewish, after all – and her virginal status is important to Luke because it fits the Classical image of maidens begetting divine children.

Whereas Matthew has the details of the birth revealed to Joseph in a dream, Luke has an Annunciation made to Mary by an angel. Western painters stress her detachment from the mess of birth by showing her in seated composure.

Painters of Eastern icons let her lie down. And nowhere does The Bible tell us she wears blue. Her wardrobe largely derives from medieval meditations and visionary experiences, such as those of St Bridget, who had a keen eye for detail.

Joseph is usually depicted as a bit-part actor in the drama and as old, although The Bible does not indicate his age. Some pictorial traditions make him a comic figure and certain cathedrals had a vested interest in adding homely details – notably Aachen, which became the proud possessor of St Joseph's stockings, which had been cut up to make clothes for the infant Jesus.

Jesus In paintings, he is usually depicted naked with what would these days be thought an unseemly attention to his penis.

It's uncircumcised, though when the deed is done it will generate a healthy industry in souvenirs. According to one estimate there were enough holy foreskins circulating in medieval times to upholster a suite of furniture.

The Three Kings Only Matthew mentions them. He doesn't call them kings. And he doesn't say how many there are. The earliest nativity scenes show just two, and their number and status were upgraded later, on the grounds that there were three gifts, one of which was frankincense, associated with royalty.

More practically, though, the upgrading of the kings was also connected with the church's desire to allot a role in Christian life to rich potentates (who would otherwise be struggling through the eyes of needles) and get their money.

The kings also symbolised the universal outreach of the Church, to Europe, Africa and Asia. And again, certain cathedrals had a special interest in them: Cologne claimed their bodies and declared them to have died at the respective ages of 109, 112 and 116.

The Ox and Ass There is no mention of them in the Gospels. But if Jesus was born in a stable it would be reasonable to assume their presence. And the first person to make a point of it was St Francis, who is said to have begun the tradition of cribs and nativity re-enactments in the 13th century.

The Shepherds are found only in Luke. Important as a statement of the access ordinary people have to Jesus.

The Star In Matthew but not Luke, and the subject of endless debate as to what, if anything, it might have been. There is no unchallengeable recorded evidence of starry phenomena around this time.

But Mike Rich, the screenwriter of The Nativity, has opted to trust Matthew on the grounds that it could have been a rare alignment of the star Regulus (known in Babylonian as Sharu) with Venus and Jupiter.

Part of what he calls the 'wow factor' in working on the movie was discovering that 'Sharu is the Babylonian for king, while Venus is the mother planet and Jupiter the father. Father, mother and king – that's an intriguing combination.'

The Stable Only Luke suggests a stable, and he's probably referring to a cave, which would have been a more likely place to keep animals. Matthew, by contrast, talks about a 'house'. And that's because he tells a different story about …

Bethlehem Both Matthew and Luke agree that the birthplace is Bethlehem, which is important as the fulfilment of prophesy: it establishes Jesus as successor to King David, who was also born there.

But Luke has Mary and Joseph travelling to Bethlehem as temporary residents, for the census – which is why they ended up in a stable when there was no room at the inn. Matthew says nothing about a census, stable or inn, and gives the impression that Mary and Joseph are permanent residents in that 'house'.

2006

Some of the best photos of 2006

Concrete Pyramids

Our Bible used to show ancient Egyptian laborers carrying limestone blocks to form the Pyramids. Now we are made to understand that they used concrete instead?

Concrete was poured to build the Great Pyramids about 5,000 years ago, according to controversial research, which suggests the ancient Egyptans predated the Romans by thousands of years as the inventors of concrete. Michel Barsoum, professor of materials engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia, and colleagues report in the current issue of the Journal of the American Ceramic Society that the pyramids were constructed with a combination of carved stones and blocks of limestone-based concrete. The study, drawn on a research made in the mid-1980s by the French materials scientist, Joseph Davidovits, consists of a detailed examination of samples taken from the pyramids and their vicinity.

Xmas Shopping with the Philosophers

Jean-François Lyotard might not have enjoyed an afternoon at Selfridges. He was a French philosopher not known for his interest in handbags. But, had he dropped in for a little retail therapy, he might have recognised what he saw. As he wrote, “eclecticism is the degree zero of contemporary general culture; one listens to reggae, watches a Western, eats McDonald's food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and retro clothes in Hong Kong; knowledge is a matter for TV games.”
Let Lyotard, Barthes and Foucault be your shopping guides.

Fruitcake

Remember that old joke about there is only one fruitcake in the world and that it looks like there is so many because that one cake is just being passed around? Yes. That is true and there is one more thing. There is a Society for the Protection and Preservation of Fruitcake. One thing you should not do with fruitcakes. Don't bring them to airports. Expect them to be X-rayed because they are dense enough to hide a weapon.

Birds on a Bush

If you click on the picture, it will move. This is similar to Sting's or Rolling Stones's MTV.

Waterless

"RP to Export Waterless Toilets," an Inquirer goes. My first hunch was: Oh My God. What came to my mind was the plastic bags of shit flying along the riles (My father used to work for the PNR and I heard horror stories on this) and just anywhere else. It turned out to be ceramic bowls manufactured by Ecosan. Theya re more popularly known as double-vault urine-diverting toilets.

The basic principle of this toilet is to separate urine and shit. Urine, which is almost completely free of pathogens, is diverted through the use of urinals or special pedestals or squatting slabs and then collected. Feces are collected and stored in a secure vault where pathogens are broken down. If the feces are kept dry, pathogens die within a short time as the feces undergo decomposition (composting), a biological process in which bacteria, worms and other types of organisms break down organic substances to make humus, an excellent soil conditioner.

Love In The Internet

I wrote about Rex Hermogino in this blog and for the Inquirer. And then updated it yesterday about noon, including his victory in the Yahoo! Talent Show. At 6 pm, Andy asked about a caption for his photo of (hmmm) me voting for Rex (this was taken Thursday) because he won. He asked about the background. I led him to this blog and told him about the recent development. His story came out in the front page of the Philippine Star but the photo (Sayang!) didn't. The Philippine Daily Inquirer, on the other hand, ignored it. I'm just setting this for the record. I'm not faulting anybody. I found Love in the Internet.

Disturbance of Fish

I recalled a story of police officer Viyo Hidalgo about a seller of tinapa or smoked fish in the City Market who was harassed by a barangay tanod (village guard), scattering his tinapa. The police on guard wrote on the blotter: Disturbance of tinapa. It turned out that officer was thinking "peace" and translated in his mind, "fish," which of course means "tinapa." Ergo, in police logic, disturbance of tinapa.

Boozers

From the Delaware News Journal:

An article in Sunday’s Local section on the estate sale of former Gov. Elbert Carvel quoted Olin Vanaman of Wilmington about his excitement in purchasing 35 of the governor’s decanters during the auction, including one used at Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. Vanaman said he used a slang term when describing Carvel as "a big boozer,” but he did not mean that the former governor was a heavy drinker. Vanaman refers to people who collect decanters as "boozers,” he explained, "the same as guys who collect cars are gear-heads.” No reference to drinking or the consumption of alcohol was intended in the article.
These and other worthy corrections in Regret The
Error

,,,

THE FATAL COMMA
Czarina Maria Fyodorovna once saved the life of a man by transposing a single comma in a warrant signed by her husband, Alexander III, which exiled a criminal to imprisonment and death in Siberia. On the bottom of the warrant the czar had written: `Pardon impossible, to be sent to Siberia.' The czarina changed the punctuation so that her husband's instructions read: `Pardon, impossible to be sent to Siberia.' The man was set free.

THE BLASPHEMOUS COMMA
In several editions of the King James Bible, Luke 23:32 is changed entirely by the absence of a comma. In the passage that describes the other men crucified with Christ, the erroneous editions read: `And there were also two other malefactors.' Instead of counting Christ as a malefactor, the passage should read: `And there were also two other, malefactors.'

THE MILLION-DOLLAR COMMA
The US government lost at least a million dollars through the slip of a comma. In the tariff act passed on June 6, 1872, a list of duty-free items included: `Fruit plants, tropical and semitropical'. A government clerk accidentally altered the line to read: `Fruit, plants tropical and semitropical'. Importers successfully contended that the passage, as written, exempted all tropical and semitropical plants from duty fees. This cost the US a fortune until May 9, 1874, when the passage was amended to plug the hole.

Cristopher Walken's 12 Days of Christmas

From cracked.com. Written by Dale Dobson

The First Day

The partridge, the pear tree. I trust both have arrived safely on this First Day of Christmas. The partridge, unfortunately, required mounting for shipping. Taxidermy. I had to strangle the poor bird with my own two hands. Sometimes small cruelties must be tolerated for the greater holiday good—in this case, pears.

The Second Day

May the two beautiful turtle doves, enclosed, enliven your Second Day of Christmas. I have recorded their mournful songs on a compact disc, also enclosed, so you will understand why I found it necessary to smother them. These birds—these birds could drive you fucking crazy.

The Third Day

The three French hens have been prepared and dressed for oven or broiler, as you will. But the holiday fun does not stop there, my friend. I have removed the heads myself. With an axe. And I have decorated them, festively, as Mary, Joseph, and the Baby Jesus. Please, enjoy.

The Fourth Day.

Four calling birds. Listen. Are they calling? No. But the silence is, in its own way, a kind of Christmas.

The Fifth Day

I have taken special care to select the five golden rings, enclosed, because I know you treasure the better things in life. Four are from the world's finest jewelers. The fifth was my grandfather's. It is of special sentimental value to me, because I had to exhume his corpse to retrieve it. An unfortunate bureaucratic slipup, by an unfortunate fucking bureaucrat.

The Sixth Day

On this Sixth Day of Christmas, six geese sit a-laying on your front lawn. Eggs. I have always admired these elegant, graceful white waterfowl. It saddens me that the hatchlings will not emerge before I send workmen to burn the nests.

The Seventh Day

On the Seventh Day, God rested. But the seven swans presently a-swimming in your pool do not rest. They will not climb out of the water, nor will they stop moving. Why? Because the lead weights I have tied to their legs, the amphetamines in their feed, assure you of a full day of Christmas entertainment.

The Eighth Day

The small American dairy farm has, tragically, disappeared forever. Therefore, most of the eight maids a-milking appear courtesy of the good people at La Leche League, to whom I have made a generous donation in your name. For the remainder, I have called in a personal favor from the publisher of Lactating Mamas magazine. Distasteful. But it is, after all, Christmas.

The Ninth Day

Nine. Ladies, Dancing. Nine sterling examples, one might think, of the female form in motion. But who is that tall, strikingly handsome woman in green? It is I, Christopher Walken. In Peter Pan drag.

The Tenth Day

On this, the Tenth Day of our Christmas adventure, the ten lords a-leaping represent every walk of American street life. The gambler, the bookmaker, the dealer and the junkie. The ambitious gangster, the implacable crime lord, and the common thug. The crooked cop, the arsonist, and the con man. Their nimble hops, always one step ahead of Johnny Law, are what the season is all about. Merry Christmas.

The Eleventh Day

Eleventh Day. Eleven pipers. Piping. Not a-piping, mind you. But piping hot. Like soul-searing New Orleans jazz. Like a boiling glass of absinthe. Like me. Happy Holidays.

The Twelfth Day

On this Twelfth Day, I am filled with ennui. Twelve drummers, merely drumming; too easy, perhaps. Which is why I have, at great personal risk, imported drums made from human skin. They produce a sound like no other; the sound of a tiny bamboo cage in a fetid jungle prison, where hope dies anew with each cruel dawn. It's the sound of pain, frustration and disappointment. The sound of Christmas.

Best Head This Week: Red Sea to Save Dead Sea

Officials from Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority met along the shores of the Dead Sea to settle details of a study to save the shrinking body of water, agreeing to proceed with plans to draw water from the Red Sea. The surface level of the Dead Sea — the saltiest water in the world at the lowest point on Earth that is estimated at 1,200 feet below sea level — has fallen about three feet a year in the past 20 years because of evaporation and allegedly the diversion of rivers by Syria and Israel. The Dead Sea and its surrounding has been the source of much human social history and it is linked to the three monotheistic religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In 2005, the three concerned parties appealed to the World Bank to coordinate financing the feasibility study. The World Bank have agreed and appealed to the donor countries. Four donor countries — France, Japan, the United States and the Netherlands — have committed themselves to participate in financing the $15 million study. The study will look at the environmental and social consequences of transferring water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, Jordan's Minister of Water and Irrigation Mohammed Thafer al-Alem said Sunday. Geological experts warned that the drop in the water level would increase the earthquake possibilities. They also warn the Dead Sea will disappear in 50 years if current trends persist.

Next to David's

Incident

I was in a cab this morning and the radio was tuned to Bombo Radyo. The reporter was going through the police blotter which included a funny incident about a taxi driver and his beautiful passenger. Late last night, the passenger wanted to go to Tadiangan Barangay and on their way, made an indecent proposal to the driver. "Kayat mo short time (Want a quickie)?," the passenger said. Negotiations brought the price to P300. Hmmm. So he parked his cab in a secluded shoulder and began undressing the passenger until they reached the crotch and it turned out the passenger is a man. "Dakdakkel pay kano ti bagi na (His is even larger than the driver)," the reporter duly noted. The P300 was returned and the incensed driver brought his passenger to Station 7 (the central police station). This puzzled me because the charge sheet was supposedly for Violation of Anti-Fencing Law. Were there stolen goods? Stolen innocence maybe? The passenger was freed after a few minutes.

Rex

BAGUIO CITY -- After voting for your Philippine Idol, it's time to vote for a Filipino in the Yahoo! Talent Contest which would have its final voting from December 12 to December 13 (U.S. time).
Rex Hermogino, a 31-year-old composer from San Diego, California, is among the five finalists for the first-ever talent show sponsored by Yahoo! Inc. If Rex would go on to win, he would be starring in his own online show in Yahoo! and would be pocketing $50,000.
Hermogino was born on October 8, 1975 in Candelaria, Zambales. When he was seven, Rex's family migrated to Dededo, Guam, where his parents taught in an elementary school there. In his website, Rex said that he came from a musical family.
His father started the first drum and lyre band in Wettengel Elementary School in Guam. Rex played the xylophone in the band and went on his own musical journey.
First dabbling in New Age Music and Electronica, he went pop last year with six new compositions. "Love In The Internet" won 2nd Place in the 2006 San Diego Composers Guild Song Contest. His other compositions include Downtown, Piano Boy, City Lights, The Cheezy Song and It's Raising Me Down.
He comes out like an unassuming guy wearing only Tshirt and jeans but oozing with talent and humor like pop superstars Jason Mraz, John Meyer and Jack Johnson.
Hermogino’s finalist video of “Love In The Internet” has been viewed more than 115,000 times, the most by far from the other four finalists. Twenty-two year old Justine Ezarik of Pennsylvania, who goes by iJustine, is a far second with her “Hometown” video which has more than 12,000 hits.
All in all, Hermogino’s six videos garnered 150,000 hits.
His video, “Love in the Internet,” is typical of Rex’s other video which was done in his house with only his guitar and laptop computer as his props. He even uses the vacuum cleaner as his microphone.
His style is similar to Jack Johnson and his voice here is similar to a deadpan Weird Al Yankovic (no kidding!).
“He put his heart on the line, his camera on the floor, and his pride in the toilet,” joked AskANinja, one of the three judges. “I want this guy to get a show just so he can get a tripod. Even if he doesn’t win can we send him a tripod.”
Hermogino’s other challenge videos has him on his bed with his holiday survival tips and a road video of San Diego. Needless to say, he used Filipino-Americans as his actors and most of his fans are Filipino-Americans.
Other finalists chosen during the selection from November 13 through December 4 include a group of martial artists or urban ninjas from Florida who call themselves the Renzhe Parkour, a Chicago filmmaker Stanley Sowa Jr who does stick figure comedies and 28-year-old filmmaker Ben Grinnel from Seattle.
The Yahoo! Talent Show was open only for US citizens 18 years and older.

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