Archives
29/06: Curious about Water? Read on....
IN its very deceptive ORDINARINESS, water is exceptionally extraordinary. It is almost everywhere - in air; clouds; oceans; lakes; rivers; springs or glaciers. In the five-kilometer layer below the sea level on Earth, water is nearly six times as abundant as all other substances put together. Not only has it been the cause of rise and fall of great civilizations, it has also been one of the agents responsible for shaping and reshaping the face of Earth. Falling as rain or flowing in rivers, it levels mighty mountains, creates broad valleys or steep canyons by weathering the hardest rocks. Availability of water determines the economy of an agrarian society like India. As steam or hydroelectric power, it drives the wheels of modern technology, it's an indispensable ingredient in nearly all manufacturing processes, from the baking of breads to cutting steel for automobiles. Last but not the least it is the elixir of life. Life has evolved in water, and is designed around it, many organisms can live without air, but none without water. Obviously water arouses very many questions in a fertile young mind. Here are the answers to a few such questions.
How did water originate on Earth?
- Why does water around toothpaste dropped on a wet floor drain away?
- Why does a drop of oil expand over surface of water while a drop of water over the surface of oil contracts to become round shaped?
- Why water cannot be used for frying like oil?
- Why are organic compounds not soluble in water?
- Why don't oil and water mix together?
- Why is it that we can blow bubbles only with a soap solution?
- Why do impurities settle down on addition of alum to dirty water?
- Why does water get cold on addition of glucose to it?
The origin of water on Earth is linked to the formation of Earth. According to some currently accepted theories Earth began as a waterless mass of rock surrounded by cloud of gas. Radioactive materials in the rock and increasing pressure in the Earth's interior gradually produced enough heat to melt the interior of the Earth. The heavy materials, such as iron ores, then sank. The light silicates (rocks made up of silicon and oxygen) rose to the Earth's surface and formed the earliest crust. Many silicate rocks have water molecules integrated into their atomic arrangement --water can be driven out of such rocks by the action of heat. Thus the heating of the Earth's interior caused release of water contained in such rocks to the surface. Over millions of years, water thus released collected slowly in low places of the crust and formed the oceans. Whatsoever might have been the origin of water, Earth's original supply of water is still in use and very little, if any, has been added during the past billion years or so. The same water has been pumped time and again from the oceans into air, dropped upon the land and transferred back to sea. A single drop of water spends 8 to 10 days passing through air, 2 to 3 weeks in a river, as long as 100 years in a Himalayan glacier, or from 100 to 40,000 years underground.
As a chemical substance water is unique and rather odd. All its oddities can be traced to its molecular structure. It is a rather sturdy molecule. Until some 180 years ago water was believed to be an indivisible element rather than a chemical compound. Today any student of science knows that each of its molecule is made up of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. The bond between the oxygen and the hydrogen atom in water is polar, that is, it has positive and negative charged ends because of an unequal distribution of electrons. The oxygen atom has a denser distribution of electrons around it and hence a net negative charge. The hydrogen atoms in a water molecule, on the other hand, are positively charged. This leads to a lopsided molecule, with electrical charges concentrated on opposite sides. Water molecules, are therefore, attracted to each other as well as to other molecules having a similar charge distribution. And many of the characteristic features of water can be traced to the so-called hydrogen bond between its molecules.
When a substance dissolves in another substance, the resulting distribution of the molecules of the two substances has lesser number of molecules of either substance surrounded by its own kind. This necessitates disrupting prevailing intermolecular forces in each of them. The molecules of most organic compounds (e.g. oily substances) are non polar. As a consequence the intermolecular forces between organic molecules are much weaker than in water. If such a substance is to mix with water -the resulting distribution of molecules must lead to lowering of energy content. If more energy is required to separate water molecules from each other (by breaking hydrogen bonds) than is gained when water molecules get closer to the organic molecules, the two substances will not mix together. It is for this reason that water and oil do not mix and many organic compounds do not dissolve in water. Oil spreads on the surface of water for a similar reason, because in doing so the interaction of water molecules with the oil molecules is minimized. However, not all organic compounds are insoluble in water. Glucose is a common example. It is an organic compound, which dissolves in water. This is because the molecule of glucose has several hydrogen--oxygen bonds, which can indeed interact with the hydrogen-oxygen bonds of water favorably. In the process of mixing glucose molecules with water some energy is consumed. This energy is acquired from the heat energy of the water, hence water becomes cooler when glucose is dissolved in it.
When a foodstuff is fried some water is removed from it since the cooking medium is at a temperature higher than the boiling point of water. Oils have a boiling point much higher than that of water, hence frying is defined as a process of cooking in excess of fat or oil, thus cooking in water cannot be called frying.
Molecules of some of the compounds used to make soap and tooth paste have a long non polar chain like molecules, but on one end of these chains there is a polar bond. Dissolved in water, they form a structure in which all the non polar chains are stacked together in a layer, so that they have a minimal contact with water molecules. When some toothpaste is dropped on a wet floor some of its molecules spread out on the nearby area, and since they are hydrophobic (they repel water) water layer recedes from this area. When we blow bubbles using a solution of soap in water soap molecules rearrange from a micellar (spherical globules) to a lamellar (like a thin film) arrangement such that air can be trapped in between. Molecules of water themselves cannot arrange themselves into such stable arrangements, hence we cannot blow bubbles using pure water because while a soap solution can form a stretchable film plain water cannot.
When alum (aluminum sulfate) is added to dirty water, a gelatinous precipitate of aluminum hydroxide (known as flocs) is formed. When this precipitate settles down it carries with it bacteria, mud and other impurities as they stick to it, thus clearing the turbidity.
Rivers, Ponds, Wells and Oceans
- Why is the seawater salty?
- From where do the rivers like Godavari and Kaveri get water since they are not formed from glaciers like the river Ganga and Yamuna?
- Why does sea water makes soil infertile whereas river water doesn't?
- Why are there no tides in a pond, like in the oceans?
- Why does the water from a well or tubewell feel warm in winter but cold in summer?
- On islands in the sea, from where do the people get drinking water?
- When bubbles are at the bottom of a pond or river they are small but they get bigger as they come to the surface?
- Although water in ponds, etc. remains fresh for years, kept in a vessel why does it often get contaminated after a few days?
- How can we perform a test at home to check if the water from a handpump is suitable for drinking?
- How does the seawater move?
As rivers flow over land they dissolve many minerals on the way to the oceans. Oceans and seas therefore contain the washings of the entire land area of Earth of several million years. Many undersea volcanic activities as well as underground springs also add salt to the sea. Most of these salts remain entrapped in sea water, and thus sea water is salty. Rivers originate either on mountain glaciers or underground springs at high altitudes. River water therefore has very low salt content and does not taste salty.
Most plants cannot withstand high salinity of the soil because the water uptake by a plant through its roots takes place due to osmosis. If the salt content of the water in the soil is higher than in the plant cells water will tend to flow out of plant tissue rather into it-resulting in its drying up. Soils irrigated with sea water are therefore infertile for common plants, however, there are plants like mangroves which can survive in soils having high salinity.
Rivers like Ganga originate from the glaciers on Himalayas hence they are perennial. Peninsular rivers like Godavri, Krishna or Narmada, on the other hand, are largely rain fed. They have their origins in western ghats (or Vindhyachal). Rain water accumulated underground in such mountainous ranges comes out in the form of numerous springs which merge together to form these peninsular rivers.
The periodic rise and fall of the oceans, or other large bodies of water, relative to the surrounding land is commonly known as tides. They are produced by a combination of number of external forces, with the principal force being the gravitational attraction of the Moon. If the Moon attracted every point within the Earth with equal force, there would be no tide. It is the small difference in direction and magnitude of the lunar attractive force, on one point of the Earth's mass relative to another, which give rise to the so-called tidal stresses. Oceans and seas are spread over a much larger area than any pond or lake. The maximum possible difference in gravitational attraction due to Moon within a pond (or lake) is therefore much smaller than in oceans and seas. Thus although a pond or a lake is subject to the same forces the oceans, the observed changes in water level in them is much smaller. For example, Lake Superior, a very large lake between the United States and Canada, has tides that rise and fall about 5 centimeters compared to the rise and fall of a few meters in some oceans.
There are currents in the oceans which make water move in them. Water in an ocean moves because of drifts of water due to temperature differences or the prevailing winds above. Thus ocean currents are fast flowing currents of seawater generated by the wind or by the variations in water density between two areas.
The specific heat of water, that is, the heat energy required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius is relatively high. Thus temperature of a large mass of water on the Earth changes rather sluggishly. Water in a well is largely insulated from the temperature variations in the atmosphere above as it has only a very limited contact with it. The temperature of groundwater, therefore, does not vary much through various seasons. During winters it feels warmer because the atmospheric temperature is relatively lower and during summers it feels cold because the atmospheric temperature is relatively higher.
Drinking water on oceanic islands is usually obtained from rain-fed lakes or groundwater which is sweet.. Normally groundwater (which can be pumped up) is fit for human consumption, because as the water percolates into an underground reservoir most of the microbes get filtered off. However, if the soil contains substances from which harmful ions can leach out, the water which passes through it may become contaminated. There have been reports of arsenic leaching into underground water in certain areas in West Bengal. Testing such water often requires chemicals and apparatus not readily available at home.
The quantity of water in a pond is much more than in any domestic vessel. It is ultraviolet radiation from the Sun and the flora and fauna inside a lake or a pond, which keeps it clean. Water from such a pond, if kept in a domestic container, may contain spores of some bacteria, which may grow in it, thus contaminating it. However chlorinated water kept even for several months in a domestic pot does not get infected because the dissolved chlorine prevents any microbial growth.
The external pressure of water on air contained in a bubble deep down in a pond is much more than the atmospheric pressure. Thus as an air bubble rises it is subject to lesser and lesser pressure. It therefore grows bigger. In addition small bubbles coalescing together as they rise also give rise to larger bubbles.
Ice and Snow
- Why do pipes carrying water often burst in cold countries during winter?
- A shower of hail often accompanies the first rain after summer season, why?
- Why are the hailstones hard while the snowballs soft?
- Whereas common salt is often added to the frozen snow in Kashmir during the winters -- to melt it, during summers in Delhi ice-cream hawkers add common salt to ice-jackets surrounding ice-cream container so that ice will not melt. Why this contradiction?
- Why is snow softer than ice?
- Why does ice melt but waxes harden when subjected to pressure?
- Why does water occupy less volume than the ice formed by same amount of water?
- Why does the level of water in a container remain unchanged when an ice cube floating in it melts?
- Why do small pieces of ice stick together to form a block when pressed?
- Can water be converted to ice by application of pressure?
- Why are ice cubes preferred to water at zero degree Celsius to cool a soft drink?
- Why does ice melt on addition of salt?
- Why is there no snowfall in deserts although hailstone showers as precipitation are common?
When water is cooled to 0 degree Celsius it freezes, that is, it crystallizes into ice, it expands. This is so because the structure of ice is such that the water molecules are spaced farther apart than in liquid water. Water molecules therefore occupy less space as liquid water than as ice and the density of liquid water is more than that of ice. Ice therefore floats on water and when floating ice melts it does not result in any increase in volume. It is for this expansion of water that water pipes if kept closed at the ends often burst in winter if the ambient temperature drops below zero.
Hail consists of rounded particles of ice which fall out of cumulonimbus clouds. This class of clouds are characterized by a tall mountain like appearance and they span from about 1000m. to 7000m. in the atmosphere above the sea level. Such clouds are formed by a strong vertical movement of hot humid air, which is possible mainly in deserts or plains near them where there has been a spell of hot summer. No wonder thunderstorms accompanied by hail are common only in such regions. Larger hailstones commonly exhibit an onion like structure of alternating shells of clear and opaque ice. The clear ice layer consists of large crystals of water that has cooled rather slowly. The thinner opaque layer contains air bubbles and is often an accumulation of snow crystals.
Snow is a conglomerate of many small ice crystals. A snowfall can take place only in such places where the ambient temperature falls below zero degree Celsius for a rather long spell of time. As the packing of such crystals can change with the application of pressure snow is softer than ice or hailstones. When a block of ice is subject to external pressure it melts because the crystal structure of water molecules in ice breaks down under the pressure and water molecules cannot be crystallized in an alternate crystal structure unless the pressure is drastically raised above 2000 atm. However, as soon as the pressure is released the water at zero degree Celsius freezes back into ice. Thus when we press together two different pieces of ice, it melts at the boundaries due to increased pressure and then freezes back on release of pressure. The ice thus formed at the periphery is common to both pieces hence the two pieces join together into one piece. Water can be converted into ice only by application of phenomenally very high pressures. At a pressure of about 20,000 atm, liquid water freezes to ice VII at about 1000C.
Ice is preferred over water at zero degrees Celsius to cool a drink because ice ( at 00C) can absorb much more heat (than water at 00C) before it is converted to water at say 10 degrees Celsius. This is so because water at 00C loses some more heat (known as latent heat of fusion ) before it is converted to ice at 00C.
The transition temperature of pure water into ice is zero degree Celsius at normal atmospheric pressure. But this transition point shifts to a lower temperature ( about -150C) if sufficient salt is added to water. A mixture of ice and salt at a temperature above its fusion temperature will therefore be converted to a liquid salt-water solution by absorbing heat from the surroundings. Thus when salt is added to snow on roads covered with snow in Srinagar, the snow melts. Ice cream vendors in Delhi add a lot of salt to ice in the ice cream trolleys (almost in the ratio 1:1). In the process the temperature of the mixture falls down because the process of dissolution of salt into water is endothermic, that is, it entails some absorption of heat from the surroundings. Therefore salt added to water lowers the temperature of the mixture. Some ice does melt but the undissolved salt at subzero temperature helps in keeping the ice-cream frozen for a longer period.
Vapours, Steam and Clouds
- Why does the water in a covered pot boil faster?
- We know that clouds contain +ve and -ve charges but when clouds become rain where do these charges go ?
- During natural evaporation of water, neither boiling point of water is reached nor latent heat is given. So how does water change its state?
- Clouds contain positive charges on the upper side and negative charges on the lower side(towards ground). Why the negative charge is on the lower side?
- When we pour chilled water in a tumbler, how do water droplets form on its outer surface?
- Can we save fuel by boiling water in a pressure cooker?
- Why does a direct contact with hot steam cause more severe burns than contact with boiling water?
- How is it that water can be boiled in a paper cup without burning the cup?
Water can exist in the three states -- solid, liquid and gas, simultaneously. A piece of ice at zero degree Celsius can has around it liquid water and water vapours at the same time, even though ice is the most stable state of water at this temperature. This is so because there are always some molecules in ice or liquid water which have enough kinetic energy to escape from the bulk. Thus water vapours co-exit with liquid water or ice at all temperatures. Their relative quantities depend on how far off the conditions are from the freezing or boiling point of water. Water in a pond is therefore constantly evaporating from it and condensing into it what ever be its temperature. Water on the outside surface of a cold tumbler is largely due to condensation of water in the atmosphere. Liquid water is not converted into water vapours only at 100 degrees Celsius alone. In fact if we decrease the pressure on its surface it can boil at lower temperatures.
When water boils the liquid and the vapour states are nearly equally probable. Hence if its temperature is maintained at the boiling point more and more vapours will be formed. If the vapours are allowed to escape the pressure does not rise but if they are not allowed to escape the pressure may rise and lesser heat is required to keep it boiling. In a pressure cooker water boils at a temperature higher than 1000C. because the pressure due to vapours inside it can rise much above the atmospheric pressure. It saves fuel required for cooking because heat used to vaporize water inside it does not escape with the vapours, as in an open vessel during the time taken for cooking. If we boil water in a pressure cooker, more heat will be required to raise its temperature to the boiling temperature (which will be higher than 1000C) but lesser heat may escape along with the steam as the temperature rises to the boiling point. One cannot therefore give an offhand answer because the relative masses of the container/pressure cooker also need to be considered.
One calorie of heat is enough to raise the temperature of 1 g of water at 990Ct to 1000C, the boiling point of water. But after we supply this much heat 1 g of water will not be converted to 1 g of steam. Some additional heat is required to be put in to convert water at 1000C to steam at 1000C. This additional quantity of heat is known as latent heat of vaporization. Water has a rather high latent heat of vaporization, 540 cal./g. Thus steam at 100 degrees Celsius has more heat in it than liquid water at the same temperature. No wonder steam can cause more severe burns than boiling water. Just like freezing, addition of salts to water affects its boiling also - it raises the boiling point. Hard water therefore boils at a temperature higher than 100 degrees Celsius.
When we boil water in a paper cup almost all the heat supplied from the heater is conducted off to raise the temperature of water or convert it into steam. The temperature of the paper cup remains around 100 degrees, which is not sufficient to burn it.
Cosmic rays ionize the water and air molecules in the upper strata of the clouds by knocking off electrons leading to positively charged molecules. Some of the electrons thus liberated combine with other molecules in the lower strata to give rise to negatively charged molecules. Since the Earth carries a net positive charge, these ions distribute themselves so that negatively charges ions are concentrated in the lower segment of the clouds. When the clouds precipitate as rain the negative and positive ions can interact to neutralize the charges, or the excess negative charge may flow into the Earth.
Floating and Swimming
- Why does a ship travel faster in warm water than in cold water?
- How do huge and heavy ships made of steel float while a steel spoon sinks in water?
- Why does a poorie or pakoda tends to float up to the top when it is being fried in boiling oil?
- A needle can float on the surface of water but not on the surface of a soap solution, why?
- Why is it easier to swim in a sea than in a river?
- Why do tea leaves float on top when soaked in a tea pot but sink down when stirred?
- Is there any place in the sea where the density of water is so much that a drowning ship is suspended freely instead of going to the sea bottom?
- Some people claim that certain sadhus can walk on water, is it plausible?
- Why does ice float in water but sink in alcohol?
A solid body as it sinks displaces some of the water. The water exerts an upward thrust on it. This upward thrust is equal to the weight of water the solid displaces. A ship is a hollow structure of steel since it displaces much more weight of water than its weight it floats while a spoon does not because as it sinks the weight of water displaced by it is less than its weight. The buoyancy due to different types of water depends on its density also(Archimedes principle. Seawater is denser than river water because of the dissolved salts, therefore the buoyancy in seawater is greater and lesser effort is required to swim in it. Similarly the much lower density of alcohol is responsible for insufficient thrust to keep an ice cube floating in it. However a ship travels faster in warm water than in cold water because warm water offers lesser frictional resistance to the motion of ship than cold water because of a looser packing of molecules.
The molecules on the surface of liquid water are asymmetrically attracted towards other molecules in it because there are very few molecules above the surface. This leads the surface to behave almost like a stretched membrane. A force, known as surface tension, characterizes the membrane like feature. The magnitude of surface tension is proportional to the intermolecular attraction between the water molecules on the surface. A needle can be floated on the surface of water because of the surface tension of water. When soap is dissolved in water the surface tension of water is decreased and is not sufficient to support the weight of a normal needle.
Tea leaves float in water because they have air trapped in them, when they are stirred the air escapes or gets dissolved in water. Poories and pakoras float in oil while being fried because the water vapours released (or entrapped between layers) during the process of frying make them less dense. A human being cannot walk on water because the weight of an erect human being is spread over a very small area. Thus the surface tension of water cannot hold it. Thus according to the principles of physics it is impossible that a human being can walk on the surface of water.
22/06: More and More Fun Facts....
1. Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.
2. Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.
3. The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma.
4. No piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.
5. Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes.
6. You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.
7. Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.
8. The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.
9. The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.
10. A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight.
11. American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating 1 olive from each salad served in first-class.
12. Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
13. Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.
14. The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
15. Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
16. The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.
17. Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
18. Marilyn Monroe had six toes. (rumor)
19. All US Presidents have worn glasses. Some just didn't like being seen wearing them in public.
20. Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
21. Pearls melt in vinegar.
22. Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
23. The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
24. It is possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.
25. A duck's quack doesn't echo and no one knows why. (Or does it? http://www.acoustics.salford.ac.uk/acoustics_world/duck/duck.htm)
26. The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
27. Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains all the letters from the word 'criminal.' The second was William Jefferson Clinton.
28. Turtles can breathe through their butts.
29. Butterflies taste with their feet.
30. In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all of the world's nuclear weapons combined.
31. On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.
32. On average people fear spiders more than they do death.
33. Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.
34. Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.
35. Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
36. Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
37. It's physically impossible for you to lick your elbow. (or can you? http://www.uvm.edu/~dfisher1/random/elbow.jpg http://www.uvm.edu/~dfisher1/random/elbow2.jpg)
38. The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
39. A snail can sleep for three years.
40. No word in the English language rhymes with 'MONTH.'
41. Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
42. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing. SCARY!!!
43. The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
44. All polar bears are left handed.
45. In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.
46. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
47. TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
48. 'Go', is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
49. If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall. Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
50. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
51. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
52. Almost everyone who reads this will try to lick their elbow.
22/06: Bouncy Ball and other animations
 Bouncy Ball |
Happy Hippo |
The Computer Dummies |
| Sad Life |
Me and You | Happy Happy! |
Toaster Action... | The Flower | Computers! |
21/06: The Mayonnaise Jar and 2 Cups of Coffee
When things in your life seem almost too much to handle...
When 24 Hours in a day is not enough...
Remember the mayonnaise jar and 2 cups of coffee.
A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large, empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.
He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was. The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full.. They agreed it was.
The professor then picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked, once more, if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous "yes."
The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling all the empty spaces among the sand. The students laughed. "Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things - God, family hildren, health, friends, and favorite passions -- things that, if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.
The pebbles are the other things that matter, such as your job, house, and car.
The sand is everything else --the small stuff. "If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life.
If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.
So...
Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.
Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal.
"Take care of the golf balls first --the things that really matter.
Set your priorities. The rest is just sand." One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.
The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked". It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend."
20/06: Interesting Facts to consider...
1. If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days,
you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
(Hardly seems worth it)
2. If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months,
enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
(Now that's more like it)
3. A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.
(In my next life I want to be a pig...How'd they figure this out, and why?)
4. Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
(Still can't get over that pig thing... Don't try this at home...maybe at work?)
5. Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
(Is that why Flipper was always smiling? And pigs get 30-minute orgasms? Doesn't seem fair)
6. The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
(Hmmmmmmmmm........)
7. Right-handed people live, on average,
nine years longer than left-handed people do.
(If you're ambidextrous do you split the difference?)
8. The ant can lift 50 times its own weight,
can pull 30 times its own weight and
always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.
(From drinking little bottles of...? Did taxpayers pay for this research??)
9. Polar bears are left handed.
(Who knew....? Who cares? How'd they find out, did they ask them?)
10. The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.
(What can be so tasty on the bottom of the pond?)
11. The flea can jump 350 times its body length.
It's like a human jumping the length of a football field.
(30 minutes...can you imagine?? And why pigs?)
12. A cockroach will live nine days without it's head,
before it starves to death.
(Creepy)
13. The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head
is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.
(Honey, I'm home. What the....Well, at least pigs get a break there...)
14. Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
(In my next life I still want to be a pig ... quality over quantity)
15. Butterflies taste with their feet.
(Oh, Geez... That's almost as bad as catfish)
16. An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain.
(I know some people like that.)
17. Starfish don't have brains.
(I know some people like that too.)
19/06: Joke | Elevator Magic
A hillbilly family took a vacation to New York City. One day, the father took his son into a large building. They were amazed by everything they saw, especially the elevator at one end of the lobby. The boy asked, "What's this, Paw?"
The father responded, "Son, I have never seen anything like this in my life. I don't know what it is!"
While the boy and his father were watching in wide-eyed astonishment, an old lady in a wheelchair rolled up to the moving walls and pressed a button. The walls opened and the lady rolled between them into a small room. The walls closed and the boy and his father watched small circles of lights above the walls light up. They continued to watch the circles light up in the reverse direction. The walls opened again, and a voluptuous twenty-four-year old woman stepped out.
The father turned to his son and said, "Go get your maw!"
18/06: Joke | Sisters of Mercy
A man was driving down a deserted highway, and notices a sign that reads.....
SISTERS OF MERCY HOUSE OF PROSTITUTION 10 MILES
He thinks it was a figment of his imagination...drives on. Soon, he sees another sign which says...
SISTERS OF MERCY HOUSE OF PROSTITUTION 5 MILES
Realizing these signs are for real, he drives on, and sure enough, there is a third...
SISTERS OF MERCY HOUSE OF PROSTITUTION - NEXT RIGHT
His curiosity gets the best of him, and he pulls into the driveway. On the side of the parking lots, is a somber stone building with a sign on the door that reads..
SISTERS OF MERCY
He climbs the steps, rings the bell, and the door is answered by a nun in a long black habit, who asks, "What may we do for you, my son?"
"I saw your signs along the highway, and was interested in possibly doing some business"...he answers. "Very well, my son. Please follow me," says the nun.
He is led through many winding passages, and soon he is very disoriented. The nun stops at a closed door and tells the man, "Please knock on this door," and leaves.
The man does as he is told, and this door is opened by another nun in a long black habit, holding a tin cup. This nun instructs: "Please place $50.00 in the cup, then go through the large wooden door at the end of this hallway." He places the money in the nun's tin cup. He trots eagerly down the hallway, and slips through the door, pulling it shut.
As the door locks behind him, he finds himself back in the parking lot, facing another small sign:
Go in Peace. You have just been screwed by the Sisters of Mercy
18/06: Joke | Smartest Man in the World
A doctor, a lawyer, a little boy and a priest were out for a Sunday afternoon flight on a small private plane. Suddenly, the plane developed engine trouble.
In spite of the best efforts of the pilot, the plane started to go down. Finally, the pilot grabbed a parachute, yelled to the passengers that they had better jump, and bailed out.
Unfortunately, there were only three parachutes remaining.
The doctor grabbed one and said "I'm a doctor, I save lives, so I must live," and jumped out.
The lawyer then said, "I'm a lawyer and lawyers are the smartest people in the world. I deserve to live."
He also grabbed a parachute and jumped.
The priest looked at the little boy and said, "My son, I've lived a long and full life. You are young and have your whole life ahead of you. Take the last parachute and live in peace."
The little boy handed the parachute back to the priest and said, "Not to worry, Father. The 'smartest man in the world' just took off with my back pack."
16/06: Joke | Talking Parrot
Hillary Clinton went into a pet shop and found a beautiful parrot.
"Does this parrot talk?" she asked.
"Yes, he does," the manager told her.
"But why is this one only $50 and all the others are $500?", she asked.
"Well, ma'am," the manager told her, "not everyone would want to own this parrot. He spent many years in a whore house and his language is terrible."
"Well, I want him anyway," she said.
"Suit yourself," the manager shrugged.
When she got the parrot back to the White House, she uncovered his cage and admired the colorful bird.
The parrot tilted his head to one side, looked her straight in the eye and said, "New house, new madam."
Hillary laughed.
Soon Chelsea and a friend came in and began admiring the bird.
"New house, new whores," the parrot observed.
At first they were offended, but when Hillary explained about the bird's history, they too, laughed at him. After a while the President entered the living quarters.
The parrot said, "Hi Bill."
15/06: Poem | "I went to a party, mom"
I went to a party,
and remembered what you said.
You told me not to drink, Mom
so I had a sprite instead.
I felt proud of myself,
the way you said I would,
that I didn't drink and drive,
though some friends said I should.
I made a healthy choice,
and your advice to me was right
as the party finally ended,
and the kids drove out of sight.
I got into my car,
sure to get home in one piece,
I never knew what was coming, Mom
something I expected least.
Now I'm lying on the pavement,
And I hear the policeman say,
The kid that caused this wreck was drunk,"
Mom, His voice seems far away.
My own blood's all around me,
as I try hard not to cry.
I can hear the paramedic say,
This girl is going to die."
I'm sure the guy had no idea,
while he was flying high,
because he chose to drink and drive,
now I would have to die.
So why do people do it, Mom
Knowing that it ruins lives?
And now the pain is cutting me,
like a hundred stabbing knives.
Tell sister not to be afraid, Mom
tell daddy to be brave,
and when I go to heaven,
put "Daddy's Girl" on my grave.
Someone should have taught him,
that its wrong to drink and drive.
Maybe if his parents had,
I'd still be alive.
My breath is getting shorter, Mom
I'm getting really scared.
These are my final moments,
and I'm so unprepared.
I wish that you could hold me Mom,
as I lie here and die.
I wish that I could say I love you, Mom
So I love you and good-bye.
-Anonymous
15/06: Joke | Fishing up north
A couple went on vacation to a fishing resort up north. The husband liked to fish at the crack of dawn; the wife preferred to read.
One morning the husband returned after several hours of fishing and decided to take a short nap.
The wife decided to take the boat out. She was not familiar with the lake so she rowed out, anchored the boat, and started reading her book.
Along comes the sheriff in his boat, pulls up alongside and says, "Good morning, Ma'am. What are you doing?"
"Reading my book," she replies as she thinks to herself, 'Is this guy blind, or what?'
"You're in a restricted fishing area," he informs her.
"But, Officer, I'm not fishing. Can't you see that?"
"But you have all this equipment, Ma'am. I'll have to take you in and write you up."
"If you do that I will charge you with rape," snaps the irate woman.
"I didn't even touch you," grouses the sheriff.
"Yes, that's true....but you have all the equipment..."
14/06: Joke | Poem - Remember when....
Remember When...
A computer was something on TV
from a science fiction show of note
a window was something you hated to clean...
And ram was the cousin of a goat....
Meg was the name of my girlfriend
and gig was a job for the nights
now they all mean different things
and that really mega bytes
An application was for employment
a program was a TV show
a cursor used profanity
a keyboard was a piano
Memory was something that you lost with age
a cd was a bank account
and if you had a 3 1/2" floppy
you hoped nobody found out
Compress was something you did to the garbage
not something you did to a file
and if you unzipped anything in public
you'd be in jail for a while
Log on was adding wood to the fire
hard drive was a long trip on the road
a mouse pad was where a mouse lived
and a backup happened to your commode
Cut you did with a pocket knife
paste you did with glue
a web was a spider's home
and a virus was the flu
I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper
and the memory in my head
I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash
but when it happens they wish they were dead
14/06: Joke | 25th Anniversary
A man and his wife go to their honeymoon hotel for their 25th anniversary.
As the couple reflected on that magical evening 25 years ago, the wife asks the husband, "When you first saw my naked body in front of you, what was going through your mind?"
The husband replied, "All I wanted to do was to screw your brains out, and suck your tits dry."
Then, as the wife undressed, she asked, "What are you thinking now?"
He replied, "It looks as if I did a pretty good job."
13/06: 100 Ideas by Keri Smith...
If you're bored and have nothing to do, Keri Smith (www.kerismith.com) has some artsy ideas you can try. I stumbled on her website and wanted to share her list of her 100 ideas.
1. Go for a walk. Draw or list things you find on the the sidewalk.
2. Write a letter to yourself in the future.
3. Buy something inexpensive as a symbol for your need to create, (new pen, a tea cup, journal). Use it everyday.
4. Draw your dinner.
5. Find a piece of poetry you respond to. Rewrite it and glue it into your journal.
6. Glue an envelope into your journal. For one week collect items you find on the street.
7. Expose yourself to a new artist, (go to a gallery, or in a book.) Write about what moves you about it.
8. Find a photo of a person you do not know. Write a brief bio about them.
9. Spend a day drawing only red things.
10. Draw your bike.
11. Make a list of everything you buy in the next week.
12. Make a map of everywhere you went in one day.
13. Draw a map of the creases on your hand, (knuckles, palm)
14. Trace your footsteps with chalk.
15. Record an overheard conversation.
16. Trace the path of the moon in relation to where you live.
17. Go to a paint store. Collect 'chips' of all your favorite colors.
18. Draw your favorite tree.
19. Take 15 minutes to eat an orange.
20. Write a haiku.
21. Hang upside down for five minutes.
22. Hang found objects from tree branches.
23. Make a puppet.
24. Create an outdoor room from things you find in nature.
25. Read a book in one day.
26. Illustrate your grocery list.
27. Read a story out loud to a friend.
28. Write a letter to someone you admire.
29. Study the face of someone you do not like.
30. Make a meal based on a color theme. (i.e. all white).
31. Creat a museum of very small things.
32. List the smells in your neighborhood.
33. List 100 uses for a tin can.
34. Fill an entire page in your jounral with small circles. Color them in.
35. Give away something you love.
36. Choose an object, draw the side you can't see.
37. List all of the places you've ever lived.
38. Describe your favourite room in detail.
39. Write about your relationship with your washing machine.
40. Draw all of the things in your purse/bag.
41. Make a mini book based on the theme, "my grocery list".
42. Create a character based on someone you know. Write a list of personality traits.
43. Recall your favorite childhood game.
44. Put postcards of art pieces/painting on the inside of your kitchen cupboard doors, so you can see them everyday (but not become deaf to them.)
45. Draw the same object every day for a week.
46. Write in your journal using a different medium (brush & ink, charcoal, old typewriter, crayons, fat markers.
47. Draw the individual items of your favorite outfit.
48. Make a useful item using only paper & tape.
49. Research a celebration or ritual from another culture.
50. Do a temporary art installation using a pad of post it notes & a pen.
51. Draw a map of your favorite sitting spots in your town/city. (photocopy it and give it to someone you like.)
52. Record all of the sounds you hear in the course of one hours.
53. Using a grid, collect various textures from magazine and play them off of each other. 54. Cut out all media for one day. Write about the effects.
55. Make pencil rubbings of six different surfaces.
56. Draw your garbage.
57. Do a morning collage.
58. List your ten most important things, (not including animals or people.)
59. List ten things you would like to do every day.
60. Glue a photo of yourself as a child into your journal.
61. Trasform some garbage.
62. Write an entry in your journal in really LARGE letters.
63. Collect some 'flat' things in nature (leaves, flowers). Glue or tape them into your journal. 64. Physically alter a page. (i.e. cut a hole, pour tea on it, burn it, fold it, etc.)
65. Find several color combinations you respond to in public. Document them using swatches, write where you found them.
66. Write a journal entry describing something "secret". Cut it up into several pieces and glue them back in scrambled.
67. Record descriptions or definitions of subjects or words you are interested in, found in encyclopedias or dictionaries.
68. Draw the outline of an object without looking at the page. (contour drawing).
69. What were you thinking just now? write it down.
70. Do nothing.
71. Write a list of ten things you could to do. Do the last thing on the list.
72. Create an image using dots.
73. Do 3 drawings at different speeds.
74. Put a small object in your left pocket (or in a bag), Put your left hand in the pocket. Draw it by feel.
75. Create a graph documenting or measuring something in your life.
76. Draw the sun.
77. Create instructions for a simple everyday task.
78. Make prints using food. (fruit and vegetables cut in half, fish, etc.)
79. Find a photo. Alter it by drawing over it.
80. Write a letter using an unconventional medium.
81. Draw one object for twenty minutes.
82. Combine two activities that have not been combined before.
83. Write about your day in an encyclopedic fashion. (i.e. organize by subject.)
84. Write a list of all the things you do to escape.
85. Cut a random shape out of several layers of a magazine. Make a collage out of the results.
86. Write an entry in code.
87. Make a painting using tools from the bathroom.
88. Work with a medium that is subtractive.
89. Write about or draw some of the doors in your life.
90. Make a postcard that has some kind of activity on it.
91. Divise a journal entry using "layers".
92. Divise an entry using "layers".
93. Write your own definition of one of the following concepts, sitting, waiting, sleeping (without using the actual word.)
94. List 10 of your habits.
95. Illustrate the concept of "simplicity".
For 96-100, write down and complete five of your own ideas!
Click here for a printable PDF file >>
12/06: Body tricks everyone should know!
| 1. If your throat tickles, scratch your ear! When you were 9, playing your armpit was a cool trick. Now, as an adult, you can still appreciate a good body-based feat, but you're more discriminating. Take that tickle in your throat; it's not worth gagging over. Here's a better way to scratch your itch: "When the nerves in the ear are stimulated, it creates a reflex in the throat that can cause a muscle spasm," says Scott Schaffer, M.D., president of an ear, nose, and throat specialty center in Gibbsboro, New Jersey. "This spasm relieves the tickle." 2. Experience supersonic hearing! If you're stuck chatting up a mumbler at a cocktail party, lean in with your right ear. It's better than your left at following the rapid rhythms of speech, according to researchers at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. If, on the other hand, you're trying to identify that song playing softly in the elevator, turn your left ear toward the sound. The left ear is better at picking up music tones. 3. Overcome your most primal urge! Need to pee? No bathroom nearby? Fantasize about Jessica Simpson. Thinking about sex preoccupies your brain, so you won't feel as much discomfort, says Larry Lipshultz, M.D., chief of male reproductive medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine. For best results, try Simpson's "These Boots Are Made for Walking" video. 4. Feel no pain! German researchers have discovered that coughing during an injection can lessen the pain of the needle stick. According to Taras Usichenko, author of a study on the phenomenon, the trick causes a sudden, temporary rise in pressure in the chest and spinal canal, inhibiting the pain-conducting structures of the spinal cord. 5. Clear your stuffed nose! Forget Sudafed. An easier, quicker, and cheaper way to relieve sinus pressure is by alternately thrusting your tongue against the roof of your mouth, then pressing between your eyebrows with one finger. This causes the vomer bone, which runs through the nasal passages to the mouth, to rock back and forth, says Lisa DeStefano, D.O., an assistant professor at the Michigan State University college of osteopathic medicine. The motion loosens congestion; after 20 seconds, you'll feel your sinuses start to drain. 6. Fight fire without water! Worried those wings will repeat on you tonight? "Sleep on your left side," says Anthony A. Starpoli, M.D., a New York City gastroenterologist and assistant professor of medicine at New York Medical College. Studies have shown that patients who sleep on their left sides are less likely to suffer from acid reflux. The esophagus and stomach connect at an angle. When you sleep on your right, the stomach is higher than the esophagus, allowing food and stomach acid to slide up your throat. When you're on your left, the stomach is lower than the esophagus, so gravity's in your favor. 7. Cure your toothache without opening your mouth! Just rub ice on the back of your hand, on the V-shaped webbed area between your thumb and index finger. A Canadian study found that this technique reduces toothache pain by as much as 50 percent compared with using no ice. The nerve pathways at the base of that V stimulate an area of the brain that blocks pain signals from the face and hands. 8. Make burns disappear! When you accidentally singe your finger on the stove, clean the skin and apply light pressure with the finger pads of your unmarred hand. Ice will relieve your pain more quickly, Dr. DeStefano says, but since the natual method brings the burned skin back to a normal temperature, the skin is less likely to blister. 9. Stop the world from spinning! One too many drinks left you dizzy? Put your hand on something stable. The part of your ear responsible for balance -- the cupula -- floats in a fluid of the same density as blood. "As alcohol dilutes blood in the cupula, the cupula becomes less dense and rises," says Dr. Schaffer. This confuses your brain. The tactile input from a stable object gives the brain a second opinion, and you feel more in balance. Because the nerves in the hand are so sensitive, this works better than the conventional foot-on-the-floor wisdom. 10. Unstitch your side! If you're like most people, when you run, you exhale as your right foot hits the ground. This puts downward pressure on your liver (which lives on your right side), which then tugs at the diaphragm and creates a side stitch, according to The Doctors Book of Home Remedies for Men. The fix: Exhale as your left foot strikes the ground. 11. Stanch blood with a single finger! Pinching your nose and leaning back is a great way to stop a nosebleed -- if you don't mind choking on your own O positive. A more civil approach: Put some cotton on your upper gums -- just behind that small dent below your nose -- and press against it, hard. "Most bleeds come from the front of the septum, the cartilage wall that divides the nose," says Peter Desmarais, M.D., an ear, nose, and throat specialist at Entabeni Hospital, in Durban, South Africa. "Pressing here helps stop them." 12. Make your heart stand still! Trying to quell first-date jitters? Blow on your thumb. The vagus nerve, which governs heart rate, can be controlled through breathing, says Ben Abo, an emergency medical- services specialist at the University of Pittsburgh. It'll get your heart rate back to normal. 13. Thaw your brain! Too much Chipwich too fast will freeze the brains of lesser men. As for you, press your tongue flat against the roof of your mouth, covering as much as you can. "Since the nerves in the roof of your mouth get extremely cold, your body thinks your brain is freezing, too," says Abo. "In compensating, it overheats, causing an ice-cream headache." The more pressure you apply to the roof of your mouth, the faster your headache will subside. 14. Prevent near-sightedness! Poor distance vision is rarely caused by genetics, says Anne Barber, O.D., an optometrist in Tacoma, Washington. "It's usually caused by near-point stress." In other words, staring at your computer screen for too long. So flex your way to 20/20 vision. Every few hours during the day, close your eyes, tense your body, take a deep breath, and, after a few seconds, release your breath and muscles at the same time. Tightening and releasing muscles such as the biceps and glutes can trick involuntary muscles -- like the eyes -- into relaxing as well. 15. Wake the dead! If your hand falls asleep while you're driving or sitting in an odd position, rock your head from side to side. It'll painlessly banish your pins and needles in less than a minute, says Dr. DeStefano. A tingly hand or arm is often the result of compression in the bundle of nerves in your neck; loosening your neck muscles releases the pressure. Compressed nerves lower in the body govern the feet, so don't let your sleeping dogs lie. Stand up and walk around. 16. Impress your friends! Next time you're at a party, try this trick: Have a person hold one arm straight out to the side, palm down, and instruct him to maintain this position. Then place two fingers on his wrist and push down. He'll resist. Now have him put one foot on a surface that's a half inch higher (a few magazines) and repeat. This time his arm will cave like the French. By misaligning his hips, you've offset his spine, says Rachel Cosgrove, C.S.C.S., co-owner of Results Fitness, in Santa Clarita, California. Your brain senses that the spine is vulnerable, so it shuts down the body's ability to resist.
18. Read minds! Your own! "If you're giving a speech the next day, review it before falling asleep," says Candi Heimgartner, an instructor of biological sciences at the University of Idaho. Since most memory consolidation happens during sleep, anything you read right before bed is more likely to be encoded as long-term memory. Source: http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?site= More Articles: Top ten reasons to get into Running |
12/06: 10 Traits that'll make a great girlfriend...
1. She's independentNo one wants a girlfriend they have to baby-sit. Once in a while, like if she's had a rough day at work, it's great to be her shoulder to cry on, but if she can't seem to function without you and is constantly after you, she will eventually make you feel like you're suffocating, which is a surefire way to get you running out the nearest exit. On the other hand, if she has her very own personality and opinions, can stand on her own two feet, both financially and emotionally, and is able to enjoy time away from you - while still missing you, of course - then she must be a great girlfriend.
2. She's intelligent
I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the bimbo routine gets real old, real fast. Instead of being the one in total control, you'll find yourself trying to figure out what she's really thinking behind those glazed eyes of hers - or if she's actually thinking at all. An intelligent woman will constantly surprise you and keep you on your toes. She won't let you get bored of her. Besides, it's nice to have something to talk about between all that chandelier-hanging sex.
3. She's sexual
While we're on the topic, a great girlfriend has to be sexually compatible with you. For instance, if you're into S&M and she's more the "fluffy lingerie" type, that's a problem. The two of you have to be on the same page - or, at least, she has to be willing to wear leather and use a whip from time to time. Of course, this doesn't imply that she has to know all the right moves straight away; it simply means that you and she have an undeniable attraction toward each other, and are able to communicate your desires verbally (or with physical cues). It is important that you please each other in the bedroom, or on top of the dryer - whatever the case may be.
4. She's beautiful
I know, this one is kind of obvious, but important nonetheless. A great girlfriend will not only want to look good for you, but also for herself. She should always look her best and be well put together - matching lingerie is a definite plus. You have to be proud to have her on your arm and enjoy the sight of her in any light. And this doesn't mean that she has to be a Heidi Klum clone. Remember that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so if you think her full bottom or uncontrollable curls are beautiful, you're allowed.
5. She respects you
This is a biggie. Your woman must respect you. This means that she listens to you, even if she doesn't necessarily agree with what you're saying. And, of course, she never tries to demean or belittle you in any way, shape or form. A great girlfriend won't ever cause scenes in public or in front of your friends and family, and will always wait to discuss matters with you in private. If she respects you, chances are that she will behave in a tactful and diplomatic manner in most situations, which is definitely a good thing.
6. She lets you be a man
Do not - I repeat - do not get involved with a woman who tries to get you to eat cottage cheese and fruit for breakfast and insists that you give up poker night with the guys. You will end up resenting her more than you can imagine. A good girlfriend lets you be a guy in all your glory, poker night and all. If she's a great girlfriend, she'll even bring you and your buddies a couple of beers and make you some of her famous sandwiches. She has to understand that men and women are different and should allow you to be yourself. Just like you wouldn't deprive her of going shopping with her best girlfriend, she shouldn't expect you to give up the guys for her.
7. She's nagless
There is nothing worse than a nag! A great girlfriend knows this and chooses her battles wisely. She knows when to speak up and when to let it slide. You don't want a girlfriend who will give you hell for leaving a couple of dishes in the sink occasionally. However, if you live together and you stay out all night without calling her, and she lets you have it, then you're setting yourself up for disaster. This is a situation that nobody would let slide - not even a great girlfriend.
8. She gets along with friends and family
A great girlfriend will not only help your mom in the kitchen, listen to your dad's stories and hang out with your friends, but she will enjoy it. She'll make a real effort to get to know and love the most important people in your life. And she won't try to get you to ditch your best buds. She'll actually empathize with your brother's getting dumped and suggest that you guys take him out to cheer him up. Not only that, but your friends won't roll their eyes and moan when you mention that she'll be joining you guys when she gets off work (yes, women like this do exist).
9. She loves you
If you have found a woman who loves you for who you really are and not who you pretend or try to be sometimes, you should definitely hang on to her. A woman who doesn't try to change you is hard to find. Of course, all women have their slightly annoying habits that their mate has to contend with, but if she really loves you, she will be able to cope with these. Another way to know if she really loves you is by observing the way she looks at you and treats you on an everyday basis. If the sight of you doesn't seem to faze her either way, and she doesn't really seem to care about what you have to say, she's either playing very hard to get, or sees you as just some guy. But if a surprise visit or phone call from you makes her light up, there's no denying that she loves you.
10. She makes you want to be a better man
Stop making that face... any man who has a great girlfriend or wife will tell you that she makes him want to be a better man. She doesn't have to say or do anything; it just is that way. If you suddenly feel bad about how you treated your sister or find yourself trying to get your finances in order, you might want to think about your motivation for doing so. It could be love
07/06: More Streeview captures....
More street captures by the Google Van... check em out.
Entering an adult book store...
A glowing sky
Caught taking a leak
A Conan O'Brien billboard
Sun-tanning...
... and some more...
Car problems?
A glimpse into the mirror
Poice control
Street art
The Google team posing for the camera
"Taking photographs of students is prohibited," the sign reads...
A cat behind the window (the NYT identified the owner, Mary Kalin-Casey!)...
They just wanna play, not bite, I'm sure!
05/06: 10 intereesting sights in Google Street View...
Drive around America's biggest cities in a black VW Beetle with a huge panoramic camera bolted to the roof, and you're sure to see something unusual along the way...
Google's magic van has captured some very interesting scenes as it journeyed through the streets. But in the days since the service was launched, numerous interesting sights have been spotted.
1. Someone apparently climbing over a fence in San Francisco
2. Borat peeking out of a window in San Jose, California
3. The already infamous 'Hot Babes' poster van driving alongside the Google truck in Las Vegas
4. A girl bending over, and two guys watching her...
5. Ambulance driver stops for a sandwich
7. Strange, headless figures next to what looks like a newly dug grave
04/06: Angeline Jolie - sexiest woman alive...
Click here to see photos of Angelina Jolie >>
Angelina Jolie (born June 4, 1975) is an American film actress, a former fashion model, and a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency. She is often cited by popular media as one of the world's most beautiful women and her off-screen life is widely reported. She has received three Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and an Academy Award. After appearing as a child alongside her father Jon Voight in the 1982 film Lookin' to Get Out, Jolie's acting career began in earnest a decade later with the low budget production Cyborg 2 (1993) and she played her first leading role in a major film in Hackers (1995). She appeared in the critically acclaimed biographical films George Wallace (1997) and Gia (1998), and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama Girl, Interrupted (1999). She achieved international fame as a result of her portrayal of videogame heroine Lara Croft in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), and since then has established herself as one of the best known and highest paid actresses in Hollywood. She had her biggest commercial success with the action-comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005).
Divorced from actors Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton, Jolie currently lives with actor Brad Pitt, in a relationship that has attracted worldwide media attention. Jolie and Pitt have three adopted children, Maddox, Pax and Zahara, and a biological child, Shiloh. Jolie has promoted humanitarian causes throughout the world, and is noted for her work with refugees through UNHCR.
Early life and family
Born Angelina Jolie Voight in Los Angeles, California, she is the daughter of actors Jon Voight and the late Marcheline Bertrand. Jolie is the niece of Chip Taylor, sister of James Haven and the god-daughter of Jacqueline Bisset and Maximilian Schell. On her father's side, she is of Czechoslovakian and German descent, and on her mother's side she is French Canadian and is said to be part "Iroquois", although Bertrand's alleged Native American ancestry was once disputed by Voight in an interview in 2001.
After her parents' separation in 1976, Jolie and her brother were raised by their mother, who abandoned her acting ambitions and moved with them to Palisades, New York. As a child Jolie regularly saw movies with her mother and later explained that this had inspired her interest in acting; she had not been influenced by her father. When she was 11, the family moved back to Los Angeles and Jolie decided she wanted to act and enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, where she trained for two years and appeared in several stage productions. She later recalled her time as a student at Beverly Hills High School (later Moreno High School), and her feeling of isolation among the children of some of the area's more affluent families. Jolie's mother survived on a more modest income, and Jolie often wore second-hand clothes. She was teased by other students who also targeted her for her distinctive features, for being extremely thin, and for wearing glasses and braces. Her self esteem was further diminished when her initial attempts at modeling proved unsuccessful. As her despondency grew, she started to cut herself; later commenting during an appearance on CNN, "I collected knives and always had certain things around. For some reason, the ritual of having cut myself and feeling the pain, maybe feeling alive, feeling some kind of release, it was somehow therapeutic to me." At 14, she dropped out of her acting classes and dreamed of becoming a funeral director. Her self-loathing led her to embark on a rebellious period in her life; she wore black, dyed her hair purple and went out moshing with her live-in boyfriend. Two years later, after the relationship had ended, she rented an apartment above a garage a few blocks from her mother's home. She returned to theatre studies and graduated from high school, though in recent time she has referred to this period with the observation, "I am still at heart-and always will be-just a punk kid with tattoos".
Jolie has been long estranged from her father, blaming his infidelity for the break-up of the family, though a reconciliation was attempted, and he appeared with her in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. In July 2002, Jolie filed a request to legally change her name to "Angelina Jolie", dropping Voight as her surname; the name change was made official on September 12, 2002. In August of the same year, Voight claimed that his daughter had "serious emotional problems" on Access Hollywood. In the October 2004 issue of Premiere Magazine, Jolie indicated that she no longer wished to pursue a relationship with her father, and said, "My father and I don't speak. I don't hold any anger toward him. I don't believe that somebody's family becomes their blood. Because my son's adopted, and families are earned." She stated that she did not want to publicize her reasons for her estrangement from her father, but because she had adopted her son, she did not think it was healthy for her to associate with Voight.
Early work, 1993-1997
Jolie began working as a fashion model at 14. She was signed with Finesse Model Management and modeled in both the United States and Europe, working mainly in Los Angeles, New York and London. She also appeared in numerous music videos, including those of Meat Loaf ("Rock'n'Roll Dreams Come Through"), Antonello Venditti ("Alta Marea") and Lenny Kravitz ("Stand by My Woman"). At the age of 16 Jolie returned to theatre, and played her first role as a German dominatrix. She began to learn from her father, as she noticed his method of observing people to become like them. Their relationship during this time was less strained, with Jolie realizing that they were both "drama queens".
Jolie as Kate Libby with her first husband Jonny Lee Miller in Hackers.Jolie appeared in five of her brother's student films, made while he attended the USC School of Cinematic Arts, but her professional movie career began in 1993, when she played her first leading role in the low budget film Cyborg 2, as Casella "Cash" Reese, a near-human robot, designed to seduce her way into a rival manufacturer's headquarters and then self-detonate. Following several undistinguished projects she starred as Kate "Acid Burn" Libby in her first Hollywood picture, Hackers (1995), where she met her first husband Jonny Lee Miller. The New York Times wrote, "Kate (Angelina Jolie) stands out. That's because she scowls even more sourly than [her co-stars] and is that rare female hacker who sits intently at her keyboard in a see-through top. Despite her sullen posturing, which is all this role requires, Ms. Jolie has the sweetly cherubic looks of her father, Jon Voight." The movie failed to make a profit at the box-office, but developed a cult following after its video release.
She appeared as Gina Malacici in the 1996 comedy Love Is All There Is, a modern-day loose adaptation of Romeo and Juliet set among two rival Italian family restaurant owners in Bronx, New York. In the road movie Mojave Moon she was a youngster, named Eleanor Rigby, who falls for Danny Aiello, while he takes a shine to her mother, Anne Archer. Still in 1996 she played Margret "Legs" Sadovsky, one of five teenage girls who form an unlikely bond in the film Foxfire after they beat up a teacher who has sexually harassed them. The Los Angeles Times wrote about Jolie's performance, "It took a lot of hogwash to develop this character, but Jolie, Jon Voight's knockout daughter, has the presence to overcome the stereotype.
Though the story is narrated by Maddy, Legs is the subject and the catalyst." In 1997 Jolie starred with David Duchovny in the thriller Playing God, a film portraying a famed L.A. surgeon who is stripped of his medical license and is lured deep into the criminal world where he meets Jolie's character, Claire. The movie was not received well by critics and Roger Ebert noted that "Angelina Jolie finds a certain warmth in a kind of role that is usually hard and aggressive; she seems too nice to be [a criminal's] girlfriend, and maybe she is." She then appeared in the TV movie True Women, a historical romantic drama set in the West, and based on the book by Janice Woods Windle. She also appeared as a stripper in the Rolling Stones music video for the song "Anybody Seen My Baby?"
Breakthrough, 1997-2000
Jolie's career prospects began to improve after her performance as Cornelia Wallace in the 1997 biopic George Wallace for which she won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Emmy. The film was highly praised by critics and, among other awards, received the Golden Globe for "Best Miniseries/Motion Picture made for TV". She played the second wife of the segregationist Governor of Alabama who was shot and paralyzed while running for President.
The film starred Gary Sinise and was directed by John Frankenheimer. In 1998 Jolie starred in HBO's Gia, as the supermodel, Gia Carangi. The film depicted a world of sex, drugs and emotional drama, and chronicled the destruction of Carangi's life and career as a result of her drug addiction, and her decline and death from AIDS. Vanessa Vance from Reel.com noted, "Angelina Jolie gained wide recognition for her role as the titular Gia, and it's easy to see why. Jolie is fierce in her portrayal-filling the part with nerve, charm, and desperation-and her role in this film is quite possibly the most beautiful train wreck ever filmed." For the second consecutive year, Jolie won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Emmy. She also won her first Screen Actors Guild Award. In accordance with Lee Strasberg's method acting Jolie reportedly prefers to stay in character in between scenes during many of her films, and as a result has gained a reputation for being difficult to deal with. While shooting Gia, she told her then-husband Jonny Lee Miller that she wouldn't be able to phone him. "I'd tell him: 'I'm alone; I'm dying; I'm gay; I'm not going to see you for weeks.'"
Following Gia, Jolie moved to New York and stopped acting for a short period of time, because she felt that she had "nothing else to give". She enrolled at New York University to study filmmaking and attended writing classes. She described it as "just good for me to collect myself" on Inside the Actors Studio. Jolie returned to film as Gloria McNeary in the 1998 gangster movie Hell's Kitchen, and later that year was part of an ensemble cast that included Sean Connery, Gillian Anderson, Ryan Phillippe and Jon Stewart in Playing by Heart. The drama tells the story of several seemingly unconnected characters, with Jolie playing a young club-scene hipster, Joan. The film received predominantly positive reviews and Jolie was praised in particular. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Jolie, working through an overwritten part, is a sensation as the desperate club crawler learning truths about what she's willing to gamble." Jolie won the Breakthrough Performance Award by the National Board of Review.
In 1999 she starred in Mike Newell's comedy-drama Pushing Tin, about two air traffic controllers who engage in macho conflict, co-starring alongside John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate Blanchett. Jolie played Thornton's seductive wife Mary Bell. The film received a lukewarm reception from critics and Jolie's character was particularly criticized. The Washington Post wrote, "Mary (Angelina Jolie), a completely ludicrous writer's creation of a free-spirited woman who weeps over hibiscus plants that die, wears lots of turquoise rings and gets real lonely when Russell spends entire nights away from home." She then worked with Denzel Washington in The Bone Collector, an adapted crime novel written by Jeffery Deaver. Jolie played Amelia Donaghy, a police officer haunted by her cop father's suicide who reluctantly helps Washington track down a serial killer. The movie grossed $151 million worldwide, but was a critical failure; the Detroit Free Press concluded, "Jolie, while always delicious to look at, is simply and woefully miscast."
Jolie next took the supporting role of Lisa Rowe alongside Winona Ryder in Girl, Interrupted (1999), a film that tells the story of mental patient Susanna Kaysen, and which was adapted from Kaysen's original memoir Girl, Interrupted. While the lead role of the film was Ryder's character, and hoped to be a comeback for Ryder, the film instead became the "welcome-to-Hollywood coronation" for Jolie. Jolie won her third Golden Globe, her second Screen Actors Guild Award and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Variety noted, "Jolie is excellent as the flamboyant, irresponsible girl who turns out to be far more instrumental than the doctors in Susanna's rehabilitation" and Roger Ebert wrote about her performance: " Jolie is emerging as one of the great wild spirits of current movies, a loose cannon who somehow has deadly aim. "
In 2000 Jolie appeared in her first summer blockbuster Gone In 60 Seconds, in which she played Sarah "Sway" Wayland, ex-girlfriend of car-thief Nicolas Cage. The role was small, and the Washington Post criticized that "all she does in this movie is stand around, cooling down, modeling those fleshy, pulsating muscle-tubes that nest so provocatively around her teeth." She later explained that the film was a welcome relief after the heavy role of Lisa Rowe, and it became her highest grossing movie up until then, with $237 million internationally.
International success, 2001-present
Although highly regarded for her acting abilities, Jolie's films to date had often not appealed to a wide audience, but Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) made her an international superstar. An adaptation of the popular Tomb Raider videogame, Jolie was required to master a British accent and undergo extensive martial arts training to play the title role of Lara Croft. She was generally praised for her physical performance, but the movie generated mostly negative reviews. Slant Magazine commented, "Angelina Jolie was born to play Lara Croft but [director] Simon West makes her journey into a game of Frogger." The movie was a huge international success nonetheless, earning $275 million worldwide, and started her reputation as a female action star.
Jolie then starred alongside Antonio Banderas as the mail-order bride Julia Russell in Original Sin, a thriller based on the novel Waltz into Darkness by Cornell Woolrich. The film was a major critical failure, with The New York Times noting, "The story plunges more precipitously than Ms. Jolie's neckline." In 2002, she played Lanie Kerrigan in Life or Something Like It, a film about an ambitious TV reporter who is told that she will die in a week. The film was poorly received by critics, though Jolie's performance received positive reviews. CNN's Paul Clinton wrote, "Jolie is excellent in her role. Despite some of the ludicrous plot points in the middle of the film, this Academy Award-winning actress is exceedingly believable in her journey towards self-discovery and the true meaning of fulfilling life."
Jolie as Lara Croft.Jolie reprised her role as Lara Croft in Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life in 2003. The sequel, while not as lucrative as the original, earned $156 million at the international box-office. Later that year Jolie starred in Beyond Borders, a film about aid workers in Africa. Although reflecting Jolie's real-life interest in promoting humanitarian relief, the film was critically and financially unsuccessful. The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Jolie, as she did in her Oscar-winning role in Girl, Interrupted, can bring electricity and believability to roles that have a reality she can understand. She can also, witness the Lara Croft films, do acknowledged cartoons. But the limbo of a hybrid character, a badly written cardboard person in a fly-infested, blood-and-guts world, completely defeats her."
In 2004, Jolie starred alongside Ethan Hawke in the thriller Taking Lives, as Illeana Scott, an FBI profiler summoned to help Montreal law enforcement hunt down a serial killer. The movie received mixed reviews and The Hollywood Reporter concluded, "Angelina Jolie plays a role that definitely feels like something she has already done, but she does add an unmistakable dash of excitement and glamour." She also provided the voice of Lola, an angelfish in the animated DreamWorks movie Shark Tale; the cast included Will Smith, Martin Scorsese, Renée Zellweger, Jack Black and Robert De Niro. Also in 2004, Jolie had a brief appearance as Franky in Kerry Conran's Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, a science fiction adventure film shot with actors entirely in front of a bluescreen, with all the sets and nearly all of the props computer-generated. Jolie then played Olympias in Alexander (2004), Oliver Stone's biopic about the life of Alexander the Great. The film failed domestically, with Stone attributing its poor reception to disapproval of the depiction of Alexander's homosexuality,[35] but it succeeded internationally, with revenue of $139 million outside the United States. Newsday wrote of Jolie's performance, "Jolie is the only one in the picture who seems to be having any fun with her role, and one misses her whenever she's off-screen."
Jolie as assassin Jane Smith in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, her biggest commercial success to date.Jolie's only movie of 2005, the action-comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith, is also her biggest commercial success to date. The film, directed by Doug Liman, tells the story of a bored married couple who find out that they are both secret assassins. Jolie starred as Jane Smith alongside Brad Pitt. The film was well received and was generally lauded for the chemistry between the two leads. The Star Tribune noted, "While the story feels haphazard, the movie gets by on gregarious charm, galloping energy and the stars' thermonuclear screen chemistry." The movie earned over $478 million worldwide, one of the biggest hits of 2005.
Jolie next appeared in Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd (2006), a film about the early history of the CIA, as seen through the eyes of Edward Wilson, played by Matt Damon. Jolie co-stared as Margaret Russell, Wilson's neglected wife who becomes increasingly discontented by the effects of his work. The Chicago Tribune commented on her role, "Jolie ages convincingly throughout, and is blithely unconcerned with how her brittle character is coming off in terms of audience sympathy."
In 2007, Jolie made her directorial debut with the documentary A Place in Time, which captures the life in 27 locations around the globe during a single week and features fellow actors such as Jude Law, Hilary Swank, Colin Farrell and Jonny Lee Miller. Jolie starred as Mariane Pearl in Michael Winterbottom's documentary-style drama A Mighty Heart (2007), about the kidnap and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. The film is based on Mariane Pearl's memoirs A Mighty Heart and had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. The Hollywood Reporter described Jolie's performance as "well-measured and moving", played "with respect and a firm grasp on a difficult accent." Her confirmed future projects include the animated movies Beowulf, playing Grendel's mother, and Kung Fu Panda. Jolie will also appear in Wanted, an action film based on a graphic novel by Mark Millar, and she was cast as Dagny Taggart in the movie adaptation of Atlas Shrugged.
Humanitarian work
Jolie first became personally aware of worldwide humanitarian crises while filming Tomb Raider in poverty-stricken and widely mined Cambodia. According to Jolie, "I discovered things about what's happening in the world... Cambodia was really eye opening for me." Deeply affected by these experiences, she eventually turned to UNHCR for more information on international trouble spots. In the following months she agreed to visit different refugee camps around the world to learn more about the situation and the conditions in these areas.
In February 2001, Jolie went on her first field visit, an 18-day mission to Sierra Leone and Tanzania; she later expressed her shock at what she had witnessed. In the coming months she returned to Cambodia for two weeks and later visited Afghan refugees in Pakistan where she donated $1 million for Afghan refugees in response to an international UNHCR emergency appeal. She insisted on covering all costs related to her missions and shared the same rudimentary working and living conditions as UNHCR field staff on all of her visits.
Impressed by her interest and devotion in the subject, UNHCR named her a Goodwill Ambassador on August 27, 2001 at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva, despite her warning that her controversial public image might shed a negative light on the U.N. In a press conference Jolie explained her motives for joining the refugee agency:
" We cannot close ourselves off to information and ignore the fact that millions of people are out there suffering. I honestly want to help. I don't believe I feel differently from other people. I think we all want justice and equality, a chance for a life with meaning. All of us would like to believe that if we were in a bad situation someone would help us. "
Jolie talking to displaced children in Ardamata camp, West Darfur.During her first three years as Goodwill Ambassador Jolie concentrated her efforts on field missions, visiting refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) all around the world. Asked what she hoped to accomplish, she stated, "Awareness of the plight of these people. I think they should be commended for what they have survived, not looked down upon." In 2002, Jolie visited Tham Hin refugee camp in Thailand and Colombian refugees in Ecuador to take a closer look at the "Western Hemisphere's most severe humanitarian crisis". She and US Secretary of State Colin Powell opened events to celebrate World Refugee Day 2002 on June 20 in Washington, D.C.
Jolie then went to various UNHCR facilities in Kosovo and paid a visit to Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya with refugees mainly from Sudan. UNHCR's Representative to Kenya, George Okoth-Obbo, praised her "presence, just to bring some joy into what is undoubtedly a hard life for many of the people here". She also visited Angolan refugees while she was filming Beyond Borders in Namibia. In 2003, Jolie embarked on a six-day mission to Tanzania where she traveled to western border camps, hosting Congolese refugees and she paid a week-long visit to Sri Lanka, where she saw the post-war conditions in northern Sri Lanka. Jolie again attended World Refugee Day on June 20 in Washington, D.C., and later concluded a four-day mission to Russia as she traveled to North Caucasus to learn about all aspects of UNHCR's operations in the region.
Concurrently with the release of her movie Beyond Borders in October 2003 she published Notes from My Travels, a collection of journal entries that chronicle her early field missions (2001-2002). All her proceeds from the book went to UNHCR. During a private stay in Jordan in December 2003 she asked to visit Ruwaished camp in Jordan's remote eastern desert, 70 km from the Iraqi border. The camp hosted some 800 people who had fled Iraq during the U.S.-led invasion and later that month she visited Sudanese refugees near the Egyptian capital in Kilo Arbaa We Nus.
On her first U.N. trip within the United States, Jolie went to Arizona in 2004, visiting detained asylum seekers at three facilities and the Southwest Key Program, a facility for unaccompanied children in Phoenix. With the humanitarian situation in Sudan worsening, she flew to Chad in June 2004, paying a visit to border sites and camps for refugees who had fled fighting in western Sudan's Darfur region. Four months later she returned to the region, this time going directly into West Darfur to learn about the situation of thousands of IDPs. She stressed the need for security and access to displaced people's home villages at a press conference in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. On June 18, 2004 she and US Secretary of State Colin Powell met again in Washington to launch the three day events of World Refugee Day. Also in 2004 Jolie visited Afghan refugees in Thailand and on a private stay to Lebanon during the Christmas holidays she visited UNHCR's regional office in Beirut, as well as some young refugees and cancer patients in the Lebanese capital.
Jolie and Condoleezza Rice attending World Refugee Day 2005.With increasing experience, Jolie became more involved in promoting humanitarian causes on a political level. Since 2005 she has attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, announcing the formation of a Council of Business Leaders with UNHCR's Deputy High Commissioner, Wendy Chamberlin, in 2005, and participated in the panel discussion Human Rights: Reduced to Charity? in 2006. Jolie also began lobbying humanitarian interests in Washington, D.C. where she met with congressmen and senators at least 20 times from 2003. She explained in Forbes:
" As much as I would love to never have to visit Washington, that's the way to move the ball. "
Among others, she pushed for The Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act in reaction to her previous visit to facilities for asylum seekers in Arizona. On March 8, 2005 Jolie took part at a National Press Club luncheon in Washington, D.C. where she promoted the bill and in support of it announced the founding of the National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children, an organization that provides free legal-aid to asylum-seeking children with no legal representation which Jolie personally funded with a donation of $500,000 for its first two years. The Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act eventually passed in December 2005. Jolie also pushed for a bill to aid 70 million vulnerable children in the Third World which was signed by President Bush in November 2005, but so far no funding has been granted. In addition to her political involvement, Jolie began using the public's interest in her to promote humanitarian causes through the mass media. In May 2005 Jolie filmed a MTV special, The Diary Of Angelina Jolie & Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa, portraying her and noted economist Dr. Jeffrey Sachs on their trip to Sauri, a remote group of villages in Western Kenya. There, Sachs's United Nations Millennium Project team is working with locals to end poverty, hunger and disease. In September 2006 Jolie announced the founding of the Jolie/Pitt Foundation which made initial donations to Global Action for Children and Doctors Without Borders of $1 million each.
Jolie visited Pakistani camps containing Afghan refugees, in May 2005 and she also met with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. She returned to Pakistan with Brad Pitt during the Thanksgiving weekend in November to see the impact of the October 8 Kashmir earthquake. They met many quake victims as well as President Musharraf. In 2006 Jolie and Pitt flew to Haiti and visited a school supported by Yéle Haïti, a charity founded by Haitian-born hip hop musician Wyclef Jean. Jolie also arranged a deal with People allowing them to print the first picture showing her visibly pregnant in exchange for a $500,000 donation to Yéle Haïti. In November 2006, while filming A Mighty Heart in India, she visited Afghan and Burmese refugees in New Delhi and met the Minister of State for External Affairs, Anand Sharma, praising India's longstanding hospitality to refugees. Jolie spent Christmas Day with Colombian refugees in San José, Costa Rica where she handed out presents and met with Costa Rican officials. In February 2007, Jolie returned to Chad for a two-day mission to assess the deteriorating security situation for refugees from the Darfur region of Sudan. In an op-ed for the Washington Post she stressed the need for justice and the increased involvement of the International Criminal Court to establish an enduring peace. In May, Jolie and Pitt donated $1 million to three relief organizations in Darfur and neighbouring Chad.
Jolie has received wide recognition for her humanitarian work. On October 24, 2003 she was the first recipient of the new created Citizen of the World Award by the United Nations Correspondents Association. Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni awarded Jolie Cambodian citizenship for her conservation work in the country on August 12, 2005; she has pledged $5 million to set up a wildlife sanctuary in the north-western province of Battambang and owns property there. On October 12, 2005, Jolie was awarded the Global Humanitarian Award by the UNA-USA. In February 2007, she was accepted by the bipartisan think tank Council on Foreign Relations for a special five-year term designed to "nurture the next generation of foreign policy makers".
Relationships
On March 28, 1996, Jolie married British actor Jonny Lee Miller, her co-star in the film Hackers. She attended her wedding in black leather trousers and a white shirt, which had her groom's name painted in her blood on the back. Jolie and Miller separated one year later and subsequently divorced on February 3, 1999. They remained on good terms and Jolie later explained, "It comes down to timing. I think he's the greatest husband a girl could ask for. I'll always love him, we were simply too young."She then married American actor Billy Bob Thornton, who she had met on the set of Pushing Tin, on May 5, 2000. As a result of their frequent public declarations of passion and gestures of love (most famously wearing one another's blood in vials around their necks), their relationship became a favorite topic of the entertainment media. Jolie and Thornton divorced on May 27, 2003. Asked in Vogue about the sudden dissolution of their marriage, Jolie stated, "It took me by surprise, too, because overnight, we totally changed. I think one day we had just nothing in common. And it's scary but... I think it can happen when you get involved and you don't know yourself yet."
Jolie and Brad Pitt in the Dominican Republic, in January 2006.Jolie has said in interviews that she is bisexual and has long acknowledged that she had a sexual relationship with her Foxfire co-star Jenny Shimizu, "I would probably have married Jenny if I hadn't married my husband. I fell in love with her the first second I saw her." In an interview with Barbara Walters in 2003, asked if she was bisexual, Jolie responded, "Of course. If I fell in love with a woman tomorrow, would I feel that it's okay to want to kiss and touch her? If I fell in love with her? Absolutely! Yes!"
In early 2005, Jolie was involved in a well-publicized Hollywood scandal when she was accused of being the "other woman" in the divorce of actors Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. The allegation was that she and Pitt had started an affair during filming of Mr. & Mrs. Smith; however, she has denied this in several interviews. In an interview with Ann Curry in 2005, she explained, "To be intimate with a married man, when my own father cheated on my mother, is not something I could forgive. I could not look at myself in the morning if I did that. I wouldn't be attracted to a man who would cheat on his wife."
While Jolie and Pitt never publicly commented about the nature of their relationship, speculations continued throughout 2005. The first intimate paparazzi photos emerged in April, one month after Aniston had filed for divorce; they show Pitt, Jolie and her son Maddox at a beach in Kenya. During the summer Jolie and Pitt were seen together with increasing frequency and most of the entertainment media considered them a couple, dubbing them "Brangelina". On January 11, 2006 Jolie confirmed to People that she was pregnant with Pitt's child and thereby confirmed their relationship for the first time in public.
Children
On March 10, 2002, Jolie adopted her first child, Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt (originally Maddox Chivan Thornton Jolie). He was born on August 5 2001, as Rath Vibol in Cambodia and he initially lived in a local orphanage in Battambang. Jolie decided to apply for adoption after she had visited Cambodia twice, while filming Tomb Raider and on a UNHCR field trip in 2001. After her divorce from her second husband, Billy Bob Thornton, Jolie received sole custody of Maddox. His name is Celtic in origin, usually translated as "beneficent", and like Jolie's other children, Maddox has gained a considerable celebrity and appears regularly in the tabloid media; he was named the "cutest celebrity kid," and he is known for his mohawk hairstyle.
On July 6, 2005, Jolie adopted a six-month-old girl from Ethiopia, Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt (originally Zahara Marley Jolie), who was orphaned by AIDS. Zahara was born on January 8, 2005 as Tena Adam. Jolie picked her up at a Wide Horizons For Children orphanage in Addis Ababa. Shortly after they returned to the United States Zahara had to spend time in a hospital for dehydration and malnutrition. Jolie stated that "she was six months and not nine pounds. Her skin, you could squeeze it, it stuck together." Zahara's name means "flower" in Swahili, the second name "Marley" comes from late Jamaican reggae superstar Bob Marley.
Brad Pitt was reportedly present when Jolie signed the adoption papers and collected her daughter; later Jolie indicated that she and Pitt made the decision to adopt Zahara together. In December 2005 it was confirmed that Pitt was seeking to legally adopt Jolie's two children, and on January 19, 2006, a judge in California approved this request. The children's legal surnames were formally changed to "Jolie-Pitt".
On May 27, 2006, Jolie gave birth to a daughter named Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, at night at the Cottage Medi-Clinic Hospital in Swakopmund, Namibia. Shiloh was born by a scheduled caesarean section, due to breech presentation, and Pitt was there to cut her umbilical cord. Shiloh, according to a long-standing translation from the Bible, has come to mean "the peaceful one". Pitt confirmed that their newly-born daughter will have a Namibian passport while speaking to local journalists, and Jolie decided to offer the first pictures of Shiloh through the distributor Getty Images herself, rather than allowing paparazzi to make these extremely valuable snapshots. People paid more than $4.1 million for the North American rights, while British magazine Hello! obtained the international rights for roughly $3.5 million; the total rights sale earned up to $10 million worldwide - the most expensive celebrity image of all time. All profits were donated to an undisclosed charity by Jolie and Pitt.
On July 26, 2006 Madame Tussauds in New York unveiled a wax figure of two-month-old Shiloh; it was the first infant re-created in wax by Madame Tussauds.On March 15, 2007, Jolie adopted a three-year-old boy from Vietnam, Pax Thien Jolie, who was born on November 29, 2003 and abandoned at birth at a local hospital, where he was initially named Pham Quang Sang. Jolie collected the boy from the Tam Binh orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City. His new name is a combination of the Latin word for "peace" and the Vietnamese word for "sky" or "heaven." In April 2007, Jolie filed a petition to officially change his surname to "Jolie-Pitt".
Jolie in the media
Jolie appeared in the media from an early age due to her famous father Jon Voight. At 7 she had a small part in Lookin' to Get Out, a movie co-written by and starring her father, and in 1986 and 1988 she attended the Academy Awards as a teenager with him. However, when she started her acting career, Jolie decided not to use "Voight" as a stage name, because she wished to establish her own identity as an actress. Jolie was never shy about controversy and integrated her teenage "wild girl" image into her public persona in the first years of her career. During her acceptance speech at the 2000 Academy Awards, Jolie declared "I'm so in love with my brother right now" which, combined with her affectionate behavior towards him that night, sparked rumors in the tabloid media of an incestuous relationship with her brother James Haven. She has denied those rumors and said while appearing on Inside the Actors Studio "the world is a lot sicker than I thought". Jolie and Haven later explained in interviews that after their parents' divorce they relied on one another and because of that they hold on to each other as a means of emotional support.
Jolie at a photo op in Washington, D.C.Jolie is noted as "the one A-list celebrity without a publicist", and she quickly became a tabloid's favorite, since she presented herself as very outspoken in interviews, once claiming to be "most likely to sleep with a female fan". Her love life, especially her interest in sadomasochism, has often been featured in the media.
In 2004 she stated in Allure, "S&M sex can be misinterpreted as violence. It's really about trust. I like to push boundaries, both emotional and sexual, with another person. That's when I've felt the sexiest. I've been in both submissive and dominant roles because I want more." As one of her most distinctive physical features, Jolie's lips have attracted notable media attention and she has been described as "the current gold standard of beauty in the West" among women seeking cosmetic surgery. She also created headlines with her much publicized marriage to Billy Bob Thornton and her subsequent change into an advocate for global humanitarian problems. As she took on the role of UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador she started to use her celebrity status to highlight humanitarian causes worldwide, e.g. promoting World Refugee Day 2006 in a two hour CNN interview with Anderson Cooper which attracting more than double the audience of his typical newscast. Jolie has been taking flying lessons since 2004 and she has a student pilot and private pilot (UK based) license. The media speculated that Jolie is a Buddhist, but she said that she teaches Buddhism to her son Maddox because she considers it part of his culture. Jolie has not stated definitively whether or not she believes in God. When asked in an interview with The Onion A.V. Club in 2000 if there was a God, she said, "For the people who believe in it, I hope so. There doesn't need to be a God for me."
Starting in 2005, her relationship with Brad Pitt became one of the most reported celebrity stories worldwide. After Jolie confirmed her pregnancy in early 2006, the unprecedented media hype surrounding them "reached the point of insanity" as Reuters described it in their story "The Brangelina fever"; among others, there were several false wedding rumors including an alleged imminent wedding in Laglio, Italy that was even further ignited by the local mayor and was picked up by many noted news services like the Associated Press and the BBC. Trying to avoid the media attention, the couple went to Namibia for the birth of "the most anticipated baby since Jesus Christ", as it has been described.
Today, Jolie is one of the best known celebrities around the world. According to the Q Score survey by Marketing Evaluations Inc., in 2000, subsequent to her Oscar win, 31% of respondents in the United States said Jolie was familiar to them, by 2006 she was familiar to 81% of Americans. In a 2006 global industry survey by ACNielsen in 42 international markets Jolie, together with Brad Pitt, was found to be the favorite celebrity endorser for brands and products worldwide. Also in 2006, Jolie was among the Time 100, a list of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time, she was featured on the cover of Forbes "The Celebrity 100" edition, ranking at No. 35, and she was described as the world's most beautiful woman in the "100 Most Beautiful" issue of People. In February 2007, she was voted the greatest sex symbol of all time in the British Channel 4 television show The 100 Greatest Sex Symbols.
Tattoos
Jolie's inventory of tattoos has become the subject of much media attention and has often been addressed by interviewers. Jolie stated that, while she is not opposed to film nudity, the large number of tattoos on her body has forced filmmakers to become more creative when planning nude or love scenes. Make-up has been used to cover up the tattoos in many of her productions. She frequently adds or even changes existing tattoos and has said that all the tattoos she possesses have a special meaning. Jolie currently has 13 known tattoos, among them a Tennessee Williams quote "A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages" which she got together with her mother, the Arabic phrase "العزيمة" (strength of will), the Latin proverb "quod me nutrit me destruit" (what nourishes me also destroys me),[83] and a Buddhist Pali prayer written in the Khmer script for her son Maddox. She also has four sets of geographical coordinates on her left shoulder indicating the birthplaces of her children. Over time she covered or lasered several of her tattoos, including "Billy Bob", the name of her former husband Billy Bob Thornton, a Chinese character for death (死) and a window on her lower back; she explained that she removed the window, because, while she used to spend all of her time looking out through windows wishing to be outside, she now lives there all of the time.
Filmography
Year Title Role Other notes
1982 Lookin' to Get Out Tosh
1993 Cyborg 2 Casella "Cash" Reese
1995 Hackers Kate "Acid Burn" Libby
1996 Mojave Moon Eleanor "Elie" Rigby
Love Is All There Is Gina Malacici
Foxfire Margret "Legs" Sadovsky
1997 Playing God Claire
True Women (TV) Georgia Virginia Lawshe Woods
George Wallace (TV) Cornelia Wallace Golden Globe - Best Supporting Actress
1998 Gia (TV) Gia Marie Carangi Golden Globe, SAG Award - Best Leading Actress
Hell's Kitchen Gloria McNeary
Playing by Heart Joan National Board of Review Award - Breakthrough Performance Actress
Pushing Tin Mary Bell
1999 The Bone Collector Amelia Donaghy
Girl, Interrupted Lisa Rowe Golden Globe, SAG Award, Academy Award - Best Supporting Actress
2000 Gone in Sixty Seconds Sara 'Sway' Wayland
2001 Lara Croft: Tomb Raider Lara Croft
Original Sin Julia Russell/Bonnie Castle
2002 Life or Something Like It Lanie Kerrigan
2003 Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life Lara Croft
Beyond Borders Sarah Jordan
2004 Taking Lives Illeana Scott
Shark Tale Lola (voice)
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow Franky
Alexander Olympias
2005 Mr. & Mrs. Smith Jane Smith
2006 The Good Shepherd Clover Wilson
2007 A Mighty Heart Mariane Pearl
Beowulf Grendel's Mother (voice)
2008 Wanted The Fox
Atlas Shrugged Dagny Taggart
Kung Fu Panda Tigress (voice)
01/06: Joke | 101 Ways to Annoy People
1. Sing the Batman theme incessantly.
2. In the memo field of all your checks, write "for sensual massage."
3. Specify that your drive-through order is "to go."
4. Learn Morse code, and have conversations with friends in public consisting entirely of "Beeeep Bip Bip Beeep Bip..."
5. If you have a glass eye, tap on it occasionally with your pen while talking to others.
6. Amuse yourself for endless hours by hooking a camcorder to your TV and then pointing it at the screen.
7. Speak only in a "robot" voice.
8. Push all the flat Lego pieces together tightly.
9. Start each meal by conspicuously licking all your food, and announce that this is so no one will "swipe your grub".
10. Leave the copy machine set to reduce 200%, extra dark, 17 inch paper, 98 copies.
11. Stomp on little plastic ketchup packets.
12. Sniffle incessantly.
13. Leave your turn signal on for fifty miles.
14. Name your dog "Dog." 15. Insist on keeping your car windshield wipers running in all weather conditions "to keep them tuned up."
16. Reply to everything someone says with "that's what YOU think."
17. Claim that you must always wear a bicycle helmet as part of your "astronaut training."
18. Declare your apartment an independent nation, and sue your neighbors upstairs for "violating your airspace".
19. Forget the punchline to a long joke, but assure the listener it was a "real hoot."
20. Follow a few paces behind someone, spraying everything they touch with Lysol.
21. Practice making fax and modem noises.
22. Highlight irrelevant information in scientific papers and "cc:" them to your boss.
23. Make beeping noises when a large person backs up.
24. Invent nonsense computer jargon in conversations, and see if people play along to avoid the appearance of ignorance.
25. Erect an elaborate network of ropes in your backyard, and tell the neighbors you are a "spider person."
26. Finish all your sentences with the words "in accordance with the prophesy."
27. Wear a special hip holster for your remote control.
28. Do not add any inflection to the end of your sentences, producing awkward silences with the impression that you'll be saying more any moment.
29. Signal that a conversation is over by clamping your hands over your ears.
30. Disassemble your pen and "accidentally" flip the ink cartridge across the room.
31. Give a play-by-play account of a persons every action in a nasal Howard Cosell voice.
32. Holler random numbers while someone is counting.
33. Adjust the tint on your TV so that all the people are green, and insist to others that you "like it that way."
34. Drum on every available surface.
35. Staple papers in the middle of the page.
36. Ask 1-800 operators for dates.
37. Produce a rental video consisting entirely of dire FBI copyright warnings.
38. Sew anti-theft detector strips into peoples backpacks.
39. Hide dairy products in inaccessible places.
40. Write the surprise ending to a novel on its first page.
41. Set alarms for random times.
42. Order a side of pork rinds with your filet mignon.
43. Instead of Gallo, serve Night Train next Thanksgiving.
44. Publicly investigate just how slowly you can make a "croaking" noise.
45. Honk and wave to strangers.
46. Dress only in clothes colored Hunters Orange.
47. Change channels five minutes before the end of every show.
48. Tape pieces of "Sweating to the Oldies" over climactic parts of rental movies.
49. Wear your pants backwards.
50. Decline to be seated at a restaurant, and simply eat their complimentary mints by the cash register.
51. Begin all your sentences with "ooh la la!"
52. ONLY TYPE IN UPPERCASE.
53. only type in lowercase.
54. dont use any punctuation either
55. Buy a large quantity of orange traffic cones and reroute whole streets.
56. Pay for your dinner with pennies.
57. Tie jingle bells to all your clothes.
58. Repeat everything someone says, as a question.
59. Write "X - BURIED TREASURE" in random spots on all of someone's roadmaps.
60. Inform everyone you meet of your personal Kennedy assassination/UFO/ O.J Simpson conspiracy theories.
61. Repeat the following conversation a dozen times: "Do you hear that?" "What?" "Never mind, its gone now."
62. Light road flares on a birthday cake.
63. Wander around a restaurant, asking other diners for their parsley.
64. Leave tips in Bolivian currency.
65. Demand that everyone address you as "Conquistador."
66. At the laundromat, use one dryer for each of your socks.
67. When Christmas caroling, sing "Jingle Bells, Batman smells" until physically restrained.
68. Wear a cape that says "Magnificent One."
69. As much as possible, skip rather than walk.
70. Stand over someone's shoulder, mumbling, as they read.
71. Pretend your computer's mouse is a CB radio, and talk to it.
72. Try playing the William Tell Overture by tapping on the bottom of your chin. When nearly done, announce "no, wait, I messed it up," and repeat.
73. Drive half a block.
74. Inform others that they exist only in your imagination.
75. Ask people what gender they are.
76. Lick the filling out of all the Oreos, and place the cookie parts back.
77. Cultivate a Norwegian accent. If Norwegian, affect a Southern drawl.
78. Routinely handcuff yourself to furniture, informing the curious that you don't want to fall off "in case the big one comes".
79. Deliberately hum songs that will remain lodged in co-workers brains, such as "Feliz Navidad", the Archies "Sugar" or the Mr. Rogers theme song.
80. While making presentations, occasionally bob your head. like a parakeet.
81. Lie obviously about trivial things such as the time of day.
82. Leave your Christmas lights up and lit until September.
83. Change your name to "AaJohn Aaaaasmith" for the great glory of being first in the phone book. Claim it's a Hawaiian name, and demand that people pronounce each "a."
84. Sit in your front yard pointing a hair dryer at passing cars to see if they slow down.
85. Chew on pens that you've borrowed.
86. Wear a LOT of cologne.
87. Listen to 33rpm records at 45rpm speed, and claim the faster speed is necessary because of your "superior mental processing."
88. Sing along at the opera.
89. Mow your lawn with scissors.
90. At a golf tournament, chant "swing-batabatabata-suhWING-batter!"
91. Ask the waitress for an extra seat for your "imaginary friend."
92. Go to a poetry recital and ask why each poem doesn't rhyme.
93. Ask your co-workers mysterious questions, and then scribble their answers in a notebook. Mutter something about "psychological profiles."
94. Stare at static on the TV and claim you can see a "magic picture."
95. Select the same song on the jukebox fifty times.
96. Never make eye contact.
97. Never break eye contact.
98. Construct elaborate "crop circles" in your front lawn.
99. Construct your own pretend "tricorder," and "scan" people with it, announcing the results.
100. Make appointments for the 31st of September.
101. Invite lots of people to other people's parties.
01/06: Joke | Live until 100
Patient: Doctor, do you think that I will live until I'm a hundred?Doctor: Do you smoke or drink?
Patient: No.
Doctor: Do you drive fast cars, gamble, or play around with women?
Patient: Certainly not!
Doctor: Then what do you want to live to a hundred for?
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