Bodh-e-Verse March 2009 Alfa Issue

Which word will connect the three images below the best?

And what connects them ?

March 2009 alfa Issue E-Day by Naveen SK

pictures and places

A Missed Call! : Short Story

by Tapas Mohanty

Crazy Gadgets

Cola Wars in India

by Shaswat

The first draft of Twitter

Happiness Is Not Some Rocket Science!

Answers for connet the images can be found here.

World News

Extreme Engineering

Website Watch

Blood and Faith by Tanuj Chakrabarty People who Creates the News

ŠTeam Bodh-e-verse www.bodheverse.org

Submit Contact us

E-Day by Naveen S K

I

was sitting at the desk quite involved in watching people walk bytrying desperately to look busy. Every other person that I looked atwith utmost curiosity looked like they were trying desperately to lookever so concerned about being helpless yet standing right therehelplessly trying to control things clearly out of their control butending up looking exactly as helpless as everyone else around.

Where this was not unprecedented, it sure was quite frankly out of the blue.These sorts of disturbances were common place 5 years ago. But thetimes had changed after the takeover by the Engineering Society 4 yearsago. It happened swiftly.

No one saw it coming. Such a thing wasunheard of in the history of civilization. There was no rioting.

TheArmed Forces stood by as the Engineers of the country took over thereins of the country. Not a soul opposed excluding people fromthe political background. On the contrary people came to the streetsand cheered and celebrated.

How the whole coup was organized islegendary stuff. Internet forums were used, mails were forwarded, blogswritten and all this right under the nose of the e-illiterategovernment officials who had no clue how big of a movement washappening until the momentous announcement was unleashed on E Day. No one really knows how involved the

media was in the whole caper. How they managednot to sensationalize such news is probably the biggest guarded secret.But the best part is not a soul cares.

After the coup, it tookunder 16 hours for all the professional unions of the country to join the Engineers.Doctors, Architects, Stock Brokers and everyone under the moon exceptthe Politicians associated themselves with the engineers forming thestrongest known conglomerate in the world.

The rest of the world lookedon in awe at the scenes unfolding. It had far reaching consequences inmany countries where politicians panicked and cause ruckus but that isa different story.

One of the most incredible parts of whathappened was the lack of bloodshed. The first orders to be passed werethe imposition of a complete curfew. Where it did alarm quite a few people butsoon all the fears were unfounded. The curfew was imposed by themilitary under direct command of the President. Yes, the president wasin on it the whole time. Yet no one has had the gall to label thepresident as a traitor, not after what has happened to the country. Inthe duration of the 12 hour curfew which remains the last one till date, 12people whose names no one knows came on television announcing thepurpose, the plan and the promise. The purpose evidently falls underthe

“Duh” category. The Plan was to lay the foundation that the peopledeserved. The Promise was that the the old system was to be restored in 5 yearsif there was no progress in the new system that would be ushered in.

The whole deal was so overwhelmingthat everyone believed them. And it sure was the right decision . Not muchchanged. The government was dissolved. A new Party was formed.They came to governance in one month. The Constitution remained thesame, well almost the same, at least in principle. 611 amendments weremade. The whole system was shaken up. Democracy changed into howdemocracy was meant to be. Not one of the fundamental freedoms wastaken away .The politicians were left alone. They tried the dirty tactics andgave up eventually. Every day morning the plan for the day wasbroadcasted which was eagerly followed by the citizens. The whole worldwatched as the murky mess that the country was in was cleansed. Andthey did it in style.

There was a complete overhaul of the wholesystem. The crumbly structure vanished and the construction of thesuper structure began. Every single person did their job with gusto. Itwas like a magic trick.

Corruption, unemployment, poverty vanished.

TheJails became empty. In one year the GDP ballooned by 8%. It wasunprecedented growth seen never before only to be wiped out in thefollowing year. Four years from E-Day and the country has never lookedback. We now have a significant presence in every field: Sports,Science & Tech, Fashion, Art, Education, You name it. Not a singlecountry in the world has been able to object to what is happeningbecause they have no grounds to object.

I sit at my deskmonitoring the supercomputer that monitors the transport system as Iwatch it resolve a snag in 5 minutes which would have put down the oldsystem for 3 days and I can’t help but laugh as the people in mymonitors look helplessly at the monitors on their watches flashing themessage about the delay and yet be so restless. The world is a strangeplace. And I need to get back to work.

A Missed Call! : Short Story

by Tapas Mohanty

"Shall I call?," I turned the question couple of times in my mind; my mind replayed scenes from my past.

T

he lane looked unusually deserted as I walked back from office at 10:30 in the night. It had rained that evening; the reflection of the night in the puddles made them look dark. Plots of land were being cleared; indications of something new to be constructed. The stacked bricks bore ominous intentions for the roadside trees. I meandered- the groundnut s s lowly disappearing from my fists.

The late night restaurants were open - not very crowded though. A coffee bar at the corner flashed its red and white sign board; I could see a couple exchanging "feelings" over a cup of coffee.

Intuitively I took out my mobile and unlocked the screen. The bluish black wallpaper came to life and the keypad glowed.

"1 Missed Call."

An unknown happiness turned inside me - she had called. The letters of her name seemed unusually alive on the dead screen.

"Why should I call her? Why did she call? What now?", it became a torrential confusion and I decided to forget the missed call.

"Has something happened? I think I should call her.

Maybe she needs me? But how shall I start? She called, so she has to start." I tried and failed to keep myself calm. I took a deep breath and then with trembling hands I did what I had promised myself not to do-I called her.

Instead of getting a ringing tone, I heard a song on the other side. Something made me jealous. The song continued on the other side and I waited for her to cut it short and pick up the call. It slowly faded and a recorded female voice took over- "The person you are trying to call is not responding.

Please try again later."

I didn't feel like trying again. But I did. This time, she picked up the call before the song could start, "Hi! Sorry, Got a call on land line, so couldn't pick up. How are you?".

It was the same childish voice that I longed to hear, the same chirp.

I tried my best to be normal-"Hi! I am fine.How are you? I just called back when I saw your missed call." "What happened? You have almost snapped off every contact. Why aren't you calling me these days?", there was a complaint in her voice and I had remorse deep within, an unknown, unfathomable remorse.

"Nothing ya! Busy with life, was about to call you.

By the way, how is everything going on with you?"

"Nothing much. Pretty usual. Just wanted to talk to you."

"Ok." What else could I say? She wanted to talk to me? Talk bout what? "So how is your job?

Good?", she inquired. "Don't ask. They are killing me!", I groaned - strangely enough, I was talking normally.

"Ok . Some thing really interesting happened...", and we talked on that night for a long time. just listened to whatever she had to say; I kept it all inside, whatever I had to say. We bid goodbye finally but, I stood there, holding the phone to my ear for few moments after she hung up.

For a few seconds, I wanted to delete her number and erase everything. Instead, I waited for the storm inside to abate, stared at the screen for few seconds, locked the hone, pocketed it and ambled down the lane. Only the low hum of the streetlights filled the emptiness around me. Few things in life leave a mark even after they leave us without our knowledge, few things refuse to die down even though you want them to disappear and few things, no matter how painful they are, you need to hold on to because they are the very reasons you want to live for."

CRAZY GADGETS

Need to hide your Screen from someone ???

The Stealth Switch is the answer. Quickly install the software and plug the hidden foot switch in (it goes either between the keyboard and your computer, or just into an available USB port) and you are safe. It hides in the shadows and just a light tap of your toes will let it work its magic.

Based on your preferences, it can hide the current window, hide all windows, or hide all windows except for specified windows. Not just minimize, mind you, but totally erase from your screen. The Stealth Switch can also mute the sound, hide the taskbar, hide the desktop icons, and password protect the restore function.

When the coast is clear, another quick tap and you are ready to frag in peace.”

--via thinkgeek.

iPond

iPond, as cleverly named is a portable speaker for the iPods. It is a portable aquarium-speaker for the iPod like mp3 players.

There is input jack and you can connect your mp3 player / iPods to it using the accompanying cable.

The iPonds are sold at Pet Chains and Pet Goods store in Australia. It costs $70 per piece.

The weirdest thing is that, this portable aquarium that can only hold 650ml of water is sold with a Siamese fighting fish that environmental scientists say require at least 10 liters of water for its proper health.

According to environmentalists, iPond’s speakers are placed under the aquarium and this may transfer sound waves to water, which in result is harmful for the fish.

New Iphone contendender Sony Ericsson XPERIA

The standard feature of such phones is a touch screen with loads of features. This phone also has such a screen and it is believed that Sony developed a new user interface called “panel” for the Windows Mobile OS 6 exclusively for this particular phone.

This interface shows nine tiny tiles that represent individual application windows. When touched, they open up to display the application using a smooth animated style. The new experience also comes with a full QWERTY keyboard, 3-inch widescreen display capable of producing a resolution of 800 * 480 pixels.

This phone also feature a 3.2 Mega Pixel camera that iPhone really lacked.

XPERIA also feature the brand new arc slider design that easily slides the display part over the QWERTY keyboard. The other features are: full multimedia capability, full internet capability with wi-fi, an internal memory of 400MB, a MicroSD slot, Bluetooth, A2DP and aGPS. Find more about the phone here.

Cola Wars in India by

Shaswat

For the Cricket World Cup 1996, Pepsi was not the official sponsor of the tournament, Coke was but Pepsi had a whole kitty of best players from the sub continent and abroad. The ad campaign of "Nothing Official About it rocked the country and knocked the wind from Coke's Lungs. Possibly from this time onwards Coke also realized the value of celebrities in India and henceforth went ahead with that strategy. Another consequence of this campaign was that from the next Cricket World Cup, advertisers began signing exclusive contracts which stipulated that competitors can't have players who are in the tournament acting in their ads. And sadly for Coke, it was Pepsi which was "official" this time.

In 1998, the movie Kuch Kuch Hota Hai took the country by storm. Pepsi then took out another ace from its sleeve. This time SRK, Rani and Kajol starred in the ad. Also starring was the future star Shahid Kapoor who was noticed by the industry. The punchline this time was "Yeh Dil Maange More" which was an iconic line and struck a chord amongst the people. The Coke people responded to this ad in a different and unique way. They actually spoofed the ad, the

product used being Sprite, again to hilarious effect. Pepsi responded with a spoof on it's on its own, starring Azhar and Jadeja hitting on the Coke line of "Eat Cricket, Sleep Cricket, Drink Only Coca Cola" with the punch line of "More

would bedirected by his father).

The first ads starring Hrithik Roshan were launched in Diwali Season. Pepsi hit back this time with a SRK ad which also had a Hrithik look alike. This ad was directed by Prahlaad Kakkarand was in a bad taste.

Rumors ran about SRK's insecurity and rest but the episode really was a footnote in the epic battle.

Around this time Coke's market share surpassed Pepsi for the first time since Coke's launch in 1994 (Trivia: Coke was first re-launched in Indian Agra) and suddenly Coke was defending and Pepsi attacking the marketshare. Now the wars shifted from cola to clear lime segment.

Coke realizing that in India Thumbs Up was a valuable brand and it could not use it for opponent bashing. This time it was between Sprite and Pepsi's Mountain Dew. Pepsi had launched Dew with "Do the Dew" tagline emphasizing onAdventure sports. Sprite killed the ad with "Do The Do" ad which was funny and

More Cricket, More More Pepsi". Coke again hit back, this time with Thumbs Up ad. They portrayed the cricketers as monkeys and ended the ad with "Don't be a bunder (monkey!!) Taste The Thunder!!" Things turned ugly with Pepsi going to court and finally ended with Coke withdrawing the ad. The year 2000 heralded the rise of a new superstar, Hrithik Roshan.

Both Coke and Pepsi rushed to sign him, but Coke won (possibly due to the fact that they promised that all the ads starring the superstar

memorable. The Cola Wars are here to stay. Its been just 10 odd years in India forthem to start.

In the USA they are on since a 100 years. The battleactually throws up some amazing ads and lets hope they continue.Yeh Dil Maange More!!!

Howcast

There's a reason no one ever reads the instruction manual. Ho. Hum. That's why the video how-to site Howcast is such a gem. It breaks from its more staid counterparts, such as Expert Village and eHow, by injecting a necessary dose of humor.

Come here to learn "how to make a move on a girl while watching a movie on a couch" and "how to become a saint." Each video is rated — often by thousands of members — so you won't waste bandwidth on the boring ones. We also like WonderHowTo, which neatly indexes and ranks how-to videos from hundreds of other sites.

Website Watch Wikitravel

The best travel guides have one thing in common: they're up to date. That's why WikiTravel has become the most invaluable travel resource on the Web. While message boards like Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree Travel Forum are great for specific questions — such as "Should I spend more than a day at Angkor Wat?" — and community sites like TripAdvisor are useful for seeing other folks' photos and reviews, only WikiTravel keeps a concise, current directory of nearly 20,000 destinations. It's so complete, you'll be tempted to skip the guidebook altogether.

ProFootballTalk

If you can't make it through a day without jonesing for sports gossip, head to ProFootballTalk's Daily Rumor Mill. The site scours news from TV and the Web (including Yahoo! Sports, ESPN, and the NFL Network), then adds its own highly entertaining (and highly opinionated) spin. "I'm more at liberty to give my opinions" than regular sportsnews sites are, notes the site's often snarky founder, Mike Florio, 43, who posts updates about 20 times a day from his home in Clarksburg, W. Va. If you're still craving more football, visit Football Outsiders for extreme statistical analysis. Basketball addicts, meanwhile, should check out HoopsHype.

Blood and Faith by Tanuj Chakrabarty

About a year ago I started working on the series of paintings which I thought of christening as “Blood and Faith”. The name actually represented the negative and the positive forces existing in this world. Blood represented the negative side which portrays the violence going around in our world, where as Faith represented the positive energy which is going to counter the negative forces and establish peace in the world.

So I started with the concept in mind and planned to prepare twenty paintings of both the topics. I started with the Blood. By nature I am a painter who paints his emotions on the canvas. My strokes are the words I want to say. They are my reactions to the events happening around me. So for the series blood I only have to look around and portray the violent events that shook my soul. I looked around and found numerous such happenings around me which could be the perfect subject of the series blood. Bleeding fists, shattered hearts, daggers, blood soaked faces, a rising evil, smoke blocking the sun; all these were the objects I captured for representing the first part Blood. The subjects were all of material nature and can be easy found when we looked around. With the least effort I can feel the

presence of the negative subjects in my imagination and then the process of portraying them on canvas with strokes of red and black was quiet easy. The series was going on in the most efficient way.

While painting the Blood series I never felt but soon the negative forces were taking over me. I became angry by nature, I was not able to forgive people, I enjoyed when my so called enemies were in distress. It never occurred till the negative emotions became so strong that I started fighting with my dear ones. I was proud, my ego was inflated and I felt superior to every one else.

The distress and pain of the people around me did not disturb me any more but gave me subjects of my paintings. I was a negative force my self. I was not the same person who was so shocked by the bloodshed going around that he started a painting series to tell the people how ugly violence is and how we can over come it. I was creating violence now.

The only thing that could save me from this negative force was the second part of my series “Faith”. Faith represented our faith in goodness, faith in love, faith in happiness and above all faith in God. When I tried to portray the emotion of faith in my paintings thing seemed to be unreasonable difficult. It was quite difficult

to for me to discard my negative forces in me and go back to faith. That was the time I realized that I have virtually mind washed myself and filled my mind with all the negative thoughts which I used to portray the paintings representing Blood. Now when I was trying to come out of these negative thoughts and bring into me the positive energies and positive emotions which can help me in portraying faith, I was actually struggling. The conversion seemed to be one of the most difficult emotional turnarounds of my life. The more I tried to escape from the negative thoughts the more they engulfed me. I desperately looked for the subjects around me which represented faith but I was unable to find the presence of faith in them. This was the time I realized why it is so easy to mind wash simple people and make them carrier of negative energies and so difficult to teach the way of truth and goodness even to the most knowledgeable intellectuals.

To save me from the grip of this negativity I needed an extraordinarily strong force. This power cannot help me if I look for it around me but has to be cultivated within me. This is the power of Faith, the power of the Ultimate Truth, the power of God. The power is in me that I know because God is in me, in fact God is me, God is all the thing that we can see and even those we cannot see, the things we know and the things we don’t know. So the power is within me, it is in every bit of me, it is in every nook and corner of the world of which I am a part of. I need to experience this power of God. I need to recognize it in me. This is the truth, the faith which I am looking for. My vision is now clear, the shadows have gone, the sun has come out of the dark veil of smoke, the barren land has turned lush green, the children are now smiling, there is love in the air, God is smiling, “Faith” is here......

Les 4 Vallees/Switzerland My dream sky Resort The Mont Fort glacier is 3330 meters high. Formidable, powerful and awesome the peak reigns like a king over his subjects.

Thanks to years of televised final round coverage of the AT&T Pro-Am and a smattering of U.S. Open Championships - not to mention countless coffee table tomes - the links of Pebble Beach are indelibly stamped on the collective golf consciousness. "Not all eighteen holes are truly great," said Damian Pascuzzo, "but the stretch from four through ten and then sixteen through eighteen are amazing. One seldom gets a chance to play golf in that kind of setting."

Tokyo Disney Land/Tokyo Disney Sea, Japan

25.9* million visitors

My dream Park

Year after year skiers from all over the world make the pilgrimage to the picture postcard mountain to have an aperitif in the weather beaten alpine hut just below the peak of one of the world's longest runs (4.5 kilometers). Mont Fort is the summit and pre-eminent link between the "4 VallĂŠes" (four valleys) of the, often overlooked, Valais mountain range located between the villages of Verbier, Haute Nendaz, Veysonnaz and Bruson. With 94 ski lifts and 412 kilometers of slopes it is one of the largest interconnected skiing entities in the Alps. The area is almost completely devoid of nightlife and actually promotes "family holidays" to the region. Snow princesses and wouldbe snowboarders out there can enjoy themselves in the Snow Park or on the specially made kid's slope. Since Sir Richard Branson opened his nine suite Hotel "The Lodge" in Verbier there is now finally an Alpine counterpart to Necker Island. Guests can enjoy a cook, spa, chauffeur and helicopter service (from 50,000 Euro).

My dream golf Course

Pebble Beach U.S.A.

The first Disney resort to be built outside of the U.S., Tokyo Disney Land/Tokyo Disney Sea celebrated its 25th anniversary this year, and its attendance was 25.4 million in 2007, according to the Japan National Tourist Organization. A separate trade-industry source comes up with a similar total for ‘07, breaking it down to 13.9 million visitors for land, and 12.4 million for sea.

Sources: Japan National Tourist Organization (25.4 million), Themed Entertainment Association/Economic Research Associates (TEA/ERA, 26.3 million)

Picture of the Issue

Locals and tourists walk around the Dutch ship Artemis which ran aground on the beach of les Sables d'Olonne, southern French Britanny, western France, March 10, 2008. The boat had been driven onto the coast by the wind blowing more than 130 km per hour. (REUTERS)

Halong Bay (Vinh Ha Long) – Vietnam

Arizona: Sedona-Oak Creek Canyon Scenic Road

some of the most beautiful places on earth

Mamanuca Islands – Fiji

Lake Louise ,Canada

First Draft of Twitter

Twitter's prehistoric document, circa 2000. An early temporary name was "Stat.us."

Sitting in the Flickr archives is a nearly 10-year-old document uploaded a couple of years ago by its author, Jack Dorsey (@jack), who started Twitter in 2006 along with co-founders Evan Williams (@ev) and Biz Stone (@biz).

Abraham Lincoln assassination The assassination of Abraham Lincoln, one of the last major events in the American Civil War, took place on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, when President Abraham Lincoln was shot while attending a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre with his wife and two guests.

Lincoln's assassin, ambidextrous actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth, had also ordered a fellow conspirator, Lewis Powell, to kill William H. Seward (then Secretary of State) and George Atzerodt to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson.

The Dead Sea scrolls

The Dead Sea scrolls consist of roughly 900 documents, including texts from the Hebrew Bible, discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves in and around the Wadi Qumran near the ruins of the ancient settlement of Khirbet Qumran, on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. The texts are of great religious and historical significance, as they include some of the only known surviving copies of Biblical documents made before 100 C.E., and preserve evidence of considerable diversity of belief and practice within late Second Temple Judaism. They are written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, mostly on parchment, but with some written on papyrus. These manuscripts generally date between 150 B.C.E. to 70 C.E.

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln From left to right: Major Henry Rathbone, Clara Harris, Mary Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln, and John Wilkes Booth. Sketch by Currier & Ives.

Happiness Is Not Some Rocket Science!

Nikita Chakravorty Looking back, when I realize that there’s so much that’s lost in this winning race.

I feel so helpless and dismayed since I know the l o s s i s immeasurable and the pain is myriad.

Nothing can be recovered nothing can be mended. The price has to be paid at the cost of your own bliss.

I hope not many feel this way. But at the pace that we are running today to keep up with the changing times…remember my friend its always too late by the time you realize your defeat..

Take your time, meditate...think of what’s come and gone...think about the destitute n poor...think about the rich and the richer...think of all the pain around you...think of so much love that surrounds you..Keep your eyes open to catch the first glimpse of happiness. Keep your ears open to let love whisper the chant into them..Think about the

sadness to seek happiness...Think about the agony to seek comfort…think about the wars to give you peace, think about the all things small and beautiful.

Take some time out every day for a little prayer of appreciation. Appreciate even the person for his skill at cleaning your table and the guard to pull the gates for your car...Small gestures though, but have ample weight.

Find the smallest reasons to be happy. Happiness isn’t an object it’s a state of mind no one else but only you can uplift yourself to that state of mind. In our lives we find a lot to crib and grumble…we don’t miss a chance to admonish people who render their

services to us for the smallest gaffe. Learn to respect and look up to every human. After all we are all the creation of the same god almighty. Just for the simple reason of some mysterious chemical reaction we are all so differently oriented. But remember the ingredients are all the same. Its only the cooking process at heavens’ kitchen that made us all different. We all live for the common goal of happiness but yet our lives are so different.

Time is a valuable thing…the only thing that once gone can’t be bought back...Make the fullest of this moment that you have...Live your life not because you were born but live as if you were born to live. Take every day as gift from the almighty...You are his wonderful creation and he takes pride in letting u open to this world. You were not just sent into his garden for the simple of reason of being there...your being there is the reason for your creation… We are in this state of affairs today for the simple reason that we maneuvered ourselves to it.

Just to quote John F. Kennedy “Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.” In the end I would quote Robert G. Ingersoll that would help you in your journey of life on the boulevard of happiness “Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.” Wish you all a life full of Happiness! Amen

WORLD

NEWS in pics.

An Aztec dancer poses for a photo during a ceremony celebrating the birth of Cuauhtemoc, the last Aztec emperor, in Ixcateopan, Mexico, Monday, Feb. 23, 2009. Cuauhtemoc was tortured and executed by Spanish conqueror Hernan Cortes in 1525. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe eats birthday cake during his 85th birthday celebrations in Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2009.

Mugabe is celebrating his 85th birthday with a lavish bash while the new unity government tries to raise funds to rescue the country's collapsed economy. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

A Czech flag flutters as snow fall during the Men's Large Hill Individual race at the Ski Jumping competitions of the Nordic World Ski Championships in Liberec, Czech Republic, Friday, Feb. 27, 2009. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek).

"Slumdog Millionaire" child actor Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail is served his dinner by his mother Shamim Begum, right, in his home in a slum in Bandra, suburban Mumbai, India, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2009.

WORLD NEWS in pics.

Lina A. Mroz, of Baltimore, Md., walks through "Roba Vecchia", a kaleidoscope installation by Lara Baladi, that is part of the festival, "Arabesque: Arts of the Arab World" at the Kennedy Center in Washington, on Monday, Feb. 23, 2009. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

A reveler dressed in a "Federahansel" (Feather Jack) costume is jumping during the traditional "Rottweiler Narrensprung" (Rottweil Fools Jump) in downtown Rottweil, Germany, Monday, Feb. 23, 2009. Some 3,000 carnival fools in the traditional carnival costumes of this region in the Black Forest participated at the street parade watched by thousands of visitors.

(AP Photo/Winfried Rothermel)

A Hindu devotee holds a bone in his mouth as he dances in a procession during Mahashivratri, or Shiva's night festival celebrations in Allahabad, India, Monday, Feb. 23, 2009. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)

Portela samba school performs at the Sambodrome in Rio de Janeiro, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2009. (AP Photo/Ricardo Moraes).

The Finger Drum Mousepad

NoseVac: Vacuum Cleaner for your Nose

it does sound a bit strange but NoseVac is a nose hair trimmer with a built-in vacuum cleaner, which sucks out all the stranded hair that gets cut.

Do you have the habit of drumming on your table, while you wait for that code to compile or excel sheet to save? Then give that a table a rest and get this - the Finger Drum Mousepad, that's not only good for your mouse but for your ears as well. The Finger drum Mousepad can play eight different percussion sounds, which includes bass, two rack toms, a floor tom, hi-hat, crash, snare, and ride cymbals using only your fingers.

It does also make a good gift idea for a geek you know.

EXTREME ENGINEERING

Perhaps, it does work well, never mind the chuckles. Drop in a comment if you own one of these and tell us what you think. If you want one it's available from Amazon for US$ 22.99

Pan-American Highway

The Pan-American Highway (see below for its name in other Western European languages) is a network of roads nearly 48,000 kilometres (29,800 miles) in total length. Except for an 87 kilometre (54 mi) rainforest gap, called the Darién Gap, the road links the mainland nations of the Americas in a connected highway system.

According to Guinness World Records, the PanAmerican Highway is the world's longest "motorable road".[citation needed] However, because of the Darién Gap, it is not possible to cross between South America and Central

America by traditional motor vehicle.

The Pan-American Highway system is mostly complete and extends from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in North America to the lower reaches of South America. Several highway termini are claimed to exist, including the cities of Puerto Montt and Quellón in Chile and Ushuaia in Argentina. No comprehensive route is officially defined in Canada and the United States, though several highways there are called "PanAmerican".

GOD gives us our pocket money daily Written by Ashu

W

e all get our pocket money dailyfrom GOD and it depends how we spend it. GOD gives us every morning a new dayto spend. Each day given to us is like a sum of money to spend. The way wespend depends on us. Whether we make profit out of it or make a loss out of itdepends on us. And the amount of money that we get depends upon when we wake upin the morning. Early waking up gives you extra time in the day thus you havemore money to spend and conceptually more chances

of making profits. Coz moneyearns money.

We always make budgets to decidebefore hand how much money we have also how to spend it and remember that when we were young we used to make time tables for us to study, we always did. Though we never succeeded in achieving our time table fully but still we managed apart of it and it was not satisfactorily for us and then we went on to make anew time table more stricter one. We always knew that we have only one year topass this particular class and that too we all needed good marks.

The wholeyear was meticulously divided into terminal exams and we had syllabi for eachterminal exam and remember how we used to prepare our schedule for all thesubjects. What a beautiful habit! But who taught us that habit. No one we werethe ones to discover it and we lived quite tremendously with it.

But as we grew from schools, colleges to our jobs or businesses we somehowforgot that scheduling of our years in a flash. We now have no planning of ourtime. Forget about the days we don’t even have a clear understanding of what weare going to do in this year or next year or two years from now.

We are happythat we don’t have any classes

to pass, no tension of the marks in the subjectsin the class but still we all are of the same view that schools were betterthan jobs. Not even a single person would refuse to go back to the school days,given a chance. But the fact remains the same and we are not living in anyfantasyland where a fairy would ask us our wish and send us back to our goldendays. We have to live in present.

We don’t think of time anymore. And we live as if we are going to live forever which by any chance is not true and I doubt if scientists in our lifetime wouldbe able to find a medicine which from mortal to immortal. We live as if to haveunlimited supply of time at our disposal.

We now have the habit of living aluxurious life, as I would call it. We don’t have any fix goals for the comingdays or coming years and we complain of dull lives. Why not live like childrenagain and plan our time and plan your

The Haunted places around the world The Ghosts of Windsor Castle

Windsor Castle is one of the many homes of the present Queen of England, several of her royal ancestors, and "non-royal" spirits, one of whom, according to legend was an ancient Saxon hunter named Herne, who was renowned thought out the area for his outstanding hunting abilities.

One story tells of Herne, as one of the Royal keepers for King Richard II (1367-1400), who was hated by the other keepers for his extraordinary skills. One day the King was in danger of being trampled by an incensed stag while hunting and how Herne putting himself between the King and the stag was mortally wounded.

In the last 250 years, hundreds of people have claimed to have seen his spirit, often accompanied by his pack of hounds. In the early 1860's the tree from which he was found hanging, was cut down, and Queen Victoria kept the oak logs for her fire "To help kill the ghost".

Her plan didn't work however.

Banff Springs Hotel

The Haunted Houses of Leith

The Banff Springs Hotel lies in the heart of the Rocky Mountains in western Canada, only a two-hour drive from the city of Calgary, Alberta. Surrounded by mountain grandeur, by the Bow River and Lake Louise, the Banff Springs Hotel is a major tourist resort with all the amenities desired by travelers from all over the world. Yes, it has everything, including a ghost or two.

In 1888, the Canadian Pacific Railroad forged its way into the Rocky Mountains. Vice President of the CPR, William Van Horne saw the potential inherent in the scenic beauty of mountains, rivers and lakes, and the attraction of the wonders of the natural hot springs. He decreed the building of a luxury hotel, and thus the 250 room Banff Springs Hotel was born.

But, during the building of the hotel, the carpenters made a slight blunder. They created a room with neither windows nor doors. They did what workmen the world over have always done with blunders. They hid it, and the hotel was created with an extra room that no one except the guilty workmen were aware of.

The Coal Hill was in the late 18th century was according to local legend the favourite resort of all disembodied spirits who were permitted to "revisit the glimpses of the moon" in Leith. At that part of it nearest to the Tolbooth Wynd there were a number of ruinous houses, part of which were occasionally occupied by wandering out casts but for which no rent was either paid or expected.

Every one of these buildings had its ghost and the rumours which were spread regarding these appropriations sealed the fate of the houses which they were reported to haunt. No landlord would be insane enough to expend money on the repair of property for which he was not likely to find more substantial customers. Moreover had any one been found reckless enough to make the experiment he would have laboured under the unwholesome dread of having visitations of the ghost to his own house. The natural history of ghosts is involved in some obscurity and this much is certain that they had an intense dislike to anything in the shape of improvement on the places that they frequented and were not slow to pour out the vials of their wrath on such as dare to make the experiment.

People who Delivers the News Wolf Blitzer (CNN) Like him or not, the ubiquitous Wolfman gets the kind of airtime of which other anchors can only dream--17 hours a week split between the frenetic Situation Room and his Sunday talk show, Late Edition.

David Broder (Washington Post) One of the two entries on The Washingtonian's 1973 "best journalists" list who still makes it today (the other is Bob Novak), Broder's longevity and stature, even in quasi-retirement, ensure that aspiring politicians still need his stamp of approval.

Maureen Dowd(New York Times) Depending on your viewpoint, MoDo either speaks the spot-on truths--albeit obliquely sometimes--or is a raving lunatic. The two things everyone can agree on? She's powerful, and she's one of the best writers out there.

David Brooks (New York Times) Although sometimes accused of oversimplifying complex divisions and issues, Brooks's fresh thinking and his perch on the op-ed page ensures a powerful audience.

Ron Fournier (AP) Writing for the wire requires three attributes: being right, being first, and being fast. Fournier, the Associated Press's lead political writer, has all three in abundance; during election night 2004, he rewrote the main story 67 times. And even as news sources proliferate, nothing has the impact of an AP story.

George Stephanopoulos (ABC) Though this former Clinton aide's selection to head the storied This Week was originally considered a journalistic travesty, he's building a Sunday show that's fresh and offers a voice distinct from the other talk fests. Plus, he knows what he's talking about.

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