Social Blogger. Artist. Photographer. ShortFilmmaker. Small Business Entrepreneur. Closet Actress. Native New Yorker. Thanks for stopping by to read my post!
Well–they’ve gone and did it now! Rhianna and Chris Brown are about to get hitched!
Rumor has it that Rihanna is planning to tie the knot with Chris Brown this summer in her home country Barbados, and the affair will be anything but boring.
“Rihanna doesn’t want a big dress or boring old confetti,” a source told Now magazine. “She wants to get married in her bikini and have a carnival atmosphere.”
“They want it to be relaxed and fun, like a playground,” HuffPost Celebrity reports, “and to celebrate with the people who have stood by them.”
It’s been four years since that fateful day Brown assaulted Rihanna on the eve of 2009’s Grammys,while both were in his car. Reports say he’s still on probation for the assault.
Rih reflected on getting back with Chris saying,
“I decided it was more important for me to be happy. I wasn’t going to let anybody’s opinion get in the way of that. Even if it’s a mistake, it’s my mistake.” She added, “We value each other. We know exactly what we have now, and we don’t want to lose that.”
Live and Learn! That’s pretty much what we’re all doing on this rock. Good Luck to them. ♦
It was the type of giant reel to reel that was used to show movies in old-fashioned cinemas. The glowing, ghostly white screen flickered for a few seconds while the footage wound around the giant spools of the reels, the rapid firesound of the tape slapping against itself, rushing ahead to the cell that held the first recognizable image.
It flickered in and out a few seconds more, until machinery and celluloid, finally in synch, produced the still profile bust of a stoic Native American Son on the screen. Like the head on a buffalo nickel.
The film found its pace and the red man, showing in sepia tones, slowly turned around to face me. He’s beautiful as only Natives can be. He stared out from the screen for some time and I got to study his features — the aquiline nose, the creviced solemn eyes, his jutting lower lip that wrinkled his chin. He is in full headdress – I think ‘Cherokee’ not really knowing why.
The silent film then began to advance forward, now showing him walking towards me as if intending to come off the screen into my space, the real world. It was making me a little uncomfortable, maybe even a bit scared. As he came closer, other Indian men slowly morphed in behind him, walking in single file first facing east then each turning right at the same point as if in a drill. They all turn their eyes on me as they move slowly forward, crowding dangerously to overflow at the edge of the screen, really frightening me now. I felt myself pulling away into consciousness…
When I woke up I was glad to see I was still in my single bed in the small rustic hotel I and my traveling partner, asleep in his own bed, had checked into. I was relieved that I hadn’t disturbed his sleep. He had been driving us around Sedona all day and then we had taken a long, late afternoon hike up the side of a gargantuan mound of red hardened clay called Bell Rock where we read in our ‘Arizona for Dummies’ guide book there were vortexes and portals to other dimensions. We trekked up slowly in the blazing southwestern sun, noticing doused pyres made by past visitors to the area.
The view, when we reached our desired plateau, was of course out-of-this-world! A panorama of nothing but sun-bleached white, cottony clouds, sky-blue skies and rusty red mountains jutting up in that peculiar phallic shape. We saw eagles flying way above our heads. It was magic even without the discovery of a portal.
I got out of my bed and quietly crept into my friend’s, trying hard not to wake him. I was a bit shaken up after my dream and didn’t want to sleep alone.
That next morning at sunrise he woke up yawning, stretching and looking around the room at the same time. He looked over at me and smiled, not asking what I was doing there in his bed. I volunteered;
“I had a bad dream last night and …”
But before I could continue, in between yawns he broke in and said,
“I had the strangest dream last night.”
“Oh yeah?” I said, as my heart began pounding. “What about?”
“I dreamt I was watching one of those old fashioned movies. There was an Indian in it – reminded me of the head on a nickel. Than he and some other Indians crowded onto the screen and were sort of walking towards me. They had on traditional gear with the headdress and everything. It was so weird.”
I told him I had the exact same dream.
We sat up in his bed for awhile, not looking at each other but staring at the framed charcoal drawings of so-called ‘noble savages’ some non-Indian artist had drawn that hung on our hotel room walls.
“Check out time’s at 12pm. Let’s get outta here.” he said.
We hurried and got dressed.
Is it just me? Or does it seem like new technology is being horded at some undisclosed location and being metered out, one miraculous discovery at a time, just so we don’t become jaded regarding things of this nature?
For the first time ever the FDA has approved a retinal implant for adults with a genetic eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa, or RP. The disease causes damage to the light-sensitive cells that line the retina causing severe partial blindness. The Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System, is the result of a 10-year project funded through private and federal dollars.
A Wi-Fi-like electronic chip is implanted in the eye. The patient is then outfitted with a pair of glasses with a miniature video camera mounted on it that sends images to a smartphone-sized computer, which processes the images and sends that information back to the glasses. The eye chip then picks up the electrical signal and transmits it to the optic nerve. The brain grabs the signal, then processes it as patterns of light which enables the patient to “see” an outline mapped image of objects.
It’s not 20-20 vision of course, but researchers have high hopes for more advanced usage.
“I would say [in] five to 10 years, we’ll be able to connect video cameras directly to the brain, which will provide superb vision,” says Dr. Robert Cykiert, an opthamologist and eye surgeon at NYU Langone Medical Center.
Of course there will be risks involved, but the benefits outweigh the risks when the outcome is partial sight from total blindness.
“I’ve actually gotten many emails and phone calls from patients around the country who have asked me about this.” says Dr. Cykiert.
I’m posting this pic for no other reason other than I ♥BigBeautifulBabies. Especially when they’re wearing adorable little outfits with precious sayings! This little big man’s name is
Nikai
“Who’s on their best behavior, huh? You are! Yes you are, yes you are!…”
SongBooth founder Gregory Lowe warms up the Pepsi SongBooth Truck at Empire Auto in Austin
Pepsi introduced a new pop culture-based rewards program at South By Southwest Tuesday called Pepsi Experience Points, or PXP, which will allow fans to collect points through Pepsi purchases and social media interactions to win exclusive prizes like Monster headphones, Pepsi apparel and tickets to see Beyonce’s Mrs. Carter World Tour.
“Its not just about rewarding transactions, it’s about incentivizing and rewarding engagements across everything in the Pepsi Music experience,” says Shiv Singh, global head of digital for PepsiCo Beverages. PXP includes a partnership with SongBooth, a social music video mobile app that lets users record their own music and share it with others. A special SXSW activation, the Official Pepsi SongBooth Truck, will allow fans to record covers and film music videos of current pop hits and earn the chance to win prizes. Pepsi will also sponsor the SongBooth app for iOS, which has 1.3 million registered users since launching in December. SongBooth was created in part to create a more curated experience outside the “oversaturated” environment of YouTube, says creator/founder Gregory Lowe. Although users can record full-length songs, they’re streamed in 30-second clips to encourage quick engagement and interactions. “We wanted to give people a way to share their user-generated videos, because so many are uploaded on YouTube and there’s not an easy way to find them,” Lowe says. “The dynamics of social networking are changing, and this gives people a niche avenue to view their content.” Stars like Miguel and Ryan Beatty have also used the app in its first weeks, with potential for Pepsi-backed artists to show up in the coming months too. “SongBooth helps us continue the conversation we’re having around music, from our big activation with Beyonce at the Super Bowl to the Grammys to working with a few of the artists that we’re building for the rest of the year,” says Javier Farfan, senior director of cultural branding for PepsiCo.
And Songbooth will launch a music competition called Project SongBooth which will offer a chance to win a professional music video and a singles deal with a major label. Lowe says Pepsi and SongBooth are in the final stages of talks with two different potential partners so keep yourself tuned in here @ Ezkool for contest rules!
It was a eureka moment yesterday for scientists at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research. They announced that they’re confident (as confident as a scientist could be when charting new territory) that they have in fact, discovered what they call the God Particle. You know, the subatomic atom eggheads are saying was responsible for setting the Big Bang into motion!? (the actual moment of the creation of our universe, not the show). Actually the scientific name for it is the Higgs Boson, named for Peter Higgs, one of the physicists who proposed the idea of such a particle existing back in 1964. The God particle is just a great nickname, isn’t it? So anyway, to understand why this so-called discovery is so crucial, we have to understand the theory that it came from. And as much as I love the idea of SCIENCE, I’m nobody’s physicist, so I’ve brought over some friends to explain things to us in the simplest of layman’s terms — a Higgs Boson for Dummies, as it were. Q: So I keep reading about this physics guy named Higgs Boson. Who is he, and why is he in the news all of a sudden? A: It’s not a he. Q: It’s a she? A: No, it’s an it. Q: So… it’s not a person…? A: Correct. It’s a particle. Q: A particle? What’s that? A: A basic building block of stuff. Like an electron. Q: Or like an atom? A: Well, an atom is made up of other, smaller particles. But yes. Sort of like an atom. Q: And how does this Higgs thing fit into that? A: About 40 years ago, physicists tried to put together a theory that would explain why stuff behaves the way it does. They called it the Standard Model. One of the things they imagined would need to be part of that Standard Model was a boson, a type of particle that would allow other particles to do the kinds of things that particles do. Q: And what do particles do? A: They combine together. They form things. Bosons help slow particles down from their natural super-speed and let them join up with other particles and stick together. Q: Okay… A: But for all of these years, it’s only been a theory. This guy named Higgs had proposed that these bosons exist to do this stuff, but no one had ever seen them. Until last Tuesday, when a machine in Switzerland designed to test the predictions of physicists found something that would be consistent with the existence of the Higgs boson. Q: So they saw one? A: They think they saw one. They saw something that could very well be a Higgs boson. Q: Why aren’t they sure? A: The Higgs boson is an unstable particle. As soon as you see it, it’s gone. Q: And why is this exciting? A: Because it would mean that some crazy theory a bunch of physicists came up with 50 years ago to explain the way the world works might actually be true. Q: Thanks. So you’re sure Higgs Boson isn’t just some guy’s name? A: Yes. Almost 100% sure. Q: Cool. A: Cool. h/t The Mind Hut Tu sabe? Muy Bueno! ♦
Well, New York City has finally made its long-awaited push against its organized labor factions by attacking certain union worker’s 401K’s.
The Cultural Institutions Retirement System or CIRS , was formulated as an arrangement dating back to 1962, where the city pays into a pension system that covers dozens of day care centers with city contracts as well as dozens of cultural institutions to the tune of $17 million per fiscal year. Typically, employees covered by CIRS are in unionized positions, like security guards, daycare workers or gardeners, with a portion of their salaries paid for by the city. What The Execs Are Saying… Mark Page, the City’s Budget Director— he’s saying he believes that city day care centers and cultural institutions such as the The Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Museum, and Studio Museum in Harlem may be inaccurately reporting the number of employees that are actually covered by CIRS, and has directed the city’s budget office to temporarily suspend paying into the fund until further investigations are completed. “There is a bunch of money that we have paid for over the years that has been, I guess, nice for those enterprises but not very nice for our taxpayers and what we have actually gotten for our money,” said Page. Lauren Passalacqua, a spokeswoman for the mayor’s office — She’s saying that the budget director’s office has “detected potential anomalies in the data provided by these nonprofits related to the payments the city was making for them to CIRS.” In other words the numbers aren’t adding up. “The city has not paid the CIRS bill this fiscal year, and the city is currently conducting a review of payments made to CIRS on behalf of these nonprofits to ensure that proper and accurate bookkeeping records were maintained,” Passalacquasays . Raglan George Jr., executive director of DC 1707 (home care, child care, foster care,workers)— Says that the Budget Director has failed to consider the pension payments of about 1,200 workers who were let go last year because the city had introduced a new early childhood education program. “When they made that decision they never considered the impact on the pensions,” he said of the city officials. Richard Koski, Executive Director of CIRS — Right now, he’s saying that he could not discuss the issue and does not have full details of the city’s concerns, but added, “We’ve been around for 50 years, and I think we do a really good job for the folks who work there,” What The Execs Want Us To Believe… Ms. Passalacqua stated that once the Office of Management and Budget completes its review of the system, she expects that whatever money the city owes the institutions would be paid into the retirement plan. Mr. George remarked that the pension system is well-covered, and that a temporary delay in the city’s payment would not affect people currently enjoying their hard-earned pensions. Mr. Koski says that over 20,000 people, both active and retired, and about 50 cultural institutions are covered under CIRS. He says the plan has been around for 50 years thinks the system has done a really good job so far. The “F” Bomb!… Mr. Page, in a letter this year to the commissioners for the city’s Cultural Affairs Department and the Administration for Children’s Services, wrote that the city’s overall review of the pension plans seems to show that the cultural and day care employees working under a collective bargaining agreement (read: union) were receiving “benefits greater than those afforded to city employees.” In other words making more money that non-unionized workers. And there’s more… The letter said that when the current collective bargaining agreement ends on June 30th of this year, the city would finance pensions only at the same level as non-union city employees regardless of whether or not a new collective bargaining agreement is settled on, and that the city would no longer subsidize benefits like matching the 401(k) contributions of employees. And that pilgrims, is how the middle class working stiff gets #*”@%!!…again! ♦
Things that make me go “Hmmm”… Does buying bigger, firmer, perkier boobs make you more womanly? I mean, I know you probably feel you look more womanly, but is that the same as actually becoming more womanly?…especially when they’re implants? Do men get off on fondling fake boobs as much as they do real boobs? And are they Boobs if they do? Where did the word ‘boobs’ come from anyway and why is it associated with “dumbness”? Do women lose a certain amount of sensitivity after boob surgery? Is it worth it if they do? And wasn’t there a ban on boob implants due to their leaking, for godsakes!!! These are just some of the questions that come to mind when I see Before/After Boobie Surgery pics. And one more thing…are Hollywood male entertainers implanting things into themselves at record numbers as their female counterparts? Hmmm… ♦
Dr. Valter Longo is the Director of the Longevity Institute in Los Angeles Cali. (where else?), as well as professor of Gerontology and Biological Sciences there. His life is devoted to the longevity of, well Life! How incredibly kool and sexy huh?! So, Dr Longo’s research has found that by deleting two genes of yeast cells — yeast commonly used by bakers and beer brewers — and putting it on a calorie-restricted diet, he was able to extend the lifespan of that same common yeast cell to 10 weeks instead of its dying at its usual maximum age of just one week! The study was published in the journal Public Library of Science Genetics. “So what Amy” you say? Well–while not the discovery of the elusive ‘Fountain of Youth’, the study and its application can quite easily be adapted to the Human genome. People! “We’re setting the foundation for reprogramming healthy life. If we can find out how the longevity mechanism works, it can be applied to every cell in every living organism,” Longo says. “We’re very, very far from making a person live to 800 years of age. I don’t think it’s going to be very complicated to get to 120 and remain healthy, but at a certain point I think it will be possible to get people to live to 800. I don’t think there is an upper limit to the life of any organism.” Thanks Doc, but personally I’ll settle for a sexy, feisty 120 years any day! And maybe you could look me up too, if you’re still around. ♦
So what’s the latest gossip on Capital Hill on the 2016 elections? Why, Hillary Clinton & Michelle Obama of course! Some democrats are already getting all worked up over the possibility of this political powerhouse of a match-up for the 2016 Presidential ticket. It IS an exciting prospect…
austerity (ô-str-t) n pl -ties 1. the state or quality of being austere 2. (often plural) an austere habit, practice, or act 3. (Economics) a. reduced availability of luxuries and consumer goods, esp when brought about by government policy b. (as modifier) an austerity budget
You’ve heard the word used a lot. Austerity can only work effectively in a poor economy if participated in by all its citizen. But as usual, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan wants austerity to ride on the backs of the middle class and the poor in a proposal he feels will balance the federal budget in 10 years without raising taxes any further. He proposes to do this by executing $4.6 trillion in additional government spending cuts. Same story as last year Mr. Ryan. No one liked it then, no one’s going to like it much now.
Ryan plans to unveil the House Republican budget today, and the details haven’t changed much from the last time he proposed the same cuts for the middle class with no mention of closing loopholes for the rich or reform of the Bush tax cuts which allows the rich to hold onto their dollars at a greater rate than the average citizen.
The House Republican Budget Plan,
Calls for the U.S. government to spend a total of about $41 trillion through 2023, a 3.4 percent annual increase. That compares to the current spending trajectory of $46 trillion over 10 years, a 5 percent annual increase.
Will grant approval to the northern portion of the controversial Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL oil pipeline, which he contends will create 20,000 direct jobs and 118,000 indirect jobs.
Will seek to convert Medicare health care for the elderly into a voucher-like system under which seniors receive a subsidy to purchase private insurance or traditional Medicare –with no changes for those 55 or older,– so that the plan contributes savings to achieve balance in a 10-year window.
Will again seek to turn control and funding for Medicaid health care for the poor and food stamps over to states.
Proposes tax reform, with the goal of just two tax brackets: 10 percent and 25 percent.
“Because the U.S. economy will grow faster than spending, the budget will balance by 2023 and debt held by the public will drop to just over half the size of the economy,” said Ryan. Of course it’s a budget the Obama Administration will not be able to sign-off, continuing the stalemate.
Austerity my a_ _! ♦
Dr. Robert E. Bristow
A new study headed by Dr. Robert E. Bristow, director of gynecological oncology at the University of California, says that there are widespread, persistent flaws in the care of women with this disease, which kills 15,000 a year in the United States alone.
About 22,000 new cases of ovarian cancer are diagnosed annually, and most of them are being discovered too late for even aggressive treatment to do much good. Worldwide, there are about 200,000 new cases a year.
Oncologists around the country say the main reason for the poor care is that most women are treated by doctors and hospitals that literally lack expertise in the complex surgery and chemotherapy that can prolong life.
“If we could just make sure that women get to the people who are trained to take care of them, the impact would be much greater than that of any new chemotherapy drug or biological agent,” said Dr. Bristow
The study found that about a third of patients received the best possible care, confirming a women’s best course of action would be to consult physicians in hospitals that offer treatment of the disease as their primary care. ♦
Alex Rodriguez is now embroiled in a family feud, as he faces a lawsuit from his cousin Yuri Sucart, who is reportedly seeking $5 million in damages relating to the Yankee superstar’s claim that Sucart provided him with performance-enhancing drugs. He has consulted with his Miami attorney about filing a lawsuit against Rodriguez.
All on the heels of a recent Major League Baseball and DEA investigation into whether A-Rod and cousin Yuri were involved in obtaining performance-enhancing drugs from a Coral Gables anti-aging clinic operated by Anthony Bosch, a name that’s come to be synonymous with the words ‘Big Sports figure accused of using performance enhancing drugs.”
Sports Illustrated reported in February 2009 that Rodriguez had tested positive for anabolic steroids during the 2003 season, when MLB and its Players Association conducted surprise testing to see if the drug had inundated the sport. When Rodriguez tested positive, he dragged Sucart into the controversy.
And the plot thickens… ♦
Up until now the White House has steered clear of mentioning China by name when discussing cyber crime. Not anymore! President Obama’s national security adviser, Tom Donilon, demanded Monday that the Chinese government stop the data theft from American computer networks and begin to play by the rules.
“Increasingly, U.S. businesses are speaking out about their serious concerns about sophisticated, targeted theft of confidential business information and proprietary technologies through cyber intrusions emanating from China on an unprecedented scale,” Mr. Donilon said in a wide-ranging address to the Asia Society in New York.
Lukewarm warming words from the big boys on the block, but I suppose one’s government has to be delicate in such matters.
The U.S. “demand” came two days after Chinese foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, rejected mounting evidence that his country’s military was involved in cyber attacks on American corporations and some government agencies.
At a daily news conference in Beijing, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Hua Chunying, repeated her government’s position opposing internet cyber attacks and said she wanted nothing more than to have an open “constructive dialogue” with the United States and other countries about cybersecurity issues. Perhaps China can create some type of innovative software to help America protect against…Chinese…cyber atta…ok, scratch that. ♦
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