Title of Harry Potter #6 revealed.

J.K. Rowling has posted a cleverly worded announcement confirming that the title of her next book is indeed what was discovered by fans behind the animated door on her website. Although she deliberately omits actual mention of the title, acknowledgement from her literary agent has made it widely known: "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" is the next book to expect.

For fans who have problems uncovering the hidden revelation of the title, here's a step-by-step guide:

1. Click that highlighted item beside the key.


2. Click on the handle to open the door.


3. Click the bricks in the following numbered order.


4. Click on the fan.


5. The papers should flutter, leading you to see this:


Rowling also hints at what's ahead,

I was delighted to see that a hard core of super-bright fans knew that the real title was once, in the long distant past, a possibility for 'Chamber of Secrets', and from that deduced that it was genuine. Certain crucial pieces of information in book six were originally planned for 'Chamber of Secrets', but very early on (first draft of Chamber) I realised that this information's proper home was book six. I have said before now that 'Chamber' holds some very important clues to the ultimate end of the series. Not as many as six, obviously, but there is a link.

Anyway: if you continue to exercise patience, you will find that the Do Not Disturb Door opens again... and again... giving you further hints about book six. But as a little bonus, and compensation for having been messed around by Mr. or Ms. Storgé, I shall tell you one thing without making you shift any bricks at all: the HBP is neither Harry nor Voldemort. And that's all I'm saying on THAT subject until the book's published.

Clinton, the couch potato.

In this year's most anticipated book - well, there hasn't been any Harry Potter scheduled for 2004 - America's 42nd president Bill Clinton, reveals unsatisfyingly little revelations that make for a good read.

Certainly, there have been much to look forward to in the autobiography. Beyond the sex scandals, he had led an extraordinary life. As The Economist puts it,

Mr Clinton comes from the sort of world that John Kerry has only witnessed in films: a world of casual violence, unstable relationships and shady characters. His father died in a car crash before he was born. His stepfather was an abusive alcoholic who once shot a gun in the general direction of his wife and stepson.

How did he manage to climb out of such a chaotic background?

Unfortunately, as the chapters of his early life drew to a close, so did the insights “My Life” offered.

But the point of this entry isn’t about the book. What caught my attention was how most reviews including Michiko Kakutani's from The New York Times, make reference to Mr. Clinton’s celebrated 1993 speech in Memphis to the Church of God in Christ. More effusive praise cannot be found: riveting, visionary, soaring eloquence.

Douglas Jehl remarked then,

In Memphis today President Clinton broke out of the pattern of political speeches, of the expected and the calculated. He spoke from within himself, responding in emotional terms to the appalling reality of violence in this country today. The response he got shows that one thing Americans want a President to do is to speak out about wrongs, not always to have a 10-point plan or a graph--but to speak. No one person can solve our problems of social decay but this President has made us face them.

So I dug it up. Not a bad speech indeed. But this was at the same pulpit from which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous (and unfortunately final) public address, I've Been to the Mountaintop.

Great oratory can inspire. It's unfortunate we hear little of such these days.

Oh, the things we give birth to.

BBC reports that Iranian newspaper, Etemaad is carrying a controversial story of a woman who claims to have given birth to a frog.

... the creature is believed to have grown from larva to an adult frog inside her body.

While it is unclear how this could have happened, the paper carries quotes from medical experts who say there are human characteristics to the animal.

It has been speculated that the woman, who has not been named, unknowingly picked up the larva while she was swimming in a dirty pool.

Oh dear. What's next?

Here comes the Judge

Article

read this from another forum and decided to share cos i was going O_o.., and it's just not nice to keep info to yourself. :P funny article, good for a laugh..

snippet chosen for its lack of details. lol

According to the below complaint filed by the Oklahoma Attorney General, Donald D. Thompson, 57, was caught in the act by a clerk, trial witnesses, and his longtime court reporter (these unsettling first-hand accounts will make you wonder what's going on under other black robes).

Rev Moonie Crowned "Messiah"...

Remember the Moonies? Well, this time round, Rev Moon is honored at Hill Reception and crowned with the “crown of peace”!! Hahaha... talk bout being ridiculous... He claims to be a Messiah, even said that his teachings helped Hitler and Stalin to be “reborn as new persons”

Moon has claimed to have spoken in "the spirit world" with all deceased U.S. presidents, Jesus, Moses, Mohammed and others. At the March 23 event, he said: "The founders of five great religions and many other leaders in the spirit world, including even Communist leaders such as Marx and Lenin . . . and dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new persons."

This paragraph cracks me up no matter how many times I read it! Hehehe... It never fails to amaze me how people actually believe his teachings...=_=

Blood Apology

Article

He said the boy was taken to the staff room of the school in Fukuoka City, southern Japan, after being caught asleep during a lesson. The 40-year-old male teacher handed the boy a box-cutter and paper and told him to write an apology in blood.

The teacher left the student, who then cut his finger and began to write an apology using his own blood.

I thought the students were rebellious or such from watching dramas/shows, but apart from the outrageous command, the student actually carrying out the order seems odd. Who says students aren't obedient. The article however, doesn't reveal how the weird teacher had forced the student to write the apology, which seems to justify the student's action.

Plucking that Rainbow

A video clip from the classic 70s children's show Rainbow has been doing the rounds on the internet. And for good reason too. If anyone paid the least attention to the dialogue, its innuedos would pretty much make any parent race to turn off the television set. It's hard to believe this was actually broadcast.

Hungarian Suicide Anthem

Gloomy Sunday

Gloomy Sunday - the notorious 'Hungarian Suicide Song' - was written in 1933. Its melody and original lyrics were the creation of Rezsô Seress, a self-taught pianist and composer born in Hungary in 1899.

Interesting to note, Rezsô Seress himself committed suicide by jumping from his flat in 1968. Anyway, the song is something of a urban legend in the music industry.

Gloom, depression and suicide seem to be part and parcel of Hungarian culture. "You can hardly meet with a Hungarian who wouldn't have relatives or friends who really committed suicide - it's a kind of national disease, it's a kind of sickness," says Peter Muller, a Hungarian playwright who has written a play about Gloomy Sunday and has studied the suicide phenomenon.

So I guess cannot really blame the song ya?
Besides, I like the song...esp the Sarah McLachlan version.

Not something you see on your way to the doctor

A 300 pound black bear wandered through the automatic doors of Carilion Franklin Memorial Hospital. After being trapped in a computer room, law enforcement officers killed the bear. Lt. Karl Martin, a state game warden explains their decision:

Martin said he considered tranquilizing the bear but decided it had to be shot to death as a safety precaution. The bear was partially hidden behind a desk, preventing a clear shot with a tranquilizer gun.

He said sedating the bear might have endangered patients, staff, officers and curious onlookers outside because bears often become angry, disoriented and seek to escape before losing consciousness several minutes later. A Franklin County sheriff's deputy killed the animal with two shots.

Sadly, this scare highlights the human vs. bear problem as suburbs and towns grow out into the country. (Okay, but not where we live. =P)

The Economics of Sport

The fanfare surrounding this summer's Olympic Games in Athens and the Euro 2004 soccer tournament, which starts in Portugal this weekend, is sure to include much curmudgeonly hand-wringing over modern man's obsession with sport. But is it really so modern? The authors of The Economics of Sport ask their readers to consider the following signs of obsession, and to guess which sport they are describing:

* athletes' pay running at ten times that of a doctor or a lawyer;
* promotional symbols and motifs festooning cups, lamps and fans' homes;
* and huge profits arising from the ownership of the rights to players.

An account of soccer today? Actually, no: it is instead a description of the gladiatorial games of Roman times. The book, which applies economic analyses on sports, offers a reminder that money has never been far from athletic exploits. For a brief review, check out The Economist's review.

Yahoo Quest

YAHOO's Response

Associated Press
San Francisco — Internet giant Yahoo Inc. is fortifying its free e-mail service with 25 times more storage and freeing up millions of previously claimed e-mail addresses in an effort to thwart a looming threat from its increasingly disruptive rival Google Inc.


Beginning Tuesday, all of Yahoo's free e-mail accounts will be upgraded to 100 megabytes, a move spurred by Google's plans to offer 1,000 megabytes of free storage through its Gmail service, which has remained in a test phase since early April.


Yahoo has been offering four megabytes of free e-mail storage, although some people with accounts opened several years ago have six megabytes of free storage.

woohoo! well, go market forces! and yahoo! and google as well!

McCain rejects Courtship

Last week, Arizona Republican, Senator John McCain, made clear on a late-night television show his lack of enthusiasm about signing up for being No. 2 to George Bush.

I spent several years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, in the dark, fed with scraps. Do you think I want to do that all over again as vice president of the United States?

Now, The New York Times brings word that Mr. McCain has also flatly refused to be the running mate of Mr. Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. This brings an end to speculation about the potential of a bipartisan ticket, with the two friends and Vietnam veterans matching up against President Bush and Vice President Cheney, neither of whom fought in that war.

According to the report, Mr. Kerry first made direct overtures to Mr. McCain about three weeks after locking up the Democratic nomination in March and approached him again, in person or by telephone, as many as seven times, as recently as last week.

Detractors of the current Bush administration will be disappointed by this news as a Kerry-McCain ticket is generally expected to be unstoppable in the fall. Mr. McCain had showed in 2000 that he could draw Independent voters. A CBS News poll recently found that a Kerry-McCain ticket had a 14-percentage-point edge over Bush-Cheney among registered voters, 53 percent to 39 percent. Alone, Mr. Kerry was tied or slightly ahead of Mr. Bush.

99 Rooms

Beautiful graphics, eerie audio. Altogether surreal. Enjoy the 99 rooms.

dancing king

Chanced upon this image taken on May 11, 2004.

Do the Ah Goh Goh. Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair looks on as his Singapore counterpart Goh Chok Tong does the agogo on the doorstep at Downing Street in London.

Mind you, I have absolute admiration for PM Goh. But kudos to the good caption for what must have been a slight slip. =P

Who is going to be on the Republican ticket?

With Dick Cheney planning to retire, everyone has been wondering whose name will be on the ballot with Bush Jr.

Worry no further. It's Zombie Regan for vice-president! Reaching out to all Americans, breathing or not, Zombie Reagan will be on the front lines, eating illegal combatants.

From the FAQs,

Is Zombie Reagan really that much of an advantage? Doesn't John Kerry have the zombie vote locked up?

No. John Kerry, in fact, isn't really a zombie. He is more akin to Frankenstein's Monster, built out of parts stolen from graveyards under cover of night. He simply claims to be a zombie for political advantage.

Printer ink. It's liquid gold.

The Mirror points out that the average cost of replacing the tablespoon of ink in a 17ml colour printer cartridge is US$53, making it sixteen times more expensive than vintage 1985 Dom Perignon.

Personally, a colour cartridge for my HP printer is around US$36 so I guess I should be glad that I'm,
* not using one of those photo printers,
* not living in a country with such inflated and taxed prices,
* in a market where bootleg inks drive the legit prices down.

How prices compare: The Most Expensive liquids.

Printer Ink
A typical three-colour cartridge with a capacity of 17ml will set you back £29.
PRICE: £1.70 per ml

Chanel No.5 perfume
At £64 per 100ml bottle, screen siren Marilyn Monroe once said it was the only thing she wore in bed.
PRICE: 64p per ml

Blood
The National Blood Service charges £111 for 475ml of blood to private and NHS hospitals, which use 9,000 bags a day. Ink is seven times dearer.
PRICE: 23p per ml

Remy Martin XO
At £115 for a 70cl bottle, it's one of the most expensive cognacs you can buy on the High Street.
PRICE: 16.4p per ml

Dom Perignon Champagne, 1985
This year has produced one of the labels best vintages at £78 a 750ml bottle.
PRICE: 10.4p per ml

Space shuttle fuel
When Nasa launches the Shuttle it uses 4.17m litres of fuel, costing £750,000. If it ran on ink, it could 1,000 times more.
PRICE: 0.018p per ml

Justified??

Now, this is just too fucked up to be believed.

In August 2002, the Justice Department advised the White House that torturing al Qaeda terrorists in captivity abroad "may be justified," and that international laws against torture "may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations" conducted in President Bush's war on terrorism, according to a newly obtained memo.

So what does it all mean? Is America immune to International laws just because of claims that it might, just might be unconstitutional to the American constitution? So the international laws are for everyone else other than the Americans? Hmmmm... what a strange concept...

"necessity and self-defense could provide justifications that would eliminate any criminal liability"

R.i.g.h.t. Of course it’s necessary to torture prisoners and of course it’s self-defense to torture prisoners who cannot fight back. =_=

What bullshit!

Pentagon officials said the group examined at least 35 interrogation techniques, and Rumsfeld later approved using 24 of them in a classified directive on April 16, 2003, that governed all activities at Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon has refused to make public the 24 interrogation procedures.

Hmmm....I wonder what the 24 interrogation procedures are...*ponders*

print your pringles

A whole new twist to playing with your food.

Steven Mallas at The Motley Fool reports that Pringles potato chips will soon not just be for snacking but informative as well.

Maybe informative might be too strong of a word, but Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) has come up with an innovative process to place images and text on the surface of Pringles potato chips -- or should that be crisps (I always forget). So now a person can spy one message or other before she downs the next victim from the canister.

According to the release, first up will be a promotion involving one of Hasbro's (NYSE: HAS) popular board games, "Trivial Pursuit Junior." Questions from that brand will be featured on the crisps, along with the answers, of course. (Actually, P&G should consider placing the questions in one canister of crisps and the answers in another canister to double sales -- as well as the anger level of consumers, I suppose). The launch of this initiative is scheduled for summertime.

Advertising on our chips. Whatever will be next?

how it feels to get shot

So how does it feel to get hit by a bullet? Plenty of ballistics experts and pathologists have studied the tangible effects of bullets on the body. But little research has ever been done on what it feels like to be shot, the mental and physical sensations of a slug piercing the skin and wreaking its internal havoc. The Chicago Sun-Times explores.

Here are some of the good parts (a lot of which also apply to most trauma injuries).

Interestingly,

"People don't even get knocked backward when they get shot, but you see this in the movies all the time," says Fackler, a retired military surgeon in Florida who had testified about ballistics in dozens of court cases. "Unless the guy gets hit in the head or the spine, the most common reaction to getting shot is no reaction at all."

Also, the primary reason why it takes quite some time for the pain to kick in on gunshot-wound victims is that pain can take a back seat when the brain is busy trying to figure out how to stay alive.

"It's called stress-induced analgesia," says Michael Feuerstein, a psychologist who specializes in counseling shooting victims in the Washington, D.C., area. "When you're in a life-threatening situation, your body goes into fight-or-flight mode. Blood flows to your muscles so you can either run or fight. Stress hormones are released that have been shown to reduce the amount of pain a person feels."

That isn't the only reason it can take at least a few minutes for pain to register. Part of the delay can be chalked up to the time it takes the body to rally its repair crews at the injury site, which can take an hour or so to reach its peak, Martin says.

Damaged tissue unleashes chemicals that serve as a battle cry, marshaling the body's infection-fighting white blood cells and other healing agents to the wounded area. The injury site becomes swollen, or inflamed. Tiny nerve fibers pick up on this inflammation and respond by firing off pain signals to the brain.

"By making it extremely painful for you to move that area, it promotes healing," Martin says. "But this phenomenon of inflammation takes a little while to get started."

"Gunshot-wound victims who die almost always die of massive blood loss," says Dr. Scott Denton, a forensic pathologist and Cook County deputy medical examiner.

When this happens, the body reacts by kicking the heart into high gear. Blood pressure plummets. What blood is left gets pulled away from the arms and legs and skin and gets routed to key organs, namely the heart and brain. That's why the body becomes pale, cold and clammy. People can get confused or lose consciousness. Eventually, there isn't enough life-sustaining oxygen coursing through the body.

The body is pretty amazing huh.

Colombian baby 'stolen from womb'

Stolen Fetus?

The woman faces charges of drugging the child's mother and leading her to a house where her womb was cut open.

more

The baby - found with the alleged kidnapper - has been re-united with its true mother, who had been left for dead in the central town of Girardot.

_____

disturbing psychopathic behaviour... O_o

Illusions

J sent me an illusion from ebaumsworld quite a while back. I was bored and went to check out the rest recently. =_=
this two are my favs!!


Eye Examination Chart 

SMACK GIRL!!

Taken from Asahi Shimbun

A no-holds-barred, all-discipline event, SMACK GIRL featured elements of all martial arts, from kickboxing and wrestling to judo and karate. Despite some serious aggression and not much in the way of rules, all the gladiators survived to battle another day and the crowd went home happy.

The afternoon's big winner was Yasuko Mogi, an office worker who started kakutogi, or combat sports, seven years ago. Selected as the event's MVP, the 35-year-old woman won a teddy bear wearing boxing gloves.

SMACK GIRL is considered the pioneering event in the world of women's kakutogi. It began as ReMix in December 2000 and acquired its current name in May 2002.

After watching the women for the first time, Natsuko Inada, a 24-year-old shop clerk, said: ``I thought the fighters would be more sturdy and muscular. But most of them are so slender and small, just like ordinary girls. I'm impressed.''

Heh. I really want to see one of these SMACK GIRL matches... Japan is truly a country of contradictions. Traditional at times yet shocking at others.

The Real Day after Tomorrow? - by Aussie Bloke

Okay. This may be used by some to explain the strange meteor thingies around the world. Well, to me this is another crackpot cos if he isn't, well... nice to know you. -_- and if he is, he's as good as the Time Traveller dude.. forgot the name.

Interesting read, like an online blog.. Talks about how the recent wars, terrorism are but distractions..

___________
Dates to look out for:

June 8-9 Dust Cloud begins to reach the Earth and darkening of the skies.
June 18-20 1st impact
June 24-25 2nd impact
June 27-28 3rd impact of the "anomaly"
___________

Read more of it here.

Study: 'Toxic dust' on computers has chemicals linked to diseases

The Study

"Toxic dust" found on computer processors and monitors contains chemicals linked to reproductive and neurological disorders, according to a new study by several environmental groups.

more

"This will be a great surprise to everyone who uses a computer," said Ted Smith, director of the Toxics Coalition.

yes, a suprise indeed.. -_-

Goodbye Tenet

Central Intelligence Agency director, George J. Tenet, has resigned.

President Bush told members of the press that "I met with George last night in the White House. I had a good visit with him. He told me he was resigning for personal reasons."

The C.I.A. denies the resignation was connected with any job performance issues. "Absolutely not," said Mark Mansfield, C.I.A. spokesman. Tenet also addressed C.I.A. employees stressing that, "It was a personal decision, and had only one basis in fact: the well being of my wonderful family, nothing more and nothing less."

The New York Times also remarks,

Mr. Bush announced the resignation of the 51-year-old Mr. Tenet in a way that was almost bizarre. He had just addressed reporters and photographers in a fairly innocuous Rose Garden session with Australian Prime Minister John Howard. Then the session was adjourned, as Mr. Bush apparently prepared to depart for nearby Andrews Air Force Base and his flight to Europe, where he is to take part in ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the Normandy invasion and meet European leaders — some of whom have been sharply critical of the campaign in Iraq.

But minutes later, Mr. Bush reappeared on the sun-drenched White House lawn, stunning listeners with the news of Mr. Tenet's resignation, which the president said would be effective in mid-July.

Mr. Tenet and the C.I.A. have come under intense criticism since Sept. 11. Intelligence failure to "connect the dots" of what in retrospect seemed to be a cornucopia of clues that attacks on the United States were imminent, was further compounded by the serious misinformation gathered about Saddam Hussein's supposed possession of deadly chemical and biological weapons. These WMDs, which had been touted as a key rationale for the American-led war to topple the Baghdad dictator, have so far not been found.

Tenet will serve until 11 July - the seventh anniversary of his tenure in office, and then be temporarily replaced by C.I.A. Deputy Director John McLaughlin, Bush said.

temperatures arising

The trailer for Fahrenheit 9/11 is now available online. This new Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine, Roger & Me) film received an 18 minute standing ovation at the Festival de Cannes and then later went on to pick up the prestigious Palme d'Or award. Fahrenheit 9/11 is set to open on June 25 after difficulties with Disney were resolved by the formation of Fellowship Adventure Group (Miramax, Lions Gate Films and IFC Films) which purchased the rights to handle distribution.

Flashes, booms reported over Western Washington

Bright flashes and sharp booms were reported in the skies over the Puget Sound area early Thursday, and aviation officials said a meteor may have been the source.

An early report that a meteor might have hit near Chehalis, about 90 miles south of the city, turned out to be false, a University of Washington scientist who specializes in meteorites said

Okay, you might think it was just a meteor, nothing to see, move along move along.. and then.. nearer to the end of the article.

A man who identified himself as University of Washington astronomy professor Bradley Hammermaster told KIRO Radio a team was being assembled to head for an area where the meteor was believed to have hit, but that call appeared to be a hoax, Smith said.

No one by the name of Hammermaster is known to the astronomy department, and the description given by the caller to the station of the object - an automobile-sized piece of a small car from a piece of the larger Trilene meteor - was clearly bogus, Smith added

So, what exactly did happen? are there going to be more of these happenings? if it was not a meteor what object was it?

Mel's 'Passion'-ate curse

"He was cantankerous and said he had just rolled out of bed. One person asked him how the success of 'The Passion' had changed how he makes decisions.

"He was silent for a minute, and then said, 'F-- you! I don't mean f-- you; I mean "f-- you" in general. I don't have to answer any of these questions anymore. I'm a hell of a lot wealthier than I once was.

Click here and scroll down to Mel's 'Passion'-ate curse

This really really reminds me of the Southpark Episode. 'Passion of the Jew'... too similar, it's creepy. haha!

on another note about Mel's work Braveheart.

Challenge of new leaders: Win over Iraqi 'Braveheart'

But when Harper's Magazine this month profiled insurgents attacking U.S. forces and Iraqis aiding them, one cited Braveheart as his role model for a similar cause of "freedom" and "hope."

Mel Gibson's movies are nothing but world renowned.. heh

Bollywood sells & InstaSnow

Some amusing clips for the day.

Wakaw! Ice creamy Thanda
A Vanilla Coke advertisement starring Vivek Oberoi featuring many in-jokes to '70s Bollywood films. Just enjoy the catchy tune. Wakaw!

Bollywood pseudohistory of the mullet - Mulit
This is a 12 minute advertainment by Absolut Vodka. It is rather long but nevertheless well crafted enough to be entertaining for the bored. There has also been some informal Where's Wally-style competition in spotting the familiar Absolut shape which makes subtle appearances throughout.

Lastly, really short and pointless. But I do want some InstaSnow. Infinitely better than soap bubbles at Orchard Road.

the art of flag design

It's been quite some time since Saizou and I chatted about the new Iraqi flag, but a Slate article revisited the topic and I figure it might be worth a mention here.

Flags of the Middle East (image created by Wikipedia)


Is it any wonder that people might be displeased by the design?

A few weeks ago in Fallujah, a Reuters photographer snapped a photograph of this guy — who looks a lot more like a middle-class shopkeeper than an anarchist or insurgent — setting fire to the new Iraqi flag only a couple days after it was unveiled. The scene is especially striking when you consider that the new flag hasn't even begun to be manufactured yet. The man in the photo was apparently angry enough about the flag that he stitched together his own crude version just so he could torch it

But to his credit, the flag designer Rifat al-Chadirchi, had good intentions. He told CNN that his goal was a "simple, straightforward" flag that makes a "powerful statement." And the flag does manage to include a number of important symbols: A crescent moon for Islam; two blue bands for the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and, by extension, the Sunni and Shiite populations since the river basin is their heartland; and a yellow band for the Kurds. All without looking too cluttered.

It's a pity the flag is such a political disaster. Meanwhile, the Governing Council has stated that the colour of the crescent will be darkened and that the flag is only temporary.

New ABCs?

The lying game
An A-Z of the Iraq war and its aftermath, focusing on misrepresentation, manipulation, and mistakes

tough for kids to memorise this version of ABCs... haha.

Japan's secret epidemic

HIkikomori....

Japan: the missing million

old news, but still interesting and might even be the current state still.. Singapore in the future?

and

Hikikomori violence