Sunday, May 8, 2011

Thank you


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Little fella races dog


YouTube link.

Via Say OMG.

Car loading mishap


YouTube link.

Here's a sleepy baby alpaca


YouTube link.

Via Say OMG.

Mass circumcision party held for hundreds of boys in the Philippines

Preteen Filippino boys queued in their hundreds for a daylong 'circumcision party', which officials hope will earn their city a place in the record books, as doctors carried out the surgery on dozens of makeshift operating tables in a stadium in Marikina city, east of Manila.



In the Philippines, circumcision is a rite of passage most males undergo as preteens. Young Filippino boys are traditionally circumcised during their school summer break from March to May.

Officials said the event, touted in a press statement as a 'circumcision party', aimed to promote safe circumcision. They offered poor residents free surgery that would otherwise cost at least $40 (£25) in private hospitals. In rural areas, the surgery is sometimes performed by non-doctors using crude methods.



Marikina city officials hope to establish a world record for the number of people attending a mass circumcision. The vice mayor, Jose Fabian Cadiz, said: 'We applied for the Guinness Book of World Records and we are recording everything so we can send all the data to them and hopefully it will be recognized.'

3-year-old with blowtorch goes on fire starting spree

Police said it seems that a 3-year-old was able to operate a handheld blowtorch and set fires in his family's garage and on a neighbour's porch in Shenango Township, Lawrence County. Firefighters were called at about 9:30 a.m. on Friday to extinguish the flames. Township police said somebody reported seeing the boy walking on Route 388, carrying the blowtorch and wearing only a T-shirt.

"The torch itself in the propane tank has safety switches, and the child was able to manipulate them and turn the torch on," said Shenango Township Police Patrolman Darrin Cwynar. Police said the boy burned a porch swing, a broom, a sliding door, a deck and a knob on a septic tank and singed an igniter on a gas grill.



Shenango Township Police Chief Dave Rishel said damages were estimated to be almost $5,000. When police found the child and picked him up, he told them where he lived, but nobody answered the door when they went there. Eventually, they were able to contact a relative.

"When I arrived on scene with the family member, he was able to gain entry through the garage, and we found there was a large pile of objects that were smoldering. The garage was filled with smoke," said Cwynar. Police said the boy's mother was asleep in the house, exhausted after having worked a midnight shift, and the father was at work.

With news video.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel becomes friend to all penguins

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has adopted a penguin during her visit to the Ozeaneum maritime museum in Stralsund, northern Germany.



Merkel fed her penguin, which she named Alexandra, with anchovies, as she became an honorary patron for the Humboldt penguin.

Alexandra, aged three, will now be sponsored for life, a considerable effort considering Humbolt penguins have a life expectancy of 30.


YouTube link.

Alexandra lives with eight other Humbolt penguins in the new enclosure. Angela says she is now a friend to all penguins.

Australian police seek Buzz Lightyear lookalike after glassing

A Buzz Lightyear lookalike is being hunted by Sydney police as they investigate the glassing of a woman at an inner-city beer garden.

In an appeal for information in connection with the Saturday night assault, police described a man "seen near" the victim before she was injured.



"He is described as wearing a white, green and purple astronaut costume similar to the cartoon character 'Buzz Lightyear,'" police said in a statement.

The 27-year-old woman who was hit by a glass while sitting at a licensed venue on Crown Street, Surry Hills, at about 11.45pm local time suffered a cut to the forehead and was taken to the Sydney Hospital for treatment.

Lizard in Saudi Arabian restaurant causes uproar

The unexpected visit of a huge desert lizard at a restaurant caused uproar among diners and waiters and made them run into the street in the city of Al-Rass in Qassim province on Thursday.



The three-kilogram reptile escaped from the wheelbarrow of passing municipality cleaners who had found it at a nearby cemetery, and headed for the restaurant, apparently attracted by the smell of food.

This lizard suffered a different fate.

YouTube link.

Customers fled the restaurant in panic before a local man seized the lizard. The lizard was later sold at auction for SR30 ($8).

Sex in self-storage a low-cost option for hard-up couples having affairs

They may not appear to be the most romantic of locations, but self-storage units could become a refuge for furtive couples looking for a quiet place to conduct their affairs.

According to an industry blog, self-storage owners in the US have discovered a small number of people using their lock-ups as a private, if distinctly utilitarian, space in which to conduct illicit affairs. As owners of the units have their own keys and are promised privacy, spending an hour at your local storage premises can work out as more discreet and far cheaper than a hotel.



A spokesman for Lok n Store, a chain that operates across the south east of England admitted it was certain one of its Hampshire units was being used as a cut-price hotel for mid-afternoon rendezvous. He said: "Self storage is usually stable and boring, however we did have a couple who rented space, visited it regularly but never filled it up. This is taking ‘the big friendly storage company’ theme to an extreme."

A manager of another storage company in London said: "If you bring in drugs or explosives than you're thrown out straight away. A visit with a lady friend? Well, I suppose we'll turn a blind eye, though it's hardly going to be very comfortable, is it?" A small storage unit, about 10 feet by 5 feet, can be rented for about £60 a month, making it far cheaper than even the most basic hotel.

Overthinking Things

So the Euros are now thinking about asking Greece for collateral for their next loan.
May 8 (Bloomberg) -- European Union officials may require Greece to provide collateral for aid as policy makers struggle to prevent the euro area’s first sovereign debt restructuring, said a person with direct knowledge of the situation.

Expanding the 110 billion-euro ($158 billion) lifeline Greece received last year may mean that assets or revenue from asset sales are used to secure extra funds, the person said. Demanding collateral, an idea floated last year by Finland, may help avoid a political backlash against bailouts.
All of this is a huge example of overthinking the problem. Greece borrowed too much money, more than they could pay back. They didn't borrow it so that they could turn a profit with it by building more industry, or if they did it was an abysmal failure and something which should have been recognized right away. Instead, they borrowed it to pay their people more than they were worth.

In essence, Greece was your shiftless brother-in-law and you loaned him money so he could take vacations. The Euro solution has been to successively loan him still more money with the conclusion of each loan being renewed surprise that he can't pay you back. That would have been a stupid idea for you to do and was an equally stupid one for the European banks, investors and ECB.

All the Keynesian explanations in the world, all of the graphs and charts and equations in all the textbooks serve only to temporarily obscure the fact that loaning money to people who can't show a profit in short order is a stupid thing to do. It's that simple.

Lumpia Udang

DSC_0450


terinspirasi dari resep lumpia yg empunya LBT, bunda Ricke tapi berhubung gag punya keju jadi di modifikasi dicampur sama ayam cincang, hasilnya sama enak tapi klo mau buat yg originalnya silahkan ngintip dari resepnya bunda yah....


LUMPIA UDANG

Bahan:
10 lembar kulit lumpia
Minyak goreng

Ragout:

2 sdm margarine
1 batang daun bawang, iris halus
2 siung bawang putih, cincang halus
1 bh bawang bombay, cincang halus
6 buah jamur kancing kalengan, cincang kasar
50 g udang kupas, cincang kasar
50 g daging ayam cincang
1 sdm tepung terigu
1 sdt garam
½ sdt merica bubuk
½ sdt gula pasir
150 ml kaldu/air
1/2 sdt lada halus
1 sdm kecap asin
1 sdm minyak wijen

Perekat:
1 sdt tepung terigu, larutkan dengan sedikit air

Cara membuat:
• Ragout: Panaskan margarine , tumis bawang putih dan bawang bombay hingga harum.
• Masukkan daging ayam cincang dan udang, aduk hingga berubah warna.
• Masukkan jamur. Aduk hingga layu.
• Beri garam, kecap asin, minyak wijen, merica bubuk dan gula pasir. Aduk rata.
Masukkan daun bawang. Aduk rata.
• Tambahkan terigu. Aduk rata. Masukkan air kaldu. Aduk hingga mengental. Angkat.
Dinginkan.

Penyelesaian :

• Ambil selembar kulit lumpia, beri ragout, lipat dan gulung sambil dipadatkan. Lakukan hingga habis.
• Goreng dalam minyak yang sudah dipanaskan dengan api sedang hingga kecoklatan. Angkat. Tiriskan. sajikan dengan sambal botolan atau acar.

Istanbul Mother's Day


spring flowers in abundance on my street corner

Anneler Gününüz Kutlu Olsun!  
Happy Mother’s Day!

Today is the day here in Turkey and warm and sunny it is too.
The gypsies are out in force on every street corner, their tins bursting with fresh spring flowers. They’re doing a roaring trade.
Mother’s Day arrived late on the scene here but the commercial aspect has been well and truly exploited and it seems as if we have always had it.  Turks are a people with profound respect for their elders  especially their mothers so it didn’t take much for this to become a tradition.
This morning when I opened the front door to get the newspaper, I found this beautifully presented single red rose wishing me a happy mother’s day tucked inside: it is from the yönetici or manager of the building no less! A truly sweet gesture that I feel rightly or wrongly could only happen here.


Lucky me:  thanks to Daughter No 2 and husband, I have just come back from breakfast with the family beside the Bosphorus in Yeniköy on the other side. 20 minutes to get there, an hour and a half to get back! That’s Istanbul traffic for you. But the sun shone, the water rushed along beside us, huge ships passed within metres on their way to the Black Sea  while we had our breakfast sitting on the terrace and basked in the pleasure of being together.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to the most amazing mom ever! My mom!!


I love you mom!!