My life is for sale!

Have you heard of this auction in eBay? A man whose name is Ian Usher aged 44, put up his life for sale at eBay.

Is it so?

Yes, it is true story and even Yahoo! has reported this in its news. It seems Ian Usher was shattered after his five year old marriage broke up and that's why he had auctioned of all his belongings, including his three-bedroom home in the west Australian city of Perth and a trial for his job at a rug store, after the break-up of his five-year marriage.

Ok, did he get a bid for his auction?
Yes, he got a fairly good price of $399,300 ($380,286). Do you know what the successful bidder got in return?
"Usher's worldly goods, which also include his friends, a motorcycle and a jetski." Hmm... he got something tangible after all.

8 fictional cities-can you live there?

Fictional characters are one thing that either children or try to emulate but what about fictional cities that are created for film making alone? Are they fit to live by you and I?

Do you by any chance remember one fictional city that you have seen or heard of?

No, I have not seen the film Water World but I read about the floating village and it kind of eerie even to read that once there, you are stuck for your life. I can't stand water everywhere.

Here is an interesting article that features about 8 fictional cities that you can't live in. But that is the opinion of the writer of the article.

Are social networking sites vulnerable?

I am scared and genuinely concerned after reading a top story on Yahoo titled, "How hackers find you".

The story's summary is that hackers find you mainly through the information we give at social networking sites like MySpace, FaceBook etc. etc.

While very professional networking people whose real interest in the social networking sites is to network, amateurs like me, linger there only to satisfy the vanity that I too am a member of all the popular social networks.

Sometimes, I oblige a friend who invites me to join a new website like Twitter.

The Yahoo story leads to a video that I could not understand. Please post here what you can deduce from it. Please mind that I am a heavy user of social networking sites to attract blog traffic.

So, hackers too wait patiently at My Space(smile) to attack my system.

Is it so?

Alexa fumbles. Websites' rank in shambles.

Here is one more story of rocking a smooth sailing boat. Alexa wanted to revamp their web site ranking logic and made some necessary changes to their algorithm.

Hmm.. obviously alphabets and numeric arranged illogically (smile) decided to behave oddly or not on the expected ways of the programmer.

It is reported that millions of web sites were hit hard by dropping their existing traffic rank awarded by Alexa.com

Equally bewildering aspect is some web sites were in for a pleasant surprise when they noticed their traffic rank go up.

Well, I am a small time blogger (but a full time one though) (smile) and I never really bother about Alexa rank.

Sometimes we do feel relieved at our ignorance-isn't it?

Source: Maple

Drinking companion wanted. £7 per hour.

A lonely man in Hampshire is yearning for a drinking companion. He is 88 years old and feeling lonely at a nursing home where he moved in recently.

Remember, a nursing home need not be a hospital. It is a sort of old age home.

His name is Jack Hammond. His son Michael, recently put up an advertisement at Hampshire post office that he ans his father are interviewing candidates and the selected person has to accompany Jack four times a week to the local pub, have a few drinks with him and the payment is £7 per hour.

Hmm... quite an ad and nice of Michael-such a caring son.

Source: The Hindu

Triplets born.

Congratulations to Mrs.Allison Penn! She just delivered a triplet-naturally identical siblings.

But how? It is said that it happens once in 200 million births. The triplets, all boys, entered this world on 4th March at North Shore University Hospital, New York.

The lucky father of the three works as a wildlife biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
He is naturally worried about the immediate expenses. The future can wait. North Shore University Hospital is donating a two-year supply for the boys, said executive director Susan Somerville.

It is interesting to note that the mother Allison Penn was impregnated with just one embryo through in vitro fertilization.

To help the triplet's mother identify her three boys, the boys' nails are marked on different fingers.

News source: USA Today

Golden egg laying duck.

No one will ever forget the duck that laid a golden egg daily only to have gotten itself killed by a greedy man.

Here is a similar story in our times.
In a remote Indian village, a man was said to heal people's problem if they touched his right leg. And he was surely bragging about his spiritual powers that attracted plenty of people to seek his powers.

Alas! He lost that precious leg of his a few days ago in a very cruel manner. Two men, who had once met him, contacted him again, took him to a secluded place after enticing him with an offer of liquor.

When the old man (yes, he is 80 years) was put under the influence of alcohol, they cut his right leg off brutally and escaped along with the amputated leg.

The old man is now in a hospital.

What a story!

Source: News not wanted.

Another use for flower pot.

There will always be a hue and cry in my house whenever I buy a new flower pot. Well, the cumulative protest from all the members of my house is amply justified.

So far, since my marriage in 1985, I would have bought about 200 flower pots. I am always eager to buy a new flower pot, plant a flowering plant in it, nurture it lovingly but only for two days. I will lose interest quickly, allowing the plant to wither away and finally, the flower pot will find its rightful place at the garbage bin.

This thief in Germany had found other uses for a flower pot. He stole a costly Porsche car when a flower pot was about to be rescued by the owner of the car.

Hmm... some story-yeah?

Cookies tin in the shape of a car.

This 1920 picture depicts a Sports Coupe car-shaped tin. In it were cookies in the shape of numbers and animals.

When I was in school, my dad used to buy a cookie tin that contained cookies in the shape of animals and in Tamil, it was known as 'Bommai Biscutis'-Bommai means doll in Tamil. It was manufactured by J.B. Mangarams'.

This car shaped biscuits tin and its original contents were auctioned for 15,600 pounds ($32,000) in London on Wednesday.

"Experts believe the William Crawford and Sons biscuit tin, sold to an anonymous private British collector, has now become the most expensive in the world."

What a lucky purchase!

Source: Reuters.

The blog of a 95 year old Spanish woman.

Here, I am maintaining 12 blogs and all of them put together attract just about 100 readers every day whereas, the blog of a 95 year old Spanish woman is read by 60,000 people daily.

This is an interesting story. Her grandson presented her a blog on her birthday. At that time, she could be considered a near Internet illiterate but today, she is a celebrity. Every news paper in every language published a story on her.

Her blog is http://amis95.blogspot.com/.
It is written in Spanish of course. Her name is Lopez and she lives in the village of Sanxenxo in the rainy northern Spanish region of Galicia.

Reuters story runs into 4 pages.

Source: Reuters

This lego man can swim!

At least it seems so because how else he was found in mid sea?(smile)

Oh, before you read the story, you must know what is this Lego?
Lego is a line of building toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Denmark.

Its flagship product, commonly referred to as Lego bricks, consists of colorful interlocking plastic bricks and an accompanying array of gears, minifigures (also called minifigs by Lego fans), and various other parts. There are other Lego pieces which can be assembled and connected in many ways, such as cars, trucks, planes, trains, buildings, castles, sculptures, ships, spaceships, and even working robots.

As per Yahoo news, this yellow headed toy was fished out of the sea in the Dutch resort of Zandvoort on Tuesday.

Welcome the 17th child.

When Japan is again reported that the birth rate has come down, this couple in Arkansas celebrated their 17th child.

It's a girl — again — for the Duggars. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar welcomed their 17th child, and seventh daughter, into the world Thursday.

Less than 30 minutes after giving birth, the Duggars already were talking of having more.

Even my husband family is very big. His father was the 9th child in a family of 12. When his grand father died, local news paper reported that the family tree has 100 members.

Read the news here.

Give us the cows demands women.

Here is one more area where women participation ends male domination.

Bull fighting ring will see women of Pamplona, Spain but only the ring will have cows instead of bulls.

Women in the northern Spanish city of Pamplona, world-famous for its ferocious bull-running festival, are demanding their own version complete with cows instead of bulls.

Hello women, cows can also run and attack us! Don't be under impression that you can cow them.

Thanks Reuters!

The woman who had a face transplant.

Including heart, any parts in our body that has been transplanted will not have any severe psychological effect on us.

We may take them in our stride and get back to our routine easily. But when our face changes completely, what will be our reaction when we look at the mirror? Can we identify ourselves?

This come as a rude shock in spite of having a fresh new facial features that are more attractive than our original face.

How will our own family members react to this new face? What will be our feeling towards the donor?

The French woman who received the world's first face transplant 18 months ago said Friday she felt reborn, but admitted she still looks at herself in the mirror with a combination of sadness and wonder.

But the single mother, whose nose, lips and chin were bitten off by her dog while she was under the influence of sleeping pills in 2005, said she was struggling to deal with her new identity and the debt she owed her donor.

Read what she says:
""This face ... it isn't me. It will never be me. I often look at myself in the mirror. At first I used to do it all the time, searching for my traits from before, and I couldn't look at my old photographs -- it was too painful."

""I want to live, go back to a normal life and find work... I want people to respect me and leave me in peace. I have the right to quietly rebuild my life," she said.

Courtesy: Yahoo News.