Changes in Zodiac Signs for 2011

Parke Kunkle, an astronomer in Minnesota, says that the change in the Earth’s angle will provide an all-new alignment of the zodiac signs this year. In addition, there may be a new sign - Ophiuchus (13th Sign).

Here is the new alignment:

Capricorn: Jan. 20 – Feb. 16
Aquarius: Feb. 16 – March 11
Pisces: March 11 – April 18
Aries: April 18 – May 13
Taurus: May 13 – June 21
Gemini: June 21 – July 20
Cancer: July 20 – Aug. 10
Leo: Aug. 10 – Sept. 16
Virgo: Sept. 16 – Oct. 30
Libra: Oct. 30 – Nov. 23
Scorpio: Nov. 23 – Nov. 29
Ophiuchus: Nov. 29- Dec. 17
Sagittarius: Dec. 17 – Jan. 20

Worried that your Zodiac Sign will now change? Most people are, including me (I'd like to keep my Libra sign). But they say the general idea is that whatever you were born under still stands true, but those born starting in 2011 will follow a totally different chart. What do you think?

Partners and Marriage by Kent Nerburn

First post for 2009! Wow... A lot has happened, I don't know where to start! haha

Here's a little something about love... I found this on a friend's page (notes) in FB last January. It made me reflect on my past mistakes, and somehow guided me through the "selection" process. It's a well-written piece. Quite long.. but a good read! I highly recommend this... :) And oh, I googled this essay, and saw hundreds of sites showing the same thing. I found a post as early as 2007. But it doesn't matter, I'm sharing this to those who haven't had the chance to read it yet. :)

This excerpt, by the way, is frequently attributed to Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz, when in fact it is part of Kent Nerburn's book, Letters to My Son: A Father's Wisdom on Manhood, Life, and Love. Chapter 26.

My friend says this holds an advice for the married, planning to get married, single but not available, single and available, and even for those with no love life. So read on! :)

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PARTNERS AND MARRIAGE
By Kent Nerburn

I have never met a man who didn't want to be loved. But I have seldom
met a man who didn't fear marriage. Something about the closure seems
constricting, not enabling. Marriage seems easier to understand for what
it cuts out of our lives than for what it makes possible within our
lives.

When I was younger this fear immobilized me. I did not want to make a
mistake. I saw my friends get married for reasons of social
acceptability, or sexual fever, or just because they thought it was the
logical thing to do. Then I watched, as they and their partners became
embittered and petty in their dealings with each other. I looked at
older couples and saw, at best, mutual toleration of each other. I
imagined a lifetime of loveless nights and bickering and could not
imagine subjecting myself or someone else to such a fate.

And yet, on rare occasions, I would see old couples who somehow seemed
to glow in each other's presence. They seemed really in love, not just
dependent upon each other and tolerant of each other's foibles. It was
an astounding sight, and it seemed impossible. How, I asked myself, can
they have survived so many years of sameness, so much irritation at the
other's habits? What keeps love alive in them, when most of us seem
unable to even stay together, much less love each other?

The central secret seems to be in choosing well. There is something to
the claim of fundamental compatibility. Good people can create a bad
relationship, even though they both dearly want the relationship to
succeed. It is important to find someone with whom you can create a good
relationship from the outset. Unfortunately, it is hard to see clearly
in the early stages.

Sexual hunger draws you to each other and colors the way you see
yourselves together. It blinds you to the thousands of little things by
which relationships eventually survive or fail. You need to find a way
to see beyond this initial overwhelming sexual fascination. Some people
choose to involve themselves sexually and ride out the most heated
period of sexual attraction in order to see what is on the other side.
This can work, but it can also leave a trail of wounded hearts. Others
deny the sexual side altogether in an attempt to get to know each other
apart from their sexuality. But they cannot see clearly, because the
presence of unfulfilled sexual desire looms so large that it keeps them
from having any normal perception of what life would be like together.
The truly lucky people are the ones who manage to become long-time
friends before they realize they are attracted to each other. They get
to know each other's laughs, passions, sadness, and fears. They see each
other at their worst and at their best. They share time together before
they get swept into the entangling intimacy of their sexuality.

This is the ideal, but not often possible. If you fall under the spell
of your sexual attraction immediately, you need to look beyond it for
other keys to compatibility. One of these is laughter. Laughter tells
you how much you will enjoy each other's company over the long term.

If your laughter together is good and healthy, and not at the expense
of others, then you have a healthy relationship to the world. Laughter
is the child of surprise. If you can make each other laugh, you can
always surprise each other. And if you can always surprise each other,
you can always keep the world around you new. Beware of a relationship
in which there is no laughter. Even the most intimate relationships
based only on seriousness have a tendency to turn sour. Over time,
sharing a common serious viewpoint on the world tends to turn you
against those who do not share the same viewpoint, and your relationship
can become based on being critical together.

After laughter, look for a partner who deals with the world in a way
you respect. When two people first get together, they tend to see their
relationship as existing only in the space between the two of them. They
find each other endlessly fascinating, and the overwhelming power of the
emotions they are sharing obscures the outside world. As the
relationship ages and grows, the outside world becomes important again.
If your partner treats people or circumstances in a way you can't
accept, you will inevitably come to grief. Look at the way she cares for
others and deals with the daily affairs of life. If that makes you love
her more, your love will grow. If it does not, be careful. If you do not
respect the way you each deal with the world around you, eventually the
two of you will not respect each other.

Look also at how your partner confronts the mysteries of life. We live
on the cusp of poetry and practicality, and the real life of the heart
resides in the poetic. If one of you is deeply affected by the mystery
of the unseen in life and relationships, while the other is drawn only
to the literal and the practical, you must take care that the distance
doesn't become an unbridgeable gap that leaves you each feeling isolated
and misunderstood.

There are many other keys, but you must find them by yourself. We all
have unchangeable parts of our hearts that we will not betray and
private commitments to a vision of life that we will not deny. If you
fall in love with someone who cannot nourish those inviolable parts of
you, or if you cannot nourish them in her, you will find yourselves
growing further apart until you live in separate worlds where you share
the business of life, but never touch each other where the heart lives
and dreams. From there it is only a small leap to the cataloging of
petty hurts and daily failures that leaves so many couples bitter and
unsatisfied with their mates.

So choose carefully and well. If you do, you will have chosen a partner
with whom you can grow, and then the real miracle of marriage can take
place in your hearts. I pick my words carefully when I speak of a
miracle. But I think it is not too strong a word.

There is a miracle in marriage. It is called transformation.
Transformation is one of the most common events of nature. The seed
becomes the flower. The cocoon becomes the butterfly. Winter becomes
spring and love becomes a child. We never question these, because we see
them around us every day. To us they are not miracles, though if we did
not know them they would be impossible to believe.

Marriage is a transformation we choose to make. Our love is planted
like a seed, and in time it begins to flower. We cannot know the flower
that will blossom, but we can be sure that a bloom will come.

If you have chosen carefully and wisely, the bloom will be good. If you
have chosen poorly or for the wrong reason, the bloom will be flawed. We
are quite willing to accept the reality of negative transformation in a
marriage. It was negative transformation that always had me terrified of
the bitter marriages that I feared when I was younger. It never occurred
to me to question the dark miracle that transformed love into harshness
and bitterness. Yet I was unable to accept the possibility that the
first heat of love could be transformed into something positive that was
actually deeper and more meaningful than the heat of fresh passion. All
I could believe in was the power of this passion and the fear that when
it cooled I would be left with something lesser and bitter.

But there is positive transformation as well. Like negative
transformation, it results from a slow accretion of little things. But
instead of death by a thousand blows, it is growth by a thousand touches
of love. Two histories intermingle. Two separate beings, two separate
presence, two separate consciousnesses come together and share a view of
life that passes before them. They remain separate, but they also become
one. There is an expansion of awareness, not a closure and a
constriction, as I had once feared. This is not to say that there is not
tension and there are not traps. Tension and traps are part of every
choice of life, from celibate to monogamous to having multiple lovers.
Each choice contains within it the lingering doubt that the road not
taken somehow more fruitful and exciting, and each becomes dulled to the
richness that it alone contains.

But only marriage allows life to deepen and expand and be leavened by
the knowledge that two have chosen, against all odds, to become one.
Those who live together without marriage can know the pleasure of shared
company, but there is a specific gravity in the marriage commitment that
deepes that experience into something richer and more complex.

So do not fear marriage, just as you should not rush into it for the
wrong reasons. It is an act of faith and it contains within it the power
of transformation.

If you believe in your heart that you have found someone with whom you
are able to grow, if you have sufficient faith that you can resist the
endless attraction of the road not taken and the partner not chosen, if
you have the strength of heart to embrace the cycles and seasons that
your love will experience, then you may be ready to seek the miracle
that marriage offers. If not, then wait. The easy grace of a marriage
well made is worth your patience. When the time comes, a thousand
flowers will bloom...endlessly.

**********************************************************************

Meteor Over Alberta

Possible meteor lights up the skies in northern Alberta
Huge flash also seen in Sask. and Manitoba

By TAMAS VIRAG, Sun Media (Thu, November 20, 2008)



EDMONTON — The bright flash of light across the Alberta sky earlier this evening wasn’t a bird and it wasn’t a plane.

It was a meteor seen from across this province and even parts of Manitoba.

“I did hear a boom ... I lifted my eyes and this bright meteor was falling,” said Marcellin Gobeil, who lives on a farm about three kilometres west of Beaumont.

“It came down pretty fast, but it lasted a long time, a lot longer than I’ve ever seen it,” he said, adding the massive and awe-inspiring spectacle painted the dark sky at around 5:30 p.m. in bright shades of orange, green and blue. “When it hit the ground it was still lit.”

One Edmontonian even called the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre – the organization in Ontario that tracks airplane crashes throughout the country – shortly before the heavenly apparition was confirmed as a meteor.

“Somebody called here, she was driving downtown Edmonton and she saw a huge bright light turn orange,” said Capt. Pierre Bolduc with the centre, adding RCMP have gotten hundreds of calls.

Nikki Booth, spokesman for Edmonton Fire Rescue, said they also got calls about the flash of light, but did not respond to it, as they believed the meteor landed south of the city.

Gobeil, however, says the rocky space invader most likely slammed into the ground somewhere in Manitoba, which is just fine by him, after the moment of fear the apparition caused him.

“I was kind of scared, actually. I didn’t know what the heck it was and, to me, it was going to hit the town of umont and that’s where my kids are,” Gobeil said. “It looked so close, and when I didn’t see any explosion or anything I said, ‘Good, it’s gotta be way past that.’ ”

“The question now that remains is whether anything made it to the ground,” said Chris Herd, a science professor at the U of A. “This thing was so bright it indicates that it’s a pretty good-sized piece of space rock.”

Herd is hoping that reports from the public will lead to finding the rock – if any of it survived the fiery fall – so he and others at the university can analyze it.

Anyone wishing to report their sighting is encouraged to do so at miac.uqac.ca.

Source: http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Edmonton/2008/11/20/7482001.html

Most Beautiful Bottom In The World

I didn't know they were holding competitions for the most beautiful bottom in the world. I could have joined! haha :P kidding. :)

Melanie Nunes Fronckowiak (R) from Brazil, and Saiba Bombote (L) from France pose after they won the female and male final of the "most beautiful bottom in the world" competition in Paris last November 12, 2008. 45 finalists from 26 different countries took part in the competition. Winners received a modelling contract and 15,000 euros ($18,769) prize money. Hmm... looks like I have a lot of work to do in the gym. lol

More photos:

The Winners

Contestants

Source: REUTERS/Vincent Kessler (FRANCE)

Your Fingerprints Say Something About You

Yup. You read that right. I found this article days ago, and I thought you'd be interested (if you haven't heard about it yet). In the fortune-telling world, there's palm-reading, and card-reading, crystal balls, and things like that. But fingerprints-reading? That's a new thing for me. :)

We all know that every person in this world has a different set of fingerprints - they differ in "prints" in it's most strictest sense, but did you know that there only 2 kinds of shapes? The circle, and the wave. These shapes create a pattern, for example: 5 circles, 5 waves, or circle-wave-circle-wave-circle, etc. And I guess some people may have the same patterns. Why? We only have 5 fingers on each hand, and there are only two kinds of shapes. Mathematically, we can only produce so much combinations from two shapes and only 5 fingers. :) Because of this, some people may have the same fingerprint pattern, as some people may have the same personality, but they are never identical (-both the fingerprints and the personalities).

One interesting thing to know about this is that, apparently, in the old days, the Chinese, especially the prominent families, scrutinized the fingers of their prospective daughters-in-law to ensure they did not "unwittingly welcome women who had fingers that showed alternate circles and waves on their fingers, as it was commonly believed that such women would bring trouble into the family, being particularly difficult to control and usually very aggressive." Hehe Quite a preventive measure, huh? :) But I feel sorry for those who were rejected, just because of their fingerprints.

The Chinese were convinced that studying the waves and the circles that appear at the tips of everyone's fingers is a way to read the person's personality and destiny traits.

If you would like to know what your fingerprints say about you, look at your thumb first, then your index finger, your middle finger, your ring finger and then your little finger - in that order. Guys should examine their left hands while women should look at their right hands.

Refer to the diagram shown above, to distinguish between a circle (O) and a wave (W), and read the interpretation below. :) Good luck! Let me know what you have! ^_^ I have the OOOOW pattern, and what it says is surprisingly true...

Fingers: OOOOO (all whorls)
Means: This person is very confident, has a strong character and a hot temper. He/she is an independent person. The luck of this person changes dramatically in life from one period to the next. The undoing of this person will be his/her hot temper so it is vital that this person must learn to be patient and calm.

Pattern: WWWWW (all waves)
Means: This person is a straightforward honest person who goes with the flow. The fingers indicate someone very sensitive, who is especially suited to design and creative work. People with these fingerprint patterns tend to be shy and uncomfortable in social situations, so are not suited to work in PR, politics or any kind of work requiring them to meet people.

Pattern: OWWWO
Means: If you can choose a prestigious working career, you will be very successful. However, you should avoid the tendency to get big-headed and you must never take your career for granted. You should also watch your back, as you tend to attract jealousy into your life and could get betrayed. Always look for long-term benefits.
Pattern: OWWOW
Means: You will need to work harder during the early days of your career. When you reach middle and older age, you will get recognition and wealth luck. So your life gets better the older you get.

Pattern: OWOWW
Means: It is vital that you resist the tendency to be narrow-minded in your attitudes and in the way you think and work. Try to be humble and learn as much as possible. This is how you will get influential help that brings you to the peak of your business and career life.
Pattern: WOOOO
Means: You are a very clear-minded person. As long as you work hard, you are guaranteed to be successful. Even though you tend to be in a hurry, there will be those who help you along. You are also a person with a kind heart.

Pattern: OOOOW
Means: Because you are kind and have an in-built polite attitude, you will easily get help from older persons and friends. You will enjoy great success in your working life and your only weakness is you don't trust people too easily. This can make you too conservative.

Pattern: OOOWW
Means: You have a tendency to be bad tempered, and rather quick to judge. This is a shallow attitude and could easily get you onto the wrong path. If you can correct this tendency of yours, you will have great success. The potential is in you, so try to be calm in your approach.
Pattern: OWWWW
Means: You have good character but can only become really successful in older age. Be prepared to have to work really hard during your younger and middle age periods, but you will become a successful person in older years.

Pattern: WOWWW
Means: You are very good in the social skills. No matter what industry you are in, you like to take risk and you will always face uncertainty. Be careful as the later years of your life could bring yet more challenges. Take less risk as you get older.

Pattern: WWOWW
Means: You are a person who has high vision and heavy responsibility. Be careful. Your visions could get you into serious difficulty. Better to stay more grounded, then your life will have greater success.

Pattern: WWWOW
Means: You are very intelligent and will enjoy a lot of scholastic honors. You will have a smooth life and benefit from wealth luck. If you can work hard, you will become a great and successful person.

Pattern: WWWWO
Means: You will inherit a business or property from your parents or from an older person. Even though you are a capable person and can be successful in your own business, your tendency towards impatience could get you into a lot of difficulty.

Pattern: OOWWW
Means: You have a tendency to be proud and snobbish, although deep inside you are a kind-hearted person. Your social skills however need improving. Your relatives tend to take advantage of you.

Pattern: WOWWO
Means: You are a deep thinking person. At a young age, you are already thinking of your future. You will enjoy a smooth and peaceful life; you will be very happy in your old age.

Pattern: WOWOO
Means: You are a very sociable person and you enjoy the carefree kind of life going out, partying and clubbing. When you reach middle and older age, you will rely on people to support you. Be warned, if you do not prepare yourself, you might have a hard time during your older years.

Pattern: WOWOW
Means: You are not an easy person to control or to convince, as you are something of a rebel. If you can stay focused on what you want from life, you will be successful. The problem is that you can be fickle and vague in what you really want from life.

Pattern: WWOWO
Means: Your whole life is full of ups and downs, successes and failures. However, if you can move steadily step-by-step, you can enjoy a peaceful life as you grow into maturity.

Pattern: WWWOO
Means: You are very kindhearted person and there will be good people in your life, as you will attract these kinds of people towards you. Work hard and you will easily reap your just rewards. You will definitely become successful.

Pattern: OWWOO
Means: You will get recognition and become famous. Even though your life appears unstable during your earlier years of working life and you need to work hard in your thirties, when you reach maturity, your life gets better and better.

Pattern: WWOOW
Means: You are a very capable person, but you tend to lack good judgment. You also tend to start something and then lose interest. Stay focused if you want to succeed.

Pattern: OWOOW
Means: You are a noble person with a good character. You tend to be very helpful towards colleagues and friends so you are a popular person. Because you can think in-depth and have sensitivity towards others, you will enjoy success in the creative fields.

Pattern: OWOWO
Means: You are blessed with a fast and formidable intellect. You work very quickly and with great effectiveness. However, your character is very aggressive and people tend to be intimidated by you. If you can correct this trait, you can rise to great heights.

Pattern: WWOOO
Means: You are a very straightforward person. But your thinking tends to be rather naïve and shallow. Even though your suggestions are good, if you don't think through what you say, you should not be surprised if people tend to ignore your views. Your speech tends to lack power.

Pattern: OOWOW
Means: You are a high-minded person, able to see and grab opportunities. You are best suited to work in the financial and investment fields. Your luck gets better as you grow older.

Pattern: OOWWO
Means: You are a very honest and reputable person. You have little urge to get rich or pursue material wealth. But watch it, if you don't know how to take care of yourself, you can easily get conned and taken advantage of by people.
Pattern: OOOWO
Means: Your social skills are good, so you attract guidance and help from influential people. Many people help you in your rise to prominence, and your luck turns fabulous in later years.
Pattern: OOWOO
Means: You are a very brave and hardworking person. A lot of people trust you when you are young. However, unless you work at preserving your reputation, you could make enemies on your rise up and find that life becomes harder as you get older.

Pattern: OWOOO
Means: You are a kindhearted character and easily get along with others. You are not good at doing business, but you are good as a teacher or even as a spiritual master. You can enjoy success in the academic world.
Pattern: WOOWW
Means: You are reputable and have a peaceful character. So you are definitely someone who can become successful and recognized. However, because of your tendency towards pride, you could end up offending the wrong people.
Pattern: WOOWO
Means: You are a simple but logical person. If you can focus on the fundamentals of life and adopt a step-by-step approach in your climb up the success ladder and not be too impatient, you will benefit from wealth luck and be honored by people.

Pattern: WOOOW
Means: You are a straight talking person who is forthright in your approach. You are strong in character, playful but you also easily offend people. But you are also lucky because when you reach middle age, you will rise to a prominent position and your luck really changes for the better.

Source: http://www.knowledgebase-script.com/

Unconscious Sex?

Thanks to the Sponsored Links, I learned something new today. This ad caught my attention, because I never really expected to see something like this in my blog. I've never mentioned the word "sex" in any of my previous entries. Although, I do have lots of entries on health, so I guess that's the reason why this ad from healthline.com showed up.

I haven't heard of "Sleep Sex" before. Do you have any idea what it is? I searched the net, and saw an article at webmd.com. This is what I found out...

Sleep Sex, a.k.a. SBS (sexual behaviors during sleep), is "the forceful initiation of relations while in the unconscious state of sleep". In other words, making love unconsciously. Gee.. I never thought that's even possible. Skeptic? Here's an email from a woman who has a husband who's experienced Sleep Sex:

My husband has a difficult time falling asleep at night. Within that first hour after he finally falls asleep, he will initiate sex with me. He is a very different person while doing this, much more aggressive, groping and playfully biting me. I used to think he was awake and doing this consciously until I would confront him the following day and he wouldn't have any recollection of what he did.

This could be scary. Innocent people could be charged for rape because of this, and rapists could probably use this as an alibi.

And guess what? Sleep Sex is not limited to men. This scares me even more. Read on:

In several cases in the Stanford study, women had started moaning ("with sexual undertones," the researchers noted) within a few minutes of falling asleep. In another case, a woman had started fondling herself violently and compulsively while sound asleep.

I honestly wouldn't wanna be caught doing that - especially not by my family, or friends... haha... But how would we know if no one would tell us, right? Who knows? You've probably done something like this! hehe And someone might have caught you fondling yourself, and they thought you were.. what.. masturbating? =P Sorry for the quite vulgar words... :) But yup, a thing like this can be interpreted in many ways. Even the experts have yet to decide if this could be formally categorized as a parasomnia, i.e. sleepwalking.

Luckily, Christian Guilleminault, MD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., have speculated that 1% of the population may have sleep sex - only 1%. :) This is good news for the majority.

What causes Sleep Sex?

The reasons are not clear, but most often, people who engage in sleep sex have a history of other sleep/neurochemical disorders.

Michael Mangan, PhD, an adjunct professor of psychology at the University of New Hampshire in Durham likens sleep sex to multiple personalities: "Asleep, this is essentially a different person." He further stated that fatigue and stress, as well as drug and alcohol use, can precipitate incidents.

Guilleminault says that patients are confused and don't see reality. Here's something from the webmd.com article:

All of these behaviors could come from abnormal brain activity, though in some cases people may not experience the muscle laxness that is supposed to come during REM sleep, which can lead to forceful behavior they would otherwise be too weak to initiate. "These people exhibit slower brain waves," Guilleminault says, suggesting confusional arousal. There can also be abnormal breathing, resulting in less oxygen and a more confused mental state.

I personally feel sorry for the victims of Sleep Sex, I'm sure there are. =( Researchers say there's treatment available: If a person has a seizure disorder that is contributing to the behavior, that can be treated. Otherwise, clonazepam, in the benzodiazepine family, has proved helpful. It is best to consult a physician. But first and foremost, how should one seek help if he/she isn't aware that he/she has it, right?

Most Expensive Shoes in the World

I wondered how far designers would go when it comes to footwear. I wondered how much the most expensive shoes in the world is, to date; how much people are willing to pay - considering shoes are only meant to keep our feet warm and clean, in it's most basic sense... and we only step on them, literally - walk on dirty streets, even. I started my search, and I found these...

The most expensive shoes in the world is... Harry Winston's Ruby Slippers!! Nope, Harry is not the new Dorothy for the Wizard of Oz. hehe JK! :) Seriously, it's designed by Ronald Winston of the House of Harry Winston. It has 4,600 rubies totaling 1,350 carats (plus 50 carats of diamonds). O_O Javiar Barerra set the precious stones, and it took him two months to do that. The ruby shoes were made in 1989, but were still on sale in 2000. Wanna buy? They're only worth $3 million.

Stuart Weitzman's creations follow. His Cinderella Slippers, worth $2 million, were worn by Alison Krauss at the 2004 Academy Awards. They are studded with 565 Kwiat diamonds—55 carats of clear diamonds and a single 5-carat gem. But unlike Cinderella's slippers, these are not made of glass. If you wanna take a peak, they're currently on display in Beverly Hills, California.

Stuart Weitzman and Le Vian evening shoes are also worth $2 million. They are made of silver leather set with 185 carats of museum-quality tanzanite gemstones along the ankle bracelets, including the two 16-carat gems hanging from each... and 28 carats of diamonds along the front straps. I only have diamond earrings... =/

Stuart Weitzman’s Ruby Slippers are next in line. Oscar Heyman Bros helped in the creation. They were designed for the 2003 Oscars, but were never worn due to the solemn mood of the times. The Ruby Slippers cost $1.2 million, with 642 Burma rubies weighing in at 123.33 carats, and the settings are made of half a pound of platinum.


I wonder how it would feel like to wear any of these shoes - millions of dollars underneath your feet. hehe I certainly wouldn't walk around wearing these in the streets for shoe-preservation purposes and security reasons... =) I wouldn't allow dirt and germs on my million-dollar shoes, and I wouldn't wanna be seen being mobbed by robbers in the streets, pulling each of my legs, while fighting over my shoes. haha Nah, okay, maybe that's an overstatement. But really, it's amazing shoes as expensive as these exist. =)

Source: http://most-expensive.net

The Falling Sensation

Do you ever get the feeling of falling when you are going to sleep? And just then, your body jerks as if you want to stop yourself from falling?

I experienced this sensation twice last night (and many times in the past). I finally got curious, so I searched the amazing world wide web for answers and explanations. I then found out there's a technical term attached to it. It's called a hypnic jerk. Or if you prefer the more complicated name, it's called a hypnagogic myoclonic twitch.

Turns out, hypnic jerks are incredibly common - around 70% of the total population have these. However, they are more common in people with Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) or people who are sleep-deprived. And yup, you can count me in. Although... the "restless legs syndrome" doesn't sound so good. I refuse to accept that. hehe I'm only sleep-deprived. ;)

Jake Young, a MD/PhD student said:

The cause of hypnic jerks is not entirely clear. During sleep onset, a part of the brain called the reticular formation sends a signal down the spine that causes your muscles to relax. (Actually, if I understand correctly, it causes a change in response of motor neurons from activation to inhibition. This is called the "reticular response reversal" and has been the subject of considerable research.) The theory is that occasionally this signal to relax is misinterpreted by the muscles as a signal to contract causing the spasm.

Scavenger of blurtit.com said:

The body jerks because it feels like you're falling, and your brain sends out a reflex twitch signal to try to pull you back form the brink. You feel the falling sensation because your brain literally disengages from the body while you're asleep. This prevents you from moving around too much in your sleep, especially if you have very vivid dreams.

Some people don't get a "falling" sensation. It's more like floating for them. In which case, their brains sometimes act to pull them back down to earth. Either way, the lack of contact with the body and where the body is in space is very disorienting for the brain.

Hypnic jerks aren't harmful, although they may wake you up again.

And yup, I wake up every time. =/ But this time, I can smile and say: "Sorry for rocking the bed. I just had a hypnagogic myoclonic twitch..." =)

References: http://scienceblogs.com/ and http://www.blurtit.com/

Warning: Star Fruit (a.k.a.) Carambola

I got an email earlier about the dangers of eating a star fruit. With the vast number of email scams going around, I did not immediately believe in it. But since it's food, and it looks familiar (I must have eaten it once, or twice, or a couple of times in the past), I am concerned and wanted to see if it's real. So I did my search, and voila! Apparently, there's truth behind it.

The Starfruit or Star Fruit, a.k.a the Carambola, is a popular tropical fruit throughout Southeast Asia, Trinidad, Malaysia, and parts of East Asia. It is also commercially grown in the United States in South Florida and Hawaii for it's fruit. A website said it is gaining popularity in the United States. Is it true? Let me know, I'm curious.

Despite the fact that it is a seemingly harmless fruit, it is not entirely safe - especially for individuals with kidney trouble. The presence of the oxalic acid in the fruit can cause hiccups, vomiting, nausea, and mental confusion. The symptoms in patients with chronic renal failure or end-stage renal disease vary and include insomnia, intractable hiccups, agitation, muscle weakness, confusion, consciousness disturbances of various degrees, seizures, and cardiorespiratory arrest. Uraemic patients have had fatal outcomes after ingestion of star fruits. Drug interactions could also be fatal.

The various star fruit subspecies contain different toxins, including a powerful neurotoxin that is suspected to accumulate in blood, cross the blood-brain barrier in chronic renal failure patients, and eventually cause irreversible damage.

Star fruit intoxication is a neglected but serious fruit intoxication frequently observed in patients with chronic renal failure. Because no effective treatment is currently available, patients— especially those who are newly diagnosed with chronic renal failure or end-stage renal disease—must be warned not to ingest star fruit, even in small amounts.

- www.foodreference.com

There are, however, recipes all over the internet on star fruit. Some people believe it's safe for healthy individuals... but I believe prevention is always better than cure. If it's bad for those with kidney trouble, then maybe there's a slight, unnoticeable effect on the healthy ones - the kind that builds up, and would eventually come up after several years. Would you risk it? The next time I'll be offered a piece, I think I'll have to pass...