Boxing Day

Boxing Day is a bank holiday or a public holiday in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, Greenland, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and countries in the Commonwealth of Nations with a mainly Christian population.

Boxing Day is a secular holiday but is always on 26 December: the public holiday is generally moved to the following Monday if 26 December is a Saturday. If 25 December is a Sunday then both the Monday and Tuesday may be public holidays. However the date of observance of Boxing Day varies between countries.

In Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and some states of Australia, Boxing Day is primarily known as a shopping holiday. It is a time where shops have sales, often with dramatic price decreases. For many merchants, Boxing Day has become the day of the year with the greatest revenue.



Many retailers open very early (typically 5 am or even earlier) and offer doorbuster deals and loss leaders to draw people to their stores. It is not uncommon for long queues to form early in the morning of 26 December, hours before the opening of shops holding the big sales, especially at big-box consumer electronics retailers. Once inside, the shoppers often rush and grab, as many stores have a limited quantity of big draw or deeply discounted items. Because of the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, many choose to stay home and avoid the hectic shopping experience. The local media often cover the event, mentioning how early the shoppers began queueing up, providing video of shoppers standing in line and later leaving with their purchased items.

The Boxing Day sales have the potential for customer stampedes, injuries and even fatalities. As a result, many retailers have implemented practices aimed at controlling large numbers of shoppers, most whom are typically irate due to the cold (or, in Australia and New Zealand, hot) weather, and anxious for bargains. They may limit entrances, restrict the number of patrons in a store at a time, provide tickets to people at the head of the line to guarantee them a hot ticket item, and canvass lined-up shoppers to inform them of inventory limitations.


But this year Boxing Day sales start on Christmas Eve
Retailers are launching their Boxing Day sales on Christmas Eve on the internet, to take advantage of the millions expected to shop online over Christmas. Only in UK more than 4 million people are expected to log on to the internet and make a purchase on Christmas Day itself, according to the online trade body IMRG, spending more than £100 million on December 26.

Church leaders and family charities have complained that consumers are not prepared to have at least one day off from shopping during the year, but retailers argued internet shopping is no longer an anti-social past time.

And what do you think about boxing day?

Is it expensive or not?

Beef, sandwich, coffe, tea, chocolate, potato, pizza, beer, champain, mushrooms... I will not belive that you do not know hot does this things taste. We eat them almost everyday. It is normal food for us. But somethimes we wat to eat something "special" "different" or more "exlusive, so we go to restaurants. But can you imagine, that this everyday food, like beef and potato can be so expensive like new great TV or really professional camera or even more??!!

1) For me the most unbeliveble was pizza. You can buy pizza for 5 dollars but if you want to eat special pizza, go to Italia and eat a pizza for 8300 euro!! You will propably think, that it is impossible. But adds at this pizza are: lobster, caviar and whisky. I did not have a oppotrunity to try something like that, so I can only watch it on the picture (probably like most of you)

2) The other thing that you would not expected to be so expencive are potatos.

Can you imagine that those potatos look like normal one, but one kilogram costs 500 euro??!!


3) The most expensive mushroom in the world is the white truffle. These truffles are sold at a amazing price of €2,000 and €4,000 per kilogram. It does not look very tasty, does it?

4) Hamburger can cost you even 175 dollars on Manhattan, so be carefull if you are going to be there. This special hambutger goes with black truffles, Kobe beef and instead of colourfull spices it has got minutes particles of GOLD!

5) The tastiest and most expensive chocolate in the world is Chocopologie by Knipschildt. At $2,600 per pound. It is handmade chocolate truffle and is available only if ordered. (It is almost impossible)

6) The other thing is water. You can buy one Naleczowianka for less than one dolar but you can choose Kona Nigari water, that takes the title for the world’s most expensive water. The desalinated water high in minerals from the deep seas off Hawaii, costs $16.75 per ounce.

I am sure that you have heard before about some expencive restaurants. For example SKETCH in London. You will not find cheapper meal than for almost 250 dolars!!

The other "nice" restaurant is in Tokio - Aragawa. The average meal costs about 400 dolars.

And the most expensive restaurant is probably MASA in New York. There you have to spent at least 650 dolars if you want to be full.


Of course not everyone can eat in such resteurans or try such food. Even very rich people can not afford to go there all the time.

But for me the interesting quesiton is: Is this food really so delicious that we have to pay for this 400 dollars? And how rich you have to be to become a well-known customer??

Would you like to spent so much money for food, that you eat for ten minutes?:)

Men and beauty

Men and beauty

Physical attractiveness can have a significant effect on different spheres of our activity. It exerts an influence on how people are judged, in terms of employment or social opportunities, friendship, sexual behaviour, and marriage. Often, without realizing it, humans attribute positive characteristics, such as intelligence and honesty, to attractive people.

During ages people don't find it difficult to distinguish beauty from ugliness.

http://www.digart.pl/praca/3615262
http://www.opdebeeck.com/afbeeldingen/karikatuurschetsen/large/wayne%20rooney.jpg

Daily care

Nowadays the beauty products and beauty treatment become growing successful as area of men's interest, as some statistics developed by the beauty institutes clearly show.
I'm not sure is it true, but it was said that men tend to spend more time outdoors then women, so environmental pollutants affect their skin's health harder.

Numerous new lines of beauty products designed especially for men are coming to the marketplace due to the consumers demand.
In comparision to women, men have skin that is approximately 15% - 20% oilier with significantly larger pores than the fair sex do. The main reason causes some differences is the testosteron's level.This hormon has an effect on larger content of sabaceous glands in the skin - it increases a susceptibility to comedones' occurrence. Than we can say that the key issue in men's skincare is its daily cleansing by specially formulated cosmetic products.
To moisturize is the second indispemsable step in daily facial. Cream, vitamin E or aloe vera oil can be used. These you can get in liquid form, or you can buy them in capsules and rub the oil directly to the skin. On the market you'll also find an effective under eye moisturizer.
Toning helps maintain the skin clean and firm. Astringents and toners with glycolic or alpha hydroxy acids work the best for firming and refreshing dull skin. These acids also reduce the pore size.
The first anti-age treatment for men with Pure Retinol is a cream Biotherm Homme from Stop-Age line. It used to be reserver for women, but now also men skin's texture can be enhanced and stimulated to the renewal of cells in the epidermis.

Spa treatment

The word "spa" was only connected with women. Now men account for 35% of day spa-goers and narrowly under half of all resort, destination, and cruise line spa customers. That accounts for an increase of more than 300% in less than 10 years - striking growth, by any industry standards.

If women's beauty treatments serve as pamper, spa treatments for men are associated with therapeutic results.

I have read about three categories division of men's spa treatments:
- massage (such as Swedish, deep tissue, Indian head massage, reflexology , hot and cold stone massage, and aromatherapy)
- body work (body wraps, polishes, scrubs; facials; foot treatments; nail care)
- bath (herbal baths, mud baths, steams, showers, hot springs)

Due to the increased interest of men in skin and body care, most spas offer couple packages with breakfast, lunch and wine for two.

So, apart from facial, spa and cosmetics which are in an order of the day (washing products, shaving products, perfume) we can include such care treatments for men like: depilation, eyebrows regulation, manicure, pedicure, liposupction, solarium, hair colouring, make-up.

http://www.trendz.pl/kosmetyki-dla-mezczyzn-od-yves-saint-laurent

Metrosexual

"The typical metrosexual is a young man with money to spend, living in or within easy reach of a metropolis – because that's where all the best shops, clubs, gyms and hairdressers are. He might be officially gay, straight or bisexual, but this is utterly immaterial because he has clearly taken himself as his own love object and pleasure as his sexual preference. Particular professions, such as modeling, waiting tables, media, pop music and, nowadays, sport, seem to attract them but, truth be told, like male vanity products and herpes, they're pretty much everywhere.

For some time now, old-fashioned (re)productive, repressed, unmoisturized heterosexuality has been given the pink slip by consumer capitalism. The stoic, self-denying, modest straight male didn't shop enough (his role was to earn money for his wife to spend), and so he had to be replaced by a new kind of man, one less certain of his identity and much more interested in his image – that's to say, one who was much more interested in being looked at (because that's the only way you can be certain you actually exist)".

(Simpson Mark, Meet the metrosexual. Salon. 2002)

http://www.egoisci.pl/5230/8222

Today we chart some kind of changing masculinity. It's visible in the media through television shows or ubiquitous advertisements dictating continually new cannon of beauty.

Have some well-known traditional masculine norms and roles changed?
If they have, is it for the better? Is there any limit to man&beauty relationship?
What do you think?

Alternative medicine - does it really help?

Steven Bartman in his book The Alternative Medicine Sourcebook describes alternative medicine as something "that does not fall within the realm of conventional medicine". In other words alternative medicine is a group of techniques used for many years by simple people with no doctor degrees. Problem with this "simple people" is in lack of control of what they are doing. Alternative medicine is a subject of lessons in respected medical universities, or if it is, it's described in negative ways. There are a lot of frauds running the alternative medicine clinics, they are telling lies to their patients, which could affect at their lives. But at the other hand there are specialists who are well educated in human morphology and they have big knowledge about healing. Who haven't heard about people cured of terminal diseases by mysterious healer from little village in China. Sufficient alternative healers make alternative medicine reliable and they are hated by doctors with diploma who think about them self as the only people capable of saving lives. In my opinion alternative medicine should be used when other means have failed, if you have simple flu please go see your doctor.

Alternative medicine have many variations, most popular are: herbalism, homeopathy, meditation, yoga, acupuncture and hypnosis. I'll try to describe some of them more precisely.


Herbalism
Herbalism is a traditional medicinal or folk medicine practice based on the use of plants and plant extracts. Herbalism is also known as botanical medicine, medical herbalism, herbal medicine, herbology, and phytotheraphy. The scope of herbal medicine is sometimes extended to include fungal and bee products, as well as minerals, shells and certain animal parts.

Definition from:
Acharya, Deepak and Shrivastava Anshu (2008): Indigenous Herbal Medicines: Tribal Formulations and Traditional Herbal Practices


Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine, first proposed by German physician Hahnemann Samuel in 1796, that treats patients with heavily diluted preparations which are thought to cause effects similar to the symptoms presented. Homeopathic remedies are prepared by serial dilution with shaking by forceful striking, which homeopaths term "succussion," after each dilution under the assumption that this increases the effect of the treatment. Homeopaths call this process "potentization". Dilution often continues until none of the original substance remains.

Definition from:
"Dynamization and Dilution", Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Meditation is used as a broad term for practices done by a sole practitioner without much, if any, external aid, often for the purpose of self-transformation. Often, though not at all necessarily, meditation is done as part of a religious tradition.

Definition from: Aunt Wikipedia.

Hypnosis is a mental state (state theory) or set of attitudes (non-state theory) usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a series of preliminary instructions and suggestions.

Definition from:
"New Definition: Hypnosis" Division 30 of the American Psychological Association

SWINE FLU - THE SOCIAL IMPACT

When you turn on TV to watch the evening news, it's really hard not to hear something about swine flu spreading all over the world. While this epidemic is a really serious threat and we should follow medical guidelines, it also leads to many overreactions, which I'll try to write about in this presentation.

THE MASKS

Of course, masks can give you some protections from swine flu, but generally it's a little bit much for most people. In a situations, when someone is sneezing in your face, a mask might help. But it's hard to call it the most effective strategy for preventing swine flu, because you we catch bacterias and viruses in many different ways, like touching the doorknob previously used by the sick person. We must also rememeber that most of the masks are effective only for about half an hour after putting them on.

Nevertheless, the pharmacies run out of masks very quickly. But if you think that typical white mask is lame and it doesn't show your original personality, you can buy something more sophisticated or unleash your painting skills, like it's presented below:

 

SWINE FLU PARTIES

In many countries, like United States, when a child gets chicken pox, her or she is not cut away from friends, but throws a special party, where they can get it too. This 'tradition' comes from the fact, that it's better to get this sickness at young age, because later in life it has a far worse course.  

When swine flu emerged in spring, the idea of 'chicken pox parties' quickly transformed into 'swine flu parties'. Specialists informing us, that in the autumn the virus will be more dangerous, led some people to idea that it's better to catch it earlier in order to get the immunity for the later part of the year.  

Health authorities are against the idea of swine flu parties mainly, because there are a lot of things we still do not know about the virus and the disease and how unpredictable it can be.

THE BULLYING

One of the unfortunate social side effects of this type of public fear mongering, amongst vulnerable and sensitive children, is the ensuing cyber-bullying by text, phone and (in the above instance) through the online social networking site, like Facebook, of those who are known to have the influenza A/H1N1 infection. Effectively, the latter are being treated in much the same way as were lepers in the past.

In one UK school, an infected year 12 year old pupil, as we can read in the 'London Evening Standard', received various nasty texts from both anonymous and known fellow pupils. One of these said threateningly 'You are going to die!'

The report quotes the child’s father as saying 'a lot of people are over-reacting, it's a sort of ignorance …there are some aggressive parents saying none of us should be allowed out. But we are not a threat, we are not displaying symptoms'.

We see, that the cycle of fear perpetuated further, with the inevitable consequence of yet more frightened children, some of whom may react by bullying and shunning those infected or thought to be at risk of infection.

But swine flu can push students' positive creativity too and even make them to compose a song.

'ODE TO TAMIFLU'

Side effects of talked over and over in the media medicine called Tamiflu and the mild symptoms of the swine flu got even a comment from a 13 year-old UK boy. Whilst confined to his home as a result of the closure of Alleyn’s school, though uninfected himself, Harry Houseago composed a song and uploaded it onto the YouTube. It has already been viewed many thousands of times and is spreading (sic!) quickly.

It appears, that Harry, having read the patient information leaflet provided in his packet of Tamiflu capsules, was more concerned about the possible side effects of the drug than he was about the flu itself. From a young person's perspective, scary side effects or a bad taste in the mouth are usually a quite big deal. Even without medical and ideological buzz, it's a quite entertaing song, so here's the video:

iTUNES ALERT

iPhone is popular not only for the intuitive operational system and magic Apple logo on the back. It also offers us a countless list of applications, which we can get from the iTunes Store. The IntuApps company holds it's hand on the pulse, as the Swine Flu Tracker got released. It offers many helpful functions, like:

• Threat Level Page - a web page, that takes info from the WHO's threat level page.

• Mapping Swine Flu - cases through a Google Maps RSS feed

• Clickable Map details - by clicking on a pin, you can read more details

• Swine Flu Facts

• Swine Flu Alerts - pulled from WHO, CDC and HealthMap Twitter accounts

Here are some screens: 

 

THE COMPUTER A/H1N1 VIRUS

Government Accountability Office (GAO), which works for the Congress of the United States, prepared a special report about the influence of swine flu upon the frequency of using the Internet. It demonstrated, that in case of protection from infection many people decide not to go to work or to school and do their duties via net instead. GAO alerts, that soon in servers may be overloaded in the morning, as thousands of workers and students will try to log in.

International analytical company Gartner also sees that problem and advises the companies to use the cell phones or satellite net instead, which reaches the computers directly and avoids the data 'traffic jams'. Many organizations pay loads of money for WOC (WAN Optimization Controller) Technology, which allows to reduce the amount of sent data up to 90%.

Japan's National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) said on its website, that a suspicious Japanese-language email message with an attached file called "information on swine flu" has been circulating in cyberspace. 'The institute has received reports that the email message falsely identifying itself as coming from the NIID is circulating' it said.

'The email is carrying a file titled , which has been recognized as an illegal program by the institute's virus-checking software' the NIID statement said. The institute did not say what kind of malware was hidden inside the file or what harm it might do. The email, originating from senders in the "@yahoo.co.jp" domain, seemed to be sent to random Internet users.

THE FINAL WORD

As we can see, swine flu epidemic takes not only medical consequences, but social too. What do you think about them? Are these actions rational or maybe they show how the panic can be quickly spread and enlarged to the shocking sizes by the mass media?

Dog Fashion

Dog Fashion

Dog is the first animal domesticated by human. It's our best friend for almost 15 000 years. All this time the role of the dog was changing but there always were dogs who were working and so-called dog toys. Nowadays there are much fewer of hard working dogs because they were replaced by machines and now dog's main occupation is to spend time with his owner. People are spending more and more money for their pets and the dog's fashion market is becoming incredibly big. I'd like to show some trends that changes dog's life, I don't know if for the better...





Clothes for dogs

The market of dog's clothes is very similar to the humans' one. There are thousands of shops with accessories and clothes both in the internet and in the traditional way.
There are some links to the on-line shops:
http://www.epup.co.kr/newpuppia/english/home.htm
http://www.petlondon.net/shop/acatalog/There are even special clothes for Christmas!!!
and some more:
http://www.fundogfashion.com/
http://www.lovelonglong.com/
http://www.petshopping.net/

You want to be unique? There are also clothes from famous designers.
http://www.puppyangel.com/html/en/main.asp
and maybe jewellery?
http://www.glitzypetjewelry.com/





A short video about Chinese designer:




There is also an offer for active dogs and the special boots not only for huskies:











A really surprising for me was that there are even special wedding clothes!


Dog's Hairstyle

Some breeds really need regular hair-cutting and most dogs need to be washed and brushed.
There are special hairdressers for dogs when you can pay for your dog's hair cut even more that for yours... There are books with dog's hairstyles and you must now what's in fashion. Most dogs really don't like being washed so I don't want to know how they act during all the procedures.
There are many styles of hair-cut, you can find them there:
http://www.ehow.com/about_5373789_dog-hair-cut-styles.html
the lion style looks interesting..





Unfortunately there's a new way of being stylish - to dye your dog. The producers claim that dye is safe but truly are these animals still happy dogs?





Dogs as fashion accessories

Some celebrities have made dogs as fashion accessories popular. Many young, glamorous stars can be seen in the media parading their pet poochs along with their designer sunglasses and bling.

It is possible that people who use their dogs in this way don't mean to be unkind or unethical. Often, they do care a great deal about their dog, but seem to be uneducated generally in the pet keeping department. They are rewarded by public attention for behaving this way and see no need to change.

It's high time that people begin to see dogs for what they are. Dogs do not think like humans or have human values. They want to be free from the uncomfortable restriction of being carried about in designer bags and being made to dress in clothes. People have so many other ways to express their creativity and play with fashion, without having to drag their dogs in on the action.

Sadly, some dogs who are treated as fashion items become snappy and aggressive. This is because they are confused and frustrated. They have all of the instincts of a dog, but are used like an object or treated like a human baby. They don't understand how they are supposed to behave, or what they are expected to do.

http://www.helium.com/items/398028-dogs-as-fashion-accessories

I must say that I totally agree with this text.

Dogs aren't toys and we must remember about it when we decide to buy one. Dogs can be our best and most faithful friends and they really need our love and respect.

Unusual hobbies

A lot of people have hobby - something what they like to do in free time. Somebody likes riding bike, somebody cooks etc. Your hobby should be ideal for you – then you can forget about your work and school and you can evolve. Hobbies are divided into four large classes: doing things, making things, collecting things, and learning things. There are some hobbies which we can called unusual hobbies. They really can make us surprised, shocked or scared.

Taphophilia
Taphophilia should not be confused with necrophilia, which is a sexual attraction to corpses.
Taphophilia is a passion for and enjoyment of cemeteries. The singular term is a taphophile. It involves epitaphs, gravestone rubbing, photography, art, and history of (famous) deaths. An example of an individual’s expression of taphophilia is the character Harold in the movie Harold and Maude (1971).

Pooktre Art
Pooktre tree shaping is a unique eco-art form created, developed and perfected by Peter Cook and Becky Northey in South East Queensland, Australia. Pooktre is a dream made into a reality through inspiration, love of nature, tree finesse (see the photos), persistence and understanding trees and how they grow.

Cryptozoology

Cryptozoology refers to the search for animals which are considered to be legendary or otherwise nonexistent by mainstream biology. This includes looking for living examples of animals which are extinct, such as dinosaurs; animals whose existence lacks physical support but which appear in myths, legends, or are reported, such as Bigfoot and el Chupacabra. According to Ben Roesch and John Percy Moore: "Cryptozoology ranges from pseudoscientific to useful and interesting, depending on how it is practiced." They further note that it is "not strictly a science", that "many scientists and skeptics classify cryptozoology as a pseudoscience" and that "papers on the topic are rarely published in scientific journals, no formal education on the subject is available, and no scientists are employed to study cryptozoology."

The Chupacabra

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmHmnfgON4A

Noddling

For those of you not familiar, noodling is basically fishing with your hands. A noodler feels around the snake infested water with his hands and feet for a large hole. Then usually goes underwater to ram their fist down a catfish’s throat. The catfish (the largest of which can be 50-70 lbs.), will latch on to the fisherman’s hand, trying to protect it’s comfy home. The noodler then has the task of dragging their catch (still latched onto their arm) out of the water and either onto shore, or into a boat. On the plus side, if they manage do all of this before they run out of air, and then retrieve their arm from the grip of the catfish’s many teeth… well, they’ve got dinner for a week.

Ghost hunting

Ghost hunters are typical people with typical jobs hunting for ghosts in their spare time. Ghost hunting shows have become quite popular in the last few years and have brought this hobby to the publics attention the most recent being TAPS Ghost Hunters and Paranormal State. There are many types of hauntings that ghost hunters investigate. Hunting for ghosts is not that difficult. If your hunting real life ghosts many cities have groups of people who do just that and go out weekly or monthly with their tools and electronic gear to hunt or detect ghosts, orbs or paranormal activity. Equipment usually consists of EMF meters, film or digital cameras, cassette or digital voice recorders, video cameras and sometimes more exotic equipment such as a thermal imaging camera or Faraday box. Usually just doing a search for a local ghost hunting group for your area will bring one up. Ghosts are more likely found in older buildings and cemeteries but this is not always the case. The reason is that the older the location the more likely it is to have "history" a place where more people have passed through.

Carving Egg Shells

Egg art is one of the earliest forms of art. There is something fascinating about the shape of the egg, and the idea of making this into art. Many early civilizations regarded the egg as a fertility symbol and decorated it as part of their fertility rites. But modern man still values egg art, possibly because it has become ingrained in our nature, or because we are amazed that art can be made from something as fragile as an empty eggshell. Whatever the reason, there are many artists throughout the world that paint, decorate, and even carve shapes into eggshells.

Eating glass

"I used to work as a driver for a school. I've bitten and chewed on glass bottles for 15 years. I started doing this because it was interesting and now it's become a habit," says glass eater Kishan Das Suryavanshi. He wants to make a living out of his unusual diet. The resident of Chhatisgarh in central India crunches a glass bottle every alternate day. He has even tasted light bulbs and spectacles, and says he enjoys the awestruck audience that gathers to watch him. Suryavanshi is ambitious; he has set his sights on eating the windscreen of a supersonic aircraft. Unique, quirky or strange - for these Indians, the pursuit may not be practical but nothing will deter them from spending time, money and sweat on it.

Enyoy your meal!

http://www.diagonal-view.com/v/315/glass-eating-man.html