Karma Kula Mystic Warrior & More

I was thrilled to see the new Karma Kula Mystic Warrior trailers! Absolutely awesome stuff. :) I can't wait till the show really begins.

So much for all that huh!

Beijing’s Bird’s Nest to anchor shopping complex
BEIJING (AP)—The area around Beijing’s massive Bird’s Nest stadium will be turned into a shopping and entertainment complex in three to five years, a state news agency said Friday.

Officially known as Beijing National Stadium, the showpiece of the Beijing Olympics has fallen into disuse since the end of the games. Paint is already peeling in some areas, and the only visitors these days are tourists who pay about $7 to walk on the stadium floor and browse a pricey souvenir shop.

Plans call for the $450 million stadium to anchor a complex of shops and entertainment outlets in three to five years, Xinhua News Agency reported, citing operator Citic Group. The company will continue to develop tourism as a major draw for the Bird’s Nest, while seeking sports and entertainment events.

The only confirmed event at the 91,000-seat stadium this year is Puccini’s opera “Turandot,” set for Aug. 8—the one-year anniversary of the Olympics’ opening ceremony. The stadium has no permanent tenant after Beijing’s top soccer club, Guo’an, backed out of a deal to play there.

Details about the development plans were not available. A person who answered the phone at Citic Group on Friday said offices were closed for the Chinese New Year holiday.

A symbol of China’s rising power and confidence, the stadium, whose nickname described its lattice of exterior steel beams, may never recoup its hefty construction cost, particularly amid a global economic slump. Maintenance of the structure alone costs about $8.8 million annually, making it difficult to turn a profit, Xinhua said.

Yahoo News

I've got a headache from dehydration. We played some really intense tennis games today. I was beat 8-1 the first game, then my team mate won 8-0, then we played doubles 8-4. We won! We won! We'll be playing in another competition soon. I don't know I'll make it. I hope so.

As always, don't forget to watch your daily Ninjai show

Traffic stop leads to man believed dead since '89

Traffic stop leads to man believed dead since '89

A man who faked his drowning death nearly 20 years ago off a Florida beach was found out by North Carolina police who stopped him for a traffic violation, authorities said Thursday.
Bennie Wint told police he faked his drowning death in Daytona Beach, Florida, in 1989.

Bennie Wint told police he faked his drowning death in Daytona Beach, Florida, in 1989.
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Bennie Wint left behind a grieving fiancee and a daughter from a previous marriage. Over the past two decades, he acquired a common-law wife and another child in Marshall, North Carolina.

Wint told police he faked his death in Daytona Beach, Florida, because he was "paranoid" about his narcotics-related activity at the time, Weaverville, North Carolina, police Sgt. Stacy Wyatt told CNN.

When pulled over in Weaverville on Saturday because of malfunctioning lights on his license plate, the man said his name was James Sweet, Wyatt said. But when Wyatt ran the name through official databases, he was unable to find any information.

"I found it suspicious and believed it to be a false name," Wyatt said. He arrested the man on suspicion of driving without a license and giving false information, both misdemeanor offenses, and booked him under the name "John Doe."

But "John Doe" finally opened up to Wyatt, admitting he was really Bennie Wint and had been on the run since 1989. Video Watch how reports of his death were premature »

Wint returned a call Thursday from CNN and asked what an interview with him would be "worth to you." Told that CNN does not pay for interviews, he responded, "Unless you want to pay for it, don't come up here. You are wasting your time. There are 'no trespassing' signs on my property." He then hung up.

According to police reports, Wint was on a trip to Daytona Beach with his then-fiancee, Patricia Hollingsworth. She told police they were engaged and had discussed getting married while on the trip.

But it was not to be. On September 25, 1989, Hollingsworth told beach patrol officials that Wint disappeared while swimming.

"We spent a bunch of time looking for him," said Volusia County Beach Patrol Capt. Scott Petersohn, who was on the beach patrol at the time, although he did not respond to the call. "We used helicopters, boats and boatloads of lifeguards."

Hollingsworth, then 37, told officials Wint entered the ocean about 4 p.m. and swam past the breakers before she lost sight of him, according to the incident report. The report notes Hollingsworth was "very upset" and that after contacting officials, she "began to run north and south in the area," looking for Wint.

Members of the beach patrol, however, thought the supposed drowning was suspicious.

"It is very rare to drown offshore and not wash back in onto the shore," Petersohn said. In addition, he said, the lifeguard on the beach told officials he did not see anyone swimming in the area.

Wyatt submitted Wint's fingerprints to the FBI for identification and, while waiting for the results, searched the Internet for information on a Bennie Wint.

"I found a daughter that was looking for him," Wyatt said. The woman posted information about her father in 2007, saying he went missing under suspicious circumstances.

Wyatt contacted the now-23-year-old woman, who said she was 4 when her father disappeared.

Wint has been released from jail and has not been charged in relation to the 1989 incident. It was not known whether he contacted his daughter.

Wyatt said Wint now has a common-law wife, a child and a business selling NASCAR items. The night he was arrested, Wyatt said, his wife was "distraught" upon learning his true identity.

Wyatt said Wint told him he was involved in narcotics in the 1970s and '80s, and "he ran out of paranoia, thinking people were out to get him." He said he went from Daytona Beach to Ozark, Alabama.

CNN's attempts to contact Hollingsworth were unsuccessful, and it was unclear whether she knows Wint is alive.

Petersohn said he is attempting to find the lifeguard on duty at Daytona Beach the day Wint disappeared to tell him the truth about the supposed drowning.
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"For 20 years, that man that works for us thinks he might have missed something in the ocean," Petersohn said.

"I'm glad the guy's alive. I really am. ... It's unfortunate the way it went down at the time, people looking for a body that wasn't out there."

Source

You'll be found some day. Can't keep hiding.

Don't forget to watch your daily Ninjai Chapter

aches and pains

I'm feeling really old and tired right now. My back's aching like hell, my neck, my eyes seem to be blurring and all I can think of is sleeping already.

Don't forget to watch your NInjai chapters

Opportunities

Gotta love this ninja panda dudey
Some cool pics of Ninja :


I've got some interesting opportunities being offered to me now. I don't know if they'll push through and what not, but I think it'd be pretty good if they did. It will not be easy work, but it will be good enough.

I'm just downright tired right now.

zzz..

don't forget to watch your daily ninjai animation

Oohh.. human soup

Cartel 'stewmaker' says he dissolved 300 bodies
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) -- A suspect in police custody calls himself a "stewmaker" for a Mexican drug lord, saying he disposed of about 300 bodies by dissolving them in acid.
Santiago Meza Lopez has asked for forgiveness from the families of those he says he targeted.

Santiago Meza Lopez has asked for forgiveness from the families of those he says he targeted.

Santiago Meza Lopez was arrested Thursday in Ensenada, Baja California, but it took police 24 hours to identify him. He says he works for drug lord Teodoro Garcia Simental, also known as "el Teo," a powerful drug trafficker.

Meza, who is shown handcuffed and flanked by guards in video released by the government, calls himself "Teo's stewmaker" and says he was paid $600 a week for his macabre duties. The victims, he said, were men who owed Garcia something or had betrayed him.

A native of Guamuchil, Sinaloa, Meza was arrested along with three other people, including a minor female who said she was contracted for a social event. Other people sought by police were in the area at the time but were able to escape, officials said.

Now, Meza is asking for forgiveness.

"To the families, please forgive me," he said in the video.
Don't Miss

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* Mexico arrests drug leader

Mexican police have not specifically said whether they believe that all elements of Meza's story are credible.

He has told police where he buried some of the bodies.

Now authorities, along with citizens groups and the families of the disappeared, are searching for them.

They hope Meza could have information about the location of their friends and relatives.

Authorities say Garcia formed part of the Arellano Felix cartel but is currently said by intelligence sources to be operating with the Sinaloa cartel.

Officials say seven brothers and four sisters of the Arellano-Felix family inherited the Tijuana, Mexico-based drug cartel from Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo in 1989, after his arrest for drug trafficking.

Today, the notorious cartel is split into two factions that have engaged in brutal fighting that has accounted for nearly all the violence in Tijuana, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. More than 400 people were killed last year in drug-related violence.

Eduardo Arellano-Felix, who police said was the last remaining brother to have an active role in the cartel, was arrested in October.
Source

Don't forget to go watch your daily Ninjai Movie

Trust

It's hard to trust people... I heard a funny proverb today which is so true- "A new born calf has no fear". Indeed. Once you've gotten burned once you kinda get hard.




oh and.. happy new year! Chinese new year is just around the corner.

Cheers to another year closer to death.

Don't forget to watch your daily ninjai chapter!

Been a while

So... I've been out of commission for a while. Been busy. But I'm glad I'm finally sitting here in front of the computer.

Thought this was an interesting little article:

Scientists have long puzzled over the reasons sleep is so important. Brian Preston from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and an international team of researchers just published research that backs up their theory sleep improves the function of the immune system --and it may specifically protect animals from being overrun by parasite infections.

According to a study just published in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology, species of animals that get substantial sleep not only have a greater concentration of immune cells in their blood, they also are able to stave off more parasite infections than other creatures. "We suggest that sleep fuels the immune system. While awake, animals must be ready to meet multiple demands on a limited energy supply, including the need to search for food, acquire mates, and provide parental care. When asleep, animals largely avoid these costly activities, and can thus allocate resources to the body`s natural defenses," Dr. Preston said in a media statement.

The scientists studied sleep in mammals, analyzed the animals` immune system measurements, and looked at numbers of infections with parasites. They found mammals that have evolved to have longer sleep cycles have more circulating immune cells and fewer infections with parasites like intestinal worms.

So what do these findings have to do with human health? Possibly, a lot. The researchers conclude: "Given the declines in human sleep durations that have occurred over the past few decades, there is a clear need for studies that further clarify the immunological significance of sleep."

Bottom line: add getting enough sleep to a healthy lifestyle in order to keep your immune system strong and able to fight parasites, which are now throughout the world -- not only in developing countries. For example, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), around 14 percent of the U.S. population is infected with Toxocara, or internal roundworms, and some 60million people in the United States are likely infected with Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite associated with raw meat and contact with cat feces. In addition, a report on food borne parasites prepared for the Food Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin in 2003 found about two and a half million cases of food and waterborne Giardia lamblia and three million cases of Cryptosporidium parvum in the U.S. annually. Both these parasites are transmitted through drinking water contaminated with the fecal material of infected persons. The World Health Organization (WHO) ranks parasites as among the six most dangerous diseases that infect humans.

Parasites in humans can cause intestinal discomfort, bloating gas and chronic constipation or diarrhea. Although drugs can be prescribed to kill parasites, many herbs and foods have traditionally been used to treat parasite infections . According to the University of Maryland Medical School web site, these include: raw garlic, pumpkin seeds, pomegranates, beets, and carrots, all of which have antiworm properties.

CDC

Of course, don't forget to watch your daily Ninjai Chapter

No More peanut butter?

I LOVE peanut butter. Especially the sweet ones. I can't really appreciate the non-sweetened peanut butter.

Consumers urged to use caution eating peanut butter
Federal officials are urging consumers to put off eating foods that contain peanut butter until they can be they are sure they do not contain products manufactured by the Peanut Corp. of America, some of which were found to contain salmonella.
A salmonella outbreak has sickened almost 500 people and killed at least six.

A salmonella outbreak has sickened almost 500 people and killed at least six.

Food and Drug Administration officials said Saturday that peanut butter and peanut paste made from ground roasted peanuts, manufactured in Peanut Corp.'s Blakely, Georgia, plant were found to contain the bacteria, although a direct link to the strain that has now sickened 474 people in 43 states has not been found.

Six deaths may have been connected to this salmonella outbreak.

Peanut Corp. announced an expanded recall of peanut butter and peanut paste produced from its Georgia plant Friday night. Peanut Corp. doesn't directly supply to supermarkets, so brand-name peanut butters are not expected to be affected, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Instead, Peanut Corp. sells produce in bulk. The peanut butter is sold by in containers from 5 to 1,700 pounds. Peanut paste is sold in sizes from 35-pound containers to tankers.

The peanut paste is used in the manufacturing of cakes, candies, crackers, cookies and ice cream, FDA officials say.
Don't Miss

* FDA: See a list of recalled products
* Kellogg to recall products amid salmonella concern

Minnesota and Connecticut health officials have confirmed salmonella Typhimurium linked to this outbreak in bulk containers found in institutions such as prisons, schools and nursing homes.

The FDA is urging companies that make these foods to check whether they use peanut butter or paste produced by the company. The recalled peanut butter was manufactured on or after August 8, 2008; the peanut paste was produced on or after September 26, 2008.

The administration is urging companies to notify consumers if the products they manufacture may contain peanut products from Peanut Corp. It is also urging companies whose products do not contain Peanut Corp. peanut butter or paste to make that information available to the public.

The Kellogg Co. announced a voluntary recall of 16 products, including Keebler and Famous Amos peanut butter cookies, because they contain peanut butter that could be connected to Peanut Corp.
Health Library

* Salmonella infection

The FDA does not have the authority to order a recall of products. It has to rely on companies doing so voluntarily. Congress would have to pass a law to give the FDA such power

Peanut Corp. products are also distributed by King Nut Co., which voluntarily recalled its products a week ago.

"The majority of products [like cookies, crackers, ice cream] are manufactured with products that don't come from PCA," said Dr. Stephen Sundlof, the FDA's director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

However, until people can be sure that the peanut cookies or crackers they have do not contain product from Peanut Corp., the FDA is asking consumers to hold off on eating them.

Sundlof said a previous outbreak linked to salmonella-contaminated peanut butter showed that the bacteria are not necessarily killed if the product is heat-treated or baked.

"It took temperatures up to 250 degrees [Fahrenheit] to kill salmonella," Sundlof said.

Even if a cookie is cooked at 350 degrees, it doesn't guarantee that the center of the food gets that hot, making it possible for some some salmonella bacteria to survive.

CNN

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Officials: 2 million to show up to see Obama being sworn in

Officials: 2 million to show up to see Obama being sworn in

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Based on their latest estimates, congressional officials organizing next week's presidential inaugural expect 2 million people to brave extra-long security lines in the bitter cold to witness Barack Obama being sworn in as the first African-American U.S. president.
The inaugural committee will set up 28,000 chairs for ticket holders to watch Barack Obama's swearing-in.

The inaugural committee will set up 28,000 chairs for ticket holders to watch Barack Obama's swearing-in.

"Hopefully, people will be of good temper and willing to go through the lines it will take," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, who chairs the congressional committee organizing inaugural events on Capitol Hill. "Because they are going to have to go through magnetometers and they are going to be wanded. Unfortunately, that's the nature of the time."

Forecasts show the high temperature on Inauguration Day will be 30 degrees Fahrenheit (-1 Celsius).

Speaking with other officials at a news conference Friday previewing the inaugural festivities, Feinstein warned that people will have to walk long distances to get to the event and should plan to arrive early. Video Watch where to go if you don't have a ticket »

"Most people will be standing for a substantial period of time, and be sure you can do it," she said. "People have to be prepared to handle very cold weather, especially if the wind comes up."

She suggested people not bring infants or children unless they are of an "age and durability" to withstand the cold over a long period of time.

"Be very careful if you're planning to bring your children, cause it's not going to be easy," she said, speaking as a mother and grandmother.
Don't Miss

* Interactive: Inaugural events schedule
* How to watch Obama's inauguration online
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* Q&A: Presidential inauguration 2009

Contingency plans exist to move the swearing-in inside the Capitol if the cold becomes "life-endangering," according to Howard Gantman, who works for Feinstein. "But in view of the large number of people, there's a strong intent to do this outside," he said.

Crowd estimates are down from an original prediction from District of Columbia officials that as many as 4 million people would crowd the Capitol grounds and the National Mall to see the event. The new figures, based on fresh surveys of charter bus companies, show far fewer are coming than initially thought.

Feinstein ticked through other facts and figures about the event:

# More than two dozen construction workers hammered together 22,000 sheets of plywood to build the dramatic inaugural platform on the West Front of the Capitol where Obama will take the oath of office.

# While 2 million people will attend the event, many will see it best on one of two dozen jumbo televisions placed along the Mall. Only 240,000 people will get official inaugural tickets, and most of them will have to stand. A mere 28,000 seats are available on the Capitol grounds. Video Watch the frenzy for inaugural tickets »

# Five thousand portable bathrooms will be set up for ticketed guests on the Capitol grounds. Feinstein didn't know how many toilets would be available along the Mall for people without tickets.

# It cost $3.5 million to build the inaugural platform and rent the chairs and fencing on the Capitol grounds, according to Stephan Ayers, the acting architect of the Capitol.

# Almost 2 million people have visited the inaugural.senate.gov Web site, with most of the attention going to the page featuring the menu for the inaugural luncheon that will immediately follow the swearing-in in the Capitol's Statuary Hall.

The elite few who are invited to that lunch will enjoy a three-course meal featuring wines from Feinstein's home state of California, she said.

The first course will be "seafood stew served with Duckhorn Vineyards, 2007 Sauvignon Blanc, Napa Valley." That will be followed by "a brace of American birds (pheasant and duck), served with sour cherry chutney and molasses sweet potatoes; served with Goldeneye, 2005 Pinot Noir, Anderson Valley."

And finally, "apple cinnamon sponge cake and sweet cream glace served with Korbel Natural 'Special Inaugural Cuvee,' California Champagne."

Feinstein said she and a small group of senators' wives, and Nancy Erickson, the secretary of the Senate, chose the menu after a competition of the "very best that the Washington catering establishment has to offer."

Over the head table at the lunch will hang an 1865 painting, "View of the Yosemite Valley," by American artist Thomas Hill. The picture is on loan from the New York Historical Society.

The swearing-in ceremony itself won't change from previous inaugurals, Feinstein said. She and her staff studied DVDs of past ceremonies "so everything is according to historical procedure."

She said the ceremony is "scripted, and it is concise and it moves quickly."

Feinstein's Senate office received more than 60,000 requests for inaugural tickets. But, as a senator, she was allotted just under 300 to give out. House members get just under 200.

She said everyone she is giving a ticket to must pledge not to sell the ticket for a profit.

As chairman of the inaugural committee, Feinstein will make "very formal and very brief" introductions for all the speakers at the inauguration.

Asked if she would have trouble introducing Pastor Rick Warren -- who will deliver the invocation -- with whom she disagrees politically on some issues such as gay rights, she said no.

"This is not a political event," she said.
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Feinstein was also asked to sum up her feelings about the first African-American being sworn in as president.

"For me, that's going to be the most amazing part," she said. "I'm going to look out at the Lincoln Memorial as Barack Obama takes the oath of office. I'm going to think back into our history 200 years and what America was like at that time, especially for African-Americans. And then to realize that we've gone from the monument to the White House in that 200 years. And the doors are open. And we have a bright, young, energetic president who happens to be African-American, and the American people are rejoicing."

Source
Good luck. I wonder what people will be saying about him once he's been in office for a while.
Don't forget to watch your daily Ninjai Chapter

Accidents

I was at the doctor's today, just brought some cookies I baked for our doctor friend really- not because I got into an accident or something. I don't like hospitals, they're creepy. There was a huge emergency this morning. I don't know what happened, but I could hear the poor kid screaming 2 floors down from the emergency room.

Those people in the plane that landed in the Hudson River should be real thankful to God I'd say.

As much as I love Ninjas,


Got to love em pirates too.


Don't forget to watch your daily Ninjai Chapter

Brr

It's been so cold up here, I'm just dreaming of the beach.


I played tennis for 3 hours this morning. It was pretty good, kinda short, but good enough. I didn't quite get the high of it all. I'm going to play early tomorrow again.

Don't forget to watch your daily Ninjai Chapter

Crazy day..

Lol.. Check out these kids.. I thought that my nephew was a michellin man, but he's like, hardly anything compared to this kid.

Would-be bride, 107, seeks first husband
BEIJING (Reuters) – A 107-year-old Chinese woman who was afraid to marry when she was young has decided to look for her first husband and hopes to find a fellow centenarian so they will have something to talk about, a Chinese paper reported.

Wang Guiying is worried she is becoming a burden to her aging nieces and nephews since breaking her leg when she was 102 and had to stop doing chores like washing her clothes.

"I'm already 107 and I still haven't got married," the Chongqing Commercial Times quoted her saying. "What will happen if I don't hurry up and find a husband?"

Born in southern Guizhou province the child of a salt merchant, Wang grew up watching her uncles and other men scold and beat their wives and often found her aunt crying in the woodshed after an attack, the paper said.

"All the married people around there lived like that. Getting married was too frightening," she said of an era when Chinese women had few rights and low social standing.

Many also had their feet bound in an excruciating process aimed at making them look more dainty and marriageable.

After Wang's father, mother and older sister died, she still shied away from marriage. Instead she moved to the countryside and survived as a farmer until she was 74 years old and no longer strong enough to work in the fields, the report said.

Yahoo News

Of course, don't forget to watch your daily Ninjai Chapter

Update

COOl Dogs!! Caucausian Mountain Dog- never seen this one before.



Don't forget to watch your daily Ninjai Chapter

Happiness is helping other people

"God loves others through us"

I've been okay. I volunteered for a lot of civic work. It's all great fun.

Don't forget to watch your daily Ninjai Chapter

A witch? Burn Her to Death!

Right.. we sure are evolving.

Woman suspected of witchcraft burned alive

A woman in rural Papua New Guinea was bound and gagged, tied to a log and set ablaze on a pile of tires this week, possibly because villagers suspected her of being a witch, police said Thursday.

Her death adds to a growing list of men and women who have been accused of sorcery and then tortured or killed in the South Pacific island nation, where traditional beliefs hold sway in many regions.

The victims are often scapegoats for someone else's unexplained death -- and bands of tribesmen collude to mete out justice to them for their supposed magical powers, police said.

"We have had quite difficulties in a number of previous incidents convincing people to come forward with information," said Simon Kauba, assistant commissioner of police and commander of the Highlands region, where the killing occurred.

"We are trying to persuade them to help. Somebody lost their mother or daughter or sister Tuesday morning."

Early Tuesday morning, a group of people dragged the woman, believed to be in her late teens to early 20s, to a dumping ground outside the city of Mount Hagen. They stripped her naked, bound her hands and legs, stuffed a cloth in her mouth, tied her to a log and set her on fire, Mauba said.

"When the people living nearby went to the dump site to investigate what caused the fire, they found a human being burning in the flames," he said. "It was ugly."

The country's Post-Courier newspaper reported Thursday that more than 50 people were killed in two Highlands provinces last year for allegedly practicing sorcery.

In a well-publicized case last year, a pregnant woman gave birth to a baby girl while struggling to free herself from a tree. Villagers had dragged the woman from her house and hung her from the tree, accusing her of sorcery after her neighbor suddenly died.

She and the baby survived, according to media reports.

Killings of witches, or sangumas, is not a new phenomenon in rural areas of the country.

Emory University anthropology Professor Bruce Knauft, who lived in a village in the western province of Papua New Guinea in the early 1980s, traced family histories for 42 years and found that 1 in 3 adult deaths were homicides -- "the bulk of these being collective killings of suspected sorcerers," he wrote in his book, From Primitive to Postcolonial in Melanesia and Anthropology.

In recent years, as AIDS has taken a toll in the the nation of 6.7 million people, villagers have blamed suspected witches -- and not the virus -- for the deaths.

According to the United Nations, Papua New Guinea accounts for 90 percent of the Pacific region's HIV cases and is one of four Asia-Pacific countries with an epidemic.

"We've had a number of cases where people were killed because they were accused of spreading HIV or AIDS," Mauba said.

While there is plenty of speculation why Tuesday's victim was killed, police said they are focused more on who committed the crime.

"If it is phobias about alleged HIV/AIDS or claims of a sexual affair, we must urge the police and judiciary to throw the book at the offenders," the Post-Courier wrote in an editorial.

"There are remedies far, far better than to torture and immolate a young woman before she can be judged by a lawful system."

CNN World News

and of course.. don't forget to watch your dailyNinjai chapter

Can't remember...

I'm back home now. I'm just exhausted. zzz..

My puppy's grown heaps tho! Glad to see her as she was glad to see me. :)


I could use this..

Forgetting things? Mnemonics can make them stick

Arriving at your uncle's holiday party in suitable dress and good cheer, you are greeted at the door by an old friend from school whose name, you suddenly realize, you cannot recall.
There are effective word connections you can make to help you remember things.

There are effective word connections you can make to help you remember things.

You've known him for 20 years. You played baseball with him, went on family trips together. You were at his wedding, for goodness' sake.

It's too embarrassing to ask his name, so as he waits awkwardly for an introduction to your significant other, you just stand there dully, waiting for the roof to cave in.

Well the roof did just that at a party in Greece in the fifth century B.C., killing all in attendance except for Simonides of Ceos, who had serendipitously stepped outside at just the right moment.

Simonides, however, had no such problem with names.

He was able to identify the bodies, which had been damaged beyond recognition, simply by recalling where each one sat.

And thus, says Judy Parkinson in a book titled "i before e (except after c)," Simonides begat a system for memorizing and recalling facts, called mnemonics.
Don't Miss

* Boom times for brain training games

Parkinson's book is a gathering of tricks, rhymes and riddles for remembering anything from names to rules of grammar and spelling, to science, math and music.

Can't remember when to use "affect" as opposed to "effect"? Simple says Parkinson: Just remember RAVEN: Remember Affect Verb Effect Noun (This only helps, of course, if you remember how to spell "raven").

After dinner, will you be having dessert or desert? To avoid after-dinner sand, says Parkinson, remember the double s stands for "sweet stuff."

But there's more to mnemonics than tricks and acronyms.

The best kind of mnemonic, says Robert Bjork, distinguished professor of cognitive psychology at UCLA, is one you make up yourself using interactive images.

A common method is to associate locations along a well-traveled path, like a school or work route, with items on a list. The Greeks called this the Method of Loci.

It's not enough, however, to associate a flagpole on your route with a giraffe on your list. To be truly effective, says Bjork, the giraffe must DO something with the flagpole.

"It should be interactive with the location as much as possible. If you imagine a giraffe, you imagine the giraffe climbing the pole rather than just standing there."

Another interactive device, a "peg-word" system, uses a rhyme as a kind of template to associate with items on a list. To use Bjork's example:

"One is a bun

Two is a shoe

Three is a tree ..."

And so on.

An apple on your list goes in the bun, a quart of milk goes in the shoe, a honey-baked ham hangs on the tree. You can reuse the same rhyme for different lists.

Interactive mnemonic devices like these can be very effective, says Bjork.

"In fact it is remarkably long-lived. If I have my students remember 20 items around UCLA campus, they'll remember 19 of them a week later."

The more you use the mnemonic, the better it will work. In fact, says Bjork, recall is one of the best ways to reinforce any kind of memory -- repeated recall leads to easier recall.

Still, with or without mnemonics, we simply forget things more easily as we get older, says Dr. James Lah, associate professor of neurology at Emory University.

It's perfectly natural, says Lah, to start forgetting things that were easy to remember at a younger age -- "senior moments."

But what if you keep forgetting things -- where you put your keys, the name of the person you just met at a party, the names of your co-worker's children -- should this be cause for concern?

"Not necessarily," says Lah.

"What people talk about when they talk about senior moments is really just a commonplace experience that does not necessarily imply something else going on as far as disease."

So how do you know when a memory lapse is a serious problem as opposed to just a nuisance?

"If you meet the new pastor's wife and you immediately forget her name -- [or] you see her the next day and you can't recall her name, that's not necessarily a reflection of a problem," says Lah. "It's a commonplace annoyance that increases with age."

"If you meet the pastor's wife and the next day can't recall having met her, that may be an indication of a more serious problem."

Besides mnemonics, which Lah recommends, there are other things you can do to keep those senior moments to a minimum.

There is evidence to suggest that if you take care of your cardiovascular health by eating right and exercising, your neurological health will also benefit.

"There is a direct correlation between cardiovascular health and neurological health and especially cognitive aging," says Lah.

The reasons are complex, says Lah, but when you have bad cardiovascular health, "the efficiency of communication between brain cells is eroded."

"So that's one of the reasons people in their 30s, 40s and 50s should be paying attention to [cardiovascular] diseases."

How, you may ask, does all this help you at your uncle's party with your old and seemingly nameless friend?

Find out his name from someone else and start working on a mnemonic. For example, if his name is Charlie, remember you deserve a "charlie-horse" for forgetting his name.

Imagine giving the charlie-horse to your significant other for an even more effective, "interactive" memory.

And remember, recall reinforces recall, so the more often you give your significant other a charlie-horse -- real or imagined -- the more likely you are to remember Charlie's name in the future.

CNN Offbeat News

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Of losing weight and sleep

I've been so damn tired these past few days.

I read this article about lack of sleep and weight loss. It's all the things you eat for gosh sakes. It's easy to understand for the most part.

We have this guest- a scholar- here with us now who's been telling us different stories of the world and etc and today he told us the story of Buddha, aka Siddhartha.

I find this picture of him to be a very nice one to describe his leaving everything behind:


Siddhartha grew up in a palace where he was completely shielded from any misery and suffering that is so prevalent in our world today. The compound in which he lived was a very vast one, and it was only when he was already a young man with a child of his own that he saw the wall that was keeping him within that "fake world" that his parents created for him in hopes of keeping him from becoming what a priest has predicted he would be before his birth- a great sage. His father figured if he didn't see the suffering of the world he wouldn't look for the solution to the suffering. Of course that didn't stop him.

He was great friends with his chariot driver and one day when he saw the wall, he asked his chariot driver to take him outside that wall. His chariot driver refused of course, but upon Siddhartha's nagging him- he finally gave in, and said, "All right all right- tomorrow night, we'll go." They sneaked out of a small hole in the wall ... and that's where Siddhartha's "awakening" to the miseries of the world came about.

We'll zip right through the little details and... here, so this picture- is probably just when he was about to leave everything. The night after he went out and saw all the miseries, he had his chariot driver his beautiful white horse who he had grown up with bring him deep into the forests. He took of all his jewelry and beautiful clothes and exchanged it with his chariot driver's clothes. He cut off his beautiful long black hair and told his chariot driver to leave. His horse was standing there, head hanging, tears streaming down his face. The chariot driver said, "No, no, I can't leave you. You are my Lord, You are my life. How can I leave You here?" But Siddhartha was firm, "No, you must go. I must find the solution to the miseries of life." Even his horse didn't want to go, and so Siddhartha went and whispered some words into the horse' ear, so then both the horse and the chariot driver had to go. :'(

Anyway... I loved it.

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War again!

The War in Gaza's raging... our world seems to be ripped apart by wars one after another. It's pretty crazy. It's sad. :(



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I've always been fascinated by soldiers

Chinese Philosphers

I've been reading a bit about some Chinese philosophers like Confucius and Lao Tzu. It's all pretty awesome stuff.

China's such a beautiful place. I like the sounds and looks of it much better than Japan's. I used to tell people I was half Chinese rather than Japanese. But the language has always been a problem anyway. darn.





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Happy New Year!

Haven't seen me around here since last year!

I didn't really celebrate the New Year's thing... as I usually don't anyway.

Pretty crazy weight loss story:

Today is the first day of a year that Ernesto Suncar and his doctors feared he might never see.

Weighing 640 pounds, wearing 10X shirts and with a 70-inch waist, the 33-year-old New Yorker was told by doctors he would likely be dead within 12 months.

Realizing it was a choice between losing weight and dying, the proud father of three, who had tried every diet imaginable, underwent gastric bypass surgery - and has shed more than two-thirds of his former self.

"I want people to feel inspired when they look at me," says the Hell's Kitchen resident, who's down to 210 pounds. "Hopefully, if they have a weight issue, they will finally do something about it, starting right now.

"Losing this weight saved my life. Without the operation, I doubt I would be here to celebrate New Year's.

"It's scary to think what might have happened."

The business management student says his body ballooned after he came to the U.S. from his native Dominican Republic at the age 7.

"I was a normal, active kid who used to run and play outdoors in the tropical climate," he recalls. "When we moved into a small apartment where it was cold, I stayed inside and didn't get any exercise.

"The only games I played were video games."

His love of chow didn't help. He would gorge himself on Spanish-style fried pork chops, rice and plantains, McDonald's, pizza and pasta.

"My mom would tell the guys at the corner deli not to serve me, so I'd just walk to another block," Suncar admits.

He once lost 64 pounds on a 1,800-calorie-a-day diet, but then gained 120 pounds. At his heaviest, the 6-foot-2 food junkie tipped the scales at 640 pounds.

"My little son had to tie my shoelaces," he says. "I poked fun at myself, but inside I was hurting."

The turning point came when chronic breathing difficulties and the immense strain on his heart threatened to kill him.

"The doctor said, if I carried on as I was, I would be dead in a year," Suncar says.

Dr. Elliot Goodman, chief of bariatric surgery at Beth Israel Medical Center, performed the gastric bypass.

There were minor complications, but this winter, after following a nutritious eating plan and increasing his fitness at the gym, Suncar has reached - and maintained - a healthy weight.

His waistline has shrunk to 34 inches and, instead of having to buy expensive outsize clothes on the Internet, he shops for stylish gear at The Gap.

"I feel reborn," he says. "These days I can cycle along the Hudson River, play with my kids and this summer, I'm planning on taking a flight. Before, I couldn't have fit in an airline seat.

"I keep some of my old things in my closet to remind me of how I used to look. But there's no going back."

Source

Damn. That's pretty crazy all right. Got to respect him for the will power to do that tho. I'm sure he and his family are much better off now. It's always hard to have to carry extra weight around.

So on to a 2009! Best wishes to everyone.

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