Entries from February 2009 ↓

However, for those of you who do not use the same cake mix, and like me, are scared that the Sprite Zero might mess up the recipe, you can follow the instructions of the cake mix packet. Depending on the number of gel colours you have, divide the batter into equal parts.

Drop the colours, one by one, into the middle of the pan, in neat concentric-ish gobs. Remember the cake is going to be sliced in the side there, so mixing it around on top isn’t going to make your slices any more psychedelic (trust me, I did the three-dimensional thinking for you already).

When you’re three colours in, start doing the reverse with the other pan. Since I’m going in rainbow order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, I got from red to yellow in the first pan, then purple, blue, green in the second. This is so that your two pans are equal if your measurements aren’t exact (and they’re not likely to be).

Tips From Aleta

For the frosting recipe, see Omnomicon or buy ready to use frosting – I LOVED the Devil’s Food frosting which is available in England – absolutely delicious, but I’m sure traditional frosting will be just as tasty.

Mr Meiwes told investigators he took Mr Brandes back to his home, where Mr Brandes agreed to have part of his genitals cut off, which Mr Meiwes then flambeed and served up to eat together.

Mr Meiwes says he then killed Mr Brandes with his consent – recording the two-hour event on video.

Prosecutors are seeking a conviction of murder for “sexual satisfaction”, as cannibalism is not technically illegal under German law!?!

Azad Singh and his sister Laxmi Yadav have not grown since they were five or six, and still look like little children. Neither of them, who live in Haryana, India, have been through puberty due to a rare hormone disorder.

Azad is just 3ft tall but is studying for A-Levels in English and Maths with the help of a tutor, and Laxmi, who is 3ft 3ins, is at high school taking the equivalent of her GCSEs.

They face being trapped in children’s bodies for their rest of their lives as treatment in the form of hormone injections would normally be given before the age of 16 or 17.

A simple, one-year, course of hormones costing just £18 per day could have allowed them to grow in height and develop sexually.

But the teens’ parents have always been too poor to fund the injections.

They now live in the constant care of mum Manju Bala, dad Bahadur Singh, a casual labourer, and sister Suman Yadav, 12, who is normal height.

Azad, who wants to train as an engineer, said: “I’m taking my exams in April. I’m doing a lot of revision and hard work.

“When I go out, such as to walk to my tutor’s house, my mum has to come with me.

“People think I’m still a kid and need looking after.”

He added: “If Laxmi or I go out alone, people stare and gather round us. Some unkind people even shout names at us in the street. So we normally have our parents or sister Suman with us.

“I cannot hang out with boys my age, because they say I cannot keep up with them. But I have two friends at school who spend time with me, and don’t mind that I’m small.”

Laxmi added: “When we were younger our parents had to change our school because the other kids laughed at us because of our size.”

Devoted mum Manju said: “I’m very protective of my children. If I do not accompany Azad when he goes out, people throw things at him on his bike, and might harm him.”

She explained: “When Azad and Laxmi were very young, they were the same size as other children. We didn’t realise anything was wrong until Azad was about five and we noticed he stopped growing.

“When Laxmi also reached five, she’d stopped growing too. We took them to the doctor but he had no idea what was wrong with them.

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“Over the years we’ve been referred to many hospitals, but they all wanted payment for any treatment.

“We went to hospitals in Kalavati, Gangaram, but everywhere they were asking for huge money for the treatment. We were not able to afford it, so we had to leave.”

She added: “Once we looked into selling our house to get 15,000 rupees (2,910 pounds) for treatment. But the doctors at Gangaram Hospital could not guarantee us that the injections would work by this stage as Azad and Laxmi were older, so we decided no to go ahead.”

Finally, last year, the family were offered a lifeline by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Dehli, who looked into providing free treatment for the brother and sister.

But when the Azad and Laxmi arrived at the hospital, crowds of patients, visitors, and even people from the street went into to the ward to stare at them.

“We could not face all those people,” said Laxmi. “It was too frightening for Azad and me. We felt we would rather stay as we were than go through that.

“We decided we did not want the treatment, as doctors said there was only about a 40 to 50 per cent chance it would work.”

I was reading on the Reader’s Digest website about shoes today. I haven’t thought about shoes in this way, it struck me so hard. You can read the whole article if you’re interested, but I’m only going to focus on the 3rd part, titled “Shoes As a Better Business Model”.

The idea for Toms Shoes hit Blake Mycoskie on a trip to Argentina in 2006: Sell a pair, give a pair to a needy child. “I met so many kids there who didn’t have shoes and had nasty scrapes on their feet,” he recalls. Mycoskie launched a line of simple, colorful canvas slip-ons modeled on the traditional alpargata worn by local farmers. Within a year, the concept had taken off (especially after celebrities like -Renée Zellweger started wearing Toms)–and Mycoskie organized his first “shoe drop,” a tour of rural Argentina on which he handed out 10,000 pairs. Since then, he’s given away another 100,000 on four continents. “The joy the kids express is hard to describe,” he says. “They laugh and cry-and run around playing soccer.”

This is such an amazing story, and showed me again what change a single person could make.  I wish I could find the ideas and ways and means to make something like this happen, and then I realize that it is within my reach, I just have to grasp it.

Source: Readers Digest

The poor creature was struck by lightning and left with blistering burns. You would expect it to have been cooked alive.

But the cow miraculously survived, apparently unperturbed by the ordeal, and is already back roaming the meadows.
Flame grilled cow

Flame grilled: This poor cow was struck by lightning but, in a rare freak of nature, lives to the tell the tale

Professor of Physical Geography, Jon Nott of James Cook University, said the event was rare but entirely feasible.

He said: ‘Cows are susceptible to lightning strikes because both sets of legs are on the ground.

‘But, more often than not, they die from it.’

He added: ‘The electricity from a lightning strike would enter the front set of legs and exit out the back legs so, based on the picture, it is possible it happened.

‘While I can’t explain the knee wounds, the ankle wounds would be consistent with those of lightning.’

The cow is believed to have been struck by the bolt in Gladstone, Queensland, Australia, last month.

But if it wasn’t for its horrific wounds, you could hardly tell the animal had suffered.

Perhaps it has drawn comfort from the old wives’ tale. After all, we are all told that lightning never strikes in the same place twice.

Source: DailyMail (via digg)

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip, a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of an social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

Source: E-mail (Origin: Unknows)