The Whole Story

For the celebrity un-initiated, Britney spears is currently pregnant with her second child to husband Kevin Federline. Her highly publized pregnancies are once again thrown into the limelight with britney posing in a nude photoshoot for popular entertainment and fashion magazine Harpers Bazaar in which she appears on the cover of the august 2006 issue.

Her shoot is heavily reminiscent of Demi Moore’s nude photoshoot she did for Vanity Fair magazine in august of 1991, almost 15 years ago. Britney’s new photos in the august issue have already appeared all over the internet a month even before the release of the issue.

I thought after lukewarm feelings from the general public about her ‘on & off it seems’ marriage with Kevin we wouldn’t really be seeing and hearing much of Britney spears for at least a while, but she’s back, posing nude while heavily pregnant and to be honest, most people actually don’t seem to mind it! Well, who i’ve been asking anyway.

Sure many people have criticized Britney in the past and her popularity has fallen substantially for various reasons, but there is something fascinating about seeing a beautiful pregnant woman naked that draws so much attention and interest (even if it is Britney Spears).

It would take alot of guts to expose yourself like that whilst pregnant and takes alot of courage, regardless of who you are.

Her credibility as a performer may have taken a beating the last few years, but she’s now getting plenty of recognition at the moment anyway from this new shoot and her departure from her trademark blonde locks.

Maybe this means Britney’s triumphant comeback to the mainstream? Who knows? Probably not, but its good to see you anyway Britney, always a treat!

In Nuremberg, organisers revealed 70,000 England fans who flooded the city drank 1.2 million pints of beer - an average of 17 pints each. Astonished bar keeper Herrmann Murr said: “Never have I seen so many drink so much in such little time.”

This is a really good article and it’s interesting to see out of all the world cup nations, who exactly are the biggest drinkers. I still can’t believe the English drank more than the world renound beer guzzling stereotype of Germans, especially when Germany is the host nation for this year’s FIFA world Cup.

Take a look through the article by following the “read more” link below. Its a good look, check it out.

read more | digg story

Digg 3.0 was launched monday and boy is it one big update. Kevin Rose (digg founder) said that this latest version of the popular social news bookmarking site digg.com was going to be big, with a bevy of new features such as the highly anticipated concept amongst many ‘digger’s’ is the new Digg Topics, and boy was he right!

Digg has traditionally been in the past a technology oriented site appealing to the ‘geek’ croud mostly, but recently just before this release of Digg 3.0 it had become apparent that many diggers (including myself) were posting links to news stories that were perhaps technology unrelated. This was looked at by Digg and they have definately come up with the perfect solution. Make digg appealling to a wider audience and include topic areas such as politics, world and business, videos, entertainment and science, just to name a few.
For those of you who may not be aware of what exactly digg is, and what it’s all about, here’s the rundown:

Digg is all about user powered content. Every article on digg is submitted and voted on by the digg community. Share, discover, bookmark, and promote the news that’s important to you!

source: digg.com

Some people already have started critizing the new digg design but personally I love it. They have incorporated the new topics so seamlessly within the digg layout we have all grown to love so well over the last yr or so, and once you’re logged in, the site really feels much more ‘personalized’ and all about you, the user. Your information is easily accessible, your dugg stories, your friends and your comments are all easy to access and using the site overall has greately improved in my opinion.

If you’re new to the digg community or even just never heard of it before, check it out its really cool. If you frequently visit alot of news sites, you’ll love this. People from all over the world find the most popular news stories and post them on digg so the most up to date and exciting news is always avaliable to you, whenever you need it!

The ever popular (unofficial) msn plus! package is now out and avaliable for download. It is also under a new name. Introducing…Messenger Plus! Live.

Messenger Plus! Live is the Windows Live Messenger extention which adds a slew of new functionality, new ways of interacting with your chat buddy and other cool features such as chat window transparency and scripting. Anyone who has used msn messenger and seen your buddy send you interesting new emoticons you couldn’t open, you can bet they were using messenger plus and you weren’t. With this latest version to hit the net, Messenger Plus! Live is bigger and better than ever and any ‘MSN bunny’ who spends every waking moment on MSN should definately download and install it.

Messenger Plus Live is freeware, absolutely free of charge so you can download it, try it out and if you really don’t like it (how could you not) you can just remove it at no cost to you. Messenger Plus! Live is not written or created by Microsoft in any way, its more of a third-party extention for MSN.

In case you’re not exactly sure what benefits Messenger Plus can give you, check out the features below:

• Tabbed Chat Windows - Have one MSN window open, and be talking to multiple friends at once.
• Quick Texts - Quick texts and text replacements allow you to send words or sentences with a shortcut, or replace words with other cool fonts or pics (im sure you’ve seen your friends use this before right?)
• Custom Sounds - Send/use your own custom sounds during your conversation with your friends.
• Personalized Status - Instead of “Away”, “Busy”, “Out to Lunch”, tell your friends “I’ll be back in a sec” instead.
• Contact List Clean-Up - Great if you have your contacts all over the place, neaten up your MSN contacts list to find your friends quicker and easier.

Download:

Messenger Plus! Live 4.00.235 (4.25mb download)

This is only a few of the myriad of features avaliable. When I spend any amount of time on my computer, no doubt I’ll have MSN Messenger connected, ready to chat away at any time and MSN plus (although free) liven’s up the party and makes a good thing, that much sweeter.

No need for 360 fanboys to waste energy mocking the “revolutionary” PS3 controller for being sadly inferior to a 7 year-old product that worked with Warhawk on the PS1 when Playstation Magazine is producing humiliating videos like this.

For those who are unaware, The original Playstation and then the Playstation 2 used ‘Dual-Shock’ controllers which not only provided the player with analog control sticks, but also include force feedback vibration which was a huge hit and I personally think this new ‘revolution’ in its time made the Playstation as popular as it is today.

But, this proven controller has been ‘redesigned’ and ‘revolutionized’ some more by the genius creative team at Sony. The Playstation 3 controller will still provide analog control sticks but no more force feedback. Instead sony has opted for motion sensing functionality in place of force feedback which has proven to be a very unpopular move.

This article (follow the ‘Read More’ link below) at XBOX 360 fanboy talk about in great depth why this move was such a crummy move and includes a hilliarous video of what sony apparently released as a gamer playing warhawk (or something) with the new (motion sensing) controller.

This guy looks like he just found video games for the first time and moving the control with his character. The thing is, it is this behaviour when playing ‘motion sensitive’ games that sony have encouraged? eh? Take a look for yourselves, what are you doing sony?

read more | digg story

Everybody has had days where they’ve felt a little ‘blue’, but when it goes a little further than just being ‘down in the dumps’, things start becoming a little more serious.

I myself suffered from depression (past tense, not anymore) and I know how tough it can be, with the feeling of emptiness in your life, feeling like your not going anywhere with anything permeates your seemingly shattered life. It is hard, but you can turn it around, you just need to want to do it.

In teenagers, depression rates on average at the moment are around 4 in every 100, and with adults, that rate is higher again. Depression is almost used as a buzz word or excuse these days for a sudden downturn in mood, loss of productivity at work, or if your social life has recently taken a hit. But, what exactly is depression, what are the signs and how can you deal with it?

What is depression?

Depression is a mental state of mood categorized by a vast amounts of different feelings such as sadness, despair, discouragement, anger, lonliness and frustration. Depression can range from normal every days feelings of simply being down through to more major forms of depression or eventual manic depression in its more serious form. Low self esteem, grief, mourning, guilt, withdrawl are all feelings (that i’ve experienced in my time with depression anyway).

Signs that you are depressed:
You are clinically depressed if you show the following signs of depression (in any form):

• You feel sad or cry a lot and it doesn’t go away.
• You feel guilty for no real reason.
• You feel like you’re no good. Life seems meaningless.
• You don’t feel like doing the things you used to.
• It’s hard to make up your mind.
• You forget lots of things, and it’s hard to concentrate.
• Little things make you lose your temper. You overreact.
• You start sleeping a lot more, or you have trouble falling asleep at night. Or you wake up really early most mornings and can’t get back to sleep.
• Your eating pattern changes. You’ve lost your appetite or you eat a lot more.
• You feel restless or tired most of the time.
• You think about death, or have thoughts about committing suicide.

This information is freely avaliable from many depression and mental health organisations and clinics. I am by no means a doctor or psychologist, but these obviously do make sense.

How can you deal with it, or how can you help a friend who is depressed?

I know when i was depressed, it was a tough time in my life. I exibited many of the above characteristics and feelings such as loss of apetite, hard to make up my mind, loss of temper and overreaction and feeling sad without those feelings going away. I knew i had to get on top of it, and after a while, I found a select few (1-2, very few) people closest to me who are great friends of mine and simply talking things over with them really helped me out alot. When you are feeling depressed, just letting your feelings bottle up inside just made me feel worse, and talking a few things over with your closest friends does really help.

I know / have known a few people who are going through similar things, and I know people right now who are feeling depressed. It is hard to try and help somebody who is depressed, dealing with huge amounts of negativity is always tough, but for that person who is dealing with a tough time, they may not show it, but you being there for them is something that they truely do appreciate and hold dear.

If you or a friend is depressed and is quite serious (or no matter the level of depression) the best thing to do is for you/them to see a trained professional. A doctor or psychiatrist can help you through things and possibly prescribe medications that can help with the physical aspects of depression and get you on a schedule to your road to recovery.

There is no quick fix to recover from depression, but the people closest to you are there to help, and you should use them to springboard your feelings off onto.

To my friend dealing with depression right now, hang in there, things will get better soon.

Over the last year or two, we have seen a huge increase in the number of celebrity couples exchanging vowes and starting a family.

It is a well known fact that many celebrity couples have a history of naming their children 'interesting' names to be as polite as possible about it. These kids who are/will be celebrities in their own right thanks to their parents definately will have that 'killer' stand out name which seems to be forever more important in Hollywood these days.

There can be no mistaking a name like Apple or Shiloh in the classroom thats for sure. At least when these kids start attending school, they will definately know when the teacher is talking to them.

In case you are totally oblivious to what i'm talking about and have been living under a rock for the past few years, here's a list of many celebrity couples and their children's names:

Apple: Gwyneth Paltrow & Chris Martin
Shiloh: Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie
Suri: Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes
BreAzia Ranee: Olympia Scott-Richardson
Camera: Arthur Ashe
Coco: Courteney Cox & David Arquette
Daisy Boo: Jamie Oliver
Gaia: Emma Thompson
Heaven: Lil' Mo
Heavenly Hirrani Tiger Lily: Paula Yates & Michael Hutchence
Jaz: Steffi Graff & Andre Agassi
Maesa: Bill Pullman
Paloma: Emilio Estevez
Poppy Honey: Jamie Oliver
Rainbow: Ving Rhames
Sailor: Christie Brinkley
Sosie: Kyra Sedgwick & Kevin Bacon
Zola Ivy: Eddie Murphy

What would we do in a world without celebrity babies. People are always trying to come up with new baby names, instead of professionals who know what they're doing coming up with new names, we should all just leave it up to whoever seems to be popular in Hollywood at that particular time.

Celebrity babies are a huge hit once they enter the world, but a few weeks after the birth and everything settles down, people start to forget about them and they just get on with their lives. I myself don't really see what's so fascinating with celebrities in general. You always see people on the subway or in a shopping center reading gossip magazines. Is your life really that boring? I doubt it.

Lots of people will tell you "oh my life is so boring, i just like reading them to see how life works for a celebrity". I can understand where your coming from, but its like everything when it comes to celebrities and the nature of being famous. If you're famous and well known, it takes work to remain famous and well known for quite a while. Many entertainers usually have a peak in their careers where they are the most popular, then their popularity dies down and in many cases, fades away completely.

It is this nature of celebrity and being famous that the children of these parents will have to grow up with, and that must be so hard on them sometimes. I'm not trying to bad mouth anybody here, but If my name was Apple for example, just becuase my parents were famous, doesn't mean that teasing and bullying in school won't happen.

While celebrity babies are all the news for that first few months, things die down just like the popularity of their parents in some cases and people just move on. A name can mean so much to a person, it is their identity after all.

Windows Live Messenger (formerly known as MSN 8.0 beta) has been released and is now avaliable for public download.

Beta users of MSN 8 have had this software to play with for quite some time (3-4 months) and in that time, I have seen the latest version of messenger evolve into what it currently is now. Here's a quick idea of some of the biggest new features in the latest release of MSN Messenger:

 

• See them on the screen

  Show and tell: Grab a webcam and start a video conversation within minutes.

• Share stuff

  Set up a Sharing Folder with a friend. Drop in photos and other stuff, as many as your computer can handle. See it even when one of you is offline.

• A network of millions

  Tap into the world's largest IM network, with hundreds of millions of customers worldwide.

• Soon: talk to your Yahoo! friends, too

  Soon you'll be able to use Windows Live Messenger to talk to your friends who use Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. The world's largest IM network is getting even bigger.

Source: Microsoft Windows Live Messenger Official Site

If you are an avid user of MSN messenger, well Windows Live Messenger as it's now known, be sure to check out this latest version. Alot of the problems which plagued the previous version of msn such as connection drop-outs and slow transfer rates when sending/recieving files have now been fixed (thank god!).

I wouldn't call myself a microsoft fanboy, but this latest version of messenger is definately a step in the right direction, be sure to check it out.

One of my favourite television shows has been scheduled for a 3rd season by NBC. I haven’t come across any definate comfirmed date for the premiere of episode one (season 3) but speculation points to September 28th, 2006. This date is purely speculation dont get me wrong, but I was informed of the date from an NBC message board (lol thats the best i can do).

At the end of season 2, we were all left with a huge cliffhanger. Jim confessed his undying love for Pam face to face, they kissed which points to a significant decision that Pam will be faced with in the early episodes of season 3. Should she let Jim down gently and continue with her wedding preparations with Roy (fiance’) or break the engadement and persue a relationship with her long time friend Jim?

Jim first confided in Michael (the office boss) on the booze cruise (season 2 - 11) about his feelings for Pam and trusted that Michael would keep his secret. It wasn’t long before the word was out and everybody in the office knew of Jim’s affection for Pam. The only person not to find out was Pam herself, which stirred up mixed emotions and feelings of anger in the final episode of season 2.

Here are some quotes that made season’s 1 and 2 so great:

1. “I am Michael, and I am part English, Irish, German, and Scottish, sort of a virtual United Nations”(Michael Scott).”

2. In the wild, there is no health care. In the wild, health care is, “Ow, I hurt my leg. I can’t run. A lion eats me and I’m dead.” Well, I’m not dead. I’m the lion, you’re dead” (Dwight Shrute).

3. “Oh, do you want me to repeat the messages that I gave you before?” (Pam Beasely).

4. “Okay, first, let’s go over some parameters. How many people can I fire?” (Dwight Shrute).

5.
Dwight Schrute: Through concentration, I can raise and lower my cholesterol at will.
Pam Beesley: Why would you wanna raise your cholesterol?
Dwight Schrute: So I can lower it.

6. “I think if I was allergic to dairy I’d kill myself” (Michael Scott).

7.
Michael Scott: [trying to motivate an employee for the basketball game] You’ll be like the dwarf that follows the wizard to the end of the earth in… uh… Lord of the Rings!
Dwight Schrute: Gimli.
Michael Scott: …NERD. THAT’s why you’re not on the team.

So loyal Office fans, yes there will be a third season due to air late september (US) so brace yourselves…as Michael once put it “Its simply beyond words, it’s incalculable!”.

Every university in the country, and in fact every university on the planet has some kind of final examination schedule. Here in Australia the end of semester finals are usually a month long, but this period differ's between institutions. Being a university student myself (Bachelor of Science in Computer Science) I am totally aware of the dreaded feeling of final exams, and the 'all-nighter hangovers' that go with them.

Are you in the middle of your exams right now and just can't shake those examination blues? Here are a few useful tips I've used myself to get me through the long nights, evil mornings and 24-hr group study sessions.

1. Socialize - Believe it or not, locking yourself away in a dark room for days on end studying is a sure fire way to burn yourself out too quickly and in my case, study sessions that last that long cause me to start forgetting other useful information. Spend time studying, but spend an equal time with your friends.

2. Exercise - Exercise helps me to relieve stress, especially with huge stress build-up's the night before a big exam. I go running three times a week anyway so exercise is a big part of me, but just remember to exercise your body as well as your brain.

3. Track your eating habits - Everybody's heard that coffee' and coca-cola are great for keeping you awake during an all nighter, but there's so much more to it. During my first year of tertiary studies (freshmen year for all my north american friends) I honestly ate like crap during exams and study periods. Pizza, Beer, Coke all seem like great things to be consuming to keep your energy levels up, but I find they just make you crash and burn after a few hours.

Keep a balanced diet a few weeks leading up to exams and sure, go for the coke and coffee' late at nights, but i also find eating a second meal at around 2am helps too.

4. Have frequent breaks - I NEVER study for any longer than 1-2hrs at any given time. Sure i'll spend all day studying sometimes, but your brain needs rest, and I'll bet your hands do too after all that writing. Study for an hr or two, then walk away and maybe get some of the 1st and 2nd points into you. Let your brain absorb all the information you just took in, then come back to it in an hour's time or so. trust me it helps me remember stuff much longer than just that night and makes you feel so much better.

5. Celebration - After all your exams are finished, a very important part to never forget is to make sure you catch up on all the fun you lost. Go out clubbing, Goto Uni parties (they're the best after huge exams) and drink yourself stupid if your that way inclined. The point is, go get out, have fun, HEAPS OF FUN! Next semester is still a while away right?

I wouldn't say I stick to these points to the dime all the time, but alot of these points really help me out alot during exam time, hopefully they can help you out a little too!