Think Original

Vani w/ Rainbow Hairstyle, Cute Accessories & Fishnets

2012-02-09T21:41:00.000-08:00

Cosplay in Harajuku, Tokyo (Photo credit: mikeleeorg)Here’s a familiar face to fans of Harajuku fashion – it’s Vani from 6%DOKIDOKI. Besides being a regular presence on the streets of Harajuku, Vani has also traveled around the world promoting 6%DOKIDOKI’s vision of “Kawaii Anarchy”.

Vani is wearing a long winter coat over a 6%DOKIDOKI dress (“one piece” in Japanese), super colorful fishnet tights, and over-the-knee black boots. To compliment her amazing rainbow Japanese flag hairstyle, Vani’s wearing several sparkling hair bows, a big silver star hair clip, and a dangling stars hair clip – all from 6%DOKIDOKI. Her other 6%DOKIDOKI accessories include a pink bow choker (with a 6%DOKIDOKI Bearbrick hanging from it), a shooting star necklace, and various other kawaii rings, necklaces, and bracelets.

For more information on Vani and 6%DOKIDOKI, check out the Harajuku brand on Facebook or Twitter.

Click on any street snap to enlarge it.

8 Tips for Telling Your Husband or Wife that They’re Getting Fat

2012-02-04T00:07:00.000-08:00

Feeling compelled to tell someone that they're packing on the pounds is never a comfortable situation to find yourself in, especially if you're married to that person. A lot of emotion and esteem issues are rolled into how we perceive our own weight and it causes each of us to feel we must tread carefully when bringing up the topic out of concern for the health of a loved one.

However, the reality is that in many cases, letting your spouse know he or she is getting fat can save their life or at the very least, improve their quality of life. Many serious diseases ranging from cancer and heart disease to diabetes and stroke are linked directly to obesity, while being overweight can curtail the enjoyment of many activities as well as being a source of health risks. While it won’t be easy to tell your spouse to slow down on the cookie consumption, it could save his or her life and thanks to your intervention and support, a happier, more energetic and healthier person may emerge.

Steps

Begin the dialog earlier rather than later. Although everyone’s weight may fluctuate, don’t wait until your spouse has put on so much weight that weight loss may involve medical intervention. If your spouse has put on 10 to 15 pounds and doesn’t seem to be trying to lose the weight, now is the time to intervene.
- The very best moment to begin it is when your spouse complains about it for any reason, whether that's trouble putting on an old pair of pants or doesn't like how they look standing in front of the mirror. That's when you're both on the same page about it.
Approach the matter with care and consideration––whatever the reason for putting on weight, it's important to be considerate of your spouse's feelings when raising the matter. Start by asking your spouse how he or she is feeling. Never just blurt out to your spouse “you are fat”. Your spouse relies on you to care about them and if your spouse feels that this is an attack on his or her appearance from the one person he or she can truly trust, it will be devastating. Instead, approach the issue as one of a concern for health, energy levels and vitality of life and make it about exploring the issue together, as a team effort.
- Set aside a quiet and private time to talk. Broach the topic by telling your spouse that you're concerned about his or her health.
- Be conscious that your spouse might not view the weight gain in the same light as you. Your spouse is likely to be aware that his or her clothes don't fit as they used to but may not treat the issue as seriously as you do. It could be a wake-up call for your spouse that you do see this as a major health issue.
- Aim to get to the root of the problem so you can properly address the weight gain. If you believe that the problem stems from mental distress, support your spouse to seek medical help. If it's work stress, have a real heart-to-heart about what your spouse wants to do about his or her job, such as seeking changes within the work or quitting and looking for a different job.
Suggest a medical evaluation. Be sure to have your spouse's weight and BMI (body mass index) checked at the doctor's before making assumptions. Ask your spouse about his or her last medical check up––if he or she hasn’t seen a doctor and had blood work done in the past year, suggest he or she schedules one so you can eliminate a hidden medical problem.

Suggest a medical evaluation.
- Sometimes weight gain may be a chemical or hormonal imbalance. After childbirth some women may experience thyroid problems, which are linked to unexplained weight gain and medication may resolve the weight gain issue.
- Sometimes weight gain may be due to unacknowledged sources such as work pressures (stress), depression or anxiety. Weight gain can also be a response to loss, such as caused by grieving a family member or friend who has died or as a result of losing work. And other possibilities include illness or a change of diet that hasn't been thought through carefully. Talking to a health professional can help sort out mental health issues as well as physical ones.
Consider obstacles at home. Part of being supportive is about acknowledging your own input into the weight gain. If you're someone who can eat almost anything and never put on weight or you exercise a lot and watch what you eat, it's not necessarily going to be the same for your spouse. On the other hand, if you're encouraging your spouse to be less active, this can be contributing to his or her weight gain too.
- Do you buy a lot of junk food or practice slothful behavior? If your spouse is being sabotaged by your bad habits you may be creating roadblocks to health and well-being.
- Examine the household schedule. Are each of you making time for sit-down home-cooked family dinners? Are each of you exercising every single day? Is health a priority for your entire family or is everyone running around too busy to make time for their own health?
Help your spouse to create a healthy exercise routine. Don't assume anything though; be sure to ask your spouse if he or she feels that embarking upon a new nutritional and fitness plan would make him or her feel better and provide more energy. Bolster your own belief that this will be beneficial by providing some reliable sources for your spouse to check out online or in books, whichever way your spouse prefers learning.
- If you have a mobile electronic device, download a fitness app and a food diary. These can be easy and fun ways to help your spouse keep track of the things to do to stay fit and to monitor food intake. Plus, you can offer to do the same and share results and updates regularly.
Follow your own advice and be engaged in your spouse's shape-up. If your spouse appears to be interested in getting healthy, lead by example if you're not already doing so. Make it your priority to get healthy too, even if you are able to eat junk food and stay slim and healthy. If you already eat a clean, lean diet and exercise at least five days a week, share your habits more obviously with your spouse by engaging them in the cooking, shopping, exercising or other elements that will help bring about a better understanding of creating a healthier lifestyle.

Follow your own advice and be engaged in your spouse's shape-up.
- Invite your spouse along to exercise outside or at the gym. Introduce your favorite fitness routine to your spouse––he or she may love it as much as you.
- Embark upon physical activities that you can do together or as a family. Take up jogging and enter some local races together, join an adult soccer or baseball team or try tennis.
- List the types of foods you both enjoy and pursue healthy ways to cook those foods. Take a cooking class at your local fitness club or hospital and discover new ways to make healthy foods taste delicious.
- Remove all obstacles at home like junk food. It’s a lot harder to gain weight if you don’t have the kinds of foods that pack on the pounds.
Encourage your entire household to cook and eat healthy. One of the best ways to lose weight is to fuel your body with healthy foods. Educate yourself, your spouse and other family members about which types of foods will boost your metabolism and provide energy throughout the day. Be aware that the help of a doctor is a good idea, as different people have different needs dependent on health, metabolism and stage of life.
- Learn about portion sizes and what is a healthy, normal amount and what is outrageous. In the USA, MyPlate is a great place to start and similar initiatives are available through many other government health departments around the world.
- Instead of having three big meals, consider preparing six or seven smaller meals to keep blood sugar levels even and cravings at bay. This doesn't work for everyone but if it helps your family, then it's a great way to stretch out healthy eating during the day. If diabetes or other health problems are an issue, talk to your doctor before changing your diet drastically.
- Experiment with different types of spices and herbs to add flavor and excitement to healthy food without adding calories. Beware any that contain MSG and artificial additives though; keep all flavorings as unadulterated and unprocessed as possible.
- Cut back on eating out. While convenient, eating in restaurants more than once a week can quickly pack on the pounds since you don’t know how the food is being prepared and the exact number of calories you are eating.
- Encourage a home-based lunch initiative. Have the whole family sit down and select favorite healthy lunch options that can be made at home and taken to work, college, school, etc. Then ensure that the ingredients are always available and have a shared lunch-making session every morning to speed things up. This will spare everyone from the temptation of fattening take outs at lunchtime.
Celebrate victories. Don’t forget to celebrate even the smallest victories. If your spouse loses two pounds in one week, go to the movies together or treat your spouse to a manicure or massage. Mark each victory with a celebration so that she or he knows that you're truly rooting for their success. Other ways to celebrate include:
- Take the family to the beach or the park for the afternoon.
- See a play or go to a concert.
- Write your spouse a love letter telling him or her how proud you are of his or her success. Or simply tell explain how much you love him or her.
- Purchase a new piece of (smaller sized) clothing for your spouse from a favorite brand.
- Bring him or her home flowers, a favorite author's new book or other non-food treats.

Tips

If your spouse is within normal weight range, encourage healthy eating and fitness, but don’t push him or her to lose more weight. Aim for maintenance of good habits instead, as a lifestyle approach to health.
Be gentle and supportive throughout the journey. If your spouse falls off the wagon, continue to encourage healthy eating and exercise the following day as if nothing happened. Don’t berate them or get upset; changing eating and lifestyle habits takes time and patience.
Visit the library and borrow reputed books on weight loss, fitness, healthy lifestyle habits, etc. and leave them around for your spouse to read. Be sure to read some too, so that you can help make suggestions.
The very best time to bring it up is to watch for the exact moment when your spouse complains about it, whether that's about older clothes not fitting or losing breath coming up the stairs or any other inconvenience caused by him-her having gained weight. That's the moment they're on the same page about it and your research and support may turn a moment's irritation into a serious plan.
Women who breast feed their infants take off pregnancy weight fast, often without conscious effort. Women who bottle feed their infants face a biological reaction that the body piles on the pounds to feed the next baby, it's as if her fat cells don't realize the baby's alive. So if you are the husband of a woman who chose bottle feeding, be very gentle and supportive as she struggles to take off the weight - it's an up hill battle for her and she's going to have a harder time than most people.
Men have a similar up hill battle around age 25 to 30, there's a metabolic shift from a high-energy young body that can eat anything and burn it off in heavy activity to the solid girth of mature male. That's also when a spare tire may form over the increased muscle. It's not something that can be prevented, it's maturity. Women get this to some degree too but most have kids before it's an age related shift.
Many, many health conditions cause uncontrollable weight gain. Side effects from prescription medications in many categories, underlying diseases, heredity, a lot of factors can cause sudden or gradual weight gain. Fighting it by diet and exercise helps but may not be enough. Try to find out about these things, especially check the pill bottles for whether weight gain is a listed side effect.
People who quit smoking gain about ten pounds on average.
Periodic starvation dieting can cause permanent weight gain, as the body's metabolism switches to more efficient digestion and hoarding all calorie intake in fat cells. Sometimes a person on a starvation diet will actually gain one or two pounds a week but have little energy and lose muscle. This is why "rapid weight loss" dieting is a bad idea. One or two pounds a week lost is a stable, healthy pace worth celebrating over every pound.
Gradual, sustainable habit changes are more effective than rigid dieting. Add a healthier food in small portions, then gradually higher portions for about a month to get used to the new food. Drastically changing everything a person eats will give them two or three months of miserable digestive symptoms - diarrhea, constipation, gas, cramps. This doesn't encourage them to stick to a good new regimen, it's doing it the hard way.
The easiest way is to reverse priorities between a healthy but expensive treat and an unhealthy cheap treat. Having a fast food dinner once a month starts to make it a treat that's anticipated. Having it daily will make you fat and get boring. Understand what you're eating and prioritize high-calorie treats to have them less often and enjoy them thoroughly when you do. Once a year the person ought to be able to eat anything they want, say, on their birthday. Habits of eating smaller meals is going to limit the "Birthday gorge" in quantity anyway if they ate well all year first.

Warnings

Watch for signs of obsessive behavior such as over exercising or self starvation. The emotional impact of having a spouse raise weight concerns might cause some people to over-respond in an unhealthy way, fearing loss of the less weighty spouse. Reassure your spouse often that you love him or her that you're supportive. Get help immediately if your spouse begins to drop too much weight too quickly.
Never use vanity as a reason to encourage weight loss. Focusing on appearance will cause your spouse to wonder why you find this aspect more important than your spouse's well-being and it can cause emotionally scarring, long-lasting friction in your relationship.
If one or two serious discussions about weight concerns reveal that your spouse is offended at the idea, does not want to manage his-her weight, has no interest in preventive health activities and despises the gym, GIVE UP! Do not ever nag, berate or shame your spouse over his or her weight. This only wrecks the relationship and makes it even less likely he or she will ever want to do something about it.

Shadow Painting

2012-01-30T00:35:00.000-08:00

Jessica Szohr SoBe Skinsuit Sexy

2012-01-30T00:23:00.000-08:00

Carpet Cricket

2012-01-27T21:03:00.000-08:00

Acid Wash, Cable Knit & Creepers

2012-01-23T08:59:00.000-08:00

Here’s someone very familiar to fans of Harajuku fashion – it’s Una (pronounced “Yuna”)! Una has been one of the most well known “faces of Harajuku” for the last few years. She previously worked with Spinns (and her face was often displayed on their billboards), but now works with Bubbles Harajuku. She’s also a popular model who appears in magazines and advertising campaigns for numerous Japanese brands, as well as walking in fashion shows like the recent Harajuku Kawaii.

Una is wearing an oversized acid wash denim jacket (with a “New York” painting on the back) over a resale white cable knit sweater (a major trend item right now in Harajuku), black over-the-knee socks, and cute platform creepers from Shibuya Frontier. Her accessories (which, like her outfit, mostly came from Bubbles Harajuku) include a Yin-Yang Symbol earring, a resale Jacksonville Jaguars cap, a choker, a fluorescent green cross necklace, and a Mickey Mouse glove ring.

Una told us that her favorite shop is Bubbles Harajuku. If you’d like to know more about her, please check out Una’s official blog.

Totty: Vikki Blows, Kitty Lea and Rosie Jones Videos by Front

2012-01-18T06:21:00.000-08:00

totty \’tä-tee\ British : sexually attractive people, esp. female. “Quite a bit of totty in the pub tonight.”

The UK men’s monthly Front is a great magazine, and by “great magazine” we mean that they publish incredibly sexy photos of the best British birds. Birds as in women, not winged feathered vertebrates.

(We would claim to read Front for the articles, which look pretty good, but we’re too cheap to shell out the $12 an issue Stateside price. But don’t let our stinginess stop you — here’s where you can order it, Daddy Warbucks.)

If you’re not familiar with Front and its brand of winged, feathered vertebrates, the website FrontArmy.com will show and tell you all you need to know. Or you could just check these videos from Front’s YouTube channel.

Vikki Blows:

Kitty Lea:

Rosie Jones:

" ONLINE DOCTOR "- Very Informative !

2012-01-17T06:34:00.000-08:00

This site is very informative, which ever diseases you click-upon (I wish you don’t have one),....

it gives you the video explanation !!!!
Interactive Sites on Medical Information

The tutorials listed below are interactive health education resources from the Patient Education Institute .

Using animated graphics, each tutorial explains the procedure or condition in

easy-to-read and understand language. You can also listen to the tutorial.

JUST CLICK ON YOUR AILMENT
These tutorials require a special Flash plug-in, version 6 or above... If you do not have this in your PC,

you will be prompted to obtain a free download of the software before you start the tutorial.

Diseases and Conditions

· Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm

· Acne

· AIDS

· Allergies to Dust Mites

· Alopecia

· Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)

· Angina

· Anthrax

· Arrhythmias

· Arthritis

· Asthma

· Atrial Fibrillation

· Avian Influenza

· Back Pain - How to Prevent

· Bell's Palsy

· Brain Cancer

· Breast Cancer

· Burns

· Cataracts

· Cerebral Palsy

· Cold Sores (Herpes)

· Colon Cancer

· Congestive Heart Failure

· COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease)

· Crohn's Disease

· Cystic Fibrosis

· Depression

· Diabetes - Eye Complications

· Diabetes - Foot Care

· Diabetes - Introduction

· Diabetes - Meal Planning

· Diverticulosis

· Endometriosis

· Epstein Barr (Mononucleosis)

· Erectile Dysfunction

· Fibromyalgia

· Flashes and Floaters

· Fractures and Sprains

· Ganglion Cysts

· Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD)

· Glaucoma

· Gout

· Hearing Loss

· Heart Attack

· Hepatitis B

· Hepatitis C

· Hypertension (High Blood Pressure)

· Hypoglycemia

· Incisional Hernia

· Influenza

· Inguinal Hernia

· Irritable Bowel Syndrome

· Kidney Failure

· Kidney Stones

· Leishmaniasis

· Leukemia

· Low Testosterone

· Lung Cancer

· Lupus

· Lyme Disease

· Macular Degeneration

· Malaria

· Melanoma

· Meningitis

· Menopause

· Migraine Headache

· Mitral Valve Prolapse

· Multiple Myeloma

· Multiple Sclerosis

· Myasthenia Gravis

· Osteoarthritis

· Osteoporosis

· Otitis Media

· Ovarian Cancer

· Ovarian Cysts

· Pancreatitis

· Parkinson's Disease

· Pneumonia

· Prostate Cancer - What is it?

· Psoriasis

· Retinal Tear and Detachment

· Rheumatoid Arthritis

· Rotator Cuff Injuries

· Sarcoidosis

· Scabies

· Seizures and Epilepsy

· Sexually Transmitted Diseases

· Shingles

· Skin Cancer

· Sleep Disorders

· Smallpox

· Spinal Cord Injury

· Temporomandibular Joint Disorders (TMJ)

· Tennis Elbow

· Tinnitus

· Trigeminal Neuralgia

· Tuberculosis

· Ulcerative Colitis

· Umbilical Hernia

· Uterine Fibroids

· Varicose Veins

· Vasculitis

· Warts

· Tests and Diagnostic Procedures

o Amniocentesis

o Barium Enema

o Bone Densitometry

o Breast Lumps - Biopsy

o Bronchoscopy

o Colonoscopy

o Colposcopy

o Coronary Angiogram and Angioplasty

o CT Scan (CAT Scan)

o Cystoscopy - Female

o Cystoscopy - Male

o Echocardiogram

o Echocardiography Stress Test

o IVP (Intra Venous Pyelogram)

o Knee Arthroscopy

o Laparoscopy

o Mammogram

o MRI

o Myelogram

o Newborn Screening

o Pap Smear

o Shoulder Arthroscopy

o Sigmoidoscopy

o Ultrasound

o Upper GI Endoscopy

o Surgery and Treatment Procedures

§ Aorto-Bifemoral Bypass

§ Cardiac Rehabilitation

§ Carotid Endarterectomy

§ Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

§ Chemotherapy

§ Cholecystectomy - Open Laparoscopic (Gallbladder Removal Surgery)

§ Clinical Trials

§ Colon Cancer Surgery

§ Colostomy

§ Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG)

§ C-Section

§ Dilation and Curettage (D & C)

§ General Anesthesia

§ Heart Valve Replacement

§ Hemorrhoid Surgery

§ Hip Replacement

§ Hip Replacement - Physical Therapy

§ Hysterectomy

§ Knee Replacement

§ LASIK

§ Massage Therapy

§ Neurosurgery - What is it?

§ Open Heart Surgery - What to Expect?

§ Pacemakers

§ Preparing for Surgery

§ Prostate Cancer - Radiation Therapy

§ Shoulder Replacement

§ Sinus Surgery

§ Stroke Rehabilitation

§ Thyroid Surgery

§ Tonsillectomy and Adenoidectomy

§ TURP (Prostate Surgery)

§ Vaginal Birth

Tamming The Sun

2012-01-11T22:57:00.000-08:00

MF Hussain - Another point of view

2012-01-10T21:57:00.001-08:00

This is another viewpoint. Worth Reading.
Have Faith, Confidence, Trust, and never lose Hope.

This is a Letter to the Editor of The Hindu, from a practising Christian lady who was Professor in Stella Maris College, Chennai till recently; now settled at Baroda, regarding an Edit in The Hindu in favour of bringing back MF Hussain to India.

Dear Ram,

I have taken time to write this to you Ram-for the simple reason that we have known you for so many years- you and The Hindu bring back happy memories Please take what I am putting down as those that come from an agonized soul. You know that I do not mince words and what I have to say I will-I call a spade a spade-now it is too late for me to learn the tricks of being called a ‘secularist’ if that means a bias for, one, and a bias against, another.

Hussain is now a citizen of Qatar-this has generated enough of heat and less of light. Qatar you know better than me is not a country which respects democracy or freedom of expression. Hussain says he has complete freedom- I challenge him to paint a picture of Mohammed fully clad.

There is no second opinion that artists have the Right of Freedom of expression. Is such a right restricted only to Hussain?
Will that right not flow to Dan Brown-why was his film-Da Vinci Code not screened?
Why was Satanic Verses banned-does Salman Rushdie not have that freedom of expression?
Similarly why is Taslima hunted and hounded and why fatwas have been issued on both these writers?
Why has Qatar not offered citizenship to Taslima?
In the present rioting in Shimoga in Karnataka against the article Taslima wrote against the tradition of burqua which appeared in the Out Look in Jan 2007.
No body protested then either in Delhi or in any other part of the country; now when it reappears in a Karnataka paper there is rioting. Is there a political agenda to create a problem in Karnataka by the intolerant goons?
Why has the media not condemned this insensitivity and intolerance of the Muslims against Taslima’s views?
When it comes to the Sangh Parivar it is quick to call them goons and intolerant etc. Now who are the goons and where is this tolerance and sensitivity?

Regarding Hussain’s artistic freedom it seems to run unfettered in an expression of sexual perversion only when he envisages the Hindu Gods and Goddesses. There is no quarrel had he painted a nude woman sitting on the tail of a monkey. The point is he captioned it as Sita. Nobody would have protested against the sexual perversion and his orientatation to sexual signs and symbols. But would he dare to caption it as ‘Fatima enjoying in Jannat with animals’?

Next example-is the painting of Saraswati copulating with a lion. Here again his perversion is evident and so is his intent. Even that lets concede cannot be faulted-each one’s sexual orientation is each one’s business I suppose. But he captioned it as Saraswati. This is the problem. It is Hussain’s business to enjoy in painting his sexual perversion.
But why use Saraswati and Sita for his perverted expressions?
Use Fatima and watch the consequence.
Let the media people come to his rescue then.
Now that he is in a country that gives him complete freedom let him go ahead and paint Fatima copulating with a lion or any other animal of his choice.
And then turn around and prove to India-the Freedom of expression he enjoys in Qatar.

Talking about Freedom of Expression-this is the Hussain who supported Emergency-painted Indira Gandhi as Durga slaying Jayaprakas Narayan. He supported the jailing of artists and writers. Where did this Freedom of Expression go? And you call him secularist? Would you support the jailing of artists and writers Ram –would you support the abeyance of the Constitution and all that we held sacred in democracy and the excessiveness of Indira Gandhi to gag the media-writers- political opponents?
Tell me honesty why does Hussain expect this Freedom when he himself did not support others with the same freedom he wants?
And the media has rushed to his rescue. Had it been a Ram who painted such obnoxious, .degrading painting-the reactions of the media and the elite ‘secularists’ would have been different; because there is a different perception/and index of secularism when it comes to Ram-and a different perception/and index of secularism when it comes to Rahim/Hussain.

It brings back to my mind an episode that happened to The Hindu some years ago.[1991]. You had a separate weekly page for children with cartoons, quizzes, and with poems and articles of school children. In one such weekly page The Hindu printed a venerable bearded man-fully robed with head dress, mouthing some passages of the Koran-trying to teach children .It was done not only in good faith but as a part of inculcating values to children from the Koran. All hell broke loose. Your office witnessed goons who rushed in-demanded an apology-held out threats. In Ambur,Vaniambadi and Vellore the papers stands were burned-the copies of The Hindu were consigned to the fire. A threat to raise the issue in Parliament through a Private Members Bill was held out-Hectic activities went on-I am not sure of the nature and the machinations behind the scene. But The Hindu next day brought out a public apology in its front page. Where were you Ram? How secular and tolerant were the Muslims?

Well this is of the past-today it is worse because the communal temperature in this country is at a all high-even a small friction can ignite and demolition the country’s peace and harmony. It is against this background that one should view Hussain who is bent on abusing and insulting the Hindu Gods and Goddesses. Respect for religious sentiments, need to maintain peace and harmony should also be part of the agenda of an artist-if he is great. If it is absent then he cannot say that he respects India and express his longing for India.

Let’s face it-he is a fugitive of law. Age and religion are immaterial. What does the media want-that he be absolved by the courts? Even for that he has to appear in the courts-he cannot run away-After all this is the country where he lived and gave expression to his pervert sadist, erotic artistic mind under Freedom of Expression. I simply cannot jump into the bandwagon of the elite ‘secularist’ and uphold what he had done. With his brush he had committed jihad-bloodletting.

The issue is just not nudity-Yes the temples-the frescos in Konarak and Kajhuraho have nude figures-But does it say that they are Sita, Sarswati or any goddesses? We have the Yoni and the Phallus as sacred signs of Life-of Siva and Shakthi-take these icons to the streets, paint them -give it a caption it become vulgar. Times have changed. Even granted that our ancients sculptured and painted naked forms and figures, with a pervert mind to demean religion is no license to repeat that in today’s changed political and social scenario and is not a sign of secularism and tolerance. I repeat there is no quarrel with nudity-painters have time and again found in it the perfection of God’s hand craft.

Let me wish Hussain peace in Qatar-the totalitarian regime with zero tolerance. May be he will convince the regime there to permit freedom of expression in word, writing and painting. For this he could start experimenting painting forms and figure of Mohamed the Prophet-and his family And may I fervently wish that the media-especially The Hindu does not discriminate goons-let it not substitute tolerance for intolerance when it comes to Rahim and Antony and another index for Ram.

I hope you will read this in the same spirit that I have written. All the best to you Ram.

Dr Mrs Hilda Raja, Vadodara

Innovative Designs

2012-01-09T20:21:00.000-08:00

COMPUTER-TOONS !!!

2012-01-08T21:27:00.001-08:00

RICE FIELDS OF JAPAN

2012-01-08T05:44:00.000-08:00

Looks ordinary enough....... but watch as the rice grows!!!





Stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in Japan , but this is no alien creation.   The designs have been cleverly PLANTED! Farmers creating the huge displays using no ink or dye.
Instead, different colour rice plants have been precisely and strategically arranged and grown in the paddy fields.
As summer progresses and the plants shoot up, the detailed artwork begins to emerge.

A Sengoku warrior on horseback has been created from hundreds of thousands of rice plants.
The colours are created by using different varieties of rice plants, whose leaves grow in certain colours.
This photo was taken in Inakadate , Japan   .

Napoleon on horseback can be seen from the skies.
This was created by precision planting and months of planning by villagers and farmers located in Inkadate , Japan   .

Fictional warrior Naoe Kanetsugu and his wife, Osen,
whose lives are featured on the television series 'Tenchijin' & nbsp;appear in fields in the town of
Yonezawa in the Yamagata prefecture of Japan   .

This year, various artwork has popped up in other rice-farming   areas of Japan , including designs of deer dancers.
Smaller works of 'crop-art' can be seen in other rice-fa rming areas of Japan such as this image of Doraemon and deer dancers
The farmers create the murals by planting little purple and yellow-leafed Kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed Tsugaru, a Roman variety, to create the coloured patterns in the time between planting and harvesting in September.
The murals in Inakadate cover 15,000 square meters of paddy fields.

From ground level, the designs are invisible, and viewers have to climb the mock castle tower of the village office to get a glimpse of the work.

Closer to the image, the careful placement of the thousands of rice plants in the paddy fields can be seen.
Rice-paddy art was started there in 1993 as a local revitalization project, an idea that grew from meetings of the village committees.
The different varieties of rice plants grow alongside each other to create the masterpieces. In the first nine years, the village office workers and local farmers grew a simple design of Mount Iwaki every year. But their ideas grew more complicated and attracted more attention.
In 2005, agreements between landowners allowed the creation of enormous rice paddy art. A year later,
organizers used computers to precisely plot the planting of four differently colored rice varieties that bring the images to life!
TRULY A WORK OF ART!!

Unusual Designs

2012-01-06T07:53:00.001-08:00

Freuds The Interpretation of Dreams

2012-01-05T19:54:00.001-08:00

Why Dreams Are Forgotten After Waking

That a dream fades away in the morning is proverbial. It is, indeed, possible to recall it. For we know the dream, of course, only by recalling it after waking; but we very often believe that we remember it incompletely, that during the night there was more of it than we remember. We may observe how the memory of a dream which in the morning was still vivid fades in the course of the day, leaving only a few trifling remnants. We are often aware that we have been dreaming, but we do not know of what we have dreamed; and we are so well used to this fact- that the dream is liable to be forgotten- that we do not reject as absurd the possibility that we may have been dreaming even when, in the morning, we know nothing either of the content of the dream or of the fact that we have dreamed. On the other hand, it often happens that dreams manifest an extraordinary power of maintaining themselves in the memory. I have had occasion to analyse, with my patients, dreams which occurred to them twenty-five years or more previously, and I can remember a dream of my own which is divided from the present day by at least thirty-seven years, and yet has lost nothing of its freshness in my memory. All this is very remarkable, and for the present incomprehensible.

The forgetting of dreams is treated in the most detailed manner by Strumpell. This forgetting is evidently a complex phenomenon; for Strumpell attributes it not to a single cause, but to quite a number of causes.

In the first place, all those factors which induce forgetfulness in the waking state determine also the forgetting of dreams. In the waking state we commonly very soon forget a great many sensations and perceptions because they are too slight to remember, and because they are charged with only a slight amount of emotional feeling. This is true also of many dream-images; they are forgotten because they are too weak, while the stronger images in their neighbourhood are remembered. However, the factor of intensity is in itself not the only determinant of the preservation of dream-images; Strumpell, as well as other authors (Calkins), admits that dream-images are often rapidly forgotten although they are known to have been vivid, whereas, among those that are retained in the memory, there are many that are very shadowy and unmeaning. Besides, in the waking state one is wont to forget rather easily things that have happened only once, and to remember more readily things which occur repeatedly. But most dream-images are unique experiences, * and this peculiarity would contribute towards the forgetting of all dreams equally. Of much greater significance is a third cause of forgetting. In order that feelings, representations, ideas and the like should attain a certain degree of memorability, it is important that they should not remain isolated, but that they should enter into connections and associations of an appropriate nature. If the words of a verse of poetry are taken and mixed together, it will be very difficult to remember them. "Properly placed, in a significant sequence, one word helps another, and the whole, making sense, remains and is easily and lastingly fixed in the memory. Contradictions, as a rule, are retained with just as much difficulty and just as rarely as things that are confused and disorderly." Now dreams, in most cases, lack sense and order. Dream-compositions, by their very nature, are insusceptible of being remembered, and they are forgotten because as a rule they fall to pieces the very next moment. To be sure, these conclusions are not entirely consistent with Radestock's observation (p. 168), that we most readily retain just those dreams which are most peculiar.

* Periodically recurrent dreams have been observed repeatedly. Compare the collection made by Chabaneix.

According to Strumpell, other factors, deriving from the relation of the dream to the waking state, are even more effective in causing us to forget our dreams. The forgetfulness of dreams manifested by the waking consciousness is evidently merely the counterpart of the fact already mentioned, namely, that the dream hardly ever takes over an orderly series of memories from the waking state, but only certain details of these memories, which it removes from the habitual psychic connections in which they are remembered in the waking state. The dream-composition, therefore, has no place in the community of the psychic series which fill the mind. It lacks all mnemonic aids. "In this manner the dream-structure rises, as it were, from the soil of our psychic life, and floats in psychic space like a cloud in the sky, quickly dispelled by the first breath of reawakening life" (p. 87). This situation is accentuated by the fact that on waking the attention is immediately besieged by the inrushing world of sensation, so that very few dream-images are capable of withstanding its force. They fade away before the impressions of the new day like the stars before the light of the sun.

Finally, we should remember that the fact that most people take but little interest in their dreams is conducive to the forgetting of dreams. Anyone who for some time applies himself to the investigation of dreams, and takes a special interest in them, usually dreams more during that period than at any other; he remembers his dreams more easily and more frequently.

Two other reasons for the forgetting of dreams, which Bonatelli (cited by Benini) adds to those adduced by Strumpell, have already been included in those enumerated above; namely, (1) that the difference of the general sensation in the sleeping and the waking state is unfavourable to mutual reproduction, and (2) that the different arrangement of the material in the dream makes the dream untranslatable, so to speak, for the waking consciousness.

It is therefore all the more remarkable, as Strumpell himself observes, that, in spite of all these reasons for forgetting the dream, so many dreams are retained in the memory. The continual efforts of those who have written on the subject to formulate laws for the remembering of dreams amount to an admission that here, too, there is something puzzling and unexplained. Certain peculiarities relating to the remembering of dreams have attracted particular attention of late; for example, the fact that the dream which is believed to be forgotten in the morning may be recalled in the course of the day on the occasion of some perception which accidentally touches the forgotten content of the dream (Radestock, Tissie). But the whole recollection of dreams is open to an objection which is calculated greatly to depreciate its value in critical eyes. One may doubt whether our memory, which omits so much from the dream, does not falsify what it retains.

This doubt as to the exactness of the reproduction of dreams is expressed by Strumpell when he says: "It may therefore easily happen that the waking consciousness involuntarily interpolates a great many things in the recollection of the dream; one imagines that one has dreamt all sorts of things which the actual dream did not contain."

Jessen (p. 547) expresses himself in very decided terms:

"Moreover, we must not lose sight of the fact, hitherto little heeded, that in the investigation and interpretation of coherent and logical dreams we almost always take liberties with the truth when we recall a dream to memory. Unconsciously and unintentionally we fill up the gaps and supplement the dream-images. Rarely, and perhaps never, has a connected dream been as connected as it appears to us in memory. Even the most truth-loving person can hardly relate a dream without exaggerating and embellishing it in some degree. The human mind so greatly tends to perceive everything in a connected form that it intentionally supplies the missing links in any dream which is in some degree incoherent."

The observations of V. Eggers, though of course independently conceived, read almost like a translation of Jessen's words:

"...L'observation des reves a ses difficultes speciales et le seul moyen d'eviter toute erreur en pareille matiere est de confier au papier sans le moindre retard ce que l'on vient d'eprouver et de remarquer; sinon, l'oubli vient vite ou total ou partiel; l'oubli total est sans gravite; mais l'oubli partiel est perfide: car si l'on se met ensuite a raconter ce que l'on n'a pas oublie, on est expose a completer par imagination les fragments incoherents et disjoints fourni par la memoire... on devient artiste a son insu, et le recit, periodiquement repete s'impose a la creance de son auteur, qui, de bonne foi, le presente comme un fait authentique, dument etabli selon les bonnes methodes...." *

* ...The observation of dreams has its special difficulties, and the only way to avoid all error in such matter is to put on paper without the least delay what has just been experienced and noticed; otherwise, totally or partially the dream is quickly forgotten; total forgetting is without seriousness; but partial forgetting is treacherous: for, if one then starts to recount what has not been forgotten, one is likely to supplement from the imagination the incoherent and disjointed fragments provided by the memory.... unconsciously one becomes an artist, and the story, repeated from time to time, imposes itself on the belief of its author, who, in good faith, tells it as authentic fact, regularly established according to proper methods....

Similarly Spitta, who seems to think that it is only in the attempt to reproduce the dream that we bring order and arrangement into loosely associated dream-elements- "turning juxtaposition into concatenation; that is, adding the process of logical connection which is absent in the dream."

Since we can test the reliability of our memory only by objective means, and since such a test is impossible in the case of dreams, which are our own personal experience, and for which we know no other source than our memory, what value do our recollections of our dreams possess?

Recycled Art

2012-01-03T07:59:00.000-08:00

Recycle Bin Is the Begining

2012-01-03T05:29:00.000-08:00

Incredibly Creative Things (2)

2012-01-02T22:36:00.001-08:00

Incredibly Creative Things (1)

2011-12-30T23:04:00.004-08:00

Creative Kids Bedroom Designs

2011-12-30T23:04:00.003-08:00

Golden Dream Nokia Phone

2011-12-30T23:04:00.002-08:00

Pumpkin Turned Into a PC

2011-12-30T23:04:00.001-08:00

Girls Who Draw Crowds to Fairs 1

2011-12-30T23:04:00.000-08:00

God Forgives. I Don’t!

2011-12-17T18:30:00.000-08:00

Now that winter has arrived in Tokyo (though the trees are still full of fall colors), it’s getting dark quite early. Even though Harajuku is not a night town (most shops close by 9pm), a lot of shopping and other “street life” activities happen after dark during the winter months. To give you a little peak at Harajuku after dark, we’ve recently started shooting more night street snaps to compliment our usual daytime snaps.

We spotted these three friends walking together in between Harajuku Station and LaForet Harajuku. Two of them are wearing cute hats, and the third a cute hair bow. The girl on the right is also wearing several buttons, including a large one that says “God Forgives. I don’t!” Too cute.

Click on any of the street snaps to enlarge them.

Girls’ Casual Style

2011-12-05T18:58:00.000-08:00

Here are two cute girls with casual style that we met in Harajuku. On the right is Manami, a 22 year old who works in the apparel industry. She’s wearing a denim vest from Kawi Jamele with Topshop pleather leggings and a black chunky knit sweater. Her stylish studded leather shoes are from Shagadelic and her fringed purse is from Moussy. She’s also carrying a reptile-print shoulder bag.

Manami’s accessories from Kitson and Justin Davis include a two-finger Peace ring, a signet ring, a coin necklace, two bracelets with religious icons and an oversized Tendence watch. She’s also wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses and Chanel logo earrings. A scarf in her hair and a longer knit scarf around her neck complete her look.

The girl on the left with auburn hair is 21-year-old Yurika. Her outfit includes a white graphic t-shirt, a khaki coat with zipper from Naichichi, animal print leggings and short boots from Jeffrey Campbell. Her blue purse is from Balenciaga.

We asked the girls about some of their preferences. Manami said she likes to shop at Sly and Topshop and that her favorite type of music is R&B. Yurika also said that she likes Topshop.