Global On Magazine: November 2010

Day 11 - 30 Day Blog Challenge

Day 10 - The 30 Day Blog Challenge

Year End Function

Day 9 - The 30 Day Blog Challenge

Day 8 - The 30 Day Blog Challenge

Day 7 - The 30 Day Blog Challenge

Day 6 - The 30 Day Blog Challenge

Day 5 - The 30 Day Blog Challenge & HNT

Day 4 - The 30 Day Blog Challenge

Day 3 - The 30 Day Blog Challenge

Day 2 - The 30 Day Blog Challenge

A Day in My Life - Day 1 of The 30 Day Blog Challenge

t T

Topic : My Typical Weekday6am : I'm usually woken up by my 4 year old girl-child by her yelling "Wakin' up time, Mum!" about 2 inches from my face. She climbs in the bed and we cuddle and chat. 6:10 Get up and go to the kitchen to make school lunches and breakfast for the girls. General tidying up and dishes from the night before.6:30 Megan normally shuffles through to the lounge to watch cartoons through one eye and drag her school uniform on painfully slowly. Meg is NOT a morning person and hates to be rushed first thing in the morning. She is ultra grumpy and I just leave her until she's been awake for at least half an hour before even thinking of talk to her.6:40 I switch on my laptop, moderate comments on my blog and published the scheduled post for the day and if I have time do a wee bit of reading.6:50 I get dressed, brush my hair, teeth, paint my face in amongst nagging the girls to brush their hair, brush their teeth, get their school bags ready, stop fighting, stop terrorising the cat, stop jumping on the bed, stop screaming, etc. etc.. 7:20 I yell at top volume: "Is everyone ready to go? I'm leaving with or without you". I usually get a YES! but sometimes its just another final reminder of what I've asked them to do before we hop in the car.7:30 We load all our junk in the car, it always looks like we're departing on a fucking long weekend with all the baggage we have. School bags, sports bags, lap top bag, handbag, lunch boxes, lunch bags, toys...7:40 Drop Meg at primary school and drive to Kaylin's school, all the while being told which songs to play on the DVD player by KK. We like our driving music loud, okay? Usually rock music to bang our heads to.8:00 Drop Kaylin at nursery school and either kiss her goodbye calmly and blow kisses or have to deal with crying, sobbing, screaming and the teacher prying her out of my arms. KK screaching "Don't Go, Mummy!" at the top of her lungs, with dramatic arms outstretched...8:10 Get to work, half dead and have a morning smoke to inhale the quietness and prepare myself for yet another busy day. My work is very stressful and deadline driven. I'm in the media industry and work for a publication so everything is urgent and every day is a crisis. But I love it.WORK WORK WORK WORK MORE WORKuntil 4pm. I then switch off my computer and head to Kaylin's school to fetch her.4:30 Get to Meg's after care and collect her.4:40 On the way home in the car we chat about our day and share stories about what happened. When we get home, I check if Megan did all her homework at after care and do some reading and spelling with her.4:50 Go outside on the patio for a smoke.5:05 My Boerewors gets home and i'm usually starting supper or have at least taken something out of the freezer to prepare. 5:15 I usually switch my laptop on again to moderate the blogs day's comments and do a little blog reading while the supper is bubbling away...I spend time with the girls either chatting about their day or playing in the garden.We usually eat supper together at about 6:30pm and watch a little telly afterwards.7pm is bath time for the girls and by 7:30pm they are in their pj's and ready for bed.8pm and Kaylin is usually sleeping and we watch more telly.8:30pm Meg is usually sleeping and My Boerewors and I go out on to the porch and have another fag and a chat. We're early to bed people and usually in bed by 9pm or 9:30pmFucking boring, I know but thats a general week day.Okay here's my first video I done - EVA!! Don't laugh okay I'm just getting started and it took me a few times to get this right and be happy with the ums and ahs and ers. At the end I thought, och Fuck it - Take it or leave it...

30 Day Blog Challenge

Best Hoaxes Eva!

The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest

1957: The respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees.

Huge numbers of viewers were taken in. Many called the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC diplomatically replied, "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."

I guess they're still waiting for their spaghetti trees to grow, dooshbags.

Sidd Finch

1985: Sports Illustrated published a story about a new rookie pitcher who planned to play for the Mets. His name was Sidd Finch, and he could reportedly throw a baseball at 168 mph with pinpoint accuracy.

This was 65 mph faster than the previous record. Surprisingly, Sidd Finch had never even played the game before. Instead, he had mastered the "art of the pitch" in a Tibetan monastery under the guidance of the "great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa."

Mets fans celebrated their teams' amazing luck at having found such a gifted player, and Sports Illustrated was flooded with requests for more information. In reality this legendary player only existed in the imagination of the author of the article, George Plimpton.

Just as well...his over-sized sasquatch feet are kind of fucking Freaky!

Instant Color Telly

1962: In 1962 there was only one TV channel in Sweden, and it broadcast in black and white. The station's technical expert, Kjell Stensson, appeared on the news to announce that, thanks to a new technology, viewers could convert their existing sets to display color reception.

All they had to do was pull a nylon stocking over their tv screen. Stensson proceeded to demonstrate the process. Thousands of people were taken in. Regular color broadcasts only commenced in Sweden on April 1, 1970.

I always wondered why my dad stretched my mum's old tights over the telly on a weekly basis. I suppose he didn't get the memo that it was all a joke.

The Taco Liberty Bell

1996: The Taco Bell Corporation announced it had bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell.

Hundreds of outraged citizens called the National Historic Park in Philadelphia where the bell was housed to express their anger. Their nerves were only calmed when Taco Bell revealed, a few hours later, that it was all a practical joke.

The best line of the day came when White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale.

Thinking on his feet, he responded that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold. It would now be known, he said, as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.

Ding. Dong...

San Serriffe

1977: The British newspaper The Guardian published a special seven-page supplement devoted to San Serriffe, a small republic said to consist of several semi-colon-shaped islands located in the Indian Ocean.

A series of articles affectionately described the geography and culture of this obscure nation. Its two main islands were named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. Its capital was Bodoni, and its leader was General Pica.

The Guardian's phones rang all day as readers sought more information about the idyllic holiday spot. Only a few noticed that everything about the island was named after printer's terminology.

The success of this hoax is widely credited with launching the enthusiasm for April Foolery that gripped the British tabloids in subsequent decades.

I wonder if the mock-up maps were printed in HD dpi on caliper, gosh thats enough to make anyone bleed.

Nixon for President

1992: National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation program announced that Richard Nixon, in a surprise move, was running for President again. His new campaign slogan was, "I didn't do anything wrong, and I won't do it again." Accompanying this announcement were audio clips of Nixon delivering his candidacy speech.

Listeners responded viscerally to the announcement, flooding the show with calls expressing shock and outrage. Only during the second half of the show did the host John Hockenberry reveal that the announcement was a practical joke.

Nixon's voice was impersonated by comedian Rich Little

Have you ever played any hoaxes and got a good response?

"I played by the rules of politics as I found them." - Richard M. Nixon

Alabama Changes the Value of Pi

The April 1998 issue of the New Mexicans for Science and Reason newsletter contained an article claiming that the Alabama state legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi from 3.14159 to the 'Biblical value' of 3.0.

Soon the article made its way onto the internet, and then it rapidly spread around the world, forwarded by email. It only became apparent how far the article had spread when the Alabama legislature began receiving hundreds of calls from people protesting the legislation.

The original article, which was intended as a parody of legislative attempts to circumscribe the teaching of evolution, was written by physicist Mark Boslough.

Mark had his pi and ate it that day.

The Left-Handed Whopper

1998: Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu: a "Left-Handed Whopper" specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans.

According to the advertisement, the new whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger patty, etc.), but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for the benefit of their left-handed customers.

The following day Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing that although the Left-Handed Whopper was a hoax, thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to request the new sandwich. Simultaneously, according to the press release, "many others requested their own 'right handed' version."

Some say the left handed version had 150 calories less. Call it "Whopper Lite".

Hotheaded Naked Ice Borers

1995: Discover Magazine reported that the highly respected wildlife biologist Dr. Aprile Pazzo had found a new species in Antarctica: the hotheaded naked ice borer.

These fascinating creatures had bony plates on their heads that, fed by numerous blood vessels, could become burning hot, allowing the animals to bore through ice at high speeds. They used this ability to hunt penguins, melting the ice beneath the penguins and causing them to sink downwards into the resulting slush where the hotheads consumed them. After much research, Dr. Pazzo theorized that the hotheads might have been responsible for the mysterious disappearance of noted Antarctic explorer Philippe Poisson in 1837.

"To the ice borers, he would have looked like a penguin," the article quoted her as saying. Discover received more mail in response to this article than they had received for any other article in their history.

Just as well those ugly fuckers were fake.

Planetary Alignment Decreases Gravity

1976: The British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at 9:47 AM a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to occur that listeners could experience in their very own homes.

The planet Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth's own gravity.

Moore told his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment that this planetary alignment occurred, they would experience a strange floating sensation.

When 9:47 AM arrived, BBC2 began to receive hundreds of phone calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation. One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room.

Must've been all the fucking Jameson they sucked down awaiting the count-down on telly. Hop to it!

55 Freaky Friday Shizzle - Office Christmas Parties

What's that Smell? Oh yeah, its the Stench of Tyranny

Kulula.com

Its Not Measles!

Suspected Measles at Home

Tampons vs pads....no, MOONCUP!

The battle of pads versus tampons is an age-old one but there is evidence that pads are better - especially while sleeping but there is another option that is THE BESTThe common denominator that plays a role is choice.

The choice to move from pads to tampons is personal to most adult women and Nampak Lifestyle research studies show that this choice is often influenced by friends at school and siblings, rather than the way sanitary towels are introduced into a woman’s life, which is mostly influenced by mothers and grandmothers. This influencing factor also has an impact on sanitary towel brand choice.

Using tampons: pros and cons

The tampon alternative does have its advantages, especially on those summer days when swimming and sports comes into play. However, these advantages have to be exercised with responsibility.

All tampons have instructions as to the frequency to which they have to be changed as there are severe adverse effects for not following the instructions to the letter.

Tampon use has the potential to change vaginal microflora

If abnormal bacteria are harboured in the vagina, menstrual blood which is accumulated inside the vagina above and within a tampon can act as a culture medium allowing micro-organisms to multiply, thereby promoting infection.

Another common concern is Toxic Shock Syndrome

Toxic shock syndrome (TSS) is a rare and potentially life-threatening illness, believed to be caused by infection with particular bacteria including Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pyogenes. Menstruating women are most susceptible and it is thought that the infection is associated with tampon use.

The underlying mechanisms aren’t fully understood, but one theory is that the bacteria naturally present in the vagina can overpopulate in the presence of a blood-soaked tampon. However, one-third of menstruating women who develop toxic shock syndrome are found to have Staphylococcal bacteria already present in their vaginas.

The toxin produced by the bacteria that causes toxic shock syndrome, rather than the presence of the bacteria themselves. Staphylococcus aureus is a common type of bacterium that lives on the skin and inside the nose.

In most cases, it is harmless. However, it can cause a wide range of infections if it gains access to deeper tissue and the blood stream. For toxic shock syndrome to occur, particular strains of the bacteria must first overpopulate and produce large amounts of the toxic shock syndrome toxin as a by-product. Then, the toxin has to enter the bloodstream.

It is therefore important for woman to sleep with pads at night

Most women have at least six hours of sleep per day and those hours that you sleep with a tampon inside your body places your body in a very compromising state.

The Best Option - Mooncup With the Mooncup Menstrual Cup, you do not have to worry about Toxic Shock Syndrome and you will not have the feeling that you're walking around with a surf board between your legs.Mooncup is safer and its cheaper and its environmentally friendly! With everyone going "green" its the way to go.Made from medical grade silicone, the Mooncup is latex-free and contains no dyes, toxins or bleaches. It’s also great for women with sensitive skin and who are prone to getting regular infections.On average, one woman will use over 11,000 tampons or pads in their lifetime, which will ultimately end up in landfill or in the sea.

One woman uses up to 22 items of sanitary protection every period. Regardless of your flow, you only need one Mooncup, and it lasts for years and years, making it the most economical sanitary product you can buy.

Unlike pads or tampons, because the Mooncup menstrual cup is reusable you eliminate the need to carry bulky spares. With proper care your Mooncup will last for several years. I've had mine for over 7 years now and its still perfect.

Go check out The Mooncup and make the change today.

Global On Magazine