Blog Marco

What does "frugal" mean? It means being economical and avoiding waste. "Practicing or marked by economy, as in the expenditure of money or the use of material resources; or "economical in the use of money or resources; thrifty". Frugality and the art of frugal living is the:

1. acquiring goods and services in a restrained manner, and
2. resourcefully using already owned economic goods and services, to
3. achieve a longer term goal.

As Wikipedia puts it: "Common strategies of frugality include the reduction of waste, curbing costly habits, suppressing instant gratification by means of fiscal self-restraint, seeking efficiency, avoiding traps, defying expensive social norms, embracing free (as in gratis) options, using barter, and staying well-informed about local circumstances and both market and product/service realities."

Personally, frugal living means being smarter with money management (budgeting in advance how mu

I was reading a few forums about learning about "money making" schemes and gurus and one forum member advised to take their advice "with a pinch of salt." To take (advice) with a pinch of salt means: to listen to a story or an explanation with considerable doubt or to take a story and not completely believing in it and refusing to believe it is completely true. Where does this idiom come from? In Pliny’s Naturalis Historia, 77 A.D. he writes:

After the defeat of that mighty monarch, Mithridates, Gnaeus Pompeius found in his private cabinet a recipe for an antidote in his own handwriting; it was to the following effect: Take two dried walnuts, two figs, and twenty leaves of rue; pound them all together, with the addition of a grain of salt; if a person takes this mixture fasting, he will be proof against all poisons for that day.

More recently, John Trapp wrote in "Commentary on the Old and New Testaments", 1647:

"This is to be taken with a grain of salt."

I've always been a fan of martial arts... there was an interesting series on TV called Fight School (But I can't find any downloadable episodes of that series) and check out some Tae Kwon Do One Step Sparring. Watch these two brutal Chinese movie fight scenes:

Donnie Yen vs Collin Chou Flash Point End Fight Flash Point (2007)aka City Without Mercy, The Signal, end fight!

There are plenty of spoof motivational posters out there, some websites even claim to have 53,000 of them! But a "good" one is a rarity, most are unfunny, crude, rude and tacky. This motivational poster makes you look twice. (!) Is it a Sexy Butt or are they a pair of sexy heels?

Natalie Portman or in Hebrew: נטלי פורטמן‎ was born as Natalie Hershlag in Jerusalem on June 9, 1981 and is an Israeli American actress. I remember seeing her for the first time on Léon (aka the Professional) starring alongside Jean Reno when she was only 13 years old. She is more widely known for the role as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. She was also quoted as saying that she would "...rather be smart than be a movie star," completed a bachelor's degree in psychology at Harvard College while she was working on the Star Wars films. Portman has been a vegetarian since childhood and is an advocate for animal rights. She does not eat animal products or wear fur, feathers, or leather. "All of my shoes are from Target and Stella McCartney," she says. On the concept of the afterlife, she comments: "I don't believe in that. I believe this is it, and I believe it's the best way to live." Enjoy the high resolution photos or Miss Portman below!

Unwired is association with selected cafes, pubs, bars, hotels and libraries (Burwood, Ryde and Sydney City Council Libraries) are offering free internet wifi hotspots around Sydney and Australia. You can view the interactive map of wifi hotspots here.

Besides the unwired uConnect hotspot network there are plenty of other free WiFi around Sydney; McDonald's also offers free internet at selected locations.

Thankfully I've recovered quite quickly from my flu (even more thankful that it wasn't of the swine variety). What is phlegm? Thick, sticky, stringy mucus secreted by the mucous membrane of the respiratory tract, as during a cold or other respiratory infection. What does clear phlegm mean? What does cloudy white phlegm mean? What does yellow phlegm mean? What does green phlegm mean?

Phlegm Colour

Here are the meanings to certain phlegm colours:

• Clear or White Phlegm = healthy; inital stage of common flu has clear phlegm and can be most infectious
• Yellow Phlegm = A sign that your immune system is responding to the attack. It may be a sign of a bacterial infection - hence doctors may prescribe an antibiotic.
• Greenish Phlegm is a sign of infection. Rusty spots may indicate pnuemonia or internal bleedings.
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Submitted by Marco on Thu, 21/05/2009 - 11:05am.

Blasphemy - "A ticket to Hell Has Never been funnier" - YMCA

On the set of some random Victoria's Secret photoshoot sexy Adriana Lima grabs a man's crotch. I don't know the context of this occurrence or when it happend but I love the expression on the guy!. Adriana Lima has also been seen on the sitcom How I Met Your Mother in November 2007 and the American television series Ugly Betty. And I'm sorry guys but she's off the market: In 2009 Adriana married Serbian basketball player Marko Jarić; they wed in a private civil ceremony in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on Valentines Day. Jarić and Lima originally planned on an extravagant wedding in Salvador in June 2009, but the couple decided to opt for two weddings in each of their hometowns, both are scheduled to take place at the end of 2009.

You have got to check out new search engine WolframAlpha. What is this new search engine do? How is WolframAlpha different to Google? Wolfram Alpha offers an exact answer, instead of showing up the links to pages that may (or may not) contain the answer, like Google and other search engines. You type a question and instantly get an answer. "Wolfram Alpha is like plugging into a vast electronic brain. It provides extremely impressive and thorough answers to a wide range of questions asked in many different ways, and it computes answers, it doesn't merely look them up in a big database. … In this respect it is vastly smarter than (and different from) Google. Google simply retrieves documents based on keyword searches. Google doesn't understand the question or the answer, and doesn't compute answers based on models of various fields of human knowledge." Do we even need to think anymore?!

Wolfram Alpha For Easter Eggs and Novelty Search Ideas

I remember the frustration and the tears (!) associated with not being able to solve a problem or to find out some fact or method for maths (mathematics) problems, chemistry or physics. The Internet makes it so easy now. I was reading the New York Times article about these websites out there which help you out in "unravelling the mysteries of complex math and science problems.". You've got so many tools. Being stuck on a problem and the frustration of having to wait the next day to learn from your teacher the method is now a thing of the past. If you need homework help you just need a little initiative to go visit one of these websites and ask them on how to solve your particular problem.

Homework help. Bah! First start off with Google. If its a science related problem - like maths or physics give the newly launched Wolfram Alpha a try. And if you are an Engineering student, or if you love Mathematica - you'll love Wolfram Alpha!. Now, getting more to the point, you've got a popular site called Cramster which is an "Online Study Community". Other homework help websites are: Koofers which provides (shares) lecture notes, Spark Notes (owned by Barnes and Noble) and Course Hero. Good Luck with your maths problems!

More American Workers Outsourcing Own Jobs Overseas

As I succumb to and try to recover from another bout of the influenza virus (no not the swine type - I hope) I wonder: why does the flu tend to come in winter season?

People used to think that catching the flu had something to do with our chill-compromised immune systems. Or the extra germs circulating from so many people being indoors together. But this influenza myth is not true. Flu tends to come in the winter season because the cold and dry conditions help the virus to be stable and stay in the air longer - the droplet particles which contain the virus take longer to evaporate and remain airborne for more extended periods in winter. NPR has an interesting sound bite about where the flu comes from.

I don't usually repost jokes but here's a goodie about what a widowed wife did with her husbands money.

There was a man who worked all of his life and saved all of his money. He was a real miser when it came to his money. He loved money more than just about anything, and just before he died, he said to his wife, "Now listen, when I die, I want you to take all my money and place it in the casket with me. I wanna take my money to the afterlife."

So he got his wife to promise him with all her heart that when he died, she would put all the money in the casket with him.

Well, one day he died. He was stretched out in the casket, the wife was sitting there in black next to her closest friend. When they finished the ceremony, just before the undertakers got ready to close the casket, the wife said "Wait just a minute!"

She had a shoe box with her, she came over with the box and placed it in the casket. Then the undertakers locked the casket down and rolled it away. Her friend said, "I hope you weren't crazy enough to put all that money in the casket."

Random Stuff | add new comment | read more »

Submitted by Marco on Thu, 14/05/2009 - 8:41am.

Yesterday I posted up a revisit of the popular Sexy music videos series. You'll find that most of the sexy videos on file are mostly dance music. Probably they need to show some skin to sell their songs. Ironically, the genre with the most raunchy music - R&B and rap tend not to have sexy videos (They usually have gangstas and hunnyz and have a low level of "sexiness" compared to the dance songs I've reviewed - and to what's been suggested by my readers). This time I assure you some more nudity in these uncensored music videos. They are Not Safe For Work (NSFW). Enjoy downloading and watching these uncensored music videos with dancing naked women. How fun. Oh and another note - they are not available on YouTube or streaming feed. You'll need to download them before viewing. (I think they are in high quality avi DiVX format and all are hosted on Rapidshare.com not Megaupload)

Download Uncensored Music Videos - Now With Naked People!

Enjoy watching these cheesy uncensored music videos with plenty of nudity. Dont forget to visit: the sexiest music videos of all time and also part 2, part 3 and Softcore porn music videos as well as controversial music videos.

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  Music (and other Lyrical Media) | add new comment | read more »
  Submitted by Marco on Thu, 14/05/2009 - 8:24am.