VampireS SUMO

Immortality is so much better when you can stay around long enough to realize it …

In that respect, the Ramones endured to at least have a hint it was being bestowed upon them.

Once again, you′ve got a chance to see why. If you were among the many who missed them in their heyday, you can now relish their legend — in sound and sight — with a cleverly-packaged collection entitled ‘Weird Tales of the Ramones.’ If you have any favorable inclinations toward rock music or pop culture, this is an essential item for your edification and enjoyment. Not only does the set contain 85 Ramones songs and 18 videos, it features an impressive array of works from top pop comic artists, such as ‘Simpsons’ creator Matt Groening and ‘Mad′ magazine’s Sergio Aragones (there’s even a 3D comic, glasses included).

The band probably had an inkling of their icon status in the late 1970s when Rolling Stone magazine named them as one of the seven most important groups in Rock-&-Roll history. However, even then, the relative squalor of their daily existence was threatening to put them in the ironic company of Mozart and van Gogh, two titans of their art whose earthly rewards fell far short of their legacies.

Actually, all the Ramones ever wanted was a hit. They were New York misfits who grew up humming to the Top-40 charts, so perhaps that yearning was understandable. It was yet another irony of their careers, as their ultimate impact on rock music was that of being iconoclasts. They ultimately didn’t need the Top-40 to make their presence felt.

A recent movie scene hit this nail right on the head. When Jack Black’s faux-teacher character in the wonderful ‘School of Rock’ diagrammed the influences of virtually every esteemed band of this era on a blackboard for his elementary-school students, the name at the center of that chalked universe was, rightfully, etched in all capital letters: RAMONES. Another indicator of their impact is the lineup of artists who covered their tunes on a ‘tribute’ album compiled by the late Johnny Ramone and Rob Zombie (if your musical tastes are merely mainstream, he contributed ‘Dragula′ to the ‘Matrix’ soundtrack). The album was produced to generate proceeds for lymphoma research, which claimed the life of Joey Ramone. Those who paid homage with their performances were a veritable Who’s Who of today’s rock industry:

- Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder (who was a close friend of Johnny Ramone),

- U2

- Metallica

- Marilyn Manson

- Tom Waits

- The Pretenders

- Red Hot Chili Peppers

- Offspring

- Garbage

Even glam-rockers Kiss made an appearance, perhaps as a subtle acknowledgement that their own style-over-substance circus act has been well and truly outlasted by the stripped-down sound of the Ramones. Kiss’ contribution to the cause, though, may have been to first establish that a group didn’t really need a Top-40 hit — their only noodling of note that made the hit list was a ballad, ‘Beth’ — to become financially independent. Merchandising was their meal ticket and years later, that was the route that finally served the Ramones so well. Their first roadie, Arturo Veja, designed a distinct logo and hawked it is fashioned along the lines of ton clothing and posters at their concerts. The logo imitates seal of the USA’s Defense Department, which in a sense, embodied the essence of the group:

- They were proudly American,

- Their sound was aggressive, and

- Their compact compositions seemed to defend the roots of Rock-&amp-Roll.

To this day, items adorned with the Ramones logo can be found everywhere in the world. A further show of the band’s ever-growing effect on current consciousness is seen in sports, as hockey arenas all over North America have turned the seminal ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ (’Hey, ho, let’s go!’) into an anthem that raised the song’s mainsteam familiarity to such an extent that it now provides the ‘zeitgeist’ attitude portrayed in Pepsi-Cola commercials and elsewhere.

In a way, the Ramones finally have their hit. With the third passing of the original four band members — bassist DeeDee Ramone — only drummer-cum-producer Tommy Ramone has survived to completely bask in the belated glory.

Besides the release of the boxed anthology, the other reason to wax poetic about the Ramones right now is the announcement that the Sex Pistols have finally been accepted into the Rock-&amp-Roll Hall of Fame. To many, they were the clarions of punk rock, but both the Pistols and The Clash owe their origins to the Ramones, who were inducted in 2002, when all but lead-singer Joey were still alive.

The Pistols and Clash were in attendance for the first Ramones concert to rock the UK. Both met the group, who encouraged them to forsake perfection and embrace energy and get their sounds recorded as they were. Even the term ‘punk rock’ was created in New York by underground diarist Legs McNeil to describe the Ramones (and Iggy Pop’s Stooges) as well as the genre that was emerging from the dark shadows of disco, appealing to the disaffected and disenchanted who clung to the late-60s ideal that music still mattered.

One pleasant surprise on the boxed set is the inclusion of a song the Ramones only released in the UK, ‘I Don’t Want to Live This Life Anymore.’ It’s DeeDee’s melodic projection of the last moments in the drug-engulfed murder-suicide of Sex Pistol bassist Sid Vicious and girlfriend Nancy Spungen. This concise, haunting opus, composed late in the group’s career, served to further illuminate the torch being passed, from the influence the Beatles′ early songs had on the Ramones — the band took their name from an alias Paul McCartney commonly used when registering at hotels — to their own influence on the British scene that grew from their presence.

The Pistols substituted anger for the Ramones’ wit, but they still had the artistic ‘edge′ that all great rock acts possess. They, and so many groups after them — including Nirvana and Green Day — took their cue from the Ramones that the music was more than just a catchy tune. Much more. The Ramones returned the music to its adulators by making it accessible again. They hit the raw sensations that powered Rock-&-Roll in the first place.

And that may have been the Ramones’ greatest ‘hit’ of all.

J Square Humboldt is the featured columnist at the Longer Life website, which is dedicated to providing information, strategies, analysis and commentary designed to improve the quality of living. His page can be found at longerlifegroup.com/cyberiter.html longerlifegroup.com/cyberiter.html and his observations are published three times per week.

Astrological compatibility charts are designed to compare birth signs for compatibility in the areas of romance, career, and all sorts of other things. It can neither be proved that it truly works nor disproved that it is just myth, but there are some people who swear by these charts and will never make a crucial decision in their life without first consulting their horoscope, so it is basically up to you to either believe in them or not. One thing for sure is that the many people who are responsible for creating these charts have become quite wealthy, so something must be working for them.

As for romance, maybe some people believe that they can choose their soul mate by using these charts and comparing birth dates and also the time of birth. For instance whether it was in the morning, or midnight, or afternoon, because all these make a difference in deciding how you choose the right person who is most compatible to you as these are all factors in making you who you are according to astrology. Others use these charts to make decisions such as is the time right for them to change their jobs or go on that job interview and things like that. Basically it is really up to the individual and his or her beliefs that probably play an important part as to whether these charts actually work.

Women tend to be more prone to using these charts than men, because they are more inclined to look towards the spiritual world and are the ones who would quickly believe in their astrology to help them make the right choice when it comes to romance. To these women choosing a partner using these charts would mean that they absolutely cannot go wrong, because they actually believe that they are going to select their perfect soul mate, the one person that they are supposed to be with for the rest of their lives. Most men on the other hand even if they did believe in this sort of stuff would much prefer to go out and have a chance encounter with someone who may well turn out to be their perfect soul mate.

So as to whether astrological compatibility really works, it is left to you the individual to decide because it is really nothing more than what one believes in. So if you are not one to check your horoscope in the newspapers on a daily basis before you even make a decision, then this will definitely not be your first choice on how to choose that perfect someone. On the other hand if you are the type of person who just cannot make a decision without consulting your horoscope first, then using this method will probably give you the best choice of deciding who your perfect mate should be.

For more great tips on dating visit

Why Super-Star Hülya Avsar has (skinny) dipped in the Turkish popularity polls lately…

Our mama always told us that ‘familiarity breeds contempt’… And it’s exactly that truism that has drawn Hülya Avsar, over the past several months, into a blossoming controversy — for which she is largely to blame.

It actually started understandably enough… when Hülya was recovering from unhappiness… around the time she finally got the courage to divorce her philandering high-society-bum-of-a-husband, Kaya Çilingiroglu, late last year — after Kaya admitted to national news services that he’d impregnated previously little-known socialite Feraye Tanyolaç, his latest mistress…

But having done one good thing, Hülya thought it gave her special license — and she began to speak out on too many unrelated subjects, as if she had the answers to life’s hard questions… as if everyone was interested in what she had to say.

And in the process, she exposed media watchers to much more than they ever needed to know — including the sordid details of past love affairs (e.g. rehashed stories about the steamy affair she had as a budding starlet with notorious womanizer, [singer/actor] Ibo Tatlises, made headlines for weeks)…Then, she really turned heads as she began to spout off about weighty political issues (e.g. The ‘Kurdish Question’) — causing consternation among peers, regular citizens, the media, and political leaders alike. But she just blustered on, confident in her righteousness.

The controversy picked up speed recently when she got publicly entangled in an embarrassing relationship with a wealthy Turkish-Italian businessman who exchanged headline insults with Ibo Tatlıses (as Hülya watched on — half in exasperation, half in shame). Shortly thereafter she made more headlines when the paparazzi caught her skinny dipping in her summer-house swimming-pool (see newsphoto at our website link below). And then yesterday, for some unknown reason, she decided to publicly revisit the details of a 20-year-old affair she had with ex-footballer Tanju Çolak, a married man with young children at the time. Here’s the quote she gave to Hürriyet Gazetesi.

‘My love for Tanju Çolak was a mistake of youth. We had an affair 20 years ago — and I’ve always felt regret about it. After the affair was over, I sought out Aysu Hanim (Tanju Bey’s wife) and said, “I acted like an animal, and I’m filled with regret. I made a mistake, I fell in love. I’m sorry.” Aysu Hanim accepted my apology and their marriage has survived. They have two grown children now, but the family still feels discomfort from hearing this kind of news.’
Ed. Well, duh Hülya…So why reopen the wound now?

This unraveling of the once unassailable ‘Avsar Girl’ (as she’s known to her fans) has been closely watched by peers and certain influential news columnists — and many of them (who have seen and heard enough) are coming out of the woodwork, guns a′blazing — criticizing Hülya contemptuously in ways we never dreamed we’d hear…

Part 2 — Girl Fıght! Turkish Newspaper Columnist Ayse Arman ‘takes the gloves off’ against
Beauty and Entertainment Queen Hülya Avsar

[Click following for a fully illustrated HTML version of

I’m sure you′ve read tons of articles before, on “reasons″ to learn German. While they may be true if you′re looking to expand your business into Germany, how many people are doing that? So I’ve decided to give you 5 of my own reasons. These are things I realised after coming back from Germany and things that wouldn’t have happened without my knowledge of the German language.

1. Barmen will love you and Barman Love = Free drinks. Thats right, if you can dazzle German barmen with your witty German, you are guaranteed a few free shots or a couple of beers. You only need a few handy phrases to be able to do this. A couple of my favorites include “one is none”, “Germans can’t drink″ and good old “Skol or you’re Dutch”. If you can pull one or more of these off, you can bet than barman love is coming your way.

2. You will be able to get directions home when you’re drunk and you’ve forgotten how to get home. Imagine this, you’ve had a long day at the Oktoberfest, when you get asked to leave the beer tents and then realise you have to go home to sleep. It’s ok until you realise that you can’t remember how to get back to your hotel. You try and ask some random Germans, but not too many of them are in the mood to help a drunk guy speaking English. So you turn on the German and suddenly your guardian angel appears. He takes you by the hand and points you in the direction you need to go, even putting you on the correct train. All those hours studying online just paid for themselves didn’t they?

3. You can actually sing along with songs at the Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest just isn′t Oktoberfest without plenty of drunk singing. Normally you get kicked out of the pub for standing on the chairs and belting out “hey baby”, but in Germany, it’s a national pasttime. However, they also love songs in their own language. Now, theres nothing wrong with waving your stein around singing lyrics like “daa daa daa laa laa”, but if you really want to get into the spirit of things, it helps if you understand the words. And, of course, this can only happen if you put in the effort to learn German before you go.

4. When a train takes a different route to normal, you will know. Normally in Germany, important messages are sent over in English as well. However, sometimes they don’t and that can leave you in a bit of a pickle. Imagine heading into the centre of Berlin, like you have for the past few days, but instead of stopping in the heart of Berlin, the train decides to take a different route. So instead of walking around trendy Potzdamer Platz, you end up in the lovely city of Hamburg. Not quite what you had planned for the day, was it? Well, if you could speak German, then you wouldn’t have to worry about it, would you?

5. To have the ability to understand obscure pub games. It’s not everyday you walk into a pub and are handed a hammer and a few nails. At first I thought I had been mistaken for the local carpenter, but after listening to instructions from a lovely Austrian girl, I realised that the game involved hitting nails into a chunk of wood, using only the reverse side of the hammer. How stupid I would’ve looked, hitting a nail into some wood using the proper side of the hammer. Thank you German language!

So if you have read through those reasons and still can’t see any good reason to learn German, I think you need your head checked.

Anthony Dwyer has a passion for the German language and conducts free lessons online. To find out more about these free lessons jiffygerman.com Click Here to Learn German

Michael loved taking pictures with the camera. This person started out using the 35mm. Model first that didn’t have any accessories such as the zoom lens.

It was only after saving up enough money working at the local bar that this individual can afford to buy a camera just as good like those used by the professionals. There were not that many models anymore where the user has to reload the roll of film.

The old ways have been replaced with digital cameras where the images are saved into the memory card that can be uploaded into the computer.

Michael thought that this is great since there won’t be additional costs anymore in having film developed. Since there was a computer at home, the digital camera can be hooked up and burned to a CD or developed using the printer.

After looking around, this person decided to get the Sony digital camera. This had 8.1 pixel graphics and was friendly. Each unit came with a manual, CD and charger.

Each time a customer makes a purchase, a short tutorial is given so the person will have an idea how to use it before leaving the shop.

It was hard to remember everything the clerk said at the store. When Michael got home, the manual and the digital camera were examined to be able to know every part of this new toy.

The CD that came with the unit was installed into the computer. This gave Michael also an online tutorial of how to use the camera, how to upload and have the pictures developed in the printer.

It didn’t take long to learn everything so that the digital camera can be brought out and used to take pictures. A friend at work who bought a similar item advised Michael to get some trial shots.

Since the images can be deleted from the memory, many pictures can be taken and reviewed. Those that are good were saved in the computer, which was sometimes used as the background in the desktop.

The digital camera is easy to use. The individual can learn using the tutorial features in the CD or learn more about this by logging into the manufacturer’s website.

The innovations in these small devices change every few months rather than years. This means the pixel graphics will improve making the model bought obsolete. The individual can upgrade the digital camera or choose to buy a new one later on.

Low Jeremy maintains digital-photography.articlesforreprint.com digital-photography.articlesforreprint.com This content is provided by Low Jeremy. It may be used only in its entirety with all links included.

Technology is pushing the capabilities of the computer past its previous limits. Now, you can even get your computer to receive free satellite TV. You can easily get access to hundreds of television channels broadcasted from various parts of the globe. Not only are your choices of television channels increased greatly, your usual viewing genres of movies, TV shows, sports, news, and others now include those from other nations and cultures. All you need to do is get your computer to receive free satellite TV.

Some people think they need to bother with purchasing and installing a satellite dish to connect with their computers in order to get access to satellite TV. Wrong. You do not need one. All you need is software that gets your computer hooked on the Internet to get free satellite TV. So, avoid getting sold into ads that market the satellite dish, and start thinking about buying software to get your computer ready to pump free satellite TV shows right into your bedroom or home work station.

But how to find a good deal to make your computer get free satellite TV? This article tells you how. Other than the ads you see on TV, you should be comparison shopping on the Internet for deals that catch your eye.

The software deal you may have seen or have in mind may have some requirement for Internet connection, a broadband connection is most recommended for speed. You don’t want to wait grueling minutes as video is streamed and then buffered. If you are stuck with a slow dial-up connection, check the software deal if it acidometers this slow speed, and if quality streaming media is still possible at those speeds. Check also the number of channels provided, because these can vary. You can probably secure a pretty decent score at fifty dollars for the software that gets your computer to stream free satellite TV.

There are numerous applications for the same purpose. The same applies to the software you are looking for. So if there are user forums of some commercial applications, go to those forums to see how well the software works. Check also with websites that review the software you have in mind, to see if it is worth buying given the user experience reported. The pricing varies for the software, but the more important thing is the ease of use. You don’t want to be tinkering with the software and adjusting settings and experimenting while the championship game you have been waiting for is being televised.

Choose the software well and soon you will be watching your computer receive free satellite TV shows.

Additional resource on this topic available, just click
squidoo.com/satellitetv_pc SATELLITE TV

Online betting on sports is governed by various rules that define the type of bets that can be placed and the conditions under which a bettor is declared winner. It is essential that a backbone of rules be in place because the bettors and betting sites are often located far apart, in different countries. The rules make the responsibilities of both parties clear.

The general rules are similar for all online betting sites that cover sports betting. A change in the date and venue of a sporting action can void all bets placed on that event. The same holds true if the game is postponed for longer than twelve hours. Usually, bets are expected to be placed and accepted before an event starts. Only one account per individual is allowed, usually punters are tempted to try and open multiple accounts to bet more than the maximum wager amount allowed. In case, money gets credited to a bettor’s account by mistake, it is the bettor’s responsibility to notify the betting website as soon as possible. If he fails to do so he risks forfeiting money on bets won subsequently.

According to the rules of online betting, the sports betting website is in no way responsible for bets placed on games that get suspended, a change in score, results being changed. Complaints and protests in this regard are not entertained. There is always a mechanism for ensuring the validity of a bet placed by a customer; for example it can be in the form of a token number that flashes on the customer’s screen after hi wager is accepted. Bets once placed cannot be revoked either by the bettor or the betting website. The betting site does not take responsibility for the accuracy of the information it publishes and it authorizes itself to correct discrepancies in prices mentioned and odds quoted if such are found. The results of the bets placed are made known anywhere between thirty minutes to sixty minutes after the game is over.

As a bettor, you should be aware of the various types of bets that exist as defined by the rules. Over a period of time you will find your groove with one or more type of wagers. Given below are definitions of the most common type of bets accepted by the online sports betting sites.

Straight bet – A straight bet is the most straightforward kind of bet in which you pick a winner based on your understanding of the odds.

Point Spread – A term signifying distribution of points such that of two teams the underdog is given more points and you can bet on both the stronger team and the underdog. The only catch is that the winner has to win by more than the Point Spread.

Total – This bet covers the total number of points that are scored in a game, the game duration includes the overtime as well.

Parlay - A parlay allows you to select more than one game to bet on and your winnings from one game are automatically wagered on a subsequent game of your choice. For you to take home your winnings from a parlay, you must win all the bets you lay. If you’re lucky, you can take home a fair amount using a parlay.

Future – In this case, you are allowed to take odds on an event before the season begins. Usually, the odds get short as the game date gets closer but if you win you get paid at the original odds that you bet on.

Florian Koerner runs a popular soccerbetting.info best sports betting picks website.Visit SoccerBetting.info every week or subscribe to his free soccer betting tips by email.

There are MANY great sites to play poker on. Just about all of them are 100% safe as far as it comes to depositing/withdrawling money. There are many things you need to look at your poker site before you decide to sign up and deposit.

First, you need to figure out what type of game you are going to be playing. Are you going to just play low limit cash games? Are you a strict sit and go player? Are you planning on playing the multi-table tournaments?

Each site is known for their strengths as it comes to gameplay.

If you plan on playing strict sit-and-go and multi table tournaments, then your choice should either be Full Tilt Poker or Pokerstars. If you plan on playing strict cash games, then your choice should more then likely be Pokerstars.

Full Tilt Poker offers a number of guaranteed prize pool tournaments every 1-2 hours. Their tournaments are GREAT and many of them start with 3000 chips, a necessity in my eyes when playing these tournaments.

For cash games, Poker Stars has thousands of tables from .10/.25 all the way up to $50/$100.
They have the most players and they are generally the most trusted when it comes to cash games.

For sit and go’s I recommend that you check the structure for both Pokerstars and Full tilt, as their structures our often changing.

Now, many people are worried if Poker is even legal to play in the USA anymore. The USA did pass a law against sending money offshore. There are still many payment processors including epassporte, webmoney, and many credit/debt card processors. Also you always have the option of western union or check transfer.

No player has EVER been arrested for playing poker online.
These poker sites are here to stay and I believe you have NOTHING to worry about.
The bottom line is that poker was getting TOO big and the government cannot TAX it. This is why they flexed their muscle and got millions of players to not play. There is still millions of Americans playing online and there always will be.

Good luck at the tables!

Sean Moranse is a professional poker player. He has won numerous tournaments. He was named as one of the Top Ten Online best players by Poker Rankings Online, the authority in online poker rankings. He has compiled an award winning poker course that is available at tournamentwinner.com tournamentwinner.com

All my aging fears are misguided, it turns out. In my youth, as I looked ahead to the inevitable aging process, I dreaded wrinkles, sagging body parts, aches and pains, and the snickering of people who could still bend over to pick something up without getting stuck there or–worse–releasing a little fart.

As with everything else in life, though, the things you fear never turn out to be the real deal. What gets you, in the end, is something else entirely. Take camping, for example. While you are packing up, you might spend your time fretting that you’ll forget something critical like the tent poles, or fearing that you’ll drive away and leave the oven on. But instead you’ll get eaten by a bear.

Do I digress? No, not really. I’m only in my forties, but I’ve already figured this out. The aging process is kind of like being eaten by a bear, but in the slowest possible way. It starts with your extremities, and you get pain and loss of dexterity in your fingers due to arthritis. Then your mid-section goes, and you get belly flab and reflux. And then it gets your heart.

For some people this means they need heart surgery or have to take meds. For me, it’s not the tick-tock aspect of the ticker that is troubled. It is the wistful part. The part of my heart that swells to the point of breaking when one of my children looks up at me with those perfect round peepers and says “I love you, Momma.” It is the ebbing away of things, the desire to hold onto everything that only happens in the moment and will then be gone. I’m telling you, none of this used to bother me. Until recently I could just calmly respond to my kid with “I love you too, Sweetie.” But now, in mid-life, my heart makes a hideous thump and I get all weepy. What is UP with that?

I remember the same thing happened to my dad, a swarthy, capable man who could build or fix anything. In his elder years, at a relatively slight provocation he would suddenly tear up and begin mopping his eyes with a handkerchief. He had everything go haywire on him all at once, though. He had the surgery, the meds, the ticker regulator thingy, and the weepy deal too. At the time, I never really understood about the weepy problem. I mean, a grown man. Sheesh! And he said “Just you wait. It’s an aging thing. It will happen to you too.” Now I’m a grown woman, and an aging one at that. And I get it. With aging comes a sense that some of your experiences and some of the things you are used to are going to stop–if not now, then probably soon. For me, this realization just periodically sneaks up and grabs me… like a ravenous bear out the woods.

For example, I recently attended the end-of-year Peace Assembly at my daughter’s school. I was kind of grumbling about it on the drive to the school, because I had devoted countless hours to various school events and volunteer efforts in recent weeks, and work was piling up. It was a beautiful day, though, and I began to get into the spirit of it. I rolled down the window of my car. I felt the breeze on my face, and I started to enjoy being out of my stuffy little mole hole of a basement office.

I got to the school, and naturally there was a waiting period of about fifteen minutes while the kids assembled in the school’s central courtyard. Freckled faces filed past me. Many of the kids carried popsicle sticks with brightly colored paper butterflies pasted on. I began to feel twinges of what was to come. But for the most part I remained in Working Mom mode–a kind of warrior stance that lets the world know you mean business. It helps you glide from work life into family life and back without losing much momentum. I looked around. There were other moms there–women I had seen before–but none of us had a real chit-chatty kind of relationship. We smiled at each other, and waited.

Finally we filed out into the courtyard after the kids and took seats in folding metal chairs, holding printed programs. Some announcements were made, and then kids began to take turns up at the mic, giving their wishes for a world in which peace will reign. The sunlight fell on their hair, and their clothes ruffled slightly in the breeze. Some kids were dressed well, others in rough and tumble clothes purchased second hand. But popular kids stood side by side with the ones that play alone, delivering messages about being kind, about looking out for one another, about thwarting bullying, and about manners and love.

I looked over, and could see my daughter’s class, and she herself among the other girls in bright summer dresses. I found myself pushing contemplation away, trying to focus on the work awaiting me when all this was done. Some people, I suppose, feel the need to reflect on these things, to savor them. Not me. I was actually trying hard not to think about the sudden end of a school year my daughter had struggled through socially, how her self-esteem had narrowly prevailed over a barrage of taunting by a mean-spirited child, the fact that her teacher was retiring, or the dread I have that she will lose her sweetness and innocence as of third grade. And that’s when it started… the whole welling up of something unexplainable. Out of nowhere. All at once I found myself completely adrift on a tide of tears.

Music had begun. The kindergarteners began singing along with a tape of Louis Armstrong’s gravelly and beautiful “What a Wonderful World,” their voices high and multi-pitched, yet earnest. “I see trees of green… red roses too. I see ‘em bloom for me and for you.” The entire throng of children were softly waving their bright little butterfly sticks in the air to the music. And a river now flowed unabated down my cheeks. The compunction to hide it was simply pathetic. Tears were dripping off my chin. I stared through a watery sea into my purse, where not a shred of tissue could be found. I tried to breathe deeply and regain calm, but it was no use.

Younger mothers, dry-eyed, looked sympathetically upon me and offered tissues. No doubt they were aghast. A grown woman so reduced to tears. I wanted to warn them: “It’s an aging thing. You’ll see. It will happen to you too.” But in youth, you can’t be convinced. I know. I’ve been there.

Ultimately, though, I felt thankful. I had been shaken momentarily out of my state of conscious unconsciousness. Against all my efforts to move robotic-like through my day, stay on track with work, and be a veritable human machine, I had felt something powerful. What an amazing thing, to stop holding everything back. I actually felt happier, suddenly, and lighter. Plus I had an odd thought. Whereas I had once pitied my father for his occasional spontaneous weeping, I now wanted to applaud him for unclenching the nerves of steel he was known for so that he could truly feel.

It’s corny, I know. But it occurred to me that a great wish for peace is that absolutely everyone, worldwide, could be reduced to blubbering on occasion. Let the tears fall! And with them anger, bullying, rudeness, hatred, and war. Let everyone hear Louis Armstrong’s deeply male voice singing “The colors of a rainbow… so pretty in the sky!” and have their hearts melt. Let the world leaders hug tearfully at the summits, and the builders of bombs see sunlight on children’s hair and drop what they’re doing to spread peace instead.

Otherwise, let them be eaten by bears.

(c) 2006 Jayna Locke

Jayna Locke is a freelance writer, editor, and website developer, as well as a health and nutrition consultant. Her advice on health can be found on her site: newvitalitynews.com/Ask_Jayna.html www.newvitalitynews.com/Ask_Jayna.html She offers a range of health enhancing products on newvitalitywellness.com newvitalitywellness.com

One phenomenon that has emerged with the dawn of the computer age is “online poker,” in which poker enthusiasts can play poker games over the Internet for fun or real money. Online poker has become so big that according to Christiansen Capital Advisor, worldwide online poker revenue jumped from $365 million in 2003, to more than $1 billion in 2004. In December 2003, revenues were estimated at $34 million per month. And by March 2005, approximately 100,000 people were playing for real money at the various pokers rooms at peak times.

There are many factors that contribute to this extraordinary upsurge in the online poker industry. For one, online poker rooms are much cheaper than casinos because they have very little overhead cost in comparison to conventional casinos, and they are more player friendly. For example, the introduction of freerolls (where there is no entry fee) attracts a lot of novice players.

Many large online poker sites also offer certain attractions, including entry to real-life poker tournaments for online winners. Other features such as “collusion detection” abilities also enable websites to detect certain frauds, which are not available in conventional casinos. This better security attracts more players.

Another factor is the ability to easily track detailed statistics of your play in online poker, made available by “”Hand Histories”" text files, which track every action both you and your opponents made during each hand. This is not possible in conventional casinos where you would have to take time-consuming notes after each hand. Combined with these factors, many online poker software programs are user friendly and are often automated according to specific needs and actions, such as prompting when it’s a player’s turn.

The online poker industry is growing, and worldwide revenue is expected to reach more $2.4 billion in the coming years.

e-OnlinePokerGames.com Online Poker Games provides detailed information on Online Poker Games, Free Online Poker Games, Online Video Poker Games, Online Live Poker Games and more. Online Poker Games is affiliated with i-PokerGames.com Online Poker Games.