Easter Holiday Entry -2009

To be updated.

True Story: Man shoots himself during "Watchmen" movie

Eugene (KMTR) – A man shot himself to death in a Eugene movie theater just after midnight Monday morning.

Police say about 10 patrons were in an auditorium at Regal Cinemas watching the movie “Watchmen.” About midway through the film some of the moviegoers told the manager they heard a “popping” noise like a gunshot. A 24-year-old man was found in the rear of the auditorium with a gunshot wound to the head.

Police say the man shot himself and was dead when they arrived.

The patron closest to the man was sitting two rows away.

The 5 Most Dangerous Tourist Destinations on Earth!

All of these places have a lot to offer to those willing to take a chance and visit them, but, compared to other, just as beautiful, destinations they pose a higher risk. Just to be clear this is not a list of the most dangerous places on Earth; countries like Iraq, Sudan or Liberia haven’t been listed here because they are so dangerous that tourists have lost any interest of traveling there.

5. Brazil
Brazil is a beautiful country, with sunny beaches, clear waters, lush rainforests, incredible culture and many other attributes that make it a lovely travel destination. Unfortunately there is also a down side, a dark side of Brazil you’re bound to experience if you ever go. Despite the accelerated economic growth of recent years, poverty is still a serious issue here and people will do just about anything when their survival instincts kick-in.

You could end up with a switchblade pressing hard on your throat and be forced to surrender your wallet and valuables in order to keep your life. Kidnappings aren’t unusual in large cities like Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paolo; you just get pulled into a car and taken to the closest ATM in order to pay your own ransom. If you can’t do that, well, you better hope your family can or you’re in serious trouble. Drug cartels have a firm grip over the slums of many of Brazil’s large cities and the police simply don’t have the power to bring them to their knees, so you might be unlucky enough to find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time and become a victim of their crossfire.

4. Sri Lanka
Resembling a tear falling down from the Indian mainland, Sri Lanka is an exotic paradise where natural beauty and man-built luxury combine perfectly.

With some of the most beautiful sights on the planet and a few of the world’s most luxurious resorts, Sri Lanka might seem like paradise to many tourists.

But those who keep in touch with world news would know that terrorism has been a great problem here ever since a conflict between the government and a revolutionary faction called the Tigers of Tamil broke out in 1983. Over 70,000 people have died since then and although foreigners are not directly threatened they could easily become collateral victims.

3. South Africa
With all the civil wars going on as we speak in African countries like Sudan, Liberia, Burundi and many others, some might say South Africa is one of the few islands of peace in an ocean of war.

But South Africa has its own problems and for many, they are enough to make them change their minds about spending a vacation there. The 2010 World Cup host is always rated as one of the top countries by homicide rate.

Most of the killing takes place in the poor parts of the country but it often reaches the more peaceful cities as well.

South Africa has been named the “rape capital of the world” on numerous occasions and more than 10 million of its inhabitants are HIV positive. Not exactly your dream destination, is it?

2. Colombia
With a gorgeous coast, lovely mountainous inland and some of the most beautiful women on Earth, Colombia sounds like the perfect travel destination.

And it is indeed worth a trip if you can live with the risks. It’s a known fact that Colombia supplies almost 80% of the cocaine in the world and people like Pablo Escobar have become legends to those that want to leave poverty behind through any means necessary.

Drug cartels around Colombia have no fear of the law, they bribe who they can and kill the rest, especially local authorities who refuse to do their bidding.

And one mustn’t ignore the dreaded FARC rebels, famous for kidnapping people and releasing them when nobody really thinks they’re alive anymore. Those are the lucky ones, many others are simply killed. There are thousands of people kidnapped in Colombia every year.

1. Haiti
One of the most beautiful countries in the Caribbean, Haiti is also the lawless, poorest and most dangerous. Riots, killings and kidnapping used to take place on a daily basis but, after the deployment of UN troops in the area, the country gained some political and social stability.

Still, the inefficiency of the police and judiciary system help maintain Haiti in a state of crisis. Even the UN Council called for aid in stabilizing the country that is now confronted with problems caused by devastating hurricanes.

Of the 57 million demanded by international humanitarian organizations to help the Haitians, only one had been raised at the end of September 2008.

Famine and the lack of shelter could throw Haiti back into the chaos it fought so hard to climb out of.

Daylight Saving Today! Remember to turn back 1 hour (Auckland, New Zealand)

Well, folks; it is the time of the year again. Summer is almost gone (so much so for our summer holiday in New Zealand!). You can feel the evening is cooler now and sun is setting earlier.

Below is the "official" instruction on winding back your clock for one hour (not to forget do the same for your mobile phone, Apple iPhone, PDA and notebook computer)!

When local daylight time is about to reach
Sunday, 5 April 2009, 03:00:00 clocks are turned backward 1 hour to
Sunday, 5 April 2009, 02:00:00 local standard time instead

Charges in NZ airliner baby case (Auckland, New Zealand, GDI)

A Samoan woman has been charged with child abandonment after giving birth on a flight from Samoa to New Zealand and leaving the baby in an aircraft toilet.

The 29-year-old unnamed woman gave birth after the plane took off from Apia and left the baby in a rubbish bin before leaving the plane in Auckland.

Child abandonment comes with a possible prison sentence of up to seven years.

The mother was reunited with the baby, Grace, in hospital, but is in the care of social welfare services. `A Samoan woman has been charged with child abandonment after giving birth on a flight from Samoa to New Zealand and leaving the baby in an aircraft toilet.

The 29-year-old unnamed woman gave birth after the plane took off from Apia and left the baby in a rubbish bin before leaving the plane in Auckland.

Child abandonment comes with a possible prison sentence of up to seven years.

The mother was reunited with the baby, Grace, in hospital, but is in the care of social welfare services.

Nokia E71: Must Know Power User Tips (Auckland, New Zealand)

The E71 was one of the very best handsets to come out of Nokia factories in 2008 and the best ever in my book. So it is only right that we utilise its functionality to the absolute hilt and try and make the E71 even more efficient.

Here is a long list of must know tips and tricks for the E71. You might already know a few but if you are new to S60 and the E71 in particular, I’m sure this will make for a happy start to the E71 new year!

• STICKY FUNCTION KEY – A quick double press on the bottom left ‘function’ key locks it. This is helpful in situations when you need to press a combination of keys or in applications like Gmail which can be controlled via the keypad.

• 1-800-WHATEVER - To dial 1-800-WHATEVER: type 1800, hit Fn, then Shift twice, type WHATEVER, and press the Call/Green key to dial. (The idea is to type in the alphabet mode in CAPITAL letters ONLY). The alphabets will automatically be converted to numbers.

• ONE TOUCH MUTE – You can simply mute a call by press the button between the volume keys present on the right hand side of the phone. Press it again to cancel the mute.

• REMAP THE KEYS - There are times when you feel certain keys on the E71 are being wasted when they could have come in very handy. For example, the volume keys would work wonderfully with the web browser to scroll pages or in your music player and the mute key could work as select.

• TIME & DATE – When the phone is in the locked state and the screen is blank, hit the Navi Button to display the time and date in a large font.

• TEXT MESSAGES – When in the standby mode, hold down left soft key to read out new text messages.

• ASSIGN SHORTCUTS - If you have a lot of applications installed on your E71, you might want to assign additional shortcuts to different applications by definying a set of keypresses with an application called Cute Keys.

As a follow up to the above tips, here are a few shortcuts that you should enjoy. I have highlighted some of the lesser known ones.

GENERAL

• To get to a symbol or number hold down its key.
• Shift + Backspace deletes letters after the cursor, thus immitating the behavior of the ‘Delete’ key on the computer.
• In the Main Menu:

  A B C D
  E F G H
  I J K L

  To open A press 1, 2 for B, 3 for C, * for D, 4 for E, 5 for F and so on.

• Fn + Ctrl + C to copy.
• Fn + Ctrl + V to paste.
• Shift + Left ( or Right ) to select text.
• Ctrl + Up for page up.
• Ctrl + Down for page down.
• Ctrl + Vowels ( or n ) for accented characters like á or ñ.

CAMERA

• T to focus.

GALLERY

• Green Call to send the image.
• Fn + * for full screen.
• Fn + 7 to zoom in. Press twice for the full screen size.
• Fn + 4 to scroll left while in the zoomed image.
• Fn + 5 to zoom in.
• Fn + 3 to rotate right.
• Fn + 2 to scroll up while in the zoomed image.
• Fn + 1 to rotate left.
• Fn + 0 to zoom out.

STANDBY

• Hold * to activate/deactivate Bluetooth.
• Hold 0 to go to the web browser.
• Left Soft Key then Fn ( or * ) locks the keypad.
• Hold End/Red to disconnect all data connections.
• Hold Left Soft Key to read out new text messages.

MAIL

• Shift + Return to mark/unmark a single message.
• Shift + Down to mark multiple items.
• Fn + Spacebar in new message body to access input (predictive text, etc.) options.

MAPS

• Shift to zoom in.
• Backspace to zoom out.
• Space to go to the current position.

REAL PLAYER

• Fn + 2 for full screen.
• Hold Up for fast forward.
• Hold Down for rewind.

WEB

• 1 for bookmarks.
• 2 to find something on a page.

• 3 to return to the previous page.
• 5 to tab open windows.
• * to zoom in.
• # to zoom out.
• 8 for page overview.
• 9 to go to a different web page.
• 0 to got to the homepage.
• Hit the Backspace key to close the current window.

Search Engine Optimization and SEO Tools

My mate is working hard under the sun!

Mobile blogging via Nokia E71, please visit
http://auckland.posterous.com

Broken ATM Machine at Kelston, Auckland, New Zealand

Search Engine Submission - AddMe

Took these pics with my Nokia E71 after lunch at Kelston, Auckland, New Zealand.

Mobile blogging via Nokia E71, please visit http://auckland.posterous.com

Free as a bird, Muriwai Beach, New Zealand

Took this shot with my tiny camera in Februar, 2009. This blog is poasted from my Nokia E71.

Tatoo on a fenale, Henderson, Auckland, New Zealand (David Lim) 2009

I took the picture of the awsome tatoo of a lady at Henderson, Auckland. The three Chinese characters represent the first names of her three children. Click to see larger view of the body tatoo.