Greetings to all my family, cousins and friends! May the year of Hog brings you health and wealth!
We have a family dinner in our house yesterday and have some friends visited us today. It was a sunny and beautiful day. Went out for a spin with kids, we drove along Mt Roskill and Hillsborough area before going back for our Chinese New Year Dinner at home.
Tomorrow, the kids still have to go to school and I still have to work. How we miss our families, friends back in Malaysia. The noise, the atmosphere, the food and not to mention the cards games during Chinese New Year! Well, hopefully we will be back for a long deserve holiday in year 2008.
Please enjoy yourself on the pics we took today. Cheers and have a great New Year!
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Auckland Apple iPhone 15 Pro Repair and iPad Pro Unlock. 1 Huron St, Takapuna, Auckland. 0800 429 429 www.drmobiles.co.nz
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Chinese New Year Eve, the dog & car park guard
The wife and I went for a last minute shopping at food centre on New North Road, Auckland, yesterday (Chinese New Year Eve). Whiel waiting for my wife, I took some picture of our pet, Skippy (see below and click on pic to get a bigger view)
Since the evening sky was so beautiful, I took some picture with my Nikoa Coolpix 7600. Suddenly came from nowhere a car park guard approached me and questioned me. "What are you doing? Do you know the regulations?" He looks sloppy in his messy uniform, physically he is very "tiny". He can't speak proper English (that is why he work as a guard, I guess). He is not Asian nor European, but he doesn't shave and needs major dental work done for sure.
He assumed that he can pick on any one who looks Asian and have some fun. It is easy to deal with people like this. The trick is look him in the eyes, talk like his superior or manager and you will see his tail hide between his leg immediately.
When he asked me the "tough" questions, I simply answer him with a stern voice. "Excuse me, who are you to talk to me like that? What authority you have? Are you the manager for this car park?"
He was slightly shock that I can question him back in "normal Kiwi English". Then the sloppy guard said: "You are not suppose to take picture at the car park, you know?"
Then I brushed him off and answered: "First, you tell me your name. Then you tell me who are you to ask questions. What I am doing is none of your business, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?"
Look, this chap is really stupid. How can customers know not to take pictures at the car park without any written sign or poster to indicate so? He then said he will bring the "manager" out to see me. I did not wait and marched into the food store and the manager was no where to be seen at all.
Do not feel threatened at all when you are face with these type of wanko's (that is what we call them in New Zealand). They are usually not educated, can't speak English and try to pick on "nice" looking people like me or someone who looks Asian.
Please note that you should your rights as a shopper, resident or visitor. Do not waste time or feel scare at all. These type of idiots are usually: new in New Zealand, wants to play God, not educated and totally ignorant of the law.
I cannot understand why some people are so racist and wants to pick on others. As far as I am concern, there is only one race; that is human race.
Rate Me on BlogHop.com! help?
Since the evening sky was so beautiful, I took some picture with my Nikoa Coolpix 7600. Suddenly came from nowhere a car park guard approached me and questioned me. "What are you doing? Do you know the regulations?" He looks sloppy in his messy uniform, physically he is very "tiny". He can't speak proper English (that is why he work as a guard, I guess). He is not Asian nor European, but he doesn't shave and needs major dental work done for sure.
He assumed that he can pick on any one who looks Asian and have some fun. It is easy to deal with people like this. The trick is look him in the eyes, talk like his superior or manager and you will see his tail hide between his leg immediately.
When he asked me the "tough" questions, I simply answer him with a stern voice. "Excuse me, who are you to talk to me like that? What authority you have? Are you the manager for this car park?"
He was slightly shock that I can question him back in "normal Kiwi English". Then the sloppy guard said: "You are not suppose to take picture at the car park, you know?"
Then I brushed him off and answered: "First, you tell me your name. Then you tell me who are you to ask questions. What I am doing is none of your business, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?"
Look, this chap is really stupid. How can customers know not to take pictures at the car park without any written sign or poster to indicate so? He then said he will bring the "manager" out to see me. I did not wait and marched into the food store and the manager was no where to be seen at all.
Do not feel threatened at all when you are face with these type of wanko's (that is what we call them in New Zealand). They are usually not educated, can't speak English and try to pick on "nice" looking people like me or someone who looks Asian.
Please note that you should your rights as a shopper, resident or visitor. Do not waste time or feel scare at all. These type of idiots are usually: new in New Zealand, wants to play God, not educated and totally ignorant of the law.
I cannot understand why some people are so racist and wants to pick on others. As far as I am concern, there is only one race; that is human race.
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Saturday, February 10, 2007
Skype is Out and Jajah.com
Tire of being tied up to your computer to make "free" calls? Now you can make true landline to landline calls at www.jajah.com
I have tested and used this free service to make calls to Australia and Malaysia from New Zealand.
Hint: You need one email account to register for one landline or mobile number, email is free; so you know what to do. Get more information from my web site located at http://i.am/davidlim
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http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
Monday, January 8, 2007
Remembering Ti-Ming Chiang
Some or Chiang's reference found on the internet:
(1) AF Alumni Counts LISA.aa_lost_alumni_for_web_1000
(1) AF Alumni Counts LISA.aa_lost_alumni_for_web_1000
(2) BLACK HOLE CONDENSATION AND THE WEB OF CALABI-YAU MANIFOLDS.
Malaysian ‘Boy Genius’ Chiang Dies
The Star, Monday January 8, 2007--(SEREMBAN): Chiang Ti Ming, the boy genius who was the youngest student ever to be admitted into the prestigious California Institute of Technology (CalTech) almost two decades ago, has passed away on Saturday morning. “He passed away peacefully,” said a family member yesterday.
The family declined to reveal other details while Chiang’s parents, father Chiang Chick Liam and mother Lee Soo Hoon, were too distraught to talk to the press.
Only his family members were seen entering the house here yesterday afternoon and requested that privacy be given to them.
Press reports in 2002 said that he had been admitted into a hospital in Kuala Lumpur, for depression and withdrawal symptoms. The family also suffered a tragic loss when his sister Eei Wern, drowned at the swimming pool of the Seremban International Golf Club in 1993. Eei Wern was then four.
It was reported 16 years ago that Chiang, who was 15 at the time, was not only the youngest student to be admitted into CalTech but also among the top five percent where his results were concerned.
Chiang had achieved many firsts while at CalTech, including being the youngest ever student to receive the Undergraduate Students Merit Award two years in a row.
He was also an honorary member of the Tau Beta Phi, a national engineering society.
He had been accepted to study for the second year of the four-year Physics degree course at the university in 1989 when he was 13 after sponsorship from several organisations.
The prodigy later pursued and graduated with a doctorate in particle physics at Cornell University in New York.
Saturday, January 6, 2007
Year 2007: The 77 things you must know...
1. Seven is the optimum number of hours of sleep for humans, according to a US scientific study.
2 Seven is seen as a lucky number in many cultures. Japanese mythology talks of Shichifukujin (The Seven Gods of Fortune).
3 The seven deadly sins, or cardinal sins, were refined by Pope Gregory I in the 6th century. They are pride, avarice, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth.
4 The seven virtues are humility, liberality, chastity, kindness, abstinence, patience, and diligence.
5 At a ceremony in Lisbon on 07/07/07, presumably at 7:07, the results of a global vote for the New Seven Wonders of the World will be announced. The 21 finalists include Stonehenge, the Kremlin and Timbuktu.
6 The superstitious believe that to break a mirror brings seven years of bad luck. The cure: to bury the pieces, or run them in a stream.
7 The average person's digit span (the number of digits they can recall in sequence) is seven.
8 The common ladybird has seven spots.
9 In Vedic Hindu tradition, the human body features seven basic chakras, or "wheels of energy".
10 Bushido or "way of the warrior" is a Japanese code of conduct comprising seven virtues.
11 The seventh son of a seventh son has magic powers, according to Irish folklore, but is a vampire in Romanian legend.
12 Seventh Son of a Seventh Son was the seventh studio album released by heavy metal band Iron Maiden in 1988.
13 According to many faiths, there are seven heavens, corresponding to the seven heavenly bodies (earth, the sun and the five "naked eye" planets). In Judaism, the seventh heaven is called Araboth and is home to the Throne of Glory, which is attended by the Seven Archangels.
14 Seven is the atomic number of nitrogen.
15 The city of Rome was built on seven hills. They were Palatine, Capitoline, Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Caelian, and Aventine. Early Rome was ruled by a line of seven kings.
16 Seven days of blessings (Sheva Brachot) follow a traditional Jewish wedding.
17 The seventh and final book in JK Rowling's Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (below) is set for release in 2007. The sixth instalment, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, sold seven million copies on the first day of its release in America.
18 Shakespeare's "seven ages of man" soliloquy begins "All the world's a stage..." and is delivered by Jacques in Act II, scene seven of As You Like It.
19 In both the Challenger and Columbia Nasa space shuttle disasters, seven astronauts were killed.
20 The seven of clubs in a deck of Tarot cards represents initiative, ambition, drive and desire.
21 According to Buddhist legend, after his birth the Buddha rose to his feet and took seven steps.
22 The first BMW, Nissan and Lotus cars were based on, or licensed reproductions of, the Austin 7.
23 In the vision of the apocalypse described in the Biblical book of Revelations there are seven churches of Asia, seven candlesticks, seven stars, seven trumpets, seven spirits before the throne of God, seven horns, seven vials, seven plagues, a seven-headed monster, and the lamb with seven eyes.
24 Seven is "neutral" on the pH scale. Pure water has a pH of seven.
25 Roy Sullivan, a park ranger from Virginia, US, is the only person known to have survived seven lightning strikes. He shot himself dead in 1983.
26 "Jumpy," "Shifty" and "Snoopy" were among the names rejected for the seven dwarf characters in the 1937 Disney animation Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
27 The square root of seven (to four decimal places) is 2.6457.
28 Seven years after Charles Grigg created Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda in 1929, he changed the drink's name to 7Up, inspired, one theory suggests, by cattle he saw branded with "7" and "u".
29 In Greek mythology, the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, were the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas and the sea nymph Pleione. They had affairs with several Olympian gods, including Zeus, Poseidon and Ares.
30 The Seven Sisters is a series of chalk cliffs on the East Sussex coast, a set of waterfalls in Norway, and a group of Stalinist skyscrapers in Moscow.
31 The phrase "seven-year itch" was first recorded in 1899. It characterises a man's urge to roam after seven years of marriage, the theme of Marilyn Monroe's 1955 film, The Seven Year Itch, right.
32 In Arabic and Urdu script, seven takes the shape of a large "V". In Telugu, a descendant of the ancient Indian Brahmi script, it is written as a backwards "S" and in Gujarat it resembles a "9" with an extended tail.
33 The 7-Eleven chain has more than 30,000 convenience stores in 18 countries. It was named after the opening hours of its first outlet when it opened in Dallas in 1927.
34 Ten films have won seven Academy Awards, including Lawrence of Arabia, Dances With Wolves, Schindler's List and Shakespeare in Love.
35 All the building numbers in the opening scenes of the 1995 thriller Se7en, starring Brad Pitt as a detective investigating a series of murders inspired by the seven deadly sins, start with seven. The delivery of a box at the end of the film was scheduled for 7:07.
36 Brad Pitt also starred in the 1997 film Seven Years in Tibet, the true story of an Austrian mountaineer who befriended the Dalai Lama in the late 1940s.
37 Seven is the fourth prime number, after two, three and five.
38 Seven Dials in London's Covent Garden stands at the intersection of seven roads. Now part of a shopping area, it was a notorious slum in the 19th century, and hosted seven pubs on each of its apexes.
39 John Sturges' 1960 western The Magnificent Seven was a reworking of the 1954 Japanese classic, Seven Samurai, which was directed by Akira Kurosawa.
40 The 32-metre Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai once marketed itself as the world's first seven- star hotel.
41 Netball, handball and water polo are played with teams of seven players.
42 Ancient astronomers believed there were seven planets in the solar system - those celestial objects they could see with the naked eye (the sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn). In most languages the seven days of the week take their names from these "planets".
43 Seven is the minimum age at which a UK savings account holder can withdraw money.
44 The opposite faces of a dice add up to seven.
45 Seven is the largest number of sticks or any other cylindrical object that can be tied into a bundle such that the shape of the bundle remains fixed.
46 In 1849 the writer John Ruskin published The Seven Lamps of Architecture, which set out seven leading principles. They were sacrifice, truth, power, beauty, life memory and obedience.
47 The seventh amendment to the United States Constitution codifies the right to jury trial in certain civil trials.
48 Both Elizabeth Taylor and the late Lana Turner have had seven husbands (and eight marriages). American broadcaster Larry King has had seven marriages (but only six wives).
49 Seven is the international telephone dialling code for Russia and Kazakhstan.
50 The Seven Champions of Christendom are St George, the Apostle Andrew, St Patrick, St Denis, St James Boanerges, St Anthony the Lesser, and St David. They are patron saints of, respectively, England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, and Wales.
51 The McCaughey septuplets, born in Iowa in 1997, are the world's first surviving septuplets.
52 Seven segments make up each digit on the simplest electronic clock or calculator displays.
53 Famous footballers to have worn the No 7 shirt include David Beckham, George Best and Eric Cantona.
54 Daniel Craig is the seventh actor to have played James Bond (with the controversial inclusion of Barry Nelson, who starred in a 1954 adaptation of Casino Royale). Sean Connery made his seventh and final outing as Bond in the unofficial Thunderball remake Never Say Never Again. In Ian Fleming's novel You Only Live Twice 007 appears briefly as 7777.
55 A series of seven works of art is called a heptalogy. In the case of films, Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia (both to be completed), are examples.
56 Enid Blyton published 15 books in her Secret Seven series between 1949 and 1963. The Secret Seven also appeared in seven short stories, which were collected after Blyton's death and published in 1998.
57 In December 2006, Wisconsin hunter Rick Lisko ran over and killed a seven-legged hermaphroditic deer. "It's a pretty weird deer," he said before eating it, later adding: "It was tasty."
58 Popular music groups with seven members have included Belle & Sebastian, S Club 7 and The Pipettes.
59 The Seven Years' War (1756-63) involved all major world powers and was described by Winston Churchill as the real first world war.
60 The Advertising Standards Authority permits the advertising of condoms on Channel 4 after 7pm (but only after 9pm on other channels).
61 Seventh Day Adventists believe the second advent of Jesus Christ is imminent. Cornflake inventor John Harvey Kellogg was an Adventist. He also campaigned against masturbation and in 1888 published Treatment for Self-Abuse and its Effects.
62 Seven-league boots first featured in the French fairytale Le Petit Poucet by Charles Perrault. They enabled the wearer to reach seven leagues (about 24 miles) at a stride.
63 Luminaries who will turn 70 in 2007 include Shirley Bassey, Colin Powell, Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford, Bobby Charlton and Anthony Hopkins.
64 The Seven Summits is the name given to the highest mountains on each continent. The oldest man to have climbed them all is Ramon Blanco of Spain, who completed the feat at the age of 70.
65 In Dante's 14th century work, The Divine Comedy, the seventh circle of hell is guarded by the Minotaur and receives, among others, the violent, blasphemers and Sodomites.
66 Launched in 1957, the Lotus Seven sports car - later called the Caterham 7 - was banned from competition in the US in the 1960s for being "too fast to race".
67 Wool is the gift traditionally associated with a seventh wedding anniversary. American country singer Kitty Wells and her husband Johnny Wright expect to celebrate their platinum (70th) wedding anniversary in 2007.
68 The heptagram, or seven-pointed star is a traditional symbol for warding off evil. Most American sheriff's badges are heptagrams.
69 When asked to think of a number between one and 10, most people pick seven.
70 Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, New York, is known as "Fashion Avenue" due to its concentration of fashion houses, including Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan. The designers have separately been dubbed the "King" and "Queen" of Seventh Avenue.
71 As a child, Jack White, one half of the rock duo The White Stripes, referred to his local Salvation Army charity shop as "the seven nation army" (the name he gave to the band's 2003 hit single).
72 Events that took place on 7/7 include 17-year-old Boris Becker's victory at Wimbledon in 1985, the 2001 Bradford race riots, and the 2005 London bombings. Ringo Starr, Bill Oddie and Michael Howard celebrate their birthdays on 7/7.
73 UK musical duo Zero 7 took their name from a nightclub called Zero Siete.
74 Fiji are holders of the International Rugby Board Sevens World Series.
75 Seven Mile Beach on Grand Cayman is in fact five-and- a-half miles long.
76 The House of Seven Gables, a mansion in Salem, Massachusetts, inspired the eponymous 1851 novel by the American writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
77 The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey has sold over 5 million copies in 38 languages since 1989. The seven habits are: be proactive; begin with the end; put first things first; think win-win; seek first to understand, then to be understood; synergise and; sharpen the saw.
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2 Seven is seen as a lucky number in many cultures. Japanese mythology talks of Shichifukujin (The Seven Gods of Fortune).
3 The seven deadly sins, or cardinal sins, were refined by Pope Gregory I in the 6th century. They are pride, avarice, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth.
4 The seven virtues are humility, liberality, chastity, kindness, abstinence, patience, and diligence.
5 At a ceremony in Lisbon on 07/07/07, presumably at 7:07, the results of a global vote for the New Seven Wonders of the World will be announced. The 21 finalists include Stonehenge, the Kremlin and Timbuktu.
6 The superstitious believe that to break a mirror brings seven years of bad luck. The cure: to bury the pieces, or run them in a stream.
7 The average person's digit span (the number of digits they can recall in sequence) is seven.
8 The common ladybird has seven spots.
9 In Vedic Hindu tradition, the human body features seven basic chakras, or "wheels of energy".
10 Bushido or "way of the warrior" is a Japanese code of conduct comprising seven virtues.
11 The seventh son of a seventh son has magic powers, according to Irish folklore, but is a vampire in Romanian legend.
12 Seventh Son of a Seventh Son was the seventh studio album released by heavy metal band Iron Maiden in 1988.
13 According to many faiths, there are seven heavens, corresponding to the seven heavenly bodies (earth, the sun and the five "naked eye" planets). In Judaism, the seventh heaven is called Araboth and is home to the Throne of Glory, which is attended by the Seven Archangels.
14 Seven is the atomic number of nitrogen.
15 The city of Rome was built on seven hills. They were Palatine, Capitoline, Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Caelian, and Aventine. Early Rome was ruled by a line of seven kings.
16 Seven days of blessings (Sheva Brachot) follow a traditional Jewish wedding.
17 The seventh and final book in JK Rowling's Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (below) is set for release in 2007. The sixth instalment, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, sold seven million copies on the first day of its release in America.
18 Shakespeare's "seven ages of man" soliloquy begins "All the world's a stage..." and is delivered by Jacques in Act II, scene seven of As You Like It.
19 In both the Challenger and Columbia Nasa space shuttle disasters, seven astronauts were killed.
20 The seven of clubs in a deck of Tarot cards represents initiative, ambition, drive and desire.
21 According to Buddhist legend, after his birth the Buddha rose to his feet and took seven steps.
22 The first BMW, Nissan and Lotus cars were based on, or licensed reproductions of, the Austin 7.
23 In the vision of the apocalypse described in the Biblical book of Revelations there are seven churches of Asia, seven candlesticks, seven stars, seven trumpets, seven spirits before the throne of God, seven horns, seven vials, seven plagues, a seven-headed monster, and the lamb with seven eyes.
24 Seven is "neutral" on the pH scale. Pure water has a pH of seven.
25 Roy Sullivan, a park ranger from Virginia, US, is the only person known to have survived seven lightning strikes. He shot himself dead in 1983.
26 "Jumpy," "Shifty" and "Snoopy" were among the names rejected for the seven dwarf characters in the 1937 Disney animation Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
27 The square root of seven (to four decimal places) is 2.6457.
28 Seven years after Charles Grigg created Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda in 1929, he changed the drink's name to 7Up, inspired, one theory suggests, by cattle he saw branded with "7" and "u".
29 In Greek mythology, the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, were the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas and the sea nymph Pleione. They had affairs with several Olympian gods, including Zeus, Poseidon and Ares.
30 The Seven Sisters is a series of chalk cliffs on the East Sussex coast, a set of waterfalls in Norway, and a group of Stalinist skyscrapers in Moscow.
31 The phrase "seven-year itch" was first recorded in 1899. It characterises a man's urge to roam after seven years of marriage, the theme of Marilyn Monroe's 1955 film, The Seven Year Itch, right.
32 In Arabic and Urdu script, seven takes the shape of a large "V". In Telugu, a descendant of the ancient Indian Brahmi script, it is written as a backwards "S" and in Gujarat it resembles a "9" with an extended tail.
33 The 7-Eleven chain has more than 30,000 convenience stores in 18 countries. It was named after the opening hours of its first outlet when it opened in Dallas in 1927.
34 Ten films have won seven Academy Awards, including Lawrence of Arabia, Dances With Wolves, Schindler's List and Shakespeare in Love.
35 All the building numbers in the opening scenes of the 1995 thriller Se7en, starring Brad Pitt as a detective investigating a series of murders inspired by the seven deadly sins, start with seven. The delivery of a box at the end of the film was scheduled for 7:07.
36 Brad Pitt also starred in the 1997 film Seven Years in Tibet, the true story of an Austrian mountaineer who befriended the Dalai Lama in the late 1940s.
37 Seven is the fourth prime number, after two, three and five.
38 Seven Dials in London's Covent Garden stands at the intersection of seven roads. Now part of a shopping area, it was a notorious slum in the 19th century, and hosted seven pubs on each of its apexes.
39 John Sturges' 1960 western The Magnificent Seven was a reworking of the 1954 Japanese classic, Seven Samurai, which was directed by Akira Kurosawa.
40 The 32-metre Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai once marketed itself as the world's first seven- star hotel.
41 Netball, handball and water polo are played with teams of seven players.
42 Ancient astronomers believed there were seven planets in the solar system - those celestial objects they could see with the naked eye (the sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn). In most languages the seven days of the week take their names from these "planets".
43 Seven is the minimum age at which a UK savings account holder can withdraw money.
44 The opposite faces of a dice add up to seven.
45 Seven is the largest number of sticks or any other cylindrical object that can be tied into a bundle such that the shape of the bundle remains fixed.
46 In 1849 the writer John Ruskin published The Seven Lamps of Architecture, which set out seven leading principles. They were sacrifice, truth, power, beauty, life memory and obedience.
47 The seventh amendment to the United States Constitution codifies the right to jury trial in certain civil trials.
48 Both Elizabeth Taylor and the late Lana Turner have had seven husbands (and eight marriages). American broadcaster Larry King has had seven marriages (but only six wives).
49 Seven is the international telephone dialling code for Russia and Kazakhstan.
50 The Seven Champions of Christendom are St George, the Apostle Andrew, St Patrick, St Denis, St James Boanerges, St Anthony the Lesser, and St David. They are patron saints of, respectively, England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, and Wales.
51 The McCaughey septuplets, born in Iowa in 1997, are the world's first surviving septuplets.
52 Seven segments make up each digit on the simplest electronic clock or calculator displays.
53 Famous footballers to have worn the No 7 shirt include David Beckham, George Best and Eric Cantona.
54 Daniel Craig is the seventh actor to have played James Bond (with the controversial inclusion of Barry Nelson, who starred in a 1954 adaptation of Casino Royale). Sean Connery made his seventh and final outing as Bond in the unofficial Thunderball remake Never Say Never Again. In Ian Fleming's novel You Only Live Twice 007 appears briefly as 7777.
55 A series of seven works of art is called a heptalogy. In the case of films, Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia (both to be completed), are examples.
56 Enid Blyton published 15 books in her Secret Seven series between 1949 and 1963. The Secret Seven also appeared in seven short stories, which were collected after Blyton's death and published in 1998.
57 In December 2006, Wisconsin hunter Rick Lisko ran over and killed a seven-legged hermaphroditic deer. "It's a pretty weird deer," he said before eating it, later adding: "It was tasty."
58 Popular music groups with seven members have included Belle & Sebastian, S Club 7 and The Pipettes.
59 The Seven Years' War (1756-63) involved all major world powers and was described by Winston Churchill as the real first world war.
60 The Advertising Standards Authority permits the advertising of condoms on Channel 4 after 7pm (but only after 9pm on other channels).
61 Seventh Day Adventists believe the second advent of Jesus Christ is imminent. Cornflake inventor John Harvey Kellogg was an Adventist. He also campaigned against masturbation and in 1888 published Treatment for Self-Abuse and its Effects.
62 Seven-league boots first featured in the French fairytale Le Petit Poucet by Charles Perrault. They enabled the wearer to reach seven leagues (about 24 miles) at a stride.
63 Luminaries who will turn 70 in 2007 include Shirley Bassey, Colin Powell, Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford, Bobby Charlton and Anthony Hopkins.
64 The Seven Summits is the name given to the highest mountains on each continent. The oldest man to have climbed them all is Ramon Blanco of Spain, who completed the feat at the age of 70.
65 In Dante's 14th century work, The Divine Comedy, the seventh circle of hell is guarded by the Minotaur and receives, among others, the violent, blasphemers and Sodomites.
66 Launched in 1957, the Lotus Seven sports car - later called the Caterham 7 - was banned from competition in the US in the 1960s for being "too fast to race".
67 Wool is the gift traditionally associated with a seventh wedding anniversary. American country singer Kitty Wells and her husband Johnny Wright expect to celebrate their platinum (70th) wedding anniversary in 2007.
68 The heptagram, or seven-pointed star is a traditional symbol for warding off evil. Most American sheriff's badges are heptagrams.
69 When asked to think of a number between one and 10, most people pick seven.
70 Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, New York, is known as "Fashion Avenue" due to its concentration of fashion houses, including Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan. The designers have separately been dubbed the "King" and "Queen" of Seventh Avenue.
71 As a child, Jack White, one half of the rock duo The White Stripes, referred to his local Salvation Army charity shop as "the seven nation army" (the name he gave to the band's 2003 hit single).
72 Events that took place on 7/7 include 17-year-old Boris Becker's victory at Wimbledon in 1985, the 2001 Bradford race riots, and the 2005 London bombings. Ringo Starr, Bill Oddie and Michael Howard celebrate their birthdays on 7/7.
73 UK musical duo Zero 7 took their name from a nightclub called Zero Siete.
74 Fiji are holders of the International Rugby Board Sevens World Series.
75 Seven Mile Beach on Grand Cayman is in fact five-and- a-half miles long.
76 The House of Seven Gables, a mansion in Salem, Massachusetts, inspired the eponymous 1851 novel by the American writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
77 The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey has sold over 5 million copies in 38 languages since 1989. The seven habits are: be proactive; begin with the end; put first things first; think win-win; seek first to understand, then to be understood; synergise and; sharpen the saw.
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Flying like a bird at 5,000ft, the winged wonder!
See how the Englishman soar the sky like a bird! Read here.
Click on pictures to see details
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Thursday, January 4, 2007
CNN apology over Obama name slip
US broadcaster CNN has apologised after mistakenly putting the name of US Senator Barack Obama as a caption on a story about Osama Bin Laden.
An advertisement for a feature about the whereabouts of the al-Qaeda leader carried the caption "Where's Obama?" over images of Bin Laden.
CNN has apologised for "a very bad typographical error".
A spokesman for Mr Obama, a potential presidential hopeful, said he accepted that it was an innocent error.
"Though I'd note that the 's' and 'b' keys aren't all that close to each other, I assume it was just an unfortunate mistake," his spokesman Tommy Vietor said.
The error happened on Monday night during presenter Wolf Blitzer's news programme "The Situation Room".
Mr Blitzer apologised on air for the slip. "I'm going to be making a call to him later this morning to offer my personal apology," he said.
Mr Obama, tipped by some to become the country's first black president, admitted in October that he was considering a White House run in 2008.
He has always been ready to deal with questions about his unusual name.
"When I first started to work in public life... people would ask: 'Hey brother, what's with your name? You called Alabama or Yo' Mama?'"
He has also acknowledged that his full name, Barack Hussein Obama, is not ideal for someone involved in politics.
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An advertisement for a feature about the whereabouts of the al-Qaeda leader carried the caption "Where's Obama?" over images of Bin Laden.
CNN has apologised for "a very bad typographical error".
A spokesman for Mr Obama, a potential presidential hopeful, said he accepted that it was an innocent error.
"Though I'd note that the 's' and 'b' keys aren't all that close to each other, I assume it was just an unfortunate mistake," his spokesman Tommy Vietor said.
The error happened on Monday night during presenter Wolf Blitzer's news programme "The Situation Room".
Mr Blitzer apologised on air for the slip. "I'm going to be making a call to him later this morning to offer my personal apology," he said.
Mr Obama, tipped by some to become the country's first black president, admitted in October that he was considering a White House run in 2008.
He has always been ready to deal with questions about his unusual name.
"When I first started to work in public life... people would ask: 'Hey brother, what's with your name? You called Alabama or Yo' Mama?'"
He has also acknowledged that his full name, Barack Hussein Obama, is not ideal for someone involved in politics.
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