Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Saturday, November 10, 2007
'Bogeyman' grabbed man's bicep, court told
A convicted criminal known as 'Purple Aki' has denied breaching a sexual offences order which bans him from touching other people's muscles.A man has told a jury he was grabbed in Preston, Lancashire, by a man he thought was a well-known "bogeyman".The events took place on May 24 this year when the man, known only as Jonathan, was shopping with a friend in Preston city centre.Akinwale Arobieke, 46, of Cavendish Gardens, Liverpool, denies two charges of breaching an interim Sexual Offences Prevention Order imposed in October 2006, which bans him from "touching, feeling or measuring any muscle areas".Giving evidence from behind a screen, Jonathan told the jury at Preston Crown Court that as he and his friend crossed Fishergate outside Topshop the man grabbed him by his right bicep.He said the man asked him which gym he went to and said that must be where he recognised him from.He said: "He had hold of my right bicep throughout."Arobieke is alleged to have asked Jonathan about his gym training and told him he was getting bigger as a result.Jonathan said his friend started telling him about Arobieke and man reacted to by tightening his grip on the young man's bicep and denying the allegations.Arobieke is then said to have asked Jonathan to go and talk to him down Canon Street free from his friend's interruptions and gestured with his head for him to walk away with him.However, worried by the claims his friend was making, Jonathan shook the man off his shoulder and went to join his friend.The pair later reported the incident to a security guard in the Mall St George's. They met another friend after work and looked up 'Purple Aki' on the internet.Jonathan spoke to his mother about what had happened and she urged him to report the incident to the police.Robert Platts, defence, read the jury an account of Arobieke's notoriety taken from the website Wikipedia, which stated: "Akinwale Arobieke, known locally as Purple Aki, is a convicted criminal from the North West of England."He was widely believed to be an urban legend until his imprisonment in Liverpool in 2001. He was well known as a "bogeyman" in the area, with stories of his activity reaching as far as Wigan and Doncaster."Many stories talk of his sexual attacks, but he has never been found guilty of anything of a sexual nature."Mr Platts quoted further references to Arobieke's criminal history taken from the site and added: "The jury will hear that is factually incorrect."However, Mr Platts said: "Mr Arobieke accepts he was in Preston that day and around the area we are talking about, but he denies any contact with you."What I suggest happened to you is that (your friend) spotted him because he knew about him because of his Liverpool football (friends] and the fact that he had in the past downloaded him through the net."He spots him and says there and then 'that's Purple Aki' at a distance from you and from that point on you spot him two or three times."You were going round following him."Prosecutor Jonathan Clarke said on the same day a similar incident was recorded on CCTV in the St George's shopping centre.He said Arobieke was seen grabbing the bicep of another young man who was out shopping with his girlfriend.The man did not report the incident but was traced through local media appeal following Jonathan's complaint.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Apartment Complex
Urban Cactus is a housing project on the harbor in Rotterdam by the Dutch firm UCX Architects. There are 98 residential units on 19 floors, using the pattern of outdoor spaces to determine the overall appearance of the project. Form follows function which leaves ample room from the interior living spaces for much greenery.The whole effect creates a building which appears to be living and growing with its inhabitants - A waterfront cactus.The slightly irregular pattern alternates these outdoor spaces to create more sunlight than a typical stacked composition and a beautiful design that has originality and adds vitality to citylife.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Monday, November 5, 2007
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Friday, November 2, 2007
Thursday, November 1, 2007
This guy has a trick to get undressed in two se...
Everyone has something that they are really good at. Sometimes you get lucky and that skill be also be quite useful.
The following guy has a rather unique skill that might seem hard at first to find value in, but rest assured he has saved more time each night and scored on more than one occasion just for having this nifty skill.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
15 Fun Activities to Keep Your Mind Sharp
You’re working hard at a rewarding career. You’re settled, more or less, in a longtime relationship, and enjoy a fulfilling social life. Life in general is going great. Or is it? Could it be that your mind is stagnating?
The brain is an organ and, as such, it requires oxygen and exercise. Feed your mind and you’ll feel emotionally and physically invigorated. It may be too soon to succumb to middle-aged worries about “using it or losing it,” however, it’s still critical to focus on keeping your brain in shape.
By continually engaging in the right activities, you can increase your memory, improve your problem-solving skills and even boost your creativity. Here are some fun ways to keep your mind active.
1. Grab a cue and play pool.
Rack ‘em up, grab a cue and contemplate on your strategy. Billiard players must focus on the immediate, blocking out distractions as they plan their next moves. Strategic planning increases mental clarity. Concentrating on the immediate helps keep your mind sharp. Additionally, this game of angles demands that players think in terms of physics, something most of us rarely do in our everyday lives.
2. Calm down with yoga.
You might be surprised at how demanding yoga can be. Beyond the physical demands that give your entire body a workout, yoga has great calming and relaxation qualities. Yoga forces you to focus on controlling all your muscles and your breathing. You’ll let your worries slide away, giving your mind a rest from stress.
3. Play golf in the fresh air.
Escape to the links and spend a few hours in the fresh air counting birdies, bogeys and mulligans. Golf is a social sport and a great way to network and loosen up at the same time. Golfers get mental stimulation using their decision-making skills as they plan stroke strategies. As the sport involves the control of repetitive movements, it instills mind-body discipline.
4. Lace up your running shoes.
Lace up your jogging shoes and get moving. Even if you never plan to run a marathon, it will get both your body and mind in shape. Running will boost the levels of oxygen in your brain and flowing through your body. In turn, your body will release more endorphins, which will make you feel energized while producing a sense of pleasure and well-being.
5. Challenge a friend to a game.
Challenge a friend to a game of chess at lunch. Invite colleagues over for an evening of cards. Besides the social aspects, such activities will keep your mind active. You’ll use your memory and expand your powers of recall. You’ll also test your mathematical skills and logic.
6. Subscribe to a daily newsletter.
Whether it’s a “word of the day,” “quote of the day” or “this day in history” newsletter, receiving new information each day will add data to the HD (hard drive) in your head. The mental stimulation will increase your comprehension skills. The added knowledge will also make you sound more worldly and bright.
7. Pick up a book.
Choose from classic literature, science fiction or self-improvement books and give your brain a boost. Pick up a novel before your next business flight or vacation. On top of the cerebral benefits, the escapism that comes from reading can be very refreshing. Reading helps you exercise your cognitive skills and increase your vocabulary. Do it regularly and you’ll be amazed at the information you absorb, which will make you a more interesting conversationalist.
8. Take a course.
Learn something new. Sign up for a cooking class, register for karate training or enroll in a wine tasting seminar. You’ll be challenging yourself to assimilate new concepts, information and ideas, and you’ll hone your retention skills through memorization.
9. Learn a new language.
Attend classes, listen to tapes or date someone with whom you can converse in another language. Instead of watching the same TV programs you always do, take in a foreign language movie with subtitles. Learning a new tongue keeps your brain flexible and your mind sharp, helping to reduce the slowing of the thought processes that comes with age. It can also make your next vacation or business trip easier if you know the language.
10. Grab the controller.
As I mentioned in previous articles, believe it or not, playing certain video games really can be good for your health. The operative word here, however, is “certain” — choose games that involve strategy or problem solving. Playing GTA may be stimulating, but it doesn’t do much for the mind. Problem solving and role-playing games will help you practice strategic planning. You’ll also improve your hand-eye coordination.
11. Rent a classic movie.
Rent Shakespearean adaptations or other language-heavy period movies and treat them as an exercise; watch them with a dictionary and thesaurus in hand and make a point of understanding all the dialogue, even if it means pausing the movie chronically. Some options: Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet.
12. Learn an instrument.
Pull out your old guitar, sign up for piano lessons or rent a trumpet or a clarinet. Trying to understand how music is made will stimulate your creativity. Reading music provides mental stimulation. Playing an instrument requires powers of recall as well as concentration to maintain tune and tempo.
13. Build a model.
Remember how excited you were as a kid making model airplanes and ships? Recreate that by building a miniature model. Following all those written instructions sharpens your powers of concentration. Focusing on the task at hand will also be very relaxing.
14. Do a crossword.
Stick the newspaper crossword puzzle in your briefcase, then get to work on it during your commute or while you’re waiting for an appointment or a meeting to begin. You’ll improve your cognitive skills and creative thinking as well as your word power and vocabulary.
15. Engage in a debate.
A lively discussion can be invigorating. As long as you avoid letting it digress into an altercation, you can have a lot of fun debating the pros and cons of an issue with a friend or colleague. You’ll practice your quick-thinking skills, logic and creativity. Developing convincing theories on the spot will help you in your career and in your personal relationships.
Use your cognitive skills, test your powers of recall, improve your memory, and challenge yourself to be more creative in your thinking. You’ll reap great brain-boosting benefits by keeping your mind active.
“The mind is like a trunk: if well-packed, it holds almost every thing; if ill-packed, next to nothing.”
The brain is an organ and, as such, it requires oxygen and exercise. Feed your mind and you’ll feel emotionally and physically invigorated. It may be too soon to succumb to middle-aged worries about “using it or losing it,” however, it’s still critical to focus on keeping your brain in shape.
By continually engaging in the right activities, you can increase your memory, improve your problem-solving skills and even boost your creativity. Here are some fun ways to keep your mind active.
1. Grab a cue and play pool.
Rack ‘em up, grab a cue and contemplate on your strategy. Billiard players must focus on the immediate, blocking out distractions as they plan their next moves. Strategic planning increases mental clarity. Concentrating on the immediate helps keep your mind sharp. Additionally, this game of angles demands that players think in terms of physics, something most of us rarely do in our everyday lives.
2. Calm down with yoga.
You might be surprised at how demanding yoga can be. Beyond the physical demands that give your entire body a workout, yoga has great calming and relaxation qualities. Yoga forces you to focus on controlling all your muscles and your breathing. You’ll let your worries slide away, giving your mind a rest from stress.
3. Play golf in the fresh air.
Escape to the links and spend a few hours in the fresh air counting birdies, bogeys and mulligans. Golf is a social sport and a great way to network and loosen up at the same time. Golfers get mental stimulation using their decision-making skills as they plan stroke strategies. As the sport involves the control of repetitive movements, it instills mind-body discipline.
4. Lace up your running shoes.
Lace up your jogging shoes and get moving. Even if you never plan to run a marathon, it will get both your body and mind in shape. Running will boost the levels of oxygen in your brain and flowing through your body. In turn, your body will release more endorphins, which will make you feel energized while producing a sense of pleasure and well-being.
5. Challenge a friend to a game.
Challenge a friend to a game of chess at lunch. Invite colleagues over for an evening of cards. Besides the social aspects, such activities will keep your mind active. You’ll use your memory and expand your powers of recall. You’ll also test your mathematical skills and logic.
6. Subscribe to a daily newsletter.
Whether it’s a “word of the day,” “quote of the day” or “this day in history” newsletter, receiving new information each day will add data to the HD (hard drive) in your head. The mental stimulation will increase your comprehension skills. The added knowledge will also make you sound more worldly and bright.
7. Pick up a book.
Choose from classic literature, science fiction or self-improvement books and give your brain a boost. Pick up a novel before your next business flight or vacation. On top of the cerebral benefits, the escapism that comes from reading can be very refreshing. Reading helps you exercise your cognitive skills and increase your vocabulary. Do it regularly and you’ll be amazed at the information you absorb, which will make you a more interesting conversationalist.
8. Take a course.
Learn something new. Sign up for a cooking class, register for karate training or enroll in a wine tasting seminar. You’ll be challenging yourself to assimilate new concepts, information and ideas, and you’ll hone your retention skills through memorization.
9. Learn a new language.
Attend classes, listen to tapes or date someone with whom you can converse in another language. Instead of watching the same TV programs you always do, take in a foreign language movie with subtitles. Learning a new tongue keeps your brain flexible and your mind sharp, helping to reduce the slowing of the thought processes that comes with age. It can also make your next vacation or business trip easier if you know the language.
10. Grab the controller.
As I mentioned in previous articles, believe it or not, playing certain video games really can be good for your health. The operative word here, however, is “certain” — choose games that involve strategy or problem solving. Playing GTA may be stimulating, but it doesn’t do much for the mind. Problem solving and role-playing games will help you practice strategic planning. You’ll also improve your hand-eye coordination.
11. Rent a classic movie.
Rent Shakespearean adaptations or other language-heavy period movies and treat them as an exercise; watch them with a dictionary and thesaurus in hand and make a point of understanding all the dialogue, even if it means pausing the movie chronically. Some options: Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet.
12. Learn an instrument.
Pull out your old guitar, sign up for piano lessons or rent a trumpet or a clarinet. Trying to understand how music is made will stimulate your creativity. Reading music provides mental stimulation. Playing an instrument requires powers of recall as well as concentration to maintain tune and tempo.
13. Build a model.
Remember how excited you were as a kid making model airplanes and ships? Recreate that by building a miniature model. Following all those written instructions sharpens your powers of concentration. Focusing on the task at hand will also be very relaxing.
14. Do a crossword.
Stick the newspaper crossword puzzle in your briefcase, then get to work on it during your commute or while you’re waiting for an appointment or a meeting to begin. You’ll improve your cognitive skills and creative thinking as well as your word power and vocabulary.
15. Engage in a debate.
A lively discussion can be invigorating. As long as you avoid letting it digress into an altercation, you can have a lot of fun debating the pros and cons of an issue with a friend or colleague. You’ll practice your quick-thinking skills, logic and creativity. Developing convincing theories on the spot will help you in your career and in your personal relationships.
Use your cognitive skills, test your powers of recall, improve your memory, and challenge yourself to be more creative in your thinking. You’ll reap great brain-boosting benefits by keeping your mind active.
“The mind is like a trunk: if well-packed, it holds almost every thing; if ill-packed, next to nothing.”
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