Saturday, August 28, 2010

Life never ceases to amaze

As a person who seeks out - how shall we say - the "unusual" articles on the Web, people never cease to amaze me. For example, this story upon first glance would appear to be something out of a Monty Python sketch or one of the"Airplane!" movies.

The staid British Airways had to issue an appology after an emergency message - wait for it - warning passengers that the plane they were on was about to crash into the sea. The automated message somehow went on in error. The 275 travellers, on the London Heathrow to Hong Kong flight when the message played, were flying over the North Sea at the time. I mean - imagine being on a plane, having faith in the pilot and hearing a message of this nature? It's like a good-news-bad-news-announcement.

"Hello! This is your pilot. Please prepare for a crash" to be followed by "oh sorry - our mistake. Wrong button!" Something to that effect.

Here is the link: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/100827/odds/odd_us_britain_ba_emergency_odd


Once again a piece out of England - curious that many of these quirkies are based in England - comes the interesting statistic that one in four women who work as a lap dancer in Britain has a university degree. Presumably, their degree does not involve a college education in how to dance and sit on laps. Furthermore, the study also reveals that the women enjoy their work and earn up to $74,500 dollars per year doing it. The study done by researchers from the Univesity of Leeds (once again it boggles the mind that people actually receive money for this type of research) chose to get into lap dancing for money or because it fitted in with their main careers. Just wondering what type of career choice fits in with lap dancing... physio or massage therapy perhaps...

Attention Klingons!

Finally, just a quick reminder to earthlings and/or aliens reading this that the Klingon opera is a go in the Netherlands. This is being billed as the first authentic Klingon opera on earth hosted by the Zeebelt Theatre in The Hague on September 9-12. Just in case some out-of-town guests happened to be flying over earth, a radio message was broadcast to the assumed location of Qo'nos, the Klingon home planet, approximately 9 light years away. At least four responses from earth-bound Klingons have been posted to YouTube, promising to attend the event.

Hear the message beamed out to Qo'nos here and more information:

http://www.dutchdailynews.com/klingon-opera/

Friday, August 06, 2010

So whad'ya think about red?

Here we go again yet another of those studies that make you scratch your head and utter, "huh" or "say what?" or "why?"

According to research conducted by one Andrew Elliot of the University of Rochester, women living in the U.S., England, Germany and China like guys who wear red. This leads one to ask oneself why would somebody want to pay to have a study to find this out. But I digress.

Men who want to get the attention of females should dress in red, a color, which new research shows makes them more desirable to the opposite sex. Wearing red attire was thought to be sensuous primarily when women wear it and not guys.

"Our findings suggest that the link between red and sex also applies to men," Elliot said. "For women, the color made a big difference."

Even though cultural differences related to the color, the findings of women being attracted to men in red were consistent throughout the countries. On a personal note, I've seen touches of red combined with navy blue, which is alright and even touches of red in tie designs but IMHO, clothes for males that are entirely red-colored are rare. Not my taste but different strokes for different folks I guess... I'm thinking here...very few males of my aquaintance wear red to be candid. Matadors spring to mind...clowns...Ronald McDonald...few and far beween.

According to the report, the research consisted of seven experiments with some split into two parts, each with a group of between 20 and 57 people aged 19 to 22 years old. Women participated in all the experiments, while men were included as a control group in one.

The researchers suggested that for men wearing the color may trigger a change in behavior and that something as simple as wearing a red tie could give a more confident business presentation.

So the message here seems to be is wear anything with red to feel extra confident and get the attention of the opposite sex. Or something. Who is paying for this study, anyway, one wonders.