Friday 29 June 2012

Proud now :-) but the journey is far from over...


Uggie the dog plants paw prints in Hollywood

Reuters – Mon, Jun 25, 2012 22:45 BST
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·         Lucia, 9, and Olivia, 7, Tableros wait at the ceremony where the dog Uggie, featured in the film "The Artist", left his paw prints in cement in the forecourt of the Grauman's Chinese theatre in Hollywood, California June 25, 2012. REUTERS/Mario AnzuoniView Photo
Lucia, 9, and Olivia, 7, Tableros wait at the ceremony where the dog Uggie, featured …
·         The dog Uggie (C), featured in the film "The Artist", poses after leaving his paw prints in cement, with Lassie (L) and Rin Tin Tin, in the forecourt of the Grauman's Chinese theatre in Hollywood, California June 25, 2012. REUTERS/Mario AnzuoniView Photo
The dog Uggie (C), featured in the film "The Artist", poses after leaving his paw …
·         The dog Uggie, featured in the film "The Artist", is pictured after leaving his paw prints in cement in the forecourt of the Grauman's Chinese theatre in Hollywood, California June 25, 2012. REUTERS/Mario AnzuoniView Photo
The dog Uggie, featured in the film "The Artist", is pictured after leaving his paw …
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Uggie, the lively Jack Russell terrier whose antics in Oscar-winning film "The Artist" stole audience members' hearts, became the first dog on Monday to leave his prints beside the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable in front of Hollywood's famous Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
Dressed in a black bow tie and posing for photographers, Uggie sank his paws in cement in a ceremony that also marked his retirement from the movies. The 10-year-old canine, who hit the big time as French actor Jean Dujardin's cute sidekick in the silent movie, will appear at charity events, his trainer said.
"Everybody thinks I am great trainer. I don't think so. I think he is just a great dog," trainer Omar von Muller said at the paw print ceremony, thanking Uggie's fans and his thousands of followers on Twitter and Facebook.
Filmed in black and white, "The Artist" won five Oscars, including best picture, in February. Fans mounted a campaign to have Uggie nominated for an acting Academy Award in his own right, but the pooch was ineligible under rules that say acting awards can only go to humans.
Uggie, who also performed in "Water for Elephants," has made appearances around the world since "The Artist" was released last year. He won the 2011 Palm Dog award at the Cannes film festival in May and the Golden Collar Award in Los Angeles in February.
(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte and Jan Paschal)


Animals have come a long way. UGGIE may have an incredible accomplishment in USA but elsewhere, animal cruelty is still beyond words. I have not watched nor heard about ‘The Artist’. I will watch soon. Lead the way UGGIE and may those cruelties burn in hell for eternity... >:-( Argh...


Bibliography

Reference Cited

UGGIE THE DOG PLANTS PAW PRINTS IN HOLLYWOOD (2012) [Online] Yahoo! Available from:
[Accessed: 27 JUN 2012]

Wednesday 27 June 2012

Cars Are NOT big losses After All )



I think I am optimistic so, above are two winners J For the bad news, you have to find out yourself!

I always thought that cars are massive losing investments until I read this. There are some that depreciate ONLY 20% in three years ;-) Then there are some that depreciate a nightmare of 65% for the same duration:-O! This may be a useful guide for buying your car or dream car with minimum losses J


Bibliography

Reference Cited

THE TOP 10 LEAST DEPRECIATING CARS; THE TOP 10 MOST DEPRECIATING CARS (2012) [Online] Microsoft. Available from:
[Accessed: 26 JUN 2012]

Thursday 21 June 2012

Stone wash jeans?

Hi there! 


Here is a fun quiz for all my fans. Can anyone post the inventor of stone-wash jeans? Upon on-line research, there seem to be many who claim to have invented this. Please include references too! 


Cheers!


Yours sincerely,


THE DSTYSIONIST

Wednesday 20 June 2012

Most OVERLOOK Rainy Days... :-(


It is 'succeed or die' for Nokia, observers say

AFPBy Dennis Mitzner | AFP – Sun, Jun 17, 2012 06:28 BST
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Companies:

·         NOKIA
·         Microsoft Corp.
·         Apple Inc.

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Nokia (Stockholm: NOKI-SEK.ST - news) 's surprise announcement of massive new spending cuts and 10,000 more layoffs had observers cautioning the beleaguered mobile phone giant is at a crossroads that will determine if it sinks or swims.
Nokia, which only recently lost the world number one ranking it had held for 14 years, dramatically changed its strategy a year and a half ago when the then new chief executive, Stephen Elop, warned it was "standing on a burning platform" and needed to immediately shift course.
But after the company on Thursday suddenly said new big spending cuts and another 10,000 job cuts would be needed on top of the some 12,000 layoffs already announced since the shift, some observers said the company appeared to be slowly committing suicide.
"Nokia jumped from a burning oil platform and sank like a stone," the STT news agency said, summing up Thursday's announcement.
The Finnish company's new strategy involved phasing out its Symbian smartphones in favour of a partnership with Microsoft (NasdaqGS: MSFT - news) .
That alliance has produced a first line of Lumia smartphones, which Nokia is counting on to help it survive in a rapidly changing landscape marked by stiff competition from RiM's Blackberry, Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL - news) 's iPhone and handsets running Google (NasdaqGS: GOOG - news) 's Android platform.
"I believe it was the wrong strategy from the beginning," Andalys Oy analyst Ari Hakkarainen told AFP, stressing though that now that Nokia had shifted course it was too late to turn the tanker around.
"They have chosen this strategy and they have invested everything that Nokia has in the new strategy. Basically, they must succeed or die," he said.
"They are at a crossroads," agreed Pohjola Bank analyst Hannu Rauhala, adding that it was hard to predict Nokia's future since "the visibility of the business is very poor."
The company, which in 2008 enjoyed more than 40 percent of the global mobile phone market, was already struggling to maintain its leading position when it entered the Microsoft partnership.
Since that deal it has been bumped by Samsung as king on the hill and reportedly has just around 20 percent market share.
"Nokia took a calculated risk and they knew that (the shift) would be very painful and that Nokia would lose market share in the short term, but in the long term of course, they have the reasoning that Nokia will bounce back," Hakkarainen said.
The company's announcement Thursday that it would implement an additional 1.6 billion euros ($2.0 billion) in cost cuts by the end of 2013, shutting down factories in Germany, Canada and Finland and letting go 10,000 more employees was meanwhile taken as a bad sign by many.
"Perhaps they should have enacted these reforms earlier. Investors who are looking for long-term profit are not convinced that Nokia is a company that can deliver in the future," Dividend House analyst Arje Rimon told AFP.
Nokia's stock price plunged by as much as 16 percent Thursday and on Friday, ratings agency Moody's downgraded the company's long-term credit rating to junk status, following in the footsteps of Fitch and Standard and Poor's.
"Today's rating action reflects our view that Nokia's far-reaching restructuring plan ... delineates a scale of earnings pressure and cash consumption that is larger than we had previously assumed," Moody's said, adding though that it thought the restructuring was "positive and necessary."
Analysts too were caught off guard by the scope of Thursday's announcement.
"I thought it would be smaller... This shows the market situation is worse than we thought," Rauhala said.
Many observers meanwhile applauded Nokia for its decision to slim down in a bid to improve its competitiveness.
Juhani Risku, previously in charge of Nokia innovation, told AFP he thought it was "an excellent move to make the company smaller."
"Hopefully, it will make the company more competitive, as it will have to sell fewer phones to cover its fixed costs," agreed Nomura Securities analyst Richard Windsor.
At the end of March, Nokia counted 122,148 employees worldwide, including the nearly 70,000 working for Nokia Siemens Network, but those numbers do not take into account the tens of thousands of layoffs announced but not yet put into effect.
As Nokia continues to trim down and in light of its share price -- which since Elop announced the strategy shift has fallen from above 8.0 euros to below 2.0 euros -- has meanwhile made the company a prime takeover target, observers say.
"That's certainly possible," Rauhala said, mentioning Samsung, Microsoft and Facebook as names circulating as potential buyers.
"Nokia has many interesting assets (and) its brand is still very good," he said.
According to Andalys Oy analyst Hakkarainen, however, the company's brand might be so strong that it would frighten off its direct competitors, which might not want to pay the price for another brand or want the hassle with regulators.
"But if I was an Asian, or let's say a Chinese manufacturer, I would be very interested," he told AFP.


TILL THE END!

Nokia is my dream mobile. I did reach there and owned two. I am still using the last. I am also proud to have used the one in ‘X-Files’! With an impressive history, achievement and mobile user-friendliness, it is very sad to read such negative news ToT My heart and loyalty still goes out to Nokia and pray that they pull through stronger. As with the present system, ‘majority rules regardless of consciousnesses'. That being written, my loyalty is my satisfaction that I am doing the right thing. I was with Nokia when they were growing and up. I shall be with them till the end!!! To hell with all other mobiles!!!


Bibliography

Reference Cited

IT IS ‘SUCCEED OR DIE’ FOR NOKIA, OBSERVERS SAY (2012) [Online] Yahoo! Available from:
[Accessed: 19 JUN 2012]

Brown and Down... boo... :-(


Ensemble that is too dark for our very 'bright' Fashion Dushess. The dog made all work! 

Do you see what I mean?

What happened to our loving and ever stylish Fashion Duchess? With her recent unpleasant brown ensemble, this style is a real brown down... This certainly adds to the downing summer. This is NOT good and borrring... Come on Duchess, time to move up...up...and away...


Bibliography

Reference Cited

KATE MIDDLETON’S WOODLAND WARDROBE: ZARA JEANS, BURBERRY SHIRT AND LE CHAMEAU BOOTS! (2012) [Online] Bauer Consumer Media. Available from: http://www.graziadaily.co.uk/fashion/archive/2012/06/17/kate-middletons-woodland-wardobe--zara-jeans--burberry-shirt-and-le-chameau-boot.htm?slideshow=true&slideImage=0   
[Accessed: 20 JUN 2012]

Thursday 14 June 2012

Old is Gold :-O


'Back to the future' savings passbook trumps the internet

Yorkshire Building Society decision to bring back the passbook has won over its customers.

By Rosie Murray-West | Telegraph – 13 hours ago
  • Image: PA
Image: PA
Yorkshire Building Society's 'back to the future' passbook account has become it's most popular savings offering since its launch twelve months ago, despite offering no internet access and requiring people to bank in their local branches.
Almost three times as many people are opening these accounts, which pay 2.25pc, than any other Yorkshire Account, the mutual said, proving that the old-fashioned passbook is still popular in today's world.

[Related link: The top-paying instant-access savings acounts]

Research by Yorkshire Building Society found more than three in five customers preferred the traditional branch network as their main method of managing their savings, most frequently citing customer service and convenience as the reasons for this choice.
More than half the Yorkshire's customers preferred to use a passbook to keep track of transactions on their account and almost 70pc of those surveyed favoured a branch-based account with a competitive variable rate.
"This time last year there was some scepticism in the media about whether in the age of internet banking savers really wanted a simple, traditional passbook account," said Yorkshire's Savings Product Manager Mike Helliwell.
"The fact that Triple Access Saver has been our most popular savings account since its launch speaks for itself customers appreciate the straightforward terms, ease of use and an attractive, competitive rate without any introductory bonus for a limited period."
Most banks have been phasing out passbook accounts, which require details of transactions to be entered into a book that is then produced at the bank as proof of deposits and withdrawals.
Three years ago Abbey, now part of Santander, banned customers from withdrawing small amounts from bank counters with their passbooks, because they said it created extra queues. Santander reversed Abbey's plans to phase out the passbooks altogether.
The passbook has a long and noble history. They appeared in the 18th century, putting financial information into the customers' hands for the first time. Before that, all banking transactions were recorded only by the bank itself, so that customers had no history of their own deposits and withdrawals.
Previously, customers' transactions were only kept in huge leather-bound ledgers at the bank, where they would occasionally be allowed to see what was recorded under their name and would be required to sign it. The passbook, which was around the size of a passport, ensured that customers had control over their own information, and was called a "passbook" because it regularly passed between the bank and the account holder for updating.
Yorkshire Building Society's Triple Access Account, which allows three withdrawals a year without penalty, can be opened and operated at branches of Yorkshire, Chelsea or Barnsley building societies, and the Yorkshire's agencies. The minimum opening balance is £100.


‘Green’ is good but too much of anything is bad! So, in this worsening white collar crime age, it is time to go back to ‘black & white’ systems. It turns out that our common sense is BECOMING common again J


Bibliography

Reference Cited

‘BACK TO THE FUTURE’ SAVINGS BOOK TRUMPS THE INTERNET (2012) [Online] Yahoo! Available from:
[Accessed: 12 JUN 2012]

Wednesday 13 June 2012

Fashion Fortune, meow… ^..^




































A social media venture with an advertising corporation went up and down the drain in TWO weeks. Resistance from internal and external factors forced my termination. In my second attempt in this industry and despite my initial optimism, it figures, because these factors are from old network of contacts L

One month after this, casual conversations led to a new fashion social media venture J I still have a destiny with fashion! With new networks, partner and the Japanese Fortune Cat as my social media avatar, I am destined to succeed! :-O This leads to this article.

What is the story behind Fortune Cat? Below is the most inspiring story:

‘A frequent attribution to several Japanese emperors, as well as to Oda Nobunaga and samurai Ii Naotaka, is that one day the luminary passed by a cat, which seemed to wave to him. Taking the cat's motion as a sign, the unknown nobleman paused and went to it. Diverted from his journey, he realized that he had avoided a trap that had been laid for him just ahead. Since that time, cats have been considered wise and lucky spirits. Many Japanese shrines and homes include the figurine of a cat with one paw upraised as if waving—hence the origin of maneki-neko, often referred to as kami-neko in reference to the cat's kami or spirit.’

May the Maneki-neko bring fortune in my fashion future!


Bibliography

Reference Cited

MANEKI-NEKO (2012) [Online] Wikipedia. Available from:
[Accessed: 8 JUN 2012]