Nude woman waving gun

The California town of Vacaville woke up to some strange news on Sunday morning when residents learned that Patricia Wright of nearby Fairfield had stormed a Super 8 Motel, taking control of its lobby for nearly 20 minutes.
Staying at the motel with a man, the Sacramento Bee reports that Patricia Wright entered the Super 8 lobby just after 2:40 a.m.
Sunday morning, wearing no clothing and waving a gun.  The front desk clerk called 911, and managed to talk Wright into surrendering about 20 minutes later. 
Upon arrest, she admitted that she had ingested marijuana, prescription medications, and ecstasy.  Prosecutors have now charged Patricia Wright with brandishing a firearm, possession of a loaded firearm in public, and possession of a firearm with a removed serial number .
  Because it's obvious that pointing a loaded weapon at a motel clerk is illegal in the many states of the Union, let's focus on the legal implications of firearms with missing serial numbers.
 
Like in most states, in California it is against the law to change or remove a manufacturer's name, model, or number from any firearm. It is also a misdemeanor to knowingly possess a firearm that has been altered in this way.
So, at the very least, Patricia Wright is going to spend a few years behind bars, unless the prosecutor decides to take her drug-induced state into consideration.

Indian women / indian business women

 
Indian women are more optimistic in the world compared to their counterparts in the developed nations. Despite facing a lot of stress, women in India splash money on health, vacations, beauty products and electrical appliances and are gaining greater control over their lives, according to a survey.

A survey of 6,500 women across 21 developed and developing countries revealed that Indian women are most optimistic about opportunities for growth, with 78% of the lot confident about better financial stability and better chances for education for their daughters.

"Indian women are now more able in making simple day-to-day decisions. It is getting increasingly important for marketers to understand their attitudes," said Surekha Poddar, executive director, customised research, Nielsen Indian Region. While 58% said they had more opportunities to reduce stress compared to their mothers, 78% believed that their daughters would have more opportunities than them. Despite getting increasingly indulgent in clothes, health and beauty, more than three-fourth of the surveyed lot gave more importance to saving for their children's education.

"Women in India see greater hopes for their daughters in terms of growth opportunities. This is starkly different from the women in developed countries, who have been empowered with the freedom of choice for a while now," said Poddar.

In terms of media consumption too, 51% of Indian women are now viewing more television than they were two years ago, as compared to 40% of the female respondents globally. 77% of Indian women believe that their daughters will have more opportunities in accessing technology.

"Indian women are slowly being influenced by their use of technology and access to the internet, though their remains a significant reliance on traditional media," Poddar said.

 
However, greater empowerment of women has led to greater stress too. Around 87% of Indian women said they often felt pressured for time, while 64% said they felt stressed all the time, as opposed to 54% and 38% of women respectively, in the developed countries. "Balancing traditional responsibilities with the new-age pressures is a big challenge for Indian women. Her growing expectation from herself to perform both these tasks efficiently results in stress," Poddar added.

Girls love pole dance

 
A pole dancing class for children as young as three years has started at the 'Make Me Fabulous Dance Studio' in Northampton, UK. In class that cost £5 an hour, children, aged three to seven, learn moves including holding their legs in a V-shape while sliding down the pole.

 
"The girls love it. But it is not a wise idea to announce at school that you let your children pole dance," the Daily Star quoted one mother, who took her three and five-year-old daughters to the classes, as saying.

 
The dance class was advertised on a website which also promotes adult lessons, features pictures of lingerie-clad women and describes pole dances as 'sexy, relaxing and invigorating'.

No skin show in cycle.

Only in New York! A leggy blonde was pulled over by a police officer in the Big Apple for cycling too sexily.
The unidentified officer said her skirt was so short it could cause an accident.
The 'culprit' was Dutch tourist Jasmijn Rijcken who said the incident happened on a warm, sunny May 3.
Miss Rijcken was wearing a short frilly, grey skirt and short light brown boots at the time.

For one NYPD officer, that constituted too much skin, Miss Rijcken claims.
She recalled: 'He said it's very disturbing, and it's distracting the cars and it's dangerous.
'I thought he was joking around but he got angry and asked me for ID.'

Miss Rijcken, 31, was not given a ticket following the 'incident.'
She did not get the officer's name and said she was left feeling rather baffled.
'I didn't even think for one second that my outfit could be harmful or disturbing,' she told the New York Daily News.

Miss Rjicken works as the general manager of the Vanmoof bicycle company in Amsterdam.
She was in New York to attend the New Amsterdam Bike Show.
While in the city, she could not resist the urge to see some of Manhattan on two wheels and ended up getting stopped in the SoHo area of the city.
She said: 'I was on my way back to the hotel when it happened and I changed into pants.
'I didn't want to get into trouble again.'
NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne responded to Miss Rjicken's claims by saying: 'Whether this story bears even a modest semblance of what actually occurred is impossible to establish without being provided the purported officer's name and getting his side of the story.'

the virus entering the blood stream by tattoo

 
Sporting a tattoo might be the latest fad amongst youngsters, but doctors warn against the potential hazards that it can cause. Even though tattoo artists replace the needles, the paint is the same, and doctors warn that infectious blood can be transferred through these paints.

The infections spread most commonly through tattooing are Hepatitis B and C. The latter is 100 times more infectious than HIV and no vaccines are available for the disease.

The paints used to make tattoos are expensive and often imported. Hence artists use the same bottle for multiple clients. However, since the process of making a tattoo involves penetration of the needle deep into the dermis (layer under the skin surface), some blood always gets transferred into the paint bottle, said Dr Ajay K Sachdev, head, surgical gastroenterology and GI, oncology at Artemis Institute of Healthcare.


Dr Sachdev added: The chances of the virus entering the blood stream of a person are more if he gets the tattoo done immediately after an infected person at the tattoo parlour. Also, since Hepatitis C might go undetected for years, a carrier does not usually know the extent of damage caused to his body.According to Dr Mandeep Singh, consultant, plastic and cosmetic surgery at Columbia Asia, paints used in the process can also cause other infections like bacterial, fungal, allegoric reactions, ulcers and rashes.

Whenever we admit a patient with a tattoo, we make sure to test him for certain diseases like HIV and Hepatitis. Since the paint used is a usually made from a heavy metal, a pregnant woman getting a tattoo done in the first trimester of her pregnancy can pass the infections even to the fetus, said Dr Singh.


According to doctors, the only way to avoid such infections is by insisting that the artist replace the used ink with a fresh bottle of paint. The charges will definitely be higher. However, compared to HIV, the Hepatitis B and C viruses survive longer even outside the human body and hence it is important to be careful, said Dr Nandini Hazarika, consultant, oncology and haematology, Max Hospital.

skin care advice / healthy skin care

 
 The skin was supposed to to clean itself, but lacking suitable treatment, it’s possible for toxins in the environment to build up and stop up pores, leading to an array of unattractive and embarrassing skin difficulties.  Many people mistakenly believe that if they use excessive amounts of conventional beauty products they will be rewarded with perfect skin.  There are a number of reasons why it’s a good idea to go natural with virgin skin care.


1. Skin can breathe more easily with virgin skin care.With a layer of chemicals on the face, skin pores can easily become clogged, this can often lead to pimples
2. By choosing natural skin care products, free of artificial colorings and additives, one can avoid many adverse skin reactions, including eczema.
3. It’s easier to moisturize the skin thoroughly with natural products. Using coconut oil as moisturizer is an effective way to achieve beautiful skin naturally.
4. Because most people can absorb up to 60% of any product that is put on the skin, using natural skin care products like tamanu oil will help prevent your skin from taking harmful toxins
5. Natural skin care products look and smell more pleasant than synthetic materials. Nature has already given us such wonderful smelling products such as vanilla skin care, so there is no need to try and replicate this in a lab for great smelling skin.
 
6. Natural skin care products are not tested on animals, and are cruelty-free in most cases. Always check with the producers to be sure.
7. If you are concerned about your environmental impact, then it makes sense to use products that are free from anything that could clog the environment. Natural products are usually packaged in recyclable materials.
  8. Natural products contain many vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that skin needs, and can even potentially defend against cancer with the addition of antioxidants.
9. Because virgin skin care and natural aging skin care products help to fight against cancer-causing free radicals, they also manage to put the brakes on the aging process much more efficiently than competing synthetic products might do. As part of your natural aging skin care routine these products may smooth wrinkles and aid in nourishing the skin from the inside out
10. When looking at beauty and skin care products, the choice with fewer ingredients is usually the healthier product. Unlike synthetic products, natural skin care will have less filler and more quality for your money.

women climaxing / climaxing women

Scientists have discovered the female orgasm leads to an altered state of conciousness that could help the minority of women who can not climax.

Researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands unwittingly stumbled across the results after they examined the brain scans of women taken while they orgasmed.

The team noticed that an area of the brain, known as the orbitofrontal cortex or OFC, switched off when the women climaxed.
It is estimated that one in four women in the U.S.  has had difficulty achieving orgasm in the past year, while between five and 10 per cent of women suffer from anorgasmia and can not climax at all.
Speaking to New Scientist magazine, researcher Janniko Georgiadis said the OFC may be the basis for 'sexual control', and that by 'letting go' women can induce orgasm.
He said: 'I don't think orgasm turns off consciousness but it changes it.
'When you ask people how they perceive their orgasm, they describe a feeling of a loss of control.'

'I'm not sure if this altered state is necessary to achieve more pleasure or is just some side effect.'
To create the scans, Dutch researchers strapped the women into an MRI scanner and then allowed their partners to pleasure them to orgasm, all the while taking snapshots of their brain activity.


It is hoped that by comparing the brain scans of women having an orgasm with those who cannot, scientists will be able to 'coach' those with anorgasmia into truly 'letting go'.
Kenneth Casey at the University of Michigan explained that people who suffer from chronic pain conditions can be coached to relieve some of their symptoms by altering how they thought.
Experiments proved that when people watched real-time video of their rostral anterior cingulate cortex - the site of their 'pain' - they were able to reduce their symptoms by mentally adjusting it and watching the results on screen.Mr Casey said: 'The placebo effect is an easy example of practical top-down control.
'You believe you are taking a pill that will help and somehow it does.

'In my experience, simply telling a patient that the pain they are experiencing is not harmful has an analgesic effect.'
It is hoped that by allowing women with anorgasmia to watch their brain activity in real time, they to will be able to 'train' their brain to copy the same activity of women who can experience orgasm.
Barry Komisaruk from Rutgers University in Newark also conducted experiments into the female orgasm.
He added: 'Orgasm is a special case of consciousness.
'If we can look at different ways of inducing orgasm, we may better understand how we can use top-down processing to control what we physically feel.'

British women an egg / great british women

Believe it or not, one in 20 British women doesn't know how to boil an egg or prepare a breakfast.

This is according to a survey which has also revealed that the typical woman can cook only seven dishes from scratch half as many as their mums were able to serve up -- and more than half saying their husband is a better cook.

The poll of 2,000 men and women commissioned by the Good Food channel also found more than one in five women struggles with a basic curry, one in six cannot bake a cake and one in ten has never cooked a roast.

One in 20 even messes up boiling an egg or preparing a cooked breakfast. Around half admitted that their mothers would have easily fixed up any of those dishes. One in 10 women can cook fewer than three meals without looking at a recipe book or asking for help, the survey found.

But for those who do venture into the kitchen, eight in 10 admitted cooking the same meals over and again and only two per cent said they have picked up a recipe book and had a crack at something different.

Fussy children, hectic lifestyles and keeping costs down were blamed for them being "stuck in a rut".

Good Food spokesman Roopa Gulati was quoted by 'Daily Mail' as saying, "The research shows how busy lifestyles and a lack of culinary know-how are impacting on the dishes we feel confident to cook.

"Everyone is increasingly pushed for time, and women in particular are finding it harder than ever to balance work and home lives. Many are resorting to quick fixes in the kitchen, rather than cooking from scratch."

Fashion leggings / Shiny leggings

Whether it's forgetting  to wax or having a 'fat'  day, leggings hide all manner of sins.
But the army of women who rely on them could be in for a nasty shock now that it's time to peel them off for summer.
Experts have warned that leggings can make the muscles 'lazy' and  can result in flabby stomachs and wobbly legs.
The claim will alarm thousands for whom leggings have become a  wardrobe staple.
Physiotherapist Sammy Margo said: 'Leggings feel good and look great and I am as addicted to them as anyone, but there is a downside.
























'They hold in and support the quadriceps (thigh muscles), buttocks and core muscles in your tummy,  and do the job the muscles are supposed to do.
'As a result, the muscles are allowed to relax and switch off, so when we reveal our bodies for the first time as summer approaches, they are not as svelte or firm as they otherwise would be.'
The problem is further exacerbated because wearers' bare legs and  midriffs are 'out of sight, out of  mind', so women are less inclined  to take steps to tone up during the winter months.

Mrs Margo said: 'Leggings hide the bits of our bodies we don't like, such as the cellulite on our legs or our "muffin top", so we are able to ignore the problem and we are less motivated to exercise these parts.'
Celebrity advocates of leggings include Michelle Obama, Gwyneth Paltrow, Katy Perry and Victoria Beckham, who even launched her own designer range.
Lycra leggings made a fashion comeback in 2006 and have remained popular ever since.
They are now available in virtually every style and colour, including wet-look, denim, animal print and neon.






















But perhaps today's news marks the beginning of the end for this particular fashion fad.
The good news is that women can apparently regain the strength in the muscles that have been made lethargic by their leggings through a few simple, daily exercises.
They include walking with ankle weights, clenching and releasing the stomach and buttocks throughout the day – and even using a piece of string to aid core exercises.

Mrs Margo, a chartered physiotherapist based in north-west London, explained: 'Suck your stomach in as far as it will go then breathe out about halfway. Tie a piece of string around your stomach at that point and keep it there all day.'

The idea is that by holding in  the stomach – using the string  as a guide to tell you when you are not holding it in enough, you work the muscles.
Mrs Margo said it takes about  six weeks for the muscles on the  legs and stomach to noticeably  tone up from the day you start to exercise them.
She added: 'So people should already be weaning themselves off their leggings if they want to look their best in time for summer. The sunny weather should have helped them to ditch them a bit earlier this year and get a head start.'

Barcelona bikini /bikini barcelona

Barceloneta Beach
There are plenty of things to do on the beach besides swim. Windsurfing and kite surfing are popular. You can also enjoy a refreshing drink from one of the many beach huts.
Or, if you're in need of a rest, just lie down and soak up the warmth of the Spanish sun with a good book. The quickest way to get to Barceloneta beach is to catch the yellow line metro and get off at the Barceloneta stop.Alternatively you can walk to Barceloneta from the city centre. It will take you about 20 mins from the end of La Rambla.


  Icaria Beach
Closest to the Olympic marina, and therefore always crowded, this wide swathe of rough golden sand is great for food goers. There are three spotless beach bars, two immensely popular restaurants on the promenade behind (Mango and Chiringuito de Moncho) and countless bars and restaurants off the Port Olímpic just a short stroll away.


Tourists in Barcelona who wander off the beach onto the streets in just their swimming costumes — or even less — will now face stiff fines.
    The city hall voted to ban "nudity or virtual nudity in public places" and limit swimming costumes to swimming pools, beaches, adjacent roads and beach walks. Nudists who stray off their designated areas of the beach will be subject to fines of 300 to 500 euros.
    Those who wander into the streets in bikinis, swimming trunks or swimsuits face fines of 120 to 300 euros.

   
  Authorities in the city, where the port and the beach areas are adjacent to the historic old town, earlier this year put up posters discouraging such behaviour. They showed a couple in swimming costumes with a red line across it next to another couple dressed normally but without the red line.
    With the new regulations, city authorities hope to "ensure coexistence between citizens in public areas," but denied that they are "telling people how they should dress".

Beautiful saudi women / Saudi women

Saudi women, who are prohibited by society from living or working independently without written permission from a male guardian, will now be part of a first-of-its-kind "women-only" call centre in the country.


Kanoo Travel, one of the leading travel management companies in the Middle East, said 20 female employees have undergone telephone operation training as the company started a "ladies-only" call centre, Xinhua quoted Arab News as saying.

"Kanoo Travel is also one of the first travel companies in the country to introduce exclusive ladies centres," said Ali Abdullah Kanoo, the company's director.


The call centre has earned praise from the company's clients.

Saudi females - who make up to nine million of the kingdom's 18.5 million people - are subject to a guardian system which prohibits any woman from driving, travelling or living independently without written permission from a male guardian who could be either her husband, father or brother.

Over the years, working as a teacher in girls-only schools was the only job sanctioned for Saudi women, but recently there has been a growing number of Saudi professional women and female doctors.

" Saudi Arabia is a very important market. Over the past few years, our business has grown tremendously in the country," said another company official, Othman Al-Ghamdi.

online profiling / personal online profile

Waltzing around in a bikini or showing yourself up as a stumbling drunk are not recommended when it comes to internet profiles.

However, it also isn't necessary to present yourself as a go-getter or someone who is as quiet as a mouse.

Instead, the objective should be 'to emphasise your individuality,' Birgit Kimmel of Klicksafe.de explained to the German Press Agency dpa.

Of course, images can be cheeky or brash but they shouldn't be revealing, and it helps to ask friends when wondering which photos to put in your Facebook or Bebo profile.

Another idea is to have a photo session with friends so that everyone has fresh images to choose from.

Kimmel also believes that one way to ensure you don't regret how you present yourself to the virtual world is to ask what you would think if you saw them again two years from now.

'It doesn't have to be the classic CV photo,' says Kimmel, although she does admit that a potential new boss could cast an eye over your profile.
On the other hand, if you are a person who happily wears sports jackets and a side parting, then a skater-look profile isn't exactly necessary in order to look cool, unless you count it among your hobbies.

Favourite pastime details also don't need to be altered in order to create an improved image.
If you aren't the type of person who gets a thrill from the World of Warcraft computer game then you are probably better off admitting it from the start, says Kimmel.

Someone can happily write that they love to play World of Warcraft 'because I am interested in adventure and fantasy stories' as when filling out an internet profile Kimmel points out that it's important to remember that it is all about 'identity management.'

'Who am I and what sort of image am I looking to present to world?' is the question a person has to ask themselves.

Relationship between breast size and size of tips

While conducting some research for my forthcoming trade book tentatively titled The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature (Prometheus Books, 2011), I came across a study authored by Nicolas Guéguen on the likelihood of a female hitchhiker being picked up, by either a male or female driver, as a function of her breast size. On a related note, some of you might recall my recent post on the positive correlation between waitresses' tips and their breast size.

 
In visiting Nicolas Guéguen's website, I could not help but notice that he possesses a talent for conducting naturalistic experiments about issues that many people have wondered about and yet few (if any) have tested. Recall my earlier post on the likelihood of a woman being approached at a bar as a function of whether she is wearing cosmetics (one of Guéguen's other papers).
 
Returning to the current paper, Guéguen created one of three naturalistic experimental conditions (corresponding to three breast sizes) using an average looking female confederate: (1) her actual breast size, which was an A cup (i.e., smaller than the French average); (2) a B cup (the average size in France); (3) a C cup (greater than the average). The breast "augmentations" were performed via the addition of a latex implant.


 
The female confederate then stood at the side of a road and actually hitch hiked (i.e., put out her thumb as cars whizzed by). Two observers coded the number of male and female drivers that drove by along with the number of times that a given driver stopped to pick up the confederate. For obvious security reasons, once a driver stopped, this was counted as an instance of having picked up the hitchhiker. In other words, the confederate did not actually get into any cars. A male observer also hid close by to ensure against any possible threats to the confederate's security.
                                      Cup Size A          Cup Size B          Cup Size C

Male drivers (n = 774)       40/268                 46/256                  60/250 

                                        (14.92%)              (17.79%)               (24.00%)

Female drivers (n = 426)  12/132                 11/144                   14/150 


                                         (9.09%)                (7.64%)                 (9.33%)

Statistically speaking, only men's behaviors were affected by the hitchhiker's breast size (p < .03). The frequency of stopping in the cup C condition was marginally greater than that of cup B (p = 0.09) and significantly greater than that of cup A (p < .01). The difference between cups A and B was not significant.
 

The bottom line: If a woman has large breasts, men are more likely to engage in prosocial behavior (in this case offering her a ride). I suppose that we could have all predicted this fact albeit it is fun to see it tested in a scientific manner. Finally, I am only the messenger so direct your accusations of patriarchal oppression to Dr. Guéguen!


My fellow PT blogger Christopher Ryan recently put up a post explaining the allure of breasts. As he correctly explained, there are several evolutionary explanations for men's visual intoxication with breasts. In today's post, I'd like to discuss a consequence of this attraction within the service industry.
 
Michael Lynn is a professor of consumer behavior and marketing at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, and perhaps the most eminent researcher on tipping behavior. He has explored numerous variables that affect the size of tips left by patrons. 

In a recent study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, Professor Lynn found a positive correlation between the breast size of waitresses (n = 432) and the size of their tips (both were self-reported measures). He did not split the tipping data by sex of the patrons. One might expect that the "breast effect" might enhance tips for male patrons whereas female patrons might "punish" shapely waitresses (intra-sexual rivalry). 
 
The existing data did not allow for a more refined set of analyses to test such possibilities. Also, Lynn notes that he might have expected a quadratic relationship between breast size and size of tips, namely, breasts that are too small or too big would result in lower tips than medium sized breasts. However, his data suggests that bigger is always better...at least when it comes to tipping behavior!

tying a sari

A friend of mine, Siddartha Banerjee has created his 2nd iPhone app (MeterDown being the first), called the Sari App. So, that's one more to the 400,000+ apps on the iPhone platform, you say? Yes, its a lot more than that.

Apps like these go a long way in strengthening the lure of the iOS platform both for end-users and developers. While there are several jokes about 'There's an App for that' (which Apple has trade marked by the way!) the sheer breadth and width of apps – from the useful to the bizarre – available on the iOS platform makes it difficult for competition to match. From Snow Reports to Children's stories to Bird Watching, there is an app for that.

The Sari App fits in well with most of the successful utility apps – it is global in terms of appeal, has repeat value and can be a 'must-hav-app' for many. Personally speaking,  the fact that such apps go through the Apple approval system and free of malware is a hug plus too.

Another interesting aspect of the app is that its been created by a true Apple evangelist. The developer was my colleague – working as copywriter in an ad agency many years ago. His passion for all things Apple didn't just stop at buying and recommending Apple products – but training (self-taught, I believe) to become an iPhone Developer. That's amazing. Speaks volumes about the passion brand Apple evokes, not just among geeks.

The Apple-iOS-Developer-Consumer chain is made stronger with the success of such apps.