Thursday, December 13, 2012

15 Guaranteed Things That Will Happen To You In Your 20s















1. Your social circle will narrow. In college, you’ll have lots of acquaintances and party friends but that will dissipate over time. Eventually, you’ll find yourself unable to spark up new friendships simply because you don’t have the time or desire. Now you’ll only make a new friend and let them into your life if you’re absolutely obsessed with them.
2. You’ll seriously consider going to grad school. You’ll call your mom up in a panic one day and explain that you’ve always enjoyed something like psychology and, well, maybe it’s time to start entertaining the idea of, um, being a therapist. Mom? Stop sighing!
3. You will hate your job at some point, even if it’s better than 99% of your other friends’ jobs. You will be overworked and underpaid presumably until you’re 40. Then, you’ll suddenly be overpaid and not do much of anything. Right? That’s how it works?
4. Someone will betray your trust — a friend or a lover — and it will change the way you view people forever.
5. You will do things that hurt you just because you’re not ready to feel good yet.
6. You will sleep with people who you genuinely like, have a great time with, but never want to date. Ever.
7. After learning your age, someone will say to you, “Wow, you’re so young!” and occasionally you’ll believe them.
8. You’ll miss certain days before they even end.
9. You’ll spend an entire day hungover in bed and nothing will make you feel more like a fucking idiot. Not even taxes or putting the fitted sheet on your bed.
10. You’ll read a book that will change your life. People say that all the time, especially your grandma and your mom and your professors in college, and it always made you roll your eyes but now you get it. Life is changed. You are this book’s bitch. You fell in love with it in the same way you fell in love with someone in high school: blindly and all-consuming. I’m talking about the book that became the lens from which you chose to see the world. You were just waiting for something to come along and explain to you how the world works, to make it all easier for you. and it came. You will remember this  book more vividly than some of the people you dated for three months in college.
11. You’ll meet people who are vultures, who were literally sent to this world just to annoy you, to work half as hard and somehow become more successful. They’re networking leeches. Don’t take their business card! Save yourself!
12. Some days you will wake up and be astounded by how ugly you are. People are always saying things like, “OMG, I look like shit right now!” but they don’t. You’re the one who looks like shit (truly!) so shut up everyone else!
13. That being said, there’ll be some days when you look in the mirror and think to yourself, “Okay, I’d fuck me.” That’s good. It’s healthy to want to fuck yourself.
14. The Internet will hurt your feelings. You will find out information you wish you never knew and maybe you’ll go so far as to even cry! Imagine that: a machine you spent over a grand on is making you weep. Screw the Internet.
15. You will understand that the biggest battle you fight in your twenties is the one you’re in with yourself. The most important thing you can learn in this decade is how to love yourself. Without that knowledge, your life will always be a little bit terrible. You will always be dating someone who’s a little bit rotten and you’ll always be working a job that sucks. It affects everything so be sure to make yourself a priority.  Work on liking yourself before working on getting someone else to like you. TC Mark

Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush



















Here is a collection of the incredible paintings of Vladimir Kush. Vladimir has been creating these surrealistic paintings since the late 80′s. I’m extremely impressed by his work, and you should be as well!
what the fish was silent about600 597 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
walnutofedenay2 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
Vladamir Kush Hearts for the Future Generations Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
to the safe haven600 377 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
surrealphotographs07 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
sunrise by the ocean600 502 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
Sacred Bird of Yucatan Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
ripplesontheoceanwl6 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
redwood cutting600 526 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
pearl600 480 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
african sonata600 520 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
arrowoftimeem0 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
anticipationofnightssheky7 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
breakfast on the lake600 502 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
born to fly600 470 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
music of the woods600 765 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
i saved my soul600 524 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
metamorphosis600 452 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
horn of babel600 460 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
haven600 467 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
crusaders600 450 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
eye of the needle600 483 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
forgotten sunglasses600 309 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush
fauna in la mancha600 424 Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush

mom and their babies












Palm Reading Chart





Palm Reading Diagram


Did You Know?
Palm reading involves reading the lines and marks of both the hands. While reading the hand that is used comparatively lesser by an individual will tell you the fate he is born with, his past, or hidden traits, whereas the lines and mounts of the predominant hand (the hand one uses more than the other one) will show what the individual has managed to do with the original course set for him. The dominant hand gives you an idea about how the original plan has been altered due to the choices made by an individual during his lifetime.
Palm reading is one of the branches of the ancient art of astrology, where lines and creases on people's palms are used to predict the future and deduce the obvious and hidden traits of their personality. Though there is much debate on the authenticity and credibility of palmistry and astrology predictions, they still manage to attract a great amount of interest from both believers and skeptics alike. It is also known as chiromancy or chirology. A palmist uses a palm-reading chart to make certain predictions. There are different schools of palmistry and, therefore, the method of interpretation does vary. The three basic schools from which present day palmistry evolved are Indian, Chinese, and Greek palmistry. The guide below gives some common palm-reading basics that will help you to learn how to read palms and with practice you may even be able to tell the future.

Remember, it is necessary that you follow the palm-reading system of only one school in order to gradually understand the nitty-gritty and logic behind the evolution of that particular style. Eventually, you will understand how all the schools conjoin at a singular plane.
Palm Reading Diagram
Palm readers normally check the following properties of the palm for their reading.

Lines on the Palm
The lines on the palm are used to determine the future or personality traits of an individual. The three main lines that are considered are the head line, the heart line, and the life line while reading a palm. Below you will get complete details on the major lines on the palm and how they can be interpreted. Along with these major lines, a few minor lines are also viewed, including the marriage and lifeline, travel lines, and the girdle of Venus.


Heart Line
∗ The heart line curves upward to end between middle and index finger
→ A caring and understanding personality.

∗ The heart line curves to end below the index finger
→ An adventurous and artistic personality.

∗ The heart line is straight
→ A selfish personality.

Head Line
∗ The head line curves downwards
→ A sensitive personality with an inclination towards literature and fantasy.

∗ Head line curves upwards towards the little finger
→ An aptitude for Maths, Business Studies, and Logic.

∗ Broken head line or no head line
→ Has varying interests or is a specialist in certain fields, respectively.

Life Line
∗ Life line that curves completely around the thumb
→ Good physical and mental health.

∗ A lifeline that is forked upwards
→ A positive attitude towards life.

∗ A lifeline that is forked downwards
→ A pessimist and an introvert.

The Destiny or Fate Line
∗ Absent fate line
→ A comfortable but uneventful life ahead.

∗ Fate line that is unbroken and runs straight across
→ A successful life ahead.

∗ A fork in the destiny line
→ Indicates a great amount of wealth in store.

Mounts
The mounts on the palm are also considered while foretelling the future. These mounts are derived from Greek palmistry and are named after Greek gods and goddesses. They are the 'mounts' of flesh below each finger. Their location and interpretation are shown below.

Mount of Venus (Located below the thumb)
→ Signifies love, beauty, and artistic sense

Mount of Jupiter (Located below the index finger)
→ Signifies love, beauty, and artistic sense

Mount of Saturn (Located below the middle finger)
→ Signifies patience, hard work, and practicality

Mount of Apollo (Located below the ring finger)
→ Signifies energy, creativity, and compassion

Mount of Mercury (Located at the base of the little finger)
→ Signifies business skills, wit, and versatility

Luna Mount or Mount of the Moon (Located at the lower part towards the end of the palm, just below the thumb)
→ Signifies creativity, passion, and shyness

Shape of the Hands
The shape of hands is the first thing that is noted and depending on the shape of your hand you could have a earth, fire, air, or water element hand.

Earth Hand → Broad square fingers and palms with rough skin
Fire Hand → Square or rectangular palms with pink skin or flushed skin
Air Hand → Long fingers with square or rectangular palms and dry skin
Water Hand → Short oval-shaped palms with long flexible conical fingers

Although palm reading may not be a hundred percent accurate and fraudulent palmists may even be using old tricks to fool new customers everyday, one must appreciate the art of palmistry and the way it can be used to pick up clues to accurately describe a person and the various facets of his personality.
Read more at Buzzle: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/palm-reading-chart.html

Sunday, November 11, 2012

10 Works of Literature That Were Really Hard to Write














Instead of judging works of literature based on their artistic merit, we’ve decided to rank them by degree of difficulty. These 10 authors may not be Shakespeare, but they sure had vaulting ambitions.

1. The Story That Will Never Be an e-Book
Gadsby by Ernest Vincent Wright

Some might call Gadsby a “love” story. But Ernest Vincent Wright wouldn’t have used that word. Instead, he described his novel as a story of “strong liking” and “throbbing palpitation.” That’s because in 1939, Wright gave himself one restriction: He promised to write Gadsby without using the letter E.

Wright wanted to prove that a great author could work around such a restriction and still tell a gripping story. To prevent any stray Es from entering the text, he tied down his typewriter’s E key, and then put his expansive vocabulary to the test. The result is an astounding feat of verbal gymnastics. While vividly describing a wedding scene, Wright manages to avoid the words “bride,” “ceremony,” and even “wedding” (he calls it “a grand church ritual”). To explain away the verbosity of the language, he uses a narrator whose poor command of English and circumlocution even irritates the story’s other characters.
When the book was announced, one skeptic attacked Wright in a letter, claiming that the feat was impossible. “All right,” replied Wright in the book’s intro, “the impossible has been accomplished.” Sadly, Wright didn’t live long enough to revel in Gadsby’s critical acclaim. He died the year the book was published.

2. The Tale Told in the Blink of an Eye
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby

Many authors have struggled through illness and injury to write their masterpieces, but none more so than Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of French fashion magazine Elle. In 1995, at the age of 43, Bauby suffered a major stroke and slipped into a coma. He regained consciousness two days later, but his entire body—with the exception of his left eyelid—was paralyzed.
Still, Bauby was determined to write. Using only his lucid mind and one eye, he began working on his memoir, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Each night, he’d lie awake editing and re-editing the story in his mind, memorizing every paragraph as he hoped to relay it. By day, his transcriber would recite the alphabet to him over and over. When she reached a letter Bauby desired, he’d wink. Each word took about two minutes to produce, and during the course of a year, Bauby managed to tell his story of life in paralysis. His moving and often funny prose won critical acclaim, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly became a bestseller throughout Europe. Sadly, Bauby died of pneumonia in 1997, soon after the first edition was published in France. He missed not only the English translation, but also the award-winning film adaptation released in 2007. 


3. The Poetry of Speed
Transcendence-Perfection by Sri Chinmoy

Before his death in 2007, Indian spiritual master Sri Chinmoy wrote at least 1,000 books, 20,000 songs, and 115,000 poems. Some he penned in his mother tongue, Bengali, and some in his second language, English. His poems won numerous awards and inspired countless writers and musicians. And while Sri Chinmoy was clearly a fast writer, he was never as quick as on November 1, 1975, when he wrote Transcendence-Perfection, a collection of 843 poems—all written in 24 hours.

How was Sri Chinmoy so prolific? He believed the key was meditation. As he once explained, “The outer mind is like the surface of the sea. On the surface, the sea is full of waves and surges … But when we dive deep below, the same sea is all peace, calmness and quiet, and there we find the source of creativity.”

4. History’s Greatest Sonnet
“Washington Crossing the Delaware” by David Shulman

Etymologist David Shulman was a true lover of words. One of the most prolific contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary, Shulman tracked down the roots of Americanisms for more than 70 years. But those weren’t Shulman’s only contributions to the world. During World War II, he served in the army and used his language skills to crack Japanese codes. His most astonishing feat as a wordsmith, however, occurred in 1936, when he composed the sonnet “Washington Crossing the Delaware.”
What makes the poem so remarkable is that every one of Shulman’s 14 lines is an anagram of the title. What’s more, the lines are rhyming couplets, and they tell a story, more or less. Here’s an excerpt:
A hard, howling, tossing water scene.
Strong tide was washing hero clean.
“How cold!” Weather stings as in anger.
O Silent night shows war ace danger!
As poetry, it isn’t exactly Walt Whitman. But then, Whitman was never this good with anagrams.

5. Six Powerful Words
“Baby Shoes” by Ernest Hemingway

According to legend, Ernest Hemingway created the shortest short story ever told. While having lunch at New York City’s famous Algonquin Round Table, Hemingway bragged that he could write a captivating tale—complete with beginning, middle, and end—in only six words. His fellow writers refused to believe it, each betting $10 that he couldn’t do it. Hemingway quickly scribbled six words down on a napkin and passed it around. As each writer read the napkin, they conceded he’d won. Those six words? “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.”
While the anecdote may be apocryphal, whoever did write “Baby Shoes” has forced writers forever after to consider the economy of words. Today, the work has inspired countless six-word memoir and story competitions, proving that a story’s brevity is no limit to its power.

6. The Story of Youth
The Young Visiters, by Daisy Ashford



Daisy Ashford’s novella about Victorian society is considered something of a classic. First published in 1919, the work is still in print and has been turned into a movie. But if that doesn’t sound remarkable, consider that Ashford was only 9 years old when she wrote it.

To preserve the authenticity of the story, publishers decided to leave in Ashford’s plentiful grammar mistakes and spelling errors (the title, for example). They also added a foreword by Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie to assure readers that this was no hoax. Barrie reminded people that the novel was indeed written by a little girl, who was “hauled off to bed every evening at six.”

7. The Most Visionary Story Ever Told
Futility by Morgan Robertson

Occasionally, literature is prophetic. H.G. Wells’ stories, for instance, predicted video recordings, portable television, aerial bombings, and a Second World War starting in 1940 (only one year late). And a 1941 comic book written by Gil Fox described the bombing of Pearl Harbor in surprising detail, precisely one month before it happened.
But perhaps the most meticulously prophetic work of literature is Morgan Robertson’s short and poorly written novel, Futility. In it, Robertson describes the maiden voyage of a British luxury liner called the Titan, which claims to be unsinkable, but sinks anyway after hitting an iceberg. Nearly every detail resembles the story of the Titanic. Of course, nobody thought about that when Futility was released in 1898, a full 14 years before the Titanic set sail.
Futility wasn’t Robertson’s only prescient piece of literature. In 1912, three years before his death, he wrote Beyond the Spectrum. Much like Gil Fox’s tale, Robertson’s story predicted a Japanese sneak attack on an American fleet in Hawaii, and the resulting war between the two countries.

8. Writing by Ear
Anguish Languish by Howard L. Chace


Sinker sucker socks pants, apocryphal awry. If those words don’t make sense together, try saying them out loud: “Sing a song of sixpence, a pocketful of rye.” Now imagine a whole book written like this, and you’ve got Howard L. Chace’s 1940 collection of nursery rhymes and fairy tales, Anguish Languish. The work contains classics such as Marry Hatter Ladle Limb and Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, which begins with the immortal line, “Wants pawn term, dare worsted ladle gull hoe lift wetter murder inner ladle cordage.” Although Anguish Languish is playful, there was also a serious side to it. As a French professor, Chace used the stories to illustrate that, in spoken English, intonation is almost as important to the meaning as the words themselves.

9. James Joyce’s Deaf Translation Jam
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce

James Joyce wrote his final novel, Finnegans Wake, during a 17-year period in Paris, finishing the work just two years before his death in 1941. During that time, Joyce was nearly blind, so he dictated his stream-of-consciousness prose to his friend, Samuel Beckett. That led to some unexpected results. For example, during one session, Joyce heard a knock at the door, which was too quiet for Beckett to perceive. Joyce yelled to the visitor, “Come in!” so Beckett added “Come in!” to the manuscript. When Beckett later read the passage back to Joyce, the author decided that he liked it better that way.

After several such sessions, Finnegans Wake became one of the most impenetrable works of English literature. But the experience didn’t just affect Joyce’s novel; it seemed to have a lasting effect on Beckett’s writing, as well. Beckett would go on to become a leading playwright in the Theatre of the Absurd, where his characters often spent their entire time on stage sitting in the middle of nowhere, hoping that someone would hear their voice.

10. The Art of Writing by Committee
The President’s Mystery Story by Franklin Roosevelt and seven other novelists

Many American presidents have written books, but only Franklin Roosevelt has contributed to a mystery novel. At a White House dinner in 1935, Roosevelt pitched his story idea to author Fulton Oursler. Roosevelt’s tale started like this: A man named Jim Blake is trapped in a stale marriage and a boring job. He dreams of running off with $5 million and starting over with a new identity.
Unfortunately, the President hadn’t worked out one major plot point: How does a man with $5 million disappear without being traced?
To solve the problem, Oursler formed a committee of five other top mystery writers: Rupert Hughes, Samuel Hopkins Adams, Rita Weiman, S. S. Van Dine, and John Erskine. Each author wrote a chapter and ended it with Jim Blake in a terrible situation, which the next author was left to resolve. Despite being the work of a Washington committee, the end result was surprisingly successful. The President’s Mystery Story was serialized in a magazine, published as a book, and even turned into a movie in 1936.
Yet, the writers never came up with a solution to Roosevelt’s original problem. That didn’t happen until 1967, when Erle Stanley Gardner wrote a final chapter to a new edition of the book. In it, the secret to Jim Blake’s mysterious disappearance is discovered by Gardner’s most famous character, Perry Mason.

Read the full text here: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/76496#ixzz2BvYaIZUW
--brought to you by mental_floss!

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Gravity-Defying Land Art by Cornelia Konrads















Gravity Defying Land Art by Cornelia Konrads sculpture land art installation
Passage (2007)
Gravity Defying Land Art by Cornelia Konrads sculpture land art installation
Passage (2007)
Gravity Defying Land Art by Cornelia Konrads sculpture land art installation
Passage (2007)
Gravity Defying Land Art by Cornelia Konrads sculpture land art installation
Piled Forest (2006)
Gravity Defying Land Art by Cornelia Konrads sculpture land art installation
The Gate (2004)
Gravity Defying Land Art by Cornelia Konrads sculpture land art installation
Pile of Wishes (2004)
Gravity Defying Land Art by Cornelia Konrads sculpture land art installation
Moment of Decision (2004)
Gravity Defying Land Art by Cornelia Konrads sculpture land art installation
Still Life with Tree (2008)
Gravity Defying Land Art by Cornelia Konrads sculpture land art installation
Le Mur (2006)
Gravity Defying Land Art by Cornelia Konrads sculpture land art installation
Le Mur (2006)
Gravity Defying Land Art by Cornelia Konrads sculpture land art installation
German artist Cornelia Konrads creates mind-bending site-specific installations in public spaces, sculpture parks and private gardens around the world. Her work is frequently punctuated by the illusion of weightlessness, where stacked objects like logs, fences, and doorways appear to be suspended in mid-air, reinforcing their temporary nature as if the installation is beginning to dissolve before your very eyes. One of her more recent sculptures, Schleudersitz is an enormous slingshot made from a common park bench, and you can get a great idea of what it might be like to sit inside it with this interactive 360 degree view.
What you see here only begins to sratch the surface of Konrad’s work. You can see much more on her website. All imagery courtesy the artist.