Will the Adult Industry Drive Android Adoption?

By:

Jason Perlow 

The Adult Entertainment industry drove the adoption of DVD and the streaming media technologies that everyone now enjoys and takes for granted on the Internet. Will pioneering in mobile porn also accelerate adoption of Google’s Android mobile OS?

Back in September of 2008 I said that Android’s strength had nothing to do with the OS’s innate “sexiness”, in that it didn’t need to have the iPhone’s sex appeal in order for it to succeed. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe what it needs to truly take off is sex, period.

Early last week, startup MiKandi launched a 3rd-party app store for Android phones which will allow any developer to sell adult-oriented content for the Google Android platform, which includes devices such as the Verizon/Motorola DROID, the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G and the Samsung Moment/HTC Hero on Sprint.

So far, there isn’t much in terms of raciness to look at on MiKandi. The app store has only just been released for 3rd-parties to “plug in”, so to speak. As of today, it only has a single demo app, Dildroid, which controls the intensity of an Android device’s vibrator function.

What’s important here, however, is not what applications MiKandi offers now but what it promises for the future, which is the ability for there to be MANY independent app stores for Android phones, which could be targeted towards different industries and audiences.

What’s to stop Mikandi from using their same app store platform that they might use to distribute porn for say, religious material? Or sports-oriented content? Or cooking and restaurant related material? Or for scientific and academic purposes? Or ebooks?


The prospects for expanding into diversified markets on Android are larger than on any other mobile platform available today, because “censoring” or rigorous and controlled app approval processes tied to a single vendor — such as those that exist on the iPhone — do not exist on the Android platform. And they probably never will.

Sure, it’s possible and perhaps even inevitable that eventually Google’s own Android Market may decide for the sake of quality control to start evaluating applications, and might want to keep Adult material off its own app store, which ships by default with every device. Which is perfectly understandable, since even kids are getting smartphones now.

It might even make sense to embed parental controls or a system policy (like those that can be deployed on BlackBerry) which would allow the user or organization to prevent certain types of “rated” content or apps from being installed on the device or block third party app stores from being installed on the unit. If I were a corporation and were rolling the device out to thousands of employees, I wouldn’t want them looking at porn on company time. It would also make sense to create some sort of open standard which allows Android apps to be tagged or rated which flags them as adult material.

However, because Android is an open system and allows the ability for 3rd-party app installation (a feature that currently you have to turn on in the system Settings to enable) there’s nothing to stop premium Adult content providers, such as Playboy, Penthouse and Vivid from working with companies like MiKandi to provide quality produced erotica for mobile.

It’s also entirely possible that these companies and others could also license Mikandi’s platform (or someone else’s) to launch app stores of their own so they can control the quality or flavor of what they produce.  I can certainly see the emergence of gay and lesbian-oriented app stores, or even fetish-specialized, which are targeted towards specific audiences and tastes.

The freedoms of choice with Android would be unlimited. Want to see attractive Asian (or Russian) women (or men) dress up as nurses (or lumberjacks) and engaging in a specific act? Tagging features and “channels” will allow you to select from thousands of apps  to find exactly what you want. The very same tagging technology could be used for purposes OTHER than pornography, but it will be porn that drives the technology and the apps to the maturity level needed to do everything else that every regular Android consumer needs.

What I see occurring with Android is not unlike how other technologies were advanced by the adult industry, such as VHS tapes, DVD video, and streaming Internet multimedia and content distribution. It can be argued that NONE of these technologies would have been so heavily adopted if it wasn’t for the Adult film and content industry embracing their openness, a quality that is shared by Android and its ability to run 3rd-party content without restriction.

Source:

blogs.zdnet.com

Will the Adult Industry Drive Android Adoption?

Foursquare may bounce social media into money-making mode

David Kadavy steps into Noble Tree Coffee & Tea in Lincoln Park and clicks "check in" on his iPhone's Foursquare application.

His phone tells him six other people have also checked in, and it provides tiny pictures of them. The Foursquare application automatically updates his Twitter account -- his 1,035 followers now know where to find him along with those half-dozen others.

The bearded 30-year-old Kadavy, a freelance Web designer and foodie (he has a "tweet what you eat" site) is playing an increasingly popular game that experts believe has a shot at turning social media into a money-making enterprise.

Playing Foursquare involves exploring restaurants, pubs and coffee shops in major metro areas. The payoff for playing can range from special deals or freebies at eating and drinking establishments to scoring points, Boy Scout-like badges and "mayorships," essentially bragging rights for hanging out at particular locations.

"Foursquare, the thing that's unique about it is that it has the opportunity to monetize restaurants, locations and activities that people would do -- a little bit better than Facebook or Twitter does," said Michael J. Lis, owner of Speck Media, a Chicago marketing firm.

Lis said he includes Foursquare when his firm designs social media strategies for clients that include Fortune 500 and smaller companies. "They're moving forward really fast."

Foursquare's users have been increasing by 45 to 50 percent each month, according to the New York-based company. It boasts 100,000 users internationally and 5,000 in Chicago, where it's been up for eight months. It's already in cities from New York to Hong Kong and just last week doubled its base to more than 100 cities.

Ever since Twitter established itself among the world's top social media sites in 2007, entrepreneurs have been trying to figure out how to turn the social media craze into a revenue stream.

Foursquare is among a handful of upstart companies that have tapped into the combination of social media and a user's geographic location along with the fact that mobile phone game players seem increasingly open to meeting up with people they get to know online. Some tech bloggers call Foursquare the next Twitter, but Foursquare bills itself as a complement to Twitter -- a way to take the connections and personas people create online and move those experiences into the real world.

"The coolest thing for me about Foursquare is that it turns life into a little game," said Jeff Siarto, a 25-year-old Web developer who lives in Chicago's Theater District. "Where can I go to get the most points? How did that person check in so many places? Ten more points, and I've got another badge. It's a real-life board game."

Keeping users entertained will be its ongoing challenge, according to Flurry, a mobile applications analytics company in San Francisco. It classifies Foursquare in its "location based social network" category.

"To keep users engaged, the company running the service has to frequently add new features, devising new ways to allow users to interact and remain entertained," said Peter Farago, Flurry's vice president of marketing.

Flurry estimates that out of every 100 new users, fewer than 10 will remain active on these systems two months later. The reason: There are fewer opportunities to launch the application than say, Facebook, because users have to actually be somewhere in real life in order to have a reason to use it.

Foursquare said that it is seeing user retention between 30 and 60 percent.

A year ago Foursquare, which 33-year-old co-founder Dennis Crowley named after the classic playground game, was little more than an idea sketched out on his kitchen table.

But it has emerged in only eight months as the hottest of its kind, surpassing competitors Gowalla.com (stamp your digital passport and earn rewards at the places that you visit), Brightkite.com (discover what's happening in your neighborhood) and Loopt.com (pinch, tap and drag an interactive map to find your friends and what they're doing), according to Compete.com, which estimates site traffic based on the daily browsing activity of over 2 million U.S. Internet users.

Before mobile applications became the norm, Crowley in 2004 founded Dodgeball.com, where users "checked in" their location and transmitted that information to friends via a text-message system. Google bought Dodgeball in 2005 and replaced it in March with a service called Google Latitude.

Crowley, who said he didn't want to see the Dodgeball concept die, co-founded Foursquare in March with Naveen Selvadurai, the developer of such iPhone apps as WWJD, a sort of magic 8 ball where users you ask Jesus what he would do, and Drunk Dialer, which challenges users to dial when the numbers move around. In August, angel investors pumped $1.35 million into development of Foursquare, which counts many former Dodgeball users among its players.

Foursquare is focused on getting as many businesses as possible to add discounts and other promotions to Foursquare, said Tristan Walker, who is in charge of business development and is a second-year student at Stanford Business School.

So far, about 200 venues, as diverse as bars and frames shops, have promotions offering discounts and other perks to Foursquare users in the system. Later, those businesses will be asked to pay to include their promotions, Walker said. In New York and San Francisco, where Foursquare's popularity is high, "mayors" drink free at their favorite bars and loyal customers get discounts. Crowley said they did not know exactly when they would switch to a pay-to-play platform for promotions. He said a lot of those details are still being worked out.

Foursquare users say the application is to face-to-face social interaction what Twitter and Facebook are to keeping friends up to date on what you're doing.

"I probably don't call and have phone conversations with people as much as I did because I already know what they did on Twitter. I'm in constant contact with them." said 26-year-old Ryan Graves, owner of Renliv LLC, a Web development and Internet consulting firm. "Now, with Foursquare, you don't need to tell me where you're going."

The other day, for example, Graves said he couldn't reach friends by phone or text messages. So he jumped on Foursquare and learned they had checked in at Halligan's in Lincoln Park. He just went there and met them.

Graves is such a Foursquare fan that he said he's persuaded 15 businesses to start promotions on it.

One of those is Piece, a Wicker Park restaurant and brewery that offers a second pint free for its mayor. "Our mayor has been in to take care of his second beer," said manager Eloise Karlatiras.

At this point, she said, the promotion is an experiment. Whether they would pay to promote in the application, she said, remains to be seen.

"I think it really all depends on what kinds of results we can see at the testing phase," Karlatiras said. "Most social media is free, so I think it all depends on what kind of draw we see."

Karlatiras said she knows Foursquare is popular in New York and San Francisco but said it hasn't gotten much traction in Chicago.

The more people and businesses using Foursquare, the more useful it becomes. A person who checks in at a gym also gets a list of other businesses that are nearby and learns that a smoothie shop down the block has a special offer if you check in. Other information is crowd-sourced. Don't know what to order? Don't worry; Foursquare users leave "tips."

"It's not like, 'Oh, I went here and the service was awesome and there were nice tablecloths,' " said Crowley, Foursquare's co-founder. "It's like, 'Go here, order the milkshake and dip your fries in it.' "

Andy Angelos, 26-year-old co-founder of Get Talked About, an online marketing firm, said the best thing about Foursquare is that it's fun. He was also at Noble Tree Coffee & Tea with Kadavy where the two co-work with a group called Jelly, made up of independent business owners and entrepreneurs.

"Why do people play Boggle, Trivial Pursuit or strategy games?" Angelos asked. "They provide a way to interact with friends and family through a common, seemingly pointless purpose."

Illustrating that point, Kadavy showed off via iPhone the Boy Scout-like badges he has earned playing Foursquare -- the "Newbie" badge, the "Bender" and "Crunked" badges. "I went to four different places in one night. I guess it assumes I was drinking," Kadavy said.

He thought about it for a minute.

"Yeah, I think I remember that night."

Via

www.chicagotribune.com

Foursquare may bounce social media into money-making mode

Jesus on an Iron???

The image of Jesus Christ has popped up on all sorts of household items, from dirty windows to pieces of toast.  Now one woman sees Christ's likeness in the rust on her iron.

Mary Jo Coady noticed the religious imagery when she spotted the iron on the floor in her daughter's bedroom.

"It just gave me a sign that life is going to be good," she told the Eagle-Tribune.

The 44-year-old mother of two told her daughters, expecting they would dismiss the likeness. But, she told the paper, they saw the features of Jesus Christ, as well.

"They were like, 'Mom, that's Jesus looking at us,'" Coady said, who has found new born faith thanks to her discovery.

According to the Boston Globe, she shared the photo on Facebook, and was reassured by friends that they, too, saw Jesus on the iron.

"So I said, 'OK, I'm not crazy,'" Coady said.

Although many people who claim to have found an image of Christ in an unlikely place try to cash in on their find - such as one person on eBay hoping to sell a potato chip for $3,000 they claim is graced by Jesus' face - Coady has no such intentions, despite being recently separated and facing financial hardships.

The secretary at a medical office - whose hours have been cut back - reportedly will put her iron away in the closet, and simply buy a new one.

Brief and to the Point:

This is reported by Fox News as real and trustworthy information to its viewers...We believe that those die hard viewers may be the right target for such bull...Isn't Mary Jo going to sell that iron??? Offer the right price and you'll find lots of other items coming up...


How many can be fooled?  

Jesus on an Iron???

Top 20 Guitar Riffs of All Time

According to the poll by musicians' website MusicRadar.com.

 

The top 20:

1. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

2. Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine

3. Led Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Love

4. Deep Purple - Smoke On The Water

5. Derek and the Dominos - Layla

6. AC/DC - Back In Black

7. Metallica - Enter Sandman

8. The Beatles - Day Tripper

9. Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit

10. The Rolling Stones - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

11. Black Sabbath - Paranoid

12. Muse - Plug In Baby

13. Eddie Van Halen - Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love

14. The Kinks - You Really Got Me

15. The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army

16. AC/DC - Highway to Hell

17. Led Zeppelin - Heartbreaker

18. Black Sabbath - Iron Man

19. Led Zeppelin - Black Dog

20. Michael Jackson - Beat It

Top 20 Guitar Riffs of All Time

Oh those Salahis...

These days we expect certain things from our reality television stars.

The public wants to be privy to every private moment, from weddings to funerals to births and during that time we expect them to be delightfully nutty and willing to go to any lengths to entertain us with their "real lives."

And that is why Tareq and Michaele Salahi, the Washington D.C. couple who crashed the president's first state dinner this week and who have been lobbying for a spot on the capital's edition of the “Real Housewive's” franchise on Bravo are ideally suited to star on reality television.

Bravo confirmed to CNN that their cameras were filming the couple as they prepared for the state dinner. The network said the filming of the Salahis was part of a process to consider them for the “Real Housewives of D.C.,” program.

“The cast of "The Real Housewives of DC" has not been finalized,” a Bravo spokesperson told CNN. “Michaele Salahi is under consideration as a possible cast member. “

Johanna Fuentes, vice president of communications for Bravo, told the Associated Press that the Salahis told producers they had been invited to the White House event.

The couple looks the part of “Housewives” stars.

She's as blonde as any of the “Real Housewives of Orange County” and he’s just a little bit portly like the husbands from the New Jersey arm of the franchise.

And like any aspiring stars, they know how to work a room.

Only hours after crashing the White House fete the couple posted pictures on Facebook of them mugging with Katie Couric, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Vice President Joe Biden.

They already have a publicist, Mahogany Jones, who is acting the part of a celebrity spokesperson by deftly dodging requests for comments and interviews.

"We will begin doing press and media next week providing exclusive interviews and press junkets. If you would like to be considered in our media circuit we request that you hold your proposed published profile until then," Jones told CNN via email.

The Salahis are a couple that isn't afraid of putting themselves out there: their wedding video is even available on YouTube.

The Salahis could already have a built-in audience if Michaele’s more than 7,000 Facebook fans is any indication.

While they may have breached national security, there others lately who’ve pulled national scams in an attempt to land themselves on television. At least they didn’t lie about their kid being adrift in a balloon.

By:

CNN Contributor Jo Piazza

Via:

marquee.blogs.cnn.com

Watch the Salahis Wedding Video...A Reality Show Test Tape...

Oh those Salahis...

Thenewno2 - Dhani Harrison's groupthink

Though he might disdain being in a band, his Thenewno2 is proving a comfortable fit.


It's easy to understand musician Dhani Harrison's antipathy toward the general concept of being in a rock band. After all, he got loads of priceless firsthand information from his father about the ups and downsides of making it to the absolute peak of pop music success during his tenure with the Beatles.


It was George Harrison who famously said, "The biggest break in my career was getting into the Beatles in 1962. The second biggest break since then is getting out of them." He also once observed that "I wanted to be successful, not famous."


There's no question that Dhani (pronounced Danny) inherited his father's skepticism about the rewards that a life as a member of a rock band might promise, but he's one of a growing number of offspring of '60s and '70s pop music titans who are interested in establishing their own musical credentials.


It's a group that includes Julian and Sean Lennon, drummers Zak Starkey (Ringo Starr's son) and Jason Bonham (son of Led Zeppelin's John Bonham), singer-songwriters Harper Simon (son of Paul Simon) and Ben Taylor (son of James Taylor and Carly Simon).


"I hate bands," Harrison, 31, said recently in the confines of the office he's setting up in a Santa Monica business park. "I'm never being in a band ever again."


So, what does he call Thenewno2, an ensemble of musicians he started with his friend Oli Hecks that will be the opening act tonight for Wolfmother's show at the Wiltern?


"It's a good hang," he said, flashing a smile uncannily like his father's. He's also got his dad's fine features, dark brown hair and quick sense of humor.


From the outside, though, Thenewno2 looks a lot like a band, in which guitarist, singer and songwriter Harrison and guitarist-keyboardist Jonathan Sadoff are joined by guitarist Jeremy Faccone, bassist Nick Fyffe and drummer Frank Zummo.


Harrison notes that Hecks, with whom he wrote most of the songs on the group's debut, "You Are Here," is sitting out this current tour to concentrate on film work. That's one indicator of the new model these creative partners are mapping out. Each has multiple talents and passions, none of which they're willing to set aside to focus full time on playing in a rock band.


"We're all studio nerds -- that's who I've surrounded myself with," Harrison said. "Every single person in the band is also a mix engineer or a soundtrack engineer or a composer or a filmmaker or some other kind of nerd. I design video games -- that's my nerdy side."


In fact, Harrison was instrumental in helping Activision develop “The Beatles: Rock Band” and contributed significantly to the look and content of the game.


Harrison looks at the groove-driven music he's making with Thenewno2 as just one manifestation of the creative community he's trying to nurture at the headquarters of the operation he's dubbed Hot Records West. The space was still being outfitted with equipment for the various studios, offices, rehearsal and performance areas on the day a reporter dropped in for a visit.


"My goal was to get everyone and all of the equipment in one room," he said. "Then we realized it would have to be a lot of different rooms. Jon said yesterday, 'I just went from a scoring session to a meeting to a rehearsal and I haven't left the building.' That's the object: To get minimum amount of having to be on the freeway and maximum amount of cool people in L.A. stopping by."


Harrison projects the sense that he prefers the cloistered environs of an artistic enclave to the glad-handing that characterizes nightclub life.


"I would just rather get holed up in a building, Capt. Nemo style, and take my work back underground to stop it falling into the wrong hands," he said.


A key part of that work is building the group's fully interactive website. It's still in beta-testing mode, but ultimately will allow the band to initiate webcasts or live video chats when they're in the mood to reach out beyond the walls of the studio, and to interact to a new degree with fans during the periods when they aren't touring in the traditional sense.


"Dhani is very into technology . . . and likes to be on the forefront of everything," said the band's manager, David Zonshine. "He wants fans to experience something new and fresh."


Harrison has one luxury most start-up enterprises don't: the fortune his father left to him and his mother, Olivia Harrison, which has been estimated by some British publications at more than $200 million.


Back in the real -- as opposed to the virtual -- world, Thenewno2 landed spots at both Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and Chicago's Lollapalooza earlier this year, and with a lineup that continues to evolve, they're excited about getting in front of Wolfmother's crowd.


"I feel like a soccer team manager, putting out different teams for different things," Harrison said, "and this is definitely the team I'd field against Wolfmother. We have a new rhythm section and it's a funky, full-on rock version."


Which makes him sound a lot like the member of, well, a band. "As much as we say we don't like bands and stuff," Sadoff said, "it's kind of the most fun thing in the world, ever."

A Bit of Thenewno2 - Yomp

Thenewno2 - Dhani Harrison's groupthink

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' "The Live Anthology"

It's invigorating to see musical veterans make the most of new opportunities. Earlier this year Neil Young issued the "Archives, Vol. I," a massive box set that utilized Blu-ray technology to give fans comprehensive access to 10 discs' worth of Young's early material.

Tom Petty, another classic rocker, has assembled an impressive collection of his live work with his band the Heartbreakers that's similar in spirit to Young's remarkable anthology if not quite as expansive.

At its simplest, "The Live Anthology" is a four-CD set featuring 48 live tracks that span the Florida rocker's career from 1978 through 2007. That version is a bargain, listing for $24.98 and available for less than $20 at Amazon.com and elsewhere. Where things get fun, though, is in the expanded versions that tap into the heightened aural quality of the Blu-ray disc format and the possibilities of the Web.

A box set being offered as a retail exclusive at Best Buy and on Petty’s official fan club site -- listing for $149.98 but discounted to just under $100 -- fleshes out the basic box with a 14-track fifth CD and one audio-only Blu-ray disc. The Blu-ray disc is said to be the first of its kind using only the audio capability of the high-end audio-visual system and includes all 62 tracks in high-resolution stereo and 5.1 surround sound.

The bigger box also has two DVDs, one with a never-released documentary on the group's 1995 "Wildflowers" tour by director Martyn Atkins, the other containing audio and video from the band's 1978 New Year's Eve show at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. There's also an LP of an "Official Live 'Leg" bootleg album.

Petty gives further consideration to old-school analogists by way of a seven-LP version of the set, but he doesn't neglect devotees of the digital domain either. For $24.98, fans can stream the 48 songs live or download them either as MP3 files or higher-quality FLAC (free lossless audio codec) files.

Through the "Anthology" website, users also get access to ancillary materials, which include liner notes, archival photos, facsimiles of recording session notes and commentary on the tracks by Petty, keyboardist Benmont Tench and guitarist Mike Campbell.

In one audio clip, Campbell describes playing "Here Comes My Girl" to a London audience in 1980, just as the "Refugee" album was about to elevate the quintet from headlining clubs and theaters to arenas: "One thing I love about these recordings from that period is Tom's voice is so young and high and excited. You can tell that the band is just starting to feel like we're going to make it, and we could feel it and the audience could feel it."

The thrust of the project is to document and celebrate the Heartbreakers' chemistry together onstage, since its recorded legacy has been well chronicled in a 1995 six-CD box set "Playback" and then in more concise form in the 34-track double CD, 2000's "Anthology: Through the Years."

"The Live Anthology" does a superb job on that front. Petty and the Heartbreakers earned their place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame not by being larger-than-life figures like the Rolling Stones or the Who, or by dazzling with Dylanesque rock poetry or by elevating the human spirit a la Van Morrison or U2.

They made their mark by being the kind of band for which anything goes on any given night. That might be doing a cover of the Grateful Dead's "Friend of the Devil" at the Fillmore in San Francisco or playing Thunderclap Newman's "Something in the Air" during a 1993 hometown stop in Gainesville, Fla.

They did it by exemplifying the joyful essence -- the sense of individual liberation, musical interdependence and communal interconnection -- that is life in a rock 'n' roll band.

By

Randy Lewis

Via:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' "The Live Anthology"

Black Friday 2009 Sale: On your Mark, Get Set, Go...

With just a day left for the great Black Friday 2009, all major retailers are out with the Black Friday 2009 ads sales which consists of LCD/LED/Plasma HDTV, Laptops, Auto Electronics and GPS, Gaming Consoles like PS3, xbox 360 and Wii, notebooks, Tablets, Netbooks, Mobile Phones, Computer Sets, Computers, gadgets, apparels, toys,electronics, food, movies, jewellery etc. The Black Friday 2009 ads are out of some of the major retail giants like Walmart, Best Buy, Target and Kmart.


The retailers are also aware that to lure the shoppers, they need to cut down the prices and come out with the best deals and offers for Black Friday 2009. It is believed that this year crowds will be larger at the stores and the weekend sale collection would be better than last year. Many customers would be planning to purcahse items by cash or by using their debit cards, rather than credit cards as they won't be financing their purchases and thus customers would be spending less.

It is belived that the most purchased items would be the Tvs, netbooks, laptops, video games and consoles and GPS unit.

There are a number of best deals this Black Friday for Laptops. Best Busy is offering a HP laptop for $197, regularly priced at $549. Retail giant Walmart also has a laptop for just $198. Other Blackfriday 2009 deals include a toaster for $3, Crock-Pot, sandwich maker and coffee maker at Target. For toddlers, Tors r Us Black Friday sale has diapers at a very reasonable rates. Fisher Price Diapers pack will be avaibale for just $3 because of a $2 coupon available on the net. The normal price of this pack is $9.99. Toyrus stores will be open from 12:01 am Friday, five hours earlier than last year. Toys "R" Us has announced that it will have 100 of the Zhu Zhu Pets at each store. The first 100 customers in queqe for the midnight opening sale will each be provided a ticket to purchase the soft robotic hamsters (with a limit of one per household).

Walmart Black Friday 2009 sale will start at 5am and shoppers will form lines inside, near what they want to buy.

For those who cant wait for Black Friday can rush to Kmart as they are open all day on Thanksgiving. Even if anyone misses the weekend sale, retailers have the Cyber Monday sales 2009 and will continue to roll out sales and offers till Christmas eve.

So shoppers, get on your mark, get set and go to the retails stores to grab the best available deals on Black Friday 2009.

Via:

www.merinews.com

Black Friday 2009 Sale: On your Mark, Get Set, Go...

Susan Boyle - Bio

Birthname: Susan Magdalane Boyle
Nationality: British (Scottish)
Born: Apr 1 1961 (48 years old)

January 21st 2009 is not a date that Susan Boyle is ever likely to forget. ‘I will never forget it,’ she clarifies, in her unmistakeably Celtic brogue. It was the day that the shy, devout 48 year old stepped onto the stage of the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre in Glasgow for an audition on Britain’s Got Talent. Or to put it another way, the day her world turned 360 degrees on its head. In front of the three-strong panel of judges charged with divining which of this year’s British hopefuls really did have talent, the singing voice of Susan Boyle turned out to be a watershed moment neither she nor anyone involved in the show could possibly have foreseen. It is now both her and the show’s defining moment.

In her own haphazard fashion, during three and a half minutes of television airtime, later aired to slack-jawed intakes of breath in May of this year, Susan Boyle fashioned a new kind of fame. She elicited a moment of pure, molten zeitgeist. She broke every rule of the talent show book and tore up a considerable number of the pages of popular music marketing into the bargain. She symbolized an astonishing variety of the little-people’s revenge, quite by accident. Ms Boyle describes her own astonishing 2009 in refreshingly frank and simple terms. ‘All I did was to apply for a talent show. I was lucky enough to be chosen. That’s it in a nutshell.’ But something deeper was going on in the collective public consciousness. If the two watchwords of the 21st century have been ‘reality’ and ‘celebrity’, Susan Boyle had accidentally located a brand new point on the graph where they both intersected. One of Britain’s forgotten characters had rarely, if ever, been so memorable.

After her one audition for Britain’s Got Talent, in which she confounded the judges, the audience and then anyone with access to Youtube’s expectations by dazzling her way through a version of the song I Dreamed A Dream, from the musical Les Miserables, a tornado of opinionated column inches, speculation, rumination and conjecture around Susan Boyle grew feverishly. 300 Million You Tube hits and counting. She became the subject of op-ed newspaper columns, a front cover sensation in her own right. This unlikely candidate for the melting pot of the new star machine in 21st century Britain caused computer crashes, miles of newsprint and the sophisticated approval of Hollywood’s well-heeled and super-groomed A-list. Though the content differed wildly, everyone proffering their thoughts on the self-confessed ‘wee wifey’ seemed agreed on one point. That in 2009, to be free of an opinion on Susan Boyle was to be free of opinion itself.

For one brief moment, vanity itself collapsed. As that ancient old maxim – ‘Never judge a book by its cover’ – clanked around the globe with speedy viral intensity, it was as if the world was about to offer its first unspoken apology for prizing beauty above all else. Perhaps it would temporarily forget its grotesquely accentuated new heights of judgement. Or perhaps Susan Boyle was just a fleeting icon by which a microscope was shone on our more fickle presumptions. Whatever history gifts the Susan Boyle story in the long term, it is now her time to prove that there is more to this incredible woman than being the symbol for a moment of international reflection. She will do it in the exact same way she entered our consciousness in the first place. With the raw combination of strength and fragility, beauty and solitude that is her singing voice.

In some ways, Ms Boyle’s story is just the same as any woman with a voice in any choir up and down the UK. In her home town of Blackburn, she had been schooled in singing in churches and choral societies. She says now that, as a shy young woman with some learning difficulties, being hidden in the blanket of a collective singing arrangement offered her comfort. So in one other, crucial way, her story is entirely her own. The most unlikely chorister in the sea of voices stepped out of line and put her head above the parapet to be noticed. For Susan Boyle, though she would never deign to say so much herself, this was an act of personal heroism, the like of which she had never contemplated before.

The speed with which reaction to her performance picked up gravitas proved an incendiary media hotbed. But it was most surprising for the woman at the centre of it. ‘It started off with the [Scottish newspaper] Daily Record visiting my door. And it ended up with TV stations from all over the world camping out on my street waiting for interviews and stories. I’d peak behind the curtains in the house, saying ‘what in God’s name is going on here?’ Then the phone calls started. My number was still in the book at that particular time, so anybody could get it and the phone was ringing 24 hours a day. It was constant. People were ringing me who I couldn’t understand because of their accents. All sorts of nationalities. Lots of Americans. It was absolutely unbelievable if I’m being honest.’ She is self-deprecating about why she should have caused such a furore. ‘A woman who went on with mad hair, bushy eyebrows and the frock I was wearing had to be noticed. Come on!’

Such is the quick nature of today’s star system, in September, just four months after her TV debut, Susan Boyle made her live TV comeback. She performed a rarefied take on The Rolling Stones Wild Horses, re-orchestrated to gently clasp the exact timbre of her natural talent, on the show’s US cousin, America’s Got Talent. An unprompted standing ovation followed. Outside of the unruly cyclone of her fame, there is something within the voice of Susan Boyle that is absolutely perfect for our times. At a moment when Dame Vera Lynn and Barbra Streisand are topping the album charts, there is something peculiarly modern about her improbably status as holding the international record for most pre-ordered album of all time. As the dust settles on the sheer wattage of conversation that she has prompted, it is time – as they say – to face the music.

Ms Boyle’s debut album was put together during the summer of this year. She first entered a recording studio in July in Edinburgh, to test how her vocals would respond to tape. The results shocked both her and veteran producer Steve Mac. Decamping to London, she fashioned the record over two months, picking songs that resonated with her, that pricked something within that she felt ready to unleash through music. ‘It was important that I could feel everything I was singing,’ she says, cutting straight to the core of why music can be such a useful release, an escape valve from the everyday.

A disarming mix of the sacred (‘My faith is my backbone,’ she says) and the secular, there is not a moment on it that is not moving. It is pitched exactly within the framework of the year she has enjoyed and, at well-documented times, endured. It is a collection of covers and original material that cuts a swathe into the interior life of the woman who is arguably the most intriguing, not to mention instantly recognisable character yet to be produced by the reality talent medium, the decade’s defining TV genre.

When she hurts, it hurts. Her rousing rendition of Madonna’s You’ll See is a riposte to the children that picked on her in the playground. The new composition Who I Was Born To Be is an astonishing testament to self-belief against some startling odds. Yet when she dreams, we dream too. Because of her uncanny knack of picking a song so perfect for her tale at that very first audition, Ms Boyle has become synonymous with the word ‘dream’. Her flawless album rendition of I Dreamed A Dream may come as no surprise, but it still manages to pick every individual hair from the back of your neck and yank them to attention. A country ballad version of Daydream Believer delicately seals the deal of her being synonymous with the concept of dreaming.

For this is Susan Boyle’s tale. The fearlessness to dream about something other than the lot life has handed you. The chance to escape. The pivotal role of music as a conduit to go to another place, sometimes lodged at the outer recesses of your imagination, and to allow that new place to blossom. Yes, this is Susan Boyle’s tale. It is why it connected with so many unsuspecting people across the world. In another nutshell? If she can dare to dream, so can you.


"I Dreamed a Dream’" is already the most pre-ordered album worldwide of all time.

By:

Paul Flynn

Via:

www.amazon.com

Susan Boyle - Wild Horses (Live)



Too much has been commented about Susan Boyle's missing revenues from Youtbube views but then again we wonder whether this cash would come close to what she's likely to earn out of big money contract deals and everything else that may come up from now on....  

Susan Boyle - Bio

Hollywood's Most Overpaid Stars

This summer's Land of the Lost was one of those epic Hollywood disasters that makes outsiders question why anyone is in the movie business. The concept seemed like a good idea: pair funnyman Will Ferrell with a cult kids show from the '70s and hilarity is bound to ensue.

Or not. The film ended up costing an estimated $100 million and earned only $65 million at the worldwide box office. Universal studio heads Marc Shmuger and David Linde were subsequently fired. (For more on the movie's origins, see: "A Sleestak Comeback.")

Land of the Lost's dismal box office helped land star Will Ferrell at the top of our annual list of Hollywood's Most Overpaid Stars. Ferrell is no longer the sure bet he seemed after hits like Elf ($220 million worldwide box office) and Talladega Nights ($162 million box office). Ferrell's 2008 film Semi-Pro earned only $43 million. Step Brothers did better with $128 million, but it wasn't enough to help Ferrell--mainly because the star commands a high salary in comedies where he plays his trademark man-child role.

For every dollar Ferrell was paid, his films earned an average $3.29. Compare that to Shia LaBeouf, who topped our list of Best Actors for the Buck in August. For every dollar LaBeouf was paid, his films earned an average $160.

Second-worst? Ewan McGregor. The Scottish actor, best known for his work in films like Trainspotting and Star Wars (where he played a young Obi-Wan Kenobi), doesn't earn as much as some of the higher-profile actors on our list. But his recent movies have performed poorly, making him a terrible investment for producers. For every dollar McGregor was paid, his films earned an average $3.75.

To create our list, we looked at the 100 biggest stars in Hollywood. To qualify, each actor had to have starred over the last five years in at least three movies that opened in more than 500 theaters. (In McGregor's case, we didn't include the 2008 Woody Allen movie Cassandra's Dream, because it played in only 107 theaters.)

We didn't include animated films, because the actors aren't really the draw--and they tend to take pay cuts for voice work.

We calculated each star's estimated earnings on each film, including up-front pay and any earnings from the film's box office receipts, DVD and TV sales. We then looked at each movie's estimated budget (not including marketing costs, which are susceptible to accounting chicanery) and box office, DVD and television earnings to figure out an operating income for each film.

We added up each star's compensation on his or her last three films and the operating income on those films and divided total operating income by the star's total compensation to come up with each return-on-investment number.

Besides Will Ferrell, other big names on our list include Eddie Murphy and Tom Cruise. Murphy (who ranks fourth) has commanded one of the highest quotes in Hollywood for his work in family comedies, thanks to the performance of movies like The Nutty Professor, which grossed $274 million at the worldwide box office.

But lately his return on investment has fallen off a cliff. Last year's Meet Dave was a box office disaster, earning only $50 million worldwide. This year's Imagine That did even worse, bringing in $18 million. Murphy escaped being named the most overpaid star thanks to 2007's Norbit, which earned $160 million. For every dollar Murphy was paid, his films earned an average $4.43.

Cruise ranks sixth with a return on investment of $7.18. The star has worked out unusual deals on past films where he takes nothing up front in return for a large chunk of first-dollar gross--that means on stinkers like Lions For Lambs, Cruise earned even if the studio (in this case, his studio, United Artists) didn't recoup its money. These are just the kinds of deals studios are now trying to avoid.

By

Dorothy Pomerantz

Via

www.forbes.com

Hollywood's Most Overpaid Stars

Mando Diao - Why Should You Listen to this band?

It's a simple question to answer: Because it is a band that manages to mix several different styles which inevitably result in the type of music that we define as "colorful". They have the abilility to pick up all the best elements that are present in the good pop music from the 60's on and put them all together in a blender to create amazing songs in a melting pot of styles that is seldom found in today's music! That is why we listen to them and strongly recommend it to you as well so that chances are you have a good time! 

Mando Diao - Why Should You Listen to this band?

Bands you should pay attention to

Phoenix originaly from the suburb of Versailles, France.
Reasons why you ought to listen to them:
Very comfortable listening, with innovative particular characteristics such as the vocals and guitars.
Ability to combine sweetness and cacthy sound as a result of good atmosphere brought up by unique keyboard tone in good harmony with an ever present creative guitar licks and powerfull drumming.
When we mention comfortable we mean a band that can be enjoyed under many diferent circunstances, namely focusing the songs themselves, while having a good time with friends, or even dance!

Check them out on youtube!

Bands you should pay attention to

Aerosmith's Steven Tyler "wants to take two years off" - What's Wrong With That?

Despite Tyler insisting that he will not leave the band, lead guitarist Joe Perry has refused to rule out the possibility of finding a replacement singer

Rumours of Aerosmith's demise were given a jolt on Tuesday night, when Steven Tyler declared to a New York crowd that he and the band are not parting ways. "I just want you to know, I am not leaving Aerosmith," Tyler announced in a surprise appearance with the Joe Perry Project. The only trouble is – he still hasn't convinced Perry.

Perry, Aerosmith's lead guitarist, is the man leading speculation over Tyler's future. "Steven quit as far as I can tell," he said last weekend, explaining that Tyler doesn't even return his phonecalls. Though the group played together in Abu Dhabi on 1 November, Tyler said he would now be focusing "on Brand Tyler". "Aerosmith is positively looking for a new singer to work with," Perry wrote on Twitter. "You just can't take 40 years of experience and throw it in the bin."

But things became more complicated on Tuesday, after Tyler showed up at New York's Fillmore venue for a Joe Perry Project gig. "There was all this commotion during our encore break and somebody said, 'Steven is here.'" Perry told Rolling Stone. "And I was like, 'What?'" Tyler reportedly asked Perry if he could join in on a rendition of Aerosmith's Walk This Way. "Being an acquaintance of 40 years, I said, 'Why not?'. So he came up and sang and that was the last I saw of him."

Tyler did more than sing. After announcing, "I am not leaving Aerosmith!", he turned to his long-time bandmate. "Joe Perry, you are a man of many colours. But I, motherfucker, am the rainbow!" This enthusiasm echoed Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer's comments, made that same night. "The band didn't break up," he emphasised to New Haven's WPLR. "So the band is like a marriage and sometimes you are in different rooms and need some space?" the interviewer asked him. "That is correct. We've gone through a lot of stuff together. It's been a 40-year marriage."

And yet multicoloured Perry is still not impressed with Tyler's commitment to the band. "He wants to take two years off," Perry told Rolling Stone yesterday. "The rest of the band wants to keep on working." Perry would not rule out the possibility that Aerosmith will find a replacement singer. "We have so many different options to fill up that time. Anything is possible at this point. Basically, any communication that we've had [with Steven] over the last couple of months has been through managers, so that's been pretty strange ... I never won any money trying to second-guess what goes on in Steven's mind."

Via:

www.guardian.co.uk

Brief and to the Point:

It's been proven that Joe Perry can go nowhere without Tyler.Tyler is an Aerosmith just as much as Jagger is a Rolling Stone.Moreover, Perry lacks carisma to move ahead without Tyler. Last but not least, Perry is no Keith Richards who can put a band together just to entertain himself while Jagger is away minding his own business...Keith is a cult, Perry does not know what cult means...           

Aerosmith's Steven Tyler "wants to take two years off" - What's Wrong With That?

Why have teenage girls been bitten by the Edward Cullen bug to devour the Twilight novels?

Why do teenagers eat the Twilight novels? Why do they follow the adventures of young Bella and her vampire lover Edward? What do they think they see? Last night, I encountered some fans. "You are attracted to it because it is dangerous," says Camila, 13. "There is something that sucks you in." "I have Twilight written on my hand right now," says Morag, 11, whispering down the telephone (with her parents' permission). "Once you are gripped you cannot get ungripped. I am completely obsessed."

They do not know why they are entranced. They only know how. So I spoke to literary critics and psychologists and I now know what the teenage victim does not. When she reads Twilight, she is sucking up a complex maelstrom of psychosexual metaphor, and all before lunch. Goodbye Famous Five and Timmy, you horrid little dog. Goodbye Harry Potter and your dull suburban wand. You are a 20th-century, one-dimensional metaphor of a character. We have outgrown you.

Edward Cullen is the lover the young girl desires and fears. The reader wants to be devoured by him; she wants to be eaten, even if she is being very expensively educated and playing the viola reluctantly. "The vampire is a metaphor for the predatory yet alluring boy," explains the psychotherapist and sometime spin doctor Derek Draper. "The young girl wants to be chased and she wants to be caught. Coarsely put, the bite stands in for penetration." The fang, he says, is a penis.

But the young girl also wants to save the vampire; to rescue him from his lonely eternity. He is a photogenic monster with good hygiene. "To be a vampire is a very sad fate," says the psychologist Dr Cecilia d' Felice, "and this brings out the desire to nurture and protect him. They just want to suck on our blood. This is a metaphor for how much we need love and how much we need to be needed. We see our own vulnerabilities in them."

So Edward Cullen is Edward Rochester, with fangs. He is rich, too. This appeals to the readers of Teenage Vogue.

"Who would want to get close to Frankenstein's monster?" D'Felice asks me. You mean to play with his bolts? "The vampire is elegant and beautiful," she says. "They are Vanity Fair monsters, high-end, aspirational monsters." With great shoes. It is true – Edward Cullen, as played by Robert Pattinson, is on the front of Vanity Fair this month and, even if he really were a vampire, he would probably be there anyway.

The metaphorical puddle goes on; it swamps us. According to Dr Sara Lodge, a lecturer at the University of St Andrews and an expert on Victorian literature, the teenage girl identifies with the vampire, as well as with his victim. It isn't just a suck-me thing. It's a suck-you thing.

In the fourth Twilight novel, Breaking Dawn, Bella becomes a powerful vampire; she finds her fangs and loves them. This happens in Bram Stoker's Dracula, too, to Lucy Westenra. "Lucy is initially a tender virgin but once she has been bitten, she becomes a violent virago stalking cemeteries looking for children to sink her fangs into," says Lodge. When reading vampire fiction, Lodge believes, the teenager is "confronting an image of her own inadmissible desires. She is staring into a dark mirror."

Draper agrees: "The vampire is also a metaphor for a teenage girl, because teenage girls are outsiders. They feel unformed and sickened by cravings they struggle to satisfy." Who knew? It is hard to say to your parents "I want to devour and be devoured", even if you live in north London.

In the end, becoming a vampire allows the teenager to experience power. Mina Harker, the other female heroine in Dracula, is bitten but survives. (While Dracula is fried like an egg and toasted like a bit of toast.) So the vampire genre, Lodge says "allows the protagonist to be both the author of her own destiny and the victim of forces beyond her control. It allows women to have it both ways – strong and vulnerable to the darker forces."

So there you have it – Twilight. No wonder they love it and are longing for more. As Bibi, 14, says: "It has more emotional depth than Harry Potter."

Via:

www.guardian.co.uk

Why have teenage girls been bitten by the Edward Cullen bug to devour the Twilight novels?

Former Miss California Carrie Prejean made 7 other sex tapes, dozens of nude pics

It looks like Carrie Prejean spoke too soon when she called her recent sex tape the "biggest mistake" of her life.

Either the seven other sex tapes that have just surfaced aren't actually salacious, or else the former Miss California has a little more to atone for.

RadarOnline.com has just learned that the dethroned beauty queen has no less than eight sex tapes and 30 naked photos to her name. As in her previous sex tape, she performs solo on each video.

Some of the new sexy photographs that have been unearthed Prejean allegedly took herself, of own reflection in a mirror, alternately topless and completely naked.

Prejean created a national controversy earlier this year when she spoke out against gay marriage during the Miss USA pageant. Her stance put her at odds with the pageant committee, which she later sued for libel, claiming she had been discriminated against for her religious views.

Prejean settled out of court on November 3 after her first sex tape surfaced. On Wednesday she threatened to walk off Larry King Live when the host questioned her about the deal.

Perhaps she can chalk up the moment as another error to add to her growing list.

Via:

www.nydailynews.com

Former Miss California Carrie Prejean made 7 other sex tapes, dozens of nude pics

"I Was Dreaming of the Past..." The Beatles's Early Girl Friends!

This what we came acrros as we were surfing the web! Amazing Website:

Paul in 1969: "Jane was my girl friend, but not any more. We are still in love with one another, but it's impossible. It didn't happen. I still love all my old girlfriends, don't you?"


Ringo in 1965 about a girl he fancied at the factory he used to work in: "One day I took a fancy to a girl in one of the offices , but it was a long time before I could pluck up the courage to ask her to go to the pictures with me. I used to dress like a Ted, so I dashed home to change out of me jeans and came back in me Teddy Boy suit with thick crepe-soled shoes, thinking I was going to knock her dead. We took a bus to the Mayfair cinema, Aigburth, but I hadn't much money and as I was standing at the cashier's desk buying the tickets, she walked straight towards the entrance to the expensive seats! I chased after her, gently steering her by the arm to the front stalls - where we sat, necks aching, looking up at the screen. Funny thing, I never saw her again!"


Ex-bandmate Ken Brown about the band's early impressions of girls: "In those days, Paul was not very interested in girls - he took one or two to the pictures, but that was all. He was in love with music. George was the same. Ruth was crazy over him, but he did not bother very much with her. George and Paul both thought it a great laugh that John was so keen on Cynthia, the lovely girl who used to go to art school with him. Even then, four years before they married, they were crazy over each other. Cyn used to travel thirty miles a night from her home in Hoylake just to sit by the stage of the Casbah, listening to John playing with us."


Paul about Hamburg girls: "We were baptised in Hamburg because there were the girls! Of course it was striptease girls and hookers. I remember going out with a shortish dark-haired girl who was quite attractive but I think she was a strip-teaser, she was certainly something professional, and I remember feeling very intimidated in bed with her, spent the whole night not doing an awful lot but trying to work up to it... You couldn't say any girl coming down to the Reeperbahn was fair game because some of them were quite respectable kids who'd just bunked out on a Sunday afternoon and did observe the Ausweikontrolle the curfew. [all those under eighteen had to leave the clubs before ten o'clock at night] ...There were some really nice chicks that we had our eyes on who would have to go home. There was one called Renata, who John fell for quite heavily, and there were a couple of other girls who were quite a bit nicer. And then there was the lot who lived in St Pauli, who weren't bussed in on the Sunday afternoon for a bit of dancing, but who actually lived there, so they were in the clubs and restaurants later. There were a few chicks there who we went out with who were okay. They were just teenage girlfriends."


Just One Highlight - A Little Bit About One of Ringo's Girlfriend from Liverpool - Paula Bennet!


Paula Bennett was a rarity in the Beatle world in that she knew the Beatles in Liverpool before they were famous and still managed to continue dating a Beatle casually when they were celebrities living in London. She'd first met Ringo in 1963 at the Blue Angel Club in Liverpool, and had been out on a few dates with him. It wasn't anything particularly serious but they both enjoyed each others company and Ringo continued to see her despite supposedly having a steady girlfriend in Maureen Cox.

Paula was very close to the Beatle crowd, and hung out with Ringo's previous girlfriend Pat Davies, and two other Beatle girlfriends. These four girls were the most supportive of the Beatles crowd and would travel all over with the boys to attend gigs. They became especially close to Paul has he was the one who took care of them, but all the lads were enthusiastic about giving them lifts back and forth to gigs. "There were four of us who used to go 'round with the Beatles - Pat Davies, Louise Steel and Linda Robinson and myself. We were crazy about all four of them, particularly Paul. He had a kind, gentle way with him, and sent us all lovely Christmas cards. He was the only one of the Beatles who would dance, and in between numbers at the different halls and clubs he would come down onto the floor and join in dancing with us. He was smashing. Nearly every night the boys took us about in their van. To Preston one night, then Whitchurch another - and to all the places they used to play in Liverpool; Aintree Institute and so on."

"Ringo is wonderful fun to be with. He's so happy and has a tremendous sense of humor - but, like all The Beatles, he is afraid that the press will jump to the wrong conclusion if he is photographed with a girl. When we first met, it was different. The Beatles were not as well known, and Ringo could just drop in to the Blue Angel for a quiet drink whenever he wanted to. But later, when we went to the Ad Lib Club off Leicester Square, he was worried stiff in case any journalist saw us there together.

Paula moved to London to study sociology at London University around the same time that The Beatles moved down to London in order to be nearer the recording and TV studios where they frequently had to work. Ringo didn't take much time to install her as one of his regular London dates, but things were so very much more complicated in London. "I remember one late evening when Ringo offered to drop me off on his way home. But when he went down in the lift, he insisted on turning away into a corner with his coat collar pulled up over his face in case anyone recognised us. It was terribly funny, really. When the lift reached the bottom, he waited in a doorway - still with the collar pulled up over his face - and asked me to go down the street and find a taxi. Then I had to ask the driver to pull up slowly outside the Ad Lib Club, and I had the door open so that Ringo could suddenly dash into the cab without anyone realising it was him. I laughed about it at the time, but he told me that the Beatles always had to do this to avoid being harrassed by the press. 

Ringo said he always had to do this in case anyone recognised him and saw that he was with a girl. Ringo said that all the other Beatles had the same trouble trying not to be seen with their dates. Partly, it was because they wanted to avoid bad publicity and partly, they tried to protect their girlfriends from the press."
The other problem Ringo was having was that now he was famous, his girlfriend back home in Liverpool was constantly in danger of finding out in great detail what fun he'd been having down in London without her, and with pictorial evidence. While in Liverpool Ringo was still dating Maureen Cox, but Paula became one of his regular London girls and only disappeared off the scene when Ringo and Maureen married.


By the age of 24 when her relationship with Ringo had ended Paula was working as a typist and still living in London.


Visit the Website:


http://sentstarr.tripod.com/beatgirls/girl.html

"I Was Dreaming of the Past..." The Beatles's Early Girl Friends!

Geisy Arruda - Brazil College Backs Down On Mini-Dress Expulsion

SAO PAULO — A woman expelled for wearing a mini-dress that caused a near riot at a Brazilian college and made her an Internet sensation said all she wants is to go back to school.

Well, she got her way.

Geisy Arruda, a 20-year-old tourism student, can return to the classroom after Bandeirante University reversed its decision to expel her following a flood of negative reaction in a nation known for tiny bikinis, beaches and Carnival.

The dean of the private college in suburban Sao Paulo released a statement Monday announcing the reversal, without saying why it had decided to let her back in.

One of Arruda's lawyers, Nehemias Domingos de Melo, said Arruda had not been officially notified of the decision to reinstate her. He said he remained cautious about the prospects of her going back to school.
"She can only return with some safety guarantees," he told reporters.

Arruda has not made any public statements since the university announced she was allowed to return to classes, but she said previously she would be afraid to go back. Melo said she has been contacted by two other colleges offering her a full scholarship.

Videos of students ridiculing and cursing Arruda for her short outfit turned up on the Web, and quickly made headlines across Brazil and drew attention around the world to the Oct. 22 incident.

Arruda was forced to put on a professor's white coat to cover her short, pink dress and was escorted away by police amid a hail of insults by students, some of whom shouted "whore."

Arruda said just before Monday's decision that she was humiliated by the experience and was never warned by university officials that her dress was too racy, according to the private Agencia Estado news agency.

"If a security guard or a professor had told me something I would have humbly returned home and changed my clothes," she said, accompanied by seven lawyers at a packed press conference.

Her expulsion prompted complaints from the national student union and Brazil's minister in charge of women's policy, along with a demand from the Education Ministry that the university explain why it had kicked her out.

Several Brazilian celebrities showed their support for Arruda by using the color pink on the frame of their Twitter photos, as well as writing messages condemning the university's decision to expel her.

Although Brazil is known for revealing clothing — especially in beach cities, where many bikinis are referred to locally as "dental floss" — most college students dress more modestly on campus, commonly in jeans and T-shirts.

The university published newspaper advertisements Sunday saying it expelled Arruda for disrespecting "ethical principles, academic dignity and morality."

The ads also alleged Arruda acted in a provocative manner incompatible with the university's environment.
University lawyer Decio Lencioni told Globo TV that the institution was merely following its rules.

"The problem is not her clothes," he said. "It's her behavior, her attitude."

Lencioni and the university alleged Arruda even raised her dress and stopped to pose for photos the night she wore the short dress on campus. He said she also chose the longest way to get to class to attract the attention of more students.

Arruda vehemently denied the claim, saying, "It's a big lie that I raised the dress," Agencia Estado reported.

On Sunday's ads, titled "Educational Responsibility," the college said it had previously warned Arruda to change her behavior and decided to expel her after talking to students, staff and Arruda.

"I always dressed in a way that makes me feel good and that doesn't offend anybody," Arruda said during an interview with Brazil's Globo TV. "I was always like that and was never recriminated by anybody."

Civil police in the city of Sao Bernardo do Campo outside Sao Paulo, where the university is located, said they will investigate the students accused of heckling Arruda. The university said some will be suspended.

Via:

airamerica.com

Brief and to the Point:

Online Adult Videos, specially the homemade ones are very successfull among São Paulo's men and women. When faced with sensuality in the real world, people in the city of São Paulo have a very weird reaction in general.

Our sources tell us that this is the result of the conservative State Government which has been in power for over twenty years. The Eurocentric mentality has been turned the State into the most conservative States in the Country, if not the most.  

Here's one of São Paulo's most famous images of Italian decendent Governor, who intends to run for President in Brazil's next election.  

 

Geisy Arruda - Brazil College Backs Down On Mini-Dress Expulsion