Heavy Snowfall Increased Online Traffic

What do we do when we’re stuck at home for days and that the snow keeps on falling? Well it seems that a lot of us turn to the internet and a large percentage of us use the internet to look for romance. Why not make the most of the unexpected spare time!

Online dating sites have benefited from the huge snowfalls that covered the UK and we want to cheer up and warm up by looking for love. While millions of people could not make it to work, they decided to make the most of it and try to make new friends online. British people - singles and married alike - have been checking out online dating services, with some discovering the delight of making new friends online. However, escort girls had fewer bookings as clients could not go out and travel to be entertained.


Both Mysinglefriend.com and Singles365.com, two of the UK's largest online dating sites, have revealed that the snow has been a bit of a bonus for traffic on the sites. But don't wait for the winter weather to find your soul mate. The best dating sites are open 24/7 and packed with singles looking for new experience and love.

Bollywood actress Tanushree Dutta

Digital sketch of Bollywood actress Tanushree Dutta

FAMOUS ART QUOTES, MUSIC QUOTES, PAINTING QUOTES, FILM MAKING QUOTES, PHOTOGRAPHY QUOTES:

A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.
~ Leopold Stokowski

One of the best things about paintings is their silence - which prompts reflection and random reverie.
~ Mark Stevens

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.
~ Berthold Auerbach

God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things.
~ Pablo Picasso

Can there ever again be decent Tom Sawyer movie?

Children today would be horrified

Some time back, some channel showed two versions of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer back to back. One was the 1938 David O. Selznick production starring Tommy Kelly. The other was Tom and Huck starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas.

The old version was better, of course. In technicolor. Tommy Kelly did his own stunts.

In the 1938 version, they were constantly beating the crap out of him. The teacher brutally canes him. Aunt Polly whacks him with a board, thumps him in the head. In one scene he eats standing up after an especially brutal beating.

When you watched that movie, you sat there thinking, "For God's sake! Why don't they stop hitting that poor kid!"

On the other hand, you watch the Jonathan Taylor Thomas version and you sit there thinking, "For God's sake! Why doesn't somebody slap that kid!"

In that version, Jonathan Taylor Thomas smirks constantly as he avoids all punishment. They threaten him. Aunt Polly is long suffering. The teacher is easily manipulated.

I don't know how children watching movies today would react to seeing the child rearing practices of the past. I think it would help them understand the character and why he kept "acting out".

Tommy Kelly, Jonathan Taylor Thomas

The star of the old Tom Sawyer went on to do a few other movies, but his career never took off. Poor kid. It's not known where he is now, if he's alive or dead.

I don't know what Jonathan Taylor Thomas is up to. He was huge in his day and did a few movies. I remember reading a quote from him that he wanted to do grittier roles because that's what you got respect for. He was miscast in a movie called Speedway Junkie, produced, I believe, by Gus Van Sant. Van Sant has made other movies about teen boy prostitutes which would be fine but it's not the plight of these poor kids he seems interested in.

I couldn't make it through Speedway Junkie. Thomas played sort of the leader of the teenage boy prostitutes. But he was---I don't know---too cute for the role.

Now it's really over. Conan O'Brien and Dustin Diamond

Into the dustbin of history

Now it's really over. No more talk of Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien.

I feel less sympathy for O'Brien now, getting to retire at such a young age. Or not retire. He can do anything he wants. I found his show offensive, anyway. But I also find Leno offensive.

O'Brien dismissed the idea that he deserved sympathy. He was doing great.

And Screech seems to be gone. He once gave an interview describing himself as a celebrity and droning on about himself. Wikipedia is reporting that Ford Motor Company is going to repossess his 2005 Expedition and he owed the state of Wisconsin $34,944.35 in back taxes, fines and interest. I'm surprised he made enough money to owe that much. This must have built up over about 40 years. He was barred from a Saved By The Bell reunion by other cast members who are even more repulsed by him than we are.

I think I said somewhere before that he's in an awkward position. He can't let what little fame he has go to waste. But he's not famous enough to make a go of it. Even if he were, he's so obnoxious, untalented, and generally repellent. There but for the grace of God go I.

Now he's written a book about Saved By The Bell. Judging from the excerpts, he actually wrote it himself. He writes about the sex and drugs and parties he assumed were going on in other cast members' dressing rooms. He doesn't know for sure because no one ever invited him in.

What's left for him? He did the book. He did a sex tape, a "reality" show. He even did "celebrity" boxing. I think he's finished.

Anarkali style Salwar Kameez

Model posing in Anarkali style Salwar Kameez.

FAMOUS ART QUOTES, MUSIC QUOTES, PAINTING QUOTES, FILM MAKING QUOTES, PHOTOGRAPHY QUOTES:

While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.
~ Dorothea Lange

Art is indeed not the bread but the wine of life.
~ Jean Paul Richter

Imitation is the sincerest form of television.
~ Fred Allen

Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom.
~ Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Native Link Roundup

 

(image via www.kdvr.com)

• Push for American Indian garb at CSU game draws fire

Students and administrators at Colorado State University will meet today to talk about a Facebook posting that encouraged fans to wear war paint and feathers to a basketball game this Saturday.
CSU sophomore Ben Margolit asked that CSU fans wear the American Indian garb at the men's home basketball game against the Wyoming Cowboys. His posting sparked comments from detractors who thought it was racist and degrading to American Indians.

•  Wayne Newton advocates for Virginia state recognition of Patawomeck tribe

Playing in the General Assembly building -- what had to be one of the smallest venues of his career -- Newton, 67, described hearing stories from his grandfather about his Native American heritage and absorbing his appreciation of the culture. Both of Newton's parents were half Native American: His father was Patawomeck and his mother was Cherokee. Newton also displayed a picture of his grandfather in full-feathered regalia and passed around a heavy green sash that bore what Newton called a peace medal his ancestors received from Gen. George Washington. 

• Senator says she will withdraw Indian mascot law 

A state lawmaker who ignited a firestorm of controversy by introducing a bill that would require public high schools to get permission to use American Indian mascots said she will withdraw the legislation.Sen. Suzanne Williams, D-Aurora, told the Denver Post she has achieved her goal of starting a community discussion over whether the mascots are appropriate.

• 'Moses' of the Choctaws led the Indian Tribe to Prosperity  

Hailed over the decades as "The Moses of the Choctaws" and "The Indians' Lee Iacocca," Mr. Martin led his tribe into printing and manufacturing of auto parts and electronics at the Mississippi reservation once called "the worst poverty pocket in the poorest state of the Union."

• No change in American Indian mascot names 

Efforts to change American Indian mascot names at Oregon high schools have stalled, more than two years after a state advisory group suggested a ban on them. All 15 Oregon high schools with team names such as the Warriors, the Braves or the Indians are still using them.

Look what I found in the bottom of my purse...

 

I had forgotten I'd grabbed a stir stick from the bar at Disney's Wilderness Lodge. It had been skewering an orange in my beer in a previous life.  

Previous post: 

Appropriations at Disney World Part 3: Disney's Wilderness Lodge:

http://nativeappropriations.blogspot.com/2010/01/appropriations-at-disney-world-part-3.html