Yaarik's

2009-05-08T14:25:00.000+02:00

Find me twittering away here: http://twitter.com/yaarik

2009-01-12T16:02:00.004+02:00

I just saw that there are 14,532,770 people on Skype!

That's a lot of people!

According to Wikipedia the most is 14,208,194 on Dec 16, 2008..

Yaarik :)

Mr. President

2008-11-08T20:38:00.001+02:00

20081104_Chicago_IL_ElectionNight0981, originally uploaded by Barack Obama.

This guys is just so awesome. If he can deliver half of what he says with the help of the people it would be an amazing feat in itself!

Plastic Army Man Halloween Costume

2008-11-04T18:20:00.001+02:00

Cool!

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The 8 Phases of Dating [comic]

2008-10-08T09:28:00.001+02:00

The truth hurts, diggers. Oh how it hurts.

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Ninja cat comes closer while not moving!

2008-09-15T17:24:00.001+02:00

Awesome vid, this cat is a sneaky bastard

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Evolution (PIC)

2008-09-15T17:17:00.003+02:00

WTF?

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Detention Report [PIC]

2008-09-15T17:17:00.001+02:00

Superman!!

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Blogger

2008-07-16T08:08:00.001+02:00

I am quite impressed by the amount of decent applications and features I have found for online apps and services!!

Yaarik* :)

Ever seen a depressed dog?

2008-07-09T08:06:00.001+02:00

!?!

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The Stig and Batmobile

2008-07-09T08:02:00.001+02:00

The Stig and Batmobile, originally uploaded by Raymond Luxury Yacht.

Hope to go see this movie when it hits SA!

Flickr

2008-07-09T08:01:00.001+02:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Super Mario Bros. Finally Makes Sense [PIC]

2008-06-24T07:49:00.001+02:00

You need to read the comments on Digg too fully appreciate this images :)

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An A Grade Exam Paper [PIC]

2008-06-24T07:46:00.001+02:00

[+5397] Firefox Download counter

2008-06-18T19:04:00.001+02:00

The number of people that actually got through before the crash.

View Original Article

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Silence I Kill You!!!

2008-05-26T08:21:00.001+02:00

Achmed the Dead Terrorist, gives an interview to Comedian Jeff Dunham and discovers not all virgins are female in the promised paradise.

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E.tv’s 24-hour news channel ready to air

2008-05-21T08:33:00.001+02:00

eNews won’t be free, but wants to be a hi -tech spectacle of international quality.Move over Sky and CNN, South African television news is set to become pretty slick.

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7 Sides of the World’s Most Infamous Street Artist [PICS]

2008-04-25T00:26:00.001+02:00

The Banksy Paradox... Sounds pretty cool, well it is.

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Formula One to return to BBC TV

2008-04-25T00:16:00.001+02:00

The BBC has secured the television rights to Formula One from the 2009 season. The five-year deal marks the return of the sport to BBC screens 12 years after ITV began broadcasting Grands Prix. Hopefully they leave James Allen with ITV

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New IE8 beta 1 tantalizes, rough edges and all..

2008-03-18T08:52:00.003+02:00

To coincide with the first day of MIX08, the first beta of Internet Explorer 8 has been released. The big feature is, of course, better standards compliance, and to this IE8 adds a few small bells and whistles. This release is aimed squarely at developers so that they can get a head start on preparing their pages for the new browser.

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New IE8 beta 1 tantalizes, rough edges and all..

2008-03-18T08:52:00.001+02:00

20+ Excellent Resources for High-Res Desktop Wallpapers

2008-03-18T08:32:00.001+02:00

If you have to stare at something for 8 or more hours a day, why not make it something interesting? Divided into five helpful categories, with introductory descriptions and sample screenshots, here are over twenty of the best collections, communities and other resources on the web for finding excellent desktop wallpaper.

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Firefox 3 goes on a diet, eats less memory than IE and Opera

2008-03-18T08:28:00.001+02:00

Benchmarks show that Firefox 3 uses less memory than Internet Explorer 7 and Opera. A number of significant fixes and improvements have brought down the open-source browser's memory footprint and could make it a more viable choice in mobile environments.

read more | digg story

The Ten Legal Commandments of Photography

2008-03-18T08:26:00.001+02:00

You're sure you haven't done anything wrong, but you don’t know whose side the law is on. Fret no more

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The Most Redneck Phrase Ever Captured On Paper

2008-03-18T08:21:00.007+02:00

They... they should have sent a poet.

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New Nine Inch Nails record available for download RIGHT NOW!

2008-03-18T08:21:00.005+02:00

NIN surprises us with an unexpected self-released album: almost 2 hours / 36 instrumental tracks described as "music for daydreams." Available as a $5 download, or a FREE album-length download, as well as a variety of physical configurations. The new business model done right?

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It's official: HD DVD is dead, the format war over

2008-03-18T08:21:00.003+02:00

Toshiba just made a statements saying, "It will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders." Finally.

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Ever Noticed This While Playing Super Mario?

2008-03-18T08:21:00.001+02:00

In all the years I've played the game....I can't believe I didn't notice this. Can anyone confirm if this is true?

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JK Rowling All Narky About Other Harry Potter Books

2008-03-06T07:22:00.001+02:00

Harry Potter has made JK Rowling richer than her wildest dreams - but if you try to make money out of Harry Potter, JK Rowling will crush you in her mighty fist.

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IE8 will render standards-mode pages as best it can

2008-03-05T07:41:00.001+02:00

"We’ve decided that IE8 will, by default, interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it can. This decision is a change from what we’ve posted previously."

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"What Makes Pepsi Great?"

2008-02-28T08:05:00.001+02:00

In its March 3 issue, FORTUNE magazine's answers the question by offering "an inside look at how Indra Nooyi has transformed an American business icon."

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Movie Cliches That Must Die a Horrible Death

2008-02-28T07:46:00.001+02:00

Ever watch a movie and find yourself screaming at the screen, "Nobody does that in real life! ARGGHHHHH!" Believe me, my friend, you're not alone...

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Its OK, I use Linux (pic)

2008-02-27T07:48:00.001+02:00

Security Center Mayhem

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Firefox hits 500,000,000 downloads

2008-02-22T20:19:00.001+02:00

The Mozilla community is celebrating 500 million Firefox downloads by earning 500 million grains of donated rice, enough to feed 25,000 people.

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'Gray Googlers' strike gold

2008-02-22T19:44:00.001+02:00

As an independent handyman at the mercy of weather patterns near Hartford, Conn., he'd always made a decent income that rarely grew.Then he found Google, and his life changed. Alonzy, 57, now makes $120,000 a year from the ads Google places on his Natural Handyman website, and he couldn't be more thrilled.

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The Mp3 Experiment Four

2008-02-22T08:22:00.001+02:00

Our fourth Mp3 Experiment was our biggest mission to date. 826 people downloaded the same mp3, pressed play at the same time, and had a blast together on Lower Manhattan’s beautiful waterfront. Enjoy the videos first and then go behind the scenes with our mission report, photos, and audio downloads.

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Hillary Clinton $7.6 MILLION IN DEBT at end of Jan.!

2008-02-22T07:59:00.001+02:00

She ends January with $7.6 million in debt; rival's campaign finances continued to be robust.

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MSNBC Poll: Should Hillary Clinton call it quits?

2008-02-21T07:57:00.001+02:00

At this point in the primary campaign, with delegates apportioned the way they are, should Hillary Clinton call it quits?

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"I've done it with a girl...intercourse-wise."

2008-02-20T17:50:00.001+02:00

Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) on the TV show "Extras."

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Bafana Bafana jump up Fifa’s world football rankings

2008-02-17T07:55:00.001+02:00

Bafana Bafana, in spite of failing to make it to the play-offs at the recent Africa Cup of Nations, have leapt eight places in the Fifa world football rankings...

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Celine Dion gets her SA rocks

2008-02-17T07:32:00.001+02:00

What did you give your wife for Valentine’s Day? Well, if you’re the husband of a woman worth 250-million from crooning (some would say ‘screeching’) soppy ballads, and you’re in town for the start of her first world tour in six years, you give her a glittering bracelet and ring...

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The Most Spoiled Girl In The World?

2008-02-15T08:51:00.001+02:00

Some of the crap this girl's parents do for her is amazing.

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First Look at Sony's PlayTV for PS3

2008-02-15T07:48:00.001+02:00

But its still only for Europe

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How Google Got Its Colorful Logo

2008-02-14T08:44:00.001+02:00

Gallery of the evolution of google's logo...

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17yo Obama Supporter Helps 50,000 Others Vote in MD Primary

2008-02-12T08:36:00.001+02:00

A 17 year old Obama supporter in Maryland paved the way for herself and 50,000 other teens to vote in the the upcoming Feb 12th primary.

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One more thing... Leopard Graphics Update 1.0

2008-02-12T08:29:00.001+02:00

Did you just finish rebooting from the 10.5.2 update that just landed a few minutes ago? Good, because Apple has an extra package for you to install, which also requires a reboot. The company released Leopard Graphics Update 1.0 this afternoon, and it requires 10.5.2 before installation. The description says that the update is recommended

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Leopard 10.5.2 Update is Live, here's what it fixes

2008-02-12T08:28:00.001+02:00

Leopard finally gets its second patch, and boy does it fix a lot of stuff. The first patch hit back in November, with test builds of the second making it out a month later. Here's a list of the major things the 10.5.2 patch fixes (including menubar transparency and Stacks).

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Most Accurate Portal Cake Ever.

2008-02-12T08:21:00.001+02:00

and it was delicious and moist

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The Funniest Windows Firewall Spoof Image

2008-02-12T08:20:00.001+02:00

This is the truth. Microsoft's firewall guards the front door while everyone and everything get in from every other direction.

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When Copies Are Abundant, Sell Uncopyable Things

2008-02-06T18:22:00.001+02:00

When copies are so abundant that they become worthless in themselves, Kevin Kelly argues in a post, then one needs to sell things which cannot be copied.

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Vote for Monopoly Cape Town

2008-02-04T07:57:00.001+02:00

Vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote !!!!!!!!!

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Naspers is spreading its reach - SA

2008-01-11T15:39:00.001+02:00

Naspers’ drive to become the leading provider of Internet-based services in emerging markets

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Three darlings of technology

2008-01-10T11:21:00.001+02:00

Last year unashamedly belonged to Apple and Google, although much of the hype was also focused on Facebook.

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Celine Dion: I'd love my gay son.

2008-01-09T09:13:00.001+02:00

Celine Dion gives a brief interview to the London blog Me-Me-Me.tv. She's asked what she might do if her six-year-old son, Rene Charles, turns out to be gay.

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Einstein's Logic Puzzle

2007-12-18T19:01:00.001+02:00

An extraordinarily complex, and time consuming, logic puzzle.

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Clinton Mocks Obama on Foreign Policy

2007-11-21T07:45:00.001+02:00

Hillary Rodham Clinton ridiculed Democratic rival Barack Obama on Tuesday for his contention that living abroad as a child helped give him a better understanding of the foreign policy challenges facing the U.S.

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Verizon and Vodafone create a new service for multi-national organizations

2007-11-19T17:50:00.001+02:00

The new “best-in-class” offering is designed to provide customers with a “consistent approach to products and pricing” under a single contract for the whole world.

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Thumbs Up for Johncom's Naspers Deal

2007-11-19T17:32:00.001+02:00

THE Competition Tribunal has unconditionally approved the sale of Johnnic Communication's (Johncom's) 38% stake in M-Net and SuperSport to Naspers, overruling objections from media company Caxton.

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Rare edition Harry Potter book sets new world record at auction

2007-11-14T08:43:00.001+02:00

A rare edition of the first Harry Potter book was sold for £19,700 yesterday - setting a new world record for an unsigned copy.The young man in his twenties who sold his edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone earned enough money in minutes for a deposit on a house or a sports car.

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Jeremy Clarkson BMW X5 Review

2007-11-06T17:50:00.001+02:00

For the past week I have been mostly driving around in the new BMW X5. The old one was an ugly, American-made piece of nonsense that never really floated my boat at all. Sure, it was built to offer sports driving dynamics, but what’s the point of that in a tall off-road car? It’s like making vegetarian food that tastes of sausages.

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Why Bafana Bafana have to rebrand for 2010

2007-11-06T17:40:00.001+02:00

Bafana Bafana, meaning Boys, Boys, was coined by three Sowetan sports reporters in 1992, shortly after the readmission of South Africa to world football. According to Neil Tovey, captain of the winning 1996 Africa Cup of Nations team, who was present at the time, "We were doing well and we were rookies in football, and that's what it means.” ...

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J.K. Rowling Recounts Fate-Revealing Conversations With 'Potter' Stars

2007-10-18T17:01:00.001+02:00

In a world filled with magic spells, where problems can be solved with a flick of the wrist, the old adage still applies, a delighted J.K. Rowling told reporters: Be careful what you wish for! That

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100 Reasons You'll be Speechless - Windows Vista

2007-10-12T09:59:00.001+02:00

Sounds believable..

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MWEB upgrades WiMax network

2007-10-12T09:54:00.001+02:00

MWEB has upgraded their WiMax network, resulting in improved performance which may allow them to include new trial customers.

read more | digg story

Business Booming in SAfrica's Soweto

2007-10-10T13:54:00.001+02:00

SOWETO, South Africa -- The towering construction cranes and the cacophony of churning concrete trucks and rumbling cherry pickers are the sights and sounds of a business boom in South Africa's most famous township.

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South African

2007-10-10T07:15:00.001+02:00

You know your South African when...

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Floridian: Real Florida: Red-faced with the Coppertone Girl

2007-09-06T13:02:00.000+02:00

Real Florida: Red-faced with the Coppertone Girl

It's one of the most memorable ads ever produced, but at 48, its model would like to put those bare buns behind her. Her mother the artist, though, was willing to talk.

By JEFF KLINKENBERG
Published September 5, 2004

[Times photo: Stephen J. Coddington]

Artist Joyce Ballantyne Brand still lives in downtown Ocala in the building she bought with her late husband in the 1970s. “I didn’t think I’d be here long,” she says.

In one of the original sketches for the ad, it is a cocker spaniel that pulls the girl’s bathing suit down. The dog was changed for the finished product.

[Courtesy of Joyce Ballantyne Brand]

Joyce Ballantyne Brand used her 3-year-old daughter, Cheri, as a model for the Coppertone ad in 1959. “People seem very excited to learn that I was the Coppertone baby,” says Cheri Brand, now 48.

[Courtesy of Joyce Ballantyne Brand]

Joyce Ballantyne Brand still drinks Ovaltine in the morning, something she started doing after illustrating an Ovaltine ad.

OCALA - When I was a boy, growing up in Miami, we often drove across MacArthur Causeway on our way to the beach. Near Biscayne Boulevard, on the side of a downtown building, was the biggest billboard I had ever seen. On the billboard, a dog was pulling down the bathing trunks of a little girl in pigtails.

Eisenhower was still president, and everybody was repressed except maybe those finger-snapping, reefer-smoking, free-sex beatniks in Greenwich Village, so it was shocking to be able to look out the window of our Nash Rambler and see an innocent little girl's butt cheeks being exposed by a rude dog for all the world to see.

"Don't be a pale face," said the letters on the sign. "Use Coppertone."

That ad for suntan lotion was among the most memorable come-ons in perhaps the golden age of advertising. You could see the ad on street corners in San Francisco and in Manhattan, on the blue highways of the Great Plains and here and there throughout the Wheat Belt.

The Coppertone Girl, it turned out, was as American as a Moon Pie. But if you lived here back then, if you lived anywhere near a beach, you considered the ad as quintessential Florida. It was a postcard of sorts that celebrated the sand and the sun and our state as a place where anything could happen.

Recently, I made a telephone call to a woman named Cheri Brand to ask if I could drive up to Ocala and talk to her about the Coppertone ad. There was silence on the phone; reporters learn to dread silence. Finally she said, "Oh, no. Not that. It's so old. You don't want to write about that. Really. Nobody cares."

The Coppertone Girl with the bare cheeks, now 48, was in no mood to bare her soul.

"You know," she said, "you don't want to talk to me. You want to talk to my mother. My mother is much more interesting than I'll ever be. Mother is the real story."

Usually, when somebody says don't talk to me, talk to my mother instead, a reporter comes down with the willies. The gray-haired mother produced by the reluctant interviewee turns out to be a saint who whips up apple butter by the gallon, or a kindly grandma who knits smiley faces on feathery quilts for shivering orphans, or a reincarnated Elizabeth Browning who minutes ago finished writing an 800-line poem about her cat, Slinky, and is looking for a publisher.

Not that there is anything regrettable about quilts, apple butter and cat poetry that always rhymes moon with spoon.

Joyce Ballantyne Brand, 86, was the opposite of an apple butter gal. I did not bring a martini shaker with me to Ocala, but I should have.

More to life than Coppertone

"Mind if I smoke?" she asked in a nicotine voice. "My whole house is my ashtray."

"Mother," said her daughter, the reluctant Coppertone Girl, "be careful of what you say to a reporter. They're always looking for something to make the story better."

Joyce Ballantyne Brand, a commercial artist who gave the world the Coppertone Girl, the Pampers Baby and countless half-dressed women who posed on many a risque calendar, gazed across the table at me through giant pink eyeglasses and the haze of cigarette smoke. I got the feeling she knew how to handle hayseed reporters.

"So whattya want to know?" she growled.

I wanted to know everything, I confessed, from the beginning to now, but especially about the Coppertone Girl that had titillated me as a young boy.

"Be careful, Mother," said her daughter from across the table. "Don't use any swear words."

"Ah, I won't," she said. "But you know, I get tired of talking about the Coppertone Girl. Yeah, it was a good billboard, but it was hardly the only art I ever produced. But that's what everybody remembers. That's what everybody wants to talk about. The Coppertone Girl."

I felt my face grow hot.

"Hey," she said. "Go use the bathroom."

Blushing even more, I stole a quick glance at my fly. Zipper closed, thank God. But I had drunk a quart of coffee on my drive north, so I did as ordered.

In the bathroom I was admired by a life-sized mermaid sprawled in the tub. The sculpture had fine, shapely hips and more than ample breasts.

"Well," Joyce Ballantyne Brand said when I emerged, "at least I didn't make her face very pretty. Otherwise she'd be obscene."

From paper dolls to pinups

So the mother of the reluctant Coppertone Girl told me her story. She said she was born in Nebraska near the end of World War I and liked drawing and making paper dolls; during the Depression she sold paper dolls for a buck apiece. She said she habitually entered art contests and won a scholarship to Disney's School for Animation in California. She remembered the day when the Disney representative heard her girlish, teenage voice over the phone and rescinded the scholarship. Women married and had babies and gave up careers, she was informed. A woman was a poor investment.

"Not the last time I heard that," Joyce growled.

She spent two years at the University of Nebraska and two years at the American Academy of Art in Chicago. She met and married her first husband, artist Eddie Augustiny. She said she drew pictures for dictionaries, did maps for Rand McNally, painted murals for movie theaters and learned to fly a plane. She was barely 25.

"This is what you want to hear about?" she asked. "It's so boring."

World War II began, and even male artists got drafted. Doors opened to women, and her old college professor, the famous pinup artist Gil Elvgren, got her a job at a studio known for churning out the sexiest calendars on earth. Even closing in on 90, Joyce is an attractive woman. As a young woman, she resembled the Donna Reed in From Here to Eternity, only earthier. Often she used herself as a model, gazing into the mirror while painting a buxom doll who later would be admired in a greasy garage by drooling auto mechanics. Today, her pinups are collector items.

She showed me a few. They weren't naked.

"Mine always had some clothes on or at least a towel on," she said in that smoky voice. "I didn't go in for dirty stuff like they do today."

My face grew hot again.

"Mother," said her daughter, the reluctant Coppertone Girl, "tell him your philosophy about pinups."

"The trick is to make a pinup flirtatious," Joyce said. "But you don't do dirty. You want the girl to look a little like your sister, or maybe your girlfriend, or just the girl next door. She's a nice girl, she's innocent, but maybe she got caught in an awkward situation that's a little sexy."

Joyce and her husband divorced. She married a TV executive, Jack Brand, and they had lots of laughs together. He was creative; she was creative. They had their own lives and interests and always supported each other and avoided jealousy.

She used him as a model for a famous ad for Schlitz beer. She did portraits of the well-known and the little-known. Sometimes, when subjects wouldn't relax, Joyce threatened to get them drunk. Whiskey worked wonders.

In 1947, she began a long association with Sports Afield, the outdoors magazine. Her illustrations accompanied the stories. One time she painted a mermaid on the cover. Full of mischief, the mermaid hung boots and tires on the hooks of oblivious anglers. The mermaid - Joyce again had used her comely self as a model - was quite provocative. Some readers objected: How dare she lead men and boys astray in a magazine devoted to an innocent pursuit like fishing?

Joyce lost no sleep about the complaints.

Interesting, but I brought up Coppertone to Joyce. Tell me about Coppertone.

Well, okay, Joyce said. The boring Coppertone story. In 1959, Coppertone solicited drawings from prominent commercial artists for a new ad campaign. She was given a few examples, stick-figure drawings, to go by. Using her daughter, then 3, as a model, she did a few sketches.

"I made Cheri look a little older and gave her shorter legs. They liked my paintings, and I got the job."

Joyce received $2,500, a good day's work.

"Just another ad," she said. "Just another baby ad. Kind of boring."

Don't ask to see the tan line

Joyce did not do boredom well. The Brands moved to Ocala in the mid 1970s so Joyce could be near her parents, but she hated Ocala. She was used to Chicago. She was used to a penthouse in Manhattan and artsy friends who smoked pipes and drank martinis. It was hot and buggy in Florida. Frogs grunted and alligators roared. People ate grits, for heaven's sake. They ate fried catfish. "Backward. Not even a Federal Express office. I'd go to a paint store for supplies and would literally find a sign on the door that said, "Gone Fishing.' I didn't think I'd be here long."

She and Jack took possession of a grand old three-story building in downtown Ocala. In 1985, Jack developed a cough that was diagnosed as lung cancer. "I could kill him for dying," Joyce told people at the funeral. Recently she gave her sprawling third-floor studio to her daughter, Cheri, and to Cheri's husband, for living quarters. Now Joyce lives on the second floor, which is filled with her art and her memories.

Her daughter helps out when she is not working at the YMCA, where she is a personal trainer. Cheri still has blond hair like she did when she was the Coppertone Girl but doesn't braid it into pigtails. She has a good tan, and I was tempted to ask about her tan line but lost my nerve.

"People can be incredibly boring about the Coppertone Girl," she said. "Sometimes they ask to see my tan line. It's irritating."

I felt my face grow hot.

"People seem very excited to learn that I was the Coppertone baby, and they share stories of how the billboard was a landmark in their memories. In 1993, there seemed to be a renewed interest. I was invited to appear on the Sally Jessy show and Entertainment Tonight. Anyway, that's about it."

The Coppertone Girl's mother told me to follow her. As she showed me stuff, Joyce used her walker to get around her home. She showed me her paintings of circus clowns. She showed me her painting of an alligator. She is painting a portrait of a friend ill with Lou Gehrig's disease and wants to capture the woman's impish personality. She doesn't want a sad painting.

"Too much sadness in the world already."

She will take her time. When you are 86, and you need a walker and have arthritis in your hands, you take your time even if you are 26 in your heart.

In the morning, she drinks Ovaltine, a habit she picked up when she illustrated an Ovaltine ad in the 1940s. In the afternoon she sips Yoo-Hoo. In the evening - Joyce was always an evening person - she will not turn down a stiff martini.

"I've had my chance to remarry," she said, leaning close and igniting another Benson and Hedges. "Men with money, too. I like men, I value their companionship, but I don't want to get married again."

I have copied this from: Floridian: Real Florida: Red-faced with the Coppertone Girl

The IPhone Is Internet Explorer 4 All Over Again

2007-08-21T12:53:00.001+02:00

Facebook, Netvibes and Meebo all launched new iPhone-optimized versions of their sites this week and all three of them are very nice, but wasn’t one of the points of the iPhone that it offered “a real web browser?”

read more | digg story

Live Image Search advances

2007-08-10T23:52:00.001+02:00

The image search team at Microsoft deserves a day off, the latest release of enhancements really sets Live Search apart from the others. But don't take my word for it, here, try it for yourself. Go ahead and image search "Red Roses" using Live Search, Yahoo! Image Search, and Google Images. I'll wait here....

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Google updates My Maps, Google Talk, and Docs & Spreadsheets

2007-08-02T22:07:00.001+02:00

I’m a big Google fan and I love using their vast array of services such as GMail, Maps, Apps for Domain, Docs & Spreadsheets, etc, etc. There are way too many Google services that I use to mention all at once! Anyway, a lot of these services are beta or still fairly new, so it’s a lot of fun to know when there is a big update or feature addition.

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Photo's

2007-08-02T13:55:00.001+02:00

Quite interesting!

clipped from content2.clipmarks.com

DreamHost CEO Josh Jones' Wife Falls for Phishing Scam

2007-07-17T21:35:00.001+02:00

Jones' wife thought they were due for a fat tax refund do to a courteous IRS email. She promptly emailed away their Social Security and Visa Check Card Number. Josh stated, "But, believe it or not, my wife is not stupid. In fact, she has a PhD from Harvard! "

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2007-07-09T10:55:00.000+02:00

View some of my Family's Wedding Photos on:

Photobucket.com/mari_blackroses

N-joy!

2007-07-02T07:46:00.000+02:00

It's here:

iPhone

Yippee...

2007-06-26T05:08:00.000+02:00

HAPPY B-DAY PA!!

Ek hoop jyt jou dag geniet - alhet ek jou nog nie gebel nie..

Ek rus nou vir die eerste keer van vannoggend 08uur!
Kom ons stel dit so.. Ek's gatvol! (vir vanag anyway..)

Maar genoeg van my.. Ek hoop jou dag was nie té besig nie en dat jy ''n leke aand sal he!
Bel jou later.

Dries.

2007-06-22T11:48:00.000+02:00

Happy B-day Mom..

I hope you had a wonderful evening last night..

And I hope you enjoyed your card!

(Which I sent with love from Spreadthe love)

Y*

2007-06-14T11:41:00.000+02:00

It must be Birthday Month because it was me on the 3rd, Theo on the 10th, today is the happy b-day of my cousin and auntie (who just returned from Greece and I reeeeaaaally want to see some pictures of that..) and on the 21st its my mom, 26th is my dad and thats my month!

Funny enough they have the same name also, so here goes todays wishes:

-- Happy Birthday Marina (x2)!! --

Y*

2007-06-14T03:48:00.000+02:00

Hey

Check out my Stepmom's Photography ste:

Brenda Images

She does Weddings and also takes the cutest Baby & Kids Photos...

So go have a look!

Y*

2007-06-11T04:25:00.000+02:00

Happy B-day Theo!!!!!

I hope you had a great day..

We had quite a JOL last nite..

And it's 21 next year - 0 jippee!!

Y*

2007-06-09T03:33:00.000+02:00

Hi Guys..

If you read this please go and take amoment to read Josh's plea..

Joshthekid ... and then

I wish all my best to him and Luka and hope God understands

Y*

Brian's Speak

2007-04-25T07:33:00.001+02:00

2007-04-21T02:57:00.000+02:00

Hei All,

I am having a GREAT night tonight!
Beers! Vodka! Braaivleis! Good Friend! All just going exclellent!

Hope all's nice with you also...

Yaarik*

deadfake - free, easy and anonymous fake email service.

2007-03-31T21:53:00.000+02:00

deadfake - free, easy and anonymous fake email service.

EPIC 2014

2007-03-31T01:22:00.000+02:00

An apsolute MUST SEE!!!!

EPIC 2014

2007-03-22T10:48:00.000+02:00

O! As you'll find out... I'm a Formula1 Fanatic!! (for want of a better word)

Ps. There's this ad in this post that I can't seem to remove... Anyway... Enjoy!

Egmont Sippel

Send to friend

» Schumi phones Kimi on podium

» Kimi wins Australian GP

Walk of life
20/03/2007 07:53

Egmont Sippel (He's the best Motorsport Journalist in South Africa - he has a weekly column that he wrights in the Afrikaans Sunday newspaper, Rapport)

"Oh yeah, the boy can play..."

Remember this line from the Dire Straits song 'Walk of Life'?

Well, adapt it just a little, and you've got Kimi Raikkonen: "Yeah, the boy can drive..." Or, even more to the point, "He got the action, he got the motion/yeah, the boy is quick."

Very, very, very...VERY quick. This time the line is stolen from Bono's summary of just how rock-and-roll F1 is, in that little pre-race TV blurp showing half of Hollywood on the grid. A motley crew, to say the least, for what would the likes of Sly, Michael Douglas and Nicolas Cage understand about Grand Prix racing, besides Flavio Briatore's fake tan?

Hang on, they'll understand Flav's choice of girlfriends as well. It doesn't take a scientist to work out why Elisabetta Gregoria, Heidi Klum, Naomi Campbell, Elle Macpherson and Eva Herzigova trip the light fantastic, although it might take a sorcerer to discover why they displayed such a preference for Flav's yacht instead of the next one belonging to a younger billionaire with less stomach embellishments.

Ah well, it's quite simple, actually. The next guy might possibly be Italian, like Flav. But he's not running a French F1 team. Or he might be French, which means that he's not Italian - unless he is Jean Alesi, of course.

And Alesi can run a hot lap, at best. But not a whole F1 team.

Both is important, then, the Italian Job plus a French Connection. Ask Kimi. He's riding an Italian horse powered by a French flavoured V8, Giles Simon and Jean-Jacques His having taken over from the legendary Paolo Martinelli as Maranello's latest engine wizards.

Flying F2007

And is the F2007 flying, or what? Even Felipe Massa found it hard to believe how quick the car really is, when he saw Raikkonen's pole setting time flash up on the screen in Q3, on Saturday.

There he stood in the pits, having failed to make it through Q2 because of a broken gearbox. That's the official technical reason, in any case.

But the gearbox didn't just break. Raikkonen broke it, for Felipe.

Kimi, see, has been branded by detractors as a master of breaking his own cars. He's too hard on his equipment, they say, especially the engines.

But he's not. Modern F1 cars carry two limiters, to begin with. The soft limiter can be exceeded when needed, but the hard limiter will block the engine from being over-revved, full stop. And if the soft limiter is being exceeded too often, the engineers will pretty soon put an end to that, too.

The theory that modern F1 mills can still be wrecked by an uneducated right foot took hold a couple of years ago, not only because McLaren suffered so many engine failures, but also because Takumo Sato blew one after the other Honda V10 in 2004.

That's the year that Sato chased Barrichello's Ferrari down at the Nurburgring, before trying to dive up the inside of Turn One in a bold effort that nearly put paid to both drivers - more through Rubens having been asleep than the buccaneering nature of Sato's move, it has to be said.

Rubens branded Taku an amateur, nevertheless. Sato could safely have passed him at a later stage, as the Honda was faster. So said Rubens.

Experimental engines

A Honda faster than a Ferrari?

Yes, that was the case on May 30, 2004. Sato had even started second on the grid, next to Michael Schumacher.

Honda, see, was experimenting with extreme light-weight pistons in Taku's car. That's why he blew up so often, whilst Button didn't.

It happens, in any case, that engines let go. At the end of last year, a blown V8 scuppered Schumacher's quest for an eighth title only weeks after Alonso had lost a motor at Monza.

Nowadays, however, it is virtually always the result of sloppy assembly or a faulty part, like Ferrari experienced with their Mahle supplied piston rings in early 2006, up to Malaysia.

So, if it wasn't Kimi who broke all those Merc engines, how could he break another man's gearbox?

Easy. He broke his mind first.

And then he waited for Felipe to become ragged, turn in too early, jump the highest kerb too heavily, get the car airborne and spin the rear wheels freely only to wind up huge and sudden torque in the drive train as the car bounced and lifted and hit the ground again with way too much force.

Mind games

Mind games, then?

Well, Kimi played two of them, one after the other. Or see it as a single game, thus far, with three cards having been dealt.

The first one was unto himself. Being of the cool level-headed clear-thinking uncomplicated type, he knew that there was no point going into Ferrari trying to bluff anybody, least of all himself. Throwing cars off the road just to impress with his speed would not have done him any favours.

So the Finn left that part of the bargain to Felipe (who duly planted a car in the barriers) whilst he carefully and methodically set out to learn about a new car, new settings, new tyres, new operating systems, new mechanics, new people, new team structures, new bosses and a new environment.

In the process, Massa's lap times beat the Kimster's like clockwork, by two or three tenths per lap. To the unsuspecting mind, an order seemed to have emerged, which led a host of punters to believe that Raikkonen just didn't have the pace to outgun Massa, let alone assume the mantle of team leader, let alone fill the boots of a seven times world champion.

Now, Kimi's work ethic is not exactly in the Senna or Schumacher mould. Ever so often he consumes a beverage with an inebriation factor slightly higher than you'll find in Coke Light. He won't spend hours and hours pouring over data, either - Raikkonen sorts the best options out by intuition. Nor is he all that interested in the progress of other drivers or teams.

He does his own thing, and it's hard to point to any single race in his career and say that any of the above had cost him. Whenever he's been in a good car, he has been in with a great shot at winning.

Schumi's choice

At Spa, in 2004, he beat Schumacher in a classic head-to-head in a McLaren that's been thoroughly outpaced in every other race that year. That's, by the way, when Ferrari sat up and seriously started thinking about life after the Schu.

And just for those who didn't know: Michael wanted to keep on racing. In fact, he was desperate to race in 2007, as it has long been on the cards that Ferrari will win the title back after two years of Renault successes.

But head honcho Luca Montezemolo put his foot down. Schumacher, he said, was free to race on with the team that he had served admirably for so long.

But Raikkonen would be in the other car.

Kimi then, was willing to go to Ferrari in the full knowledge that Michael just had to say 'yep', and the other car - or the first car, for all intents and purposes - would have been his.

But Michael was not willing to race Raikkonen. Not with similar equipment.

Shocks and shivers

The reason became clear on Saturday afternoon, in Q3, when the Ice Man sent shivers down rivals' spines as he annexed P1 on his first flyer, 0.9 secs quicker than Alonso and the rest.

This then, was the Ice Man's second card. Massa was watching as Kimi flashed past the post. His eyes stretched like a light bulb exploding, and blood drained from his face at a rate that would have left Button's Honda for dead.

He was virtually paralyzed with shock. The Flying Finn had blown Felipe's mind.

It didn't happen without a warning salvo, though. On his very last lap of the opening day in Oz, the Kimster coolly banged in quickest times in sectors one and two, before peeling off into the pits to call it a day. Just like that, out of the blue.

Massa must have slept like a man fleeing the Mafia.

Then, in final practice, Raikkonen was suddenly half a second quicker than the winner of the Winter Olympics. That's a swing of seven or eight tenths on what certain pundits were predicting, including Jacques Villeneuve and Damon Hill.

What the hell was going on?

Massa was the only man who could answer this question. He tried - too desperately - to reverse the order in Q2. A kerb stepped in to finish Raikkonen's job. Game over.

And Felipe was lucky. It might have been a barrier.

The Third Card

Card Three came in the race itself, on laps 40 and 41, when the Kimster blitzed the fastest lap sheets with two scarily quick tours, the best of which was more than a second up on Alonso's ultimate pace in second place, and close to two seconds quicker than Massa's fastest of the day.

Okay, there were extenuating circumstances for both, Felipe being on a heavily fuelled one-stop strategy and Fernando having been bogged down, first by Heidfeld boxing him in into to Turn One, and subsequently by Lewis Hamilton who used that very moment to pass his team leader.

And how spectacular was it not, for a rookie to lead a double world champion on his F1 debut! Nico Rosberg had an almost equally impressive start in Bahrain last year, posting fastest lap in a Williams. But then he faded badly.

This won't happen to Lewis, although the 22-year old will find it difficult to repeat his "Alonso trick" for a while yet.

But he showed his speed, mettle and control, especially compared to the other highly touted rookie, Kovaleinen, who obviously raced on an ice rink. If they had awarded points for going farming, Heiki would have been world champion already -after one race.

Renault's average, in any case, was a second a lap slower than Ferrari. Alonso took half of that second with him to McLaren, and Raikkonen takes the other half away from them. La Regie has no chance. Their fight this year is not to retain their titles, but to beat BMW.

Those flying Newey cars

David Coulthard's attempted pass on Alex Wurz - literally 'over taking' the Austrian - must also have warmed the cockles of Sly Stallone's heart. Sly was slated a few years ago for his hopeless piece of silver screen drivel called Driven, but DC's launching act would have slotted perfectly into Sly's outrageous vision.

It was the first time, mind you, that we had the privilege of seeing a 2007 Adrian Newey car fly - and it really flew. Up to that point, they had rather been pedestrian, with three of the four Newey designed cars failing to make it past the first round in qualifying.

Honda's so-called Earth Car also seemed to love the planet so much that it gets attached to a specific spot, not wanting to move. Displacement at a quick rate of knots clearly is counter-intuitive to the car's character. All of this meant that Sato -this time in a Super Aguri - again raced closely behind Barrichello, who had taken Taku's place at Honda.

In F1, it seems, you can be moved so far down that you start to move up again - except if you're Minardi or Spyker. Then you'll stay last for longer than it will take Massa to comprehend Raikkonen's speed.

The walk of life, then. Kimi for champ, Felipe to race Fernando for second and Lewis Hamilton staking his claim for the future. Oh yeah, this Brit is also quick.

But not as quick as the Kimster. The Ice Man's got the action, he got the motion/oh yeah, the boy can fly...

Or, in Bono's words: Little Red Raikkonhood is very, very, very...VERY rock-and-roll.

2007-03-08T09:17:00.000+02:00

Hi All! I know I created this blog a million moons ago and it doesn't really resemble anything except open space, but I am going to try and give it more attention in FUTURE!!

I just created a Picasa Web Album if anyone is interesed in my wonderfully boring Phototakin escapade since I got my new Sony Erricson Walkman phone...

Please check it out:

http://picasaweb.google.com/maJilT/4UrViewinPlesur

and let me know what you think - "You are a total idiot/you love me/I must get a real life/let's meet" - I'll regard them all!!

Hey! N-joy ur day!!