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Blog: Third Pirates film has premiere

admin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:28:42 +0000

The latest movie in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, At World’s End, has had its world premiere in Los Angeles.
Crowds of screaming fans turned out to glimpse stars of the film, including Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom, as they attended the gala event at Disneyland.
The original inspiration for the film series was a ride at the theme park.
Three films on, it has become one of the most successful film franchises ever, with the second in the series taking over $1bn (£506m) worldwide.
Only two other films – Titanic and The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King – have ever reached the $1bn global box office takings mark.
At World’s End is one of the most expensive in Hollywood history, costing a reported $300m.
At World’s End picks up where the last film, Dead Man’s Chest, left off and once again features the exploits of the intrepid Captain Jack Sparrow, played by Depp.
Depp famously based his portrayal of the character on Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richard’s and in this instalment Richards makes a cameo appearance playing Jack’s father, Captain Teague.
British actor Bill Nighy, who returns as Captain Jack’s arch nemesis Davy Jones, told the BBC that the success of the Pirates series lays in part with Depp’s comic turn, which he described as “one of the great performances of recent times”, and the swashbuckling adventure.
But mainly he put it down to the films’ feel-good factor saying: ” I know it sounds cheesy but it’s something to do with big heartedness and good spiritedness and you just feel a bit better when you leave the cinema than you did when you went in.”

Blog: The top 10 fictional pirates

admin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:27:43 +0000

The daddy of them all. The man who set the benchmark for piracy as a fashion statement.
Asked for his three priorities for his term as captain, he replied: Accessorise, accessorise, accessorise. The pointy hat, the wooden leg, the noisy pet on the shoulder.
As if that was not enough to set a salty seadog’s pulse racing, he was rightly obsessed with golden doubloons as well.
Long John thought of little other than reclaiming the riches buried by former captain John Flint and was wily enough to be one of only two men to leave Treasure Island with any loot.
With a surname like his, there were only two career paths for Peter Blood and he took them both. First a doctor and then – thanks to an unfortunate treason-related incident – a pirate.
Being sold slavery into the West Indies would be enough to spoil anybody’s day, but like all heroes, he turned tragedy into triumph.
He gets the (rich) girl, beats the bad guys and even tops up his tan.
The icing on the cake was being played by lock-up-your-daughters, is-this-a-cutlass-in-my-pocket, swashbuckling king Errol Flynn. Hurrah!

Pirates take box office by storm

admin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:26:02 +0000

The World’s End has proved a lucrative destination for the third Pirates of the Caribbean film as it debuts to the top of the UK box office.
The Johnny Depp-starring adventure took £13.4m in its opening weekend, leaving previous number one Spider-Man 3 splashing in its wake with just £1.3m.
Brooding fact-based thriller Zodiac (£0.6m) was at three, leading zombie sequel 28 Weeks Later (£0.5m).
Other new films are Australian drama Jindabyne and Indian comedy Cheeni Kum.
Jindabyne, an adaptation of a Raymond Carver short story on how a group of men on a fishing party react to the discovery of a girl’s body, made its debut in seventh place.
Immediately behind was Cheeni Kum in which an unmarried Delhi woman visiting London falls for an Indian restaurant owner old enough to be her father.
Also in the top ten are children’s fantasy Bridge to Terabithia, British comedy Magicians and teen romance Lovewrecked.
The box office goldmines are Spiderman 3, which has taken £30.5m in total, and Mr Bean’s Holiday, which has made nearly £22m.
The total take for the top 15 movies over the weekend was more than £17m.

Blog: Chow Yun-Fat to star as Confucius

admin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:24:34 +0000

Hong Kong actor Chow Yun-Fat is to star as revered philosopher Confucius in a HKD $22 million (£2m) biopic backed by the Chinese government.
Best known for his gangster roles, Chow will swap his trademark trench coat for scholarly robes in the movie.
The film will be a joint production between Beijing-based Dadi Cinema and the state-run China Film Group, a Dadi Cinema official told Associated Press.
Filming is due to begin in three weeks. A release date has yet to be announced.
The movie comes amid a surge in interest in the philosopher, who was practically outlawed during China’s Cultural Revolution of the 1960s.
Mao Zedong and his followers criticised him, calling him feudal, old-fashioned and part of the bourgeois hierarchical thinking of the past.
Enforcers known as “red guards” descended on Confucius’s family home, grave and a temple in his home town of Qufu, where they destroyed about 6,600 relics.
But as China’s recent economic boom put stress on the country’s Marxist ideologies, officials began to promote Confucian virtues as a way of addressing the gap between the rich and poor.
The philosopher lived in about 500BC, and served as an adviser during the Zhou Dynasty.
At a time when China was gripped with chaos and crime, he produced a moral system as a basis to run society, life and government.
His teachings transformed the country, serving as a model for Chinese dynasties, and also had an influence in other parts of east Asia.
Later emperors glorified the philosopher, and helped construct a huge temple and mansion in his honour.
Chow Yun-Fat’s biggest-profile hit in the UK was Ang Lee’s martial arts epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
He will next be seen in UK cinemas in Dragonball Evolution, a live-action adaptation of the successful anime series, which premieres in April.

Blog: . Pigeon fanciers

admin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:23:36 +0000

China considers the anniversary celebrations one of the highlights of the year – a chance to trumpet the achievements of the last 60 years.
The focus of the celebrations will be a military parade through Tiananmen Square and central Beijing. President Hu Jintao will also make a keynote speech.
As with last year’s Olympic Games, the government wants to ensure nothing disrupts or distracts from the carefully planned celebrations.
Mr Zhou raised the temperature by urging security personnel to “fully prepare themselves for the most complicated situation,” according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
The city’s pigeon fanciers, whose flocks can often be seen flying over the capital, are one of the first casualties of this campaign. They have been told to lock up their coops.
Beijing’s legion of avid kite fliers – who stand on almost any open space – have been told to stay at home until 8 October.
City residents are also being encouraged to report other “suspicious flying objects”, according to a report from Xinhua.
Some residents living next to Chang’an Avenue, which runs through central Beijing from east to west, have been given specific instructions for the big day.
The National Day parade will pass along the road.
“Please do not open any window or balcony door facing Chang’an Avenue. Please also do not stand on the balcony to watch the ceremony,” reads a statement given to residents who live in the Qijiayuan diplomatic compound.
Compound residents have been told not to invite friends or “other persons” to their homes on the day.
China’s security forces will be on duty to ensure these rules are kept.

Blog：The presentation on the steps

admin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:44:24 +0000

We spontaneously organized an English corner beside our library in my university in order to satisfy the needs of improving our spoken English. The time is from 10pm to 11pm everyday. We have different topics for every night, and to our happiness, the attendance has increased vastly during a week.
Usually, we will be divided to several groups according to the numbers of attendances. Thus, everybody can have a large number of opportunities to speak loudly and express their ideas clearly. Though we discuss our topics in our small groups, we will have a conclusion at last every night. At that moment, all of us will stand in a big circle, and every group will choose one student to narrate their group’s ideas to others.
Funnily and importantly, the lecturer, which is chosen by every group, is asked to stand onto the steps, which means that he or she will have a true feeling of giving us a speech. I just had this honor yesterday evening, and felt pretty good. You know, it indeed provides an excellent chance for us to show our characteristics and make the audience understood by what we said. Especially, when all of them listen to your view carefully and ask some questions to you, you will feel that you are the center of that lecture and everybody respects of your presentation so much.

Blog： Jack MaCOO, Alibaba.com

admin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:29:10 +0000

Want to do business in China without springing for a plane ticket to Shanghai? Alibaba.com is your best bet. Founded by Jack Ma in 1999, this massively successful business-to-business e-marketplace is the best place online to meet people and trade proposals and product offers. (Ma has been quoted as saying that the firm got its bizarre start when he was kidnapped in Malibu and released on the condition he help his captor start a business in China.) In 2005, Yahoo (see #19) made a multibillion-dollar investment in Alibaba, which now runs Yahoo China. The venturrecently became mired in scandal, when it provided information that led to the imprisonment of a Chinese journalist accused of leaking state secrets.

Blog：Questions From Your Girlfriend That Aren’t Really

admin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:24:30 +0000

Tag:life category：life
Written by Anthony Burch
You know the feeling: things seem to be going well with your significant other. The sex is great, the moments without sex are mildly tolerable, and she hasn’t once gotten angry at you for ejaculating onto her favorite blouse. But then, of course, the questions begin. Those horrible, mind-numbing, soul-crushing questions that aren’t really questions at all. We at DV have compiled a list of these, along with exactly how you’re supposed to react to them.

“How do I look?”What it really means: “Tell me I am attractive. Now.”
If there’s one thing human beings cannot stand, it’s the truth – and women are no exception. If your girlfriend walked out of the bathroom with her panties around her neck, mud rubbed in her hair and torn spandex pants, she’d still ask you how she looked and expect a complimentary response. In a way, she’s almost being generous – the boyfriend is given an easy excuse to earn brownie points by sycophantically praising his girlfriend’s physical attributes. Whether or not the boyfriend is lying through his teeth is irrelevant to the girlfriend.

How to deal with it:
Pretend to have your mind focused on something else for a second. Then look back at her, as if you just now realized she ask you something. The moment your eyes hit hers, suddenly act as if you have become overwhelmed with a wave of absolute astonishment – who is this beautiful woman, and how did she get here? Widen your eyes and try to look as childlike as possible, dumbfounded with amazement at her beauty.

These theatrics may seem unnecessary or silly, but one must realize that a simple “you look great” will result in nothing more than an argument and a likely denial of sex for the next 24 hours. If a woman deems it necessary to ask you how she looks, then she’s obviously spent some degree of effort on her appearance, and wants to be rewarded with an unusually positive reaction to it.

“Do you think she’s pretty?” What it really means: “Prove to me you aren’t attracted to other women.”

Typically asked in reference to a female celebrity or supermodel, your woman is feeling insecure about the fact that many, many women on the planet are most likely more attractive than her. She needs you to show that “mainstream” attractive women hold no interest for you, because otherwise she cannot consider herself the most attractive woman in your life – if the whole of society agrees that they’d cut off four fingers if it meant they’d get to sleep with Angelina Jolie, then your stated lack of attraction toward her means that you find your girlfriend more doable than Lara Croft herself.

It’s complicated, but can be summarized like this:

-Everybody thinks Scarlett Johansson is gorgeous.

-If you think Scarlett Johansson is gorgeous, then that also means you think Scarlett Johansson is more attractive than your girlfriend, thus making your girlfriend feel less special than Scarlett Johansson.

-If your girlfriend thinks you don’t think Scarlett Johansson is gorgeous, then your girlfriend can continue to operate under the assumption that she is the most gorgeous woman in your life and that you are lucky to have her.

At this point, the relationship is pretty much dead. You can either do something drastic like plan a vacation in Venice, but the novelty of such a diversion will wear off shortly after returning home. Your only two options are to ride out the misery for years and years simply because you have nowhere else to go (like my grandparents did), or to find a really dramatic way of permanently ending your relationship. My personal suggestion: wait until you’re positive that your girlfriend is cheating on you (which, statistically, she is cheating on you), and simply catch her in the act. You’ll finally get an excuse to yell all those obscenities at her you’ve been building up over the years. And the best part?

You’ll never have to answer one of these questions that aren’t really questions ever again.

Blog：Strong dollar hits Oracle profits

admin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:21:05 +0000

The business software manufacturer Oracle’s profit for the three months to the end of November have slipped.
Net income only fell $7m (£4.7m) from the same period last year to $1.3bn, but it was nonetheless the first time it had not grown for three years.
Oracle said its profits would have been better if the US dollar had not strengthened so much in the quarter.
It said that if currency rates had been the same as last year its profits would have grown 11%.
“They are managing through this downturn relatively well, but they’re not immune for a slowdown,” said Jeff Gaggin at Avian Securities.
Oracle’s revenue rose 6% during the three month period, which was worse than had been expected

Blog： Plight of the white-clawed crayfish

admin — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:50:44 +0000

In early autumn 1979 a prison break began. Under cover of darkness the escapee slipped past his captors and away into the chilly English night.
Disorientated but determined, the north American signal crayfish scrabbled across the foreign terrain in search of fresh water.
The break-out was inevitable. Signals are fearsome among crayfish – stubborn and aggressive with large, versatile claws and a formidable climbing ability. The wire mesh covering the pond was bound to be conquered sooner or later.
During the 1980s, thousands of signals escaped trout farms in the south of England. At that time, white-clawed crayfish – the only species of freshwater crayfish native to the British Isles – thrived in the UK’s waterways. Three decades later, they would be decimated.