Think you know a thing or two about kissing? You probably do. But the facts below are so off the beaten path, we’ll bet you don’t know them all—and they could come in handy. Not only could they provide some steamy “Did you know…?” chit chat, but they’ll help you see all the benefits a satisfying lip lock can bring into your life. Happy smooching!
1. Two out of every three couples turn their heads to the right when they kiss.
2. A simple peck uses two muscles; a passionate kiss, on the other hand, uses all 34 muscles in your face. Now that’s a rigorous workout!
3. Like fingerprints or snowflakes, no two lip impressions are alike.
4. Kissing is good for what ails you. Research shows that the act of smooching improves our skin, helps circulation, prevents tooth decay, and can even relieve headaches.
5. The average person spends 336 hours of his or her life kissing.
6. Ever wonder how an “X” came to represent a kiss? Starting in the Middle Ages, people who could not read used an X as a signature. They would kiss this mark as a sign of sincerity. Eventually, the X came to represent the kiss itself.
7. Talk about a rush! Kissing releases the same neurotransmitters in our brains as parachuting, bungee jumping, and running.
8. The average woman kisses 29 men before she gets married.
9. Men who kiss their partners before leaving for work average higher incomes than those who don’t.
10. The longest kiss in movie history was between Jane Wyman and Regis Tommey in the 1941 film, You’re in the Army Now. It lasted 3 minutes and 5 seconds. So if you’ve beaten that record, it’s time to celebrate!
Laura Schaefer is the author of Man with Farm Seeks Woman with Tractor: The Best and Worst Personal Ads of All Time.
They may get all the attention but mainstream songstresses make us tired and sleepy. Paris may have the looks but she's absolutely devoid of natural talent. Mariah Carey has the voice but she's fallen off in the sex appeal department. Britney is a trainwreck these days and while Beyonce has the total package, we respect Jay-Z too much to ogle her; besides, he'd totally kick our ass if we did. So we thought it was high time we celebrated some sexy and talented women who are a feast for both the eyes and the ears! Join us as we countdown the 8 Sexiest Sirens of Indie Rock!
8- Joanna Newsom When most people think of musical instruments, they tend to envision things like guitars, drums and pianos. But not a lot of people will think of the harp. Pay some attention to the beautiful Joanna Newsom, however, and the harp will suddenly look a whole lot more enticing. The lovely Ms. Newsom owns a fragile sounding voice that still somehow manages to convey a sense of strength; she's ridiculously easy on the eyes as well.
7- Kori Gardner The only thing that could potentially keep Kori Gardner, one half of the awesome Mates of State, of our list is the fact that she's happily married to her bandmate, drummer Jason Hammel. And while it's wrong to ogle another man's wife, especially considering how obviously in love they are-go see them live and you'll see what we mean-there's no denying that Kori still qualifies as for our list. She's not only hot but she also packs enough energy to bring the house down. Who the hell knew that the organ could be such a rocking instrument?
6- Karen O We're not big fans of the helmet shaped haircut that Karen O normally wears on stage and her outfits, while funktastic, are have just a little too much personality for our tastes. But there's still no denying that the energetic leader of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs deserves a place on our list. While she tends to hide her face away, there are moments when her vibrant smile and attractive features come into view. But her true strength lies in her unique voice and boundless energy. We're willing to bet that dating Karen O is like riding a rollercoaster: you strap yourself in and go on the ride of your life.
5- Jenny Lewis While we love her for her music, our infatuation with the lead singer of indie darlings Rilo Kiley began when in our adolescence, when we first saw her starring opposite Fred "Kevin Arnold" Savage in the awesomely bad movie "The Wizard." But rather than take the low road, as most child actors tend to do, Jenny Lewis is riding high on the success of her music. And while she's matured into a certified hottie, our inner 12-year olds will always think of her as the spunky and cute Haley.
4- Feist If we had to describe the haunting beauty of Feist and her music with a single word, we would have a tough time choosing between 'sophisticated' and 'vulnerable.' So we'll just mash to the together and call her 'sophistinerable.' Or would 'vulneristicated' be better? Either way, Feist lands on our list of sexy sirens because she's, well, hot and she can sing. What else do we have to say?
3- Regina Spektor Judging from the photos that we could find, Regina Spektor isn't very tall. We're guessing she stands no taller than 5 feet. We could be wrong and really, it doesn't matter, because her diminutive frame packs a voice strong enough to reach the highest rafters. Her quirky songs and quirkier demeanor make her shine and easily earns her a spot high up on our list.
2- Neko Case Whether she's singing alone or as part of indie rock group, The New Pornographers, Neko Case is as red hot as her hair color would suggest. Armed with a powerful voice and a sophisticated charm, Neko Case is the kind of girl that your mother will love and that your friends will drool over.
1- Cat Power The enigmatic Cat Power catapults to the top of our list thanks to a sultry voice, a beautiful face and an undeniable stage presence. There is no doubt that Chan "Cat Power" Marshall has both the voice and the beauty to easily win the top slot in our little countdown. Just watch her video for "Lived In Bars," and you'll have all the proof you need. Now, if she'd just say yes to our marriage proposal...
Apple's iPod line has been steadily evolving over the past years since the first iPod was introduced in 2001. Since then, we've seen multiple revisions and eliminations (iPod mini) of each line, slowly migrating into the product lineup we see on store shelves today, the iPod classic, iPod touch, iPod nano, and the iPod shuffle.
One of the latest iPods introduced into the line is the iPod touch, a product which looks to have evolved from the iPhone - labeled as a slimmed down iPhone, or an iPhone without the phone.
Capacity
The iPod touch is available in two flavors, 8 and 16GB. For this "small" reason the product has been heavily slammed by a few large names in the industry. They're saying "why couldn't Apple have put a 160GB hard drive into the device instead of the excessively expensive flash based drives. For this reason, some have been swayed away from purchasing the device, I wasn't one, coming off a 60GB iPod and somewhat "downgrading" to the 16GB iPod touch I haven't felt at all restricted with the storage limitation.
When formatted, the 16GB iPod touch has 14.82GB of space remaining for video, image and audio content. I've heard many claims that Apple is un-fairly advertising its storage capacity, though it's the same with everyone. Companies claim to have a 250GB hard drive when the actual formated capacity is around 230GB - 232GB to be exact.
Slimness and Scratches
As been labeled as the slimmed down iPhone, the iPod touch certainly is. At just 8-mm thin, the touch is much thinner than the iPhone, it feels great in hand and when slipped into my pocket it's so light I can almost forget that it's there. It's amazingly thin and light - the iPod I've always dreamt of.
In the past it has been a scary thought of slipping an iPod into your pocket without a case due to their knack to scratch easily - this problem is now non-existant with the iPod touch. The screen is repellent to scratches. For the purpose of backing up this claim, I ran the point of a sharp needle over the screen of the iPod touch a few dozen times, when looking up at it in the light, no scratching or scuffing was apparent - impressive - I'm considering skipping on a case purchase for this iPod.
Touch Interface
The most apparent new feature to the iPod touch is the touch-based user interface. After five minutes of playing with it I was already in astonishment with how well Apple thought out the UI and general feel of browsing the device.
The touch interface is a great new way to browse your music and navigate around your iPod. When you're browsing through your music while holding the device upright, you can scroll through by moving and dragging your finger, when you turn the device sideways, the iPod touch automatically switches the iPod to CoverFlow view in a horizontal format, allowing you to browse through your music by flicking (quite literally) through album covers. This innovative new way to navigate your music library is great fun and yet another way Apple has integrated its new acquisition of the technology to the product line.
I've found browsing through CoverFlow a very quick and pleasing experience, due to the use of the flash based HDD, flicking through music is rather snappy, this is one area of the device I see the flash hard drive to be very useful. A standard spinning drive would choke and burn under this performance stress. Battery Life
When you want to preserve battery life while listening to music, you can press the sleep button on top of the device, this shuts off screen power and keeps your music playing. When pressing it again, it wakes the screen and prompts you to move a slider to unlock the iPod to prevent accidental input. This is by far one of my favorite UI enhancements - it works seamlessly and is perfectly executed.
Battery life for video playback is slightly under Apple's estimate. The audio playback time is rather impressive, I've been playing music for 5 hours a day for three days now, and the battery still has around 50% remaining. This was one of of my major concerns with the iPod touch before it arrived - the power required to display such a large display.
Wi-Fi
Another large feature headlining is the in-built Wi-Fi in the iPod touch. Wi-Fi is something I've been waiting on for such a lengthy period of time in an iPod, I began to think it would never arrive. Two applications on the iPod built to take advantage of this feature is Safari and YouTube. Safari allows you to browse the web just like in "real form" - just like you're browsing on your desktop machine, while the YouTube application allows you to browse popular videos on the site, or perform a custom search for an exact content match.
Wi-Fi speed is pretty nippy, it's performing a little slower than my Mac Pro desktop in the same position, namely on pages with a bunch of images. The only problem I've had is when I've found myself browsing the web when Safari crashes and takes me back to the home screen. I have noticed a trend of more frequent crashes happening on image heavy web-pages, however it's also happened while entering text in fields on some sites and forums. Because of these crashes, I'd only recommend you use the browser lightly and not load any large scale galleries which could stall the iPod, as crashes will be inevitable at some point.
Disappointingly, the iPod touch Safari browser also lacks support for Java and Flash, meaning unless you're 100% happy with the YouTube browser, you're out of luck to view other video content on the web.
Data Input The on-screen keyboard is rather impressive at first glance, but becomes a little tedious after using it for a while. It's difficult to develop a suitable typing technique as using your thumbs is difficult due to the small nature of the keys, and using your forefingers makes holding the device awkward to a point. I'm still switching between the two possibilities trying to develop the best technique for me - a little trial and error is in need for this.
Moving to a positive point, the auto correction and auto completion is wonderful. When you're typing a common word the iPod will reveal a possible match underneath the text you're typing, if this is the correct word you're after, it's as simple as tapping the space bar to accept the selection and start on the next word. This is a huge timesaver and makes inroads for general typing difficulty.
Conclusion I've been very impressed with my iPod touch. Although it lacks in areas such as capacity, Safari reliability, and a difficult on screen keyboard, it makes up for all of this with its smooth user interface which is an absolute joy to play with.
Our advice, if you're drooling over the iPhone, buy the iPod touch now. If you're happy with "just" 16GB of storage and want to upgrade from a previous generation iPod, the iPod touch is perfectly suited - if you need more than 16GB, take a look at the iPod classic (80 & 160GB).
For the 2007 installment of FHM Online's 100 Sexiest Women in the World, we received millions of votes for everyone from talk show hosts to supermodels to professional wrestlers. Did last year's winner Scarlett Johansson come out on top? Or was a new queen crowned? You’ll have to click to find out.
These days, just about any lip-smacking starlet can land a cable reality show or become YouTube's flavor of the week. But fame's 15 fleeting minutes can elapse quicker than it takes to refresh a Web page. Only a bona fide superstar can parlay a moment's stardom into a long and lucrative career. And even that's not enough to land a coveted spot on our first-ever listing of the 20 Richest Women in Entertainment. For that, you'd need a minimum net worth of $45 million.
To compile the list,Forbes scoured the music, television, film and publishing industries to determine which female celebrities have, over the course of their careers, amassed the greatest fortunes in entertainment.Forbes ruled out non-working celebs who essentially live off royalties (Barbra Streisand, for example), and also excluded "old Hollywood" types like Elizabeth Taylor. The list is entirely confined to today's active megastars.
Of course, the celebrities with the longest careers proved the most daunting to evaluate. Since beginning her career in the early 1980s, Madonna has sold some 200 million albums worldwide and starred in a string of largely disappointing films. She owns an impressive portfolio of properties and briefly ran her own record label, Maverick, a part of Warner Music Group.Forbes estimate of her net worth--$325 million--is definitely on the conservative side.
Indeed, most of the women on the list cull their earnings from multimedia enterprises. Jennifer Lopez, for example, boasts valuable perfume and fashion lines in addition to her film and music careers; Harry Potter scribe J.K. Rowling now enjoys millions of dollars in royalties and merchandising revenues from the incredibly successful film adaptations of her books; and supermodel Gisele Bundchen, a fixture of Victoria's Secret catalogs, earned her $70 million fortune not just from modeling, but also from a line of successful sandals sold in Brazil.
The youngest women on the list? Twenty-year-old twins and former child stars Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, who have converted their supporting roles on a middling 1980s sitcom into a multimillion dollar retail empire called Dualstar Entertainment. The twins are often credited in the media as presiding over a fortune of as much as $1 billion. Not so. Despite Dualstar's retail sales of $1 billion, the waifish mini-moguls don't pocket all of it.Forbes estimate their combined net worth at around $100 million. Britney Spears, 25, also makes the list, despite a relatively brief career that took off only in 1999 with the release of her hit single "...Baby One More Time." Her $100 million fortune was earned largely from music--she has sold over 75 million albums to date--but she has supplemented her income with a profitable line of perfumes and multimillion-dollar endorsement deals.
The richest actress on the list is Julia Roberts, who built her estimated $140 million fortune film by film. The Pretty Woman star was the first actress in Hollywood to command a $20 million-per-film paycheck, a fairly common salary for male superstars like Will Smith and Johnny Depp. Other actresses who make the list largely due to their film fees are Nicole Kidman and Cameron Diaz. Sandra Bullock, who checks in at No. 14 on the list, supplemented movie earnings by producing the ABC sitcom The George Lopez Show, which went into syndication last year.
Martha Stewart is the only woman on the list whose net worth fluctuates just about every second. Her nearly $650 million fortune is based almost entirely on the 28 million shares she owns in Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (nyse: MSO - news - people ). (In 2005, that stake was worth $1 billion.) Though her brief stint in prison forced her to relinquish the chief executive title, she still collects upwards of $2 million a year in salary and bonuses from the firm.
List of Top 20 Richest Women in entertainment : 1. Oprah Winfrey 2. J.K. Rowling 3. Martha Stewart 4. Madonna 5. Celine Dion 6. Mariah Carey 7. Janet Jackson 8. Julia Roberts 9. Jennifer Lopez 10. Jennifer Aniston 11. The Olsen Twins 12. Britney Spears 13. Judge Judy 14. Sandra Bullock 15. Cameron Diaz 16. Gisele Bundchen 17. Ellen DeGeneres 18. Nicole Kidman 19. Christina Aguilera 20. Renee Zellweger
PlanetOut Inc., a leading global media and entertainment company exclusively serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, was bailed out of finanical trouble by billionaire Bill Gates! Through his Cascade Investment, is one of the investors who sunk $26 million to save the flailing gay media conglomerate, which publishes magazines Out and The Advocate, porn titles Freshmen and Unzipped, and operates RSVP Vacations and Gay.com, publisher Alyson Books, and sells raunchy DVDs.
There has been some squabbling going on on SRGMP these days. And it has been over the surprise inclusion of the two regional SRGMP winners into the contest - Aneek Dhar (Bengal) and Abhijit (Maharashtra).
Vishal and Shekhar got an early earful of one of those singers - Aneek - and they decided this was well and good with them. They really believe that Aneek would raise the stakes for the show. Ismail Darbar - on the other hand - refused to acknowledge that these winners could be given direct entry into the agnipariksha. Now, I do agree with Ismail Darbar but this jhagda sounds fake and unnecessary.
First, this is a contractual issue for ZeeTV. It has to be sorted out with them - and if the gurus didn't know the format or rules, its the producers' bad for not informing them beforehand. But particularly excruciating was the way Darbar went about his business - by throwing darts at the two hapless contestants who were working really hard and turning in excellent performances.
Finally, in a rather comical but delightfully watchable sankat ki ghadi, the House of Reshammiya begged Darbar for a personal favor. Darbar relented trying to make a confounding connection between his granting of the favor and "Aap Ka Suroor" becoming a hit. And both kids were in.
This is good because Aneek can really rock the house with his voice. And his caps are beginning to grow on me. We also got a look at his head (lots of hair you suspicious people) when he opened the show with the entire Rock gharana. Note to Aneek: there can be only one cap on the stage and you know whose head is going to be wearing that!
Also a quick note on Poonam Yadav, who after Sarika (whose exit was predicted by a reader) remains the strongest among the female contenders. Its ballsy to take on Shilpa Rao's smooth and powerful rendition of "Tose Naina Laage". But not only did she take that chance, but sang with such confidence and pleasure that even though she was found wanting, it sounded good and you felt like rooting for her.
Top 10 is a collection of the best top 10 lists the Web has to offer. Topics run the gamut -- whatever amuses, entertains, enlightens. Look for new additions every week.
Think you know a thing or two about kissing? You probably do. But the facts below are so off the beaten path, we’ll bet you don’t know them all—and they could come in handy. Not only could they provide some steamy “Did you know…?” chit chat, but they’ll help you see all the benefits a satisfying lip lock can bring into your life. Happy smooching!
