Happy Halloween!

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I would like to take this time to wish everyone a HAPPY HALLOWEEN! One of my favourite days of the year! In light of this special day, I feel a festive post would be appropriate. Did you know that Halloween candy sales average about 2 billion dollars annually in the United States? More specifically, chocolate candy bars are the most sought after trick-or-treat candy. The chocolate bar that is the most popular just so happens to be my personal favourite… Snickers!

Hope everyone has a great Halloween!

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Bringing Home the Gold!

The Vancouver 2010 Olympic medals are a true work of art worth highlighting. It took a lot of time and effort - 402 days (2817 hours) – to complete all 615. They are one of the heaviest medals in Olympic history tipping the scale at approximately 500-576 grams each. Did you know the process involved:

- 1 year of planning, innovation, and prototype design

- 34 Mint engineers, engravers, dye technicians, machinists and production experts

- Over 30 steps

In addition, each medal was struck with 1900 tons of pressure, which is the equivalent weight of 760 cars stacked one on top of the other! To learn more about these masterpieces click here to view videos and take an in depth look at the production process. These medals are remarkable and best of luck to all Canadian athletes competing to win such a work of art!

Exercise Some Cleanliness Please!

It is no shocker that the gym is not the cleanest place on earth and Men’s Health has driven that point home in their latest magazine issue. When describing the “Average Guy”, they state that

33% of men do not wipe down gym equipment after using it!

Along with many other disturbing facts, they have warned us that the gym equipment with the most germs are the dumbbells & stationary bike seats. So be sure to wipe those bad boys down before using them because there is a good chance whoever last used them didn’t.

If the exerciser who neglected to remove the sweat from the machine is attractive, perhaps try asking him/her to clean it. That sweaty, uncleanly individual just might be the future love of you life. Why? Check this out:

50% of men think the gym is a better place to pick up than a bar

I have provided a clip to help improve your gym “pick up” skills. I would like to stress that one of the tips is to wipe down equipment… and I strongly agree with that point.

I Don't See Your Name On It...

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It took me a very long time for me to like my name. Why? Because there was never any personalized products with “Kaleigh” written on them. If you were one of the kids in school who were jealous of the kids with their pencils that had their name on them… I felt your pain. Now, I enjoy having a name that not everyone has or a name not popular enough to make the personalized products cut off. To predict the personalized pencils of the future, I have supplied a list of the top 10 baby names (girl and boy) of 2009 from Baby Center.

1) Ethan / Isabella

2) Noah / Emma

3) Jacob / Olivia

4) Aiden / Ava

5) Jackson / Sophia

6) Logan / Madison

7) Jack / Chloe

8) Ryan / Abigail

9) Matthew / Addison

10) Jayden / Emily

Special mention to the following people:

18) Elizabeth

23) Sarah

31) Kaylee AND 53) Kayleigh (not my spelling but still kind of made the list!)

47) Savannah (who would have thought? Mom, you are a forward thinker...)

67) Alexandra

PS: Jaclyn & Kristen... looks like you didn't make the cut. Better luck next year :)

Click Here to see where you rank...

Picture This!

Photo by Bernardo Medina

I have always been a fan of National Geographic photography, so when I was searching for a new desktop wallpaper for my computer I naturally went to their website to see what was there. I came across the 2009 Ultimate Photo Contest and was blown away by the finalists. There were 6 categories: Inspiration/Keep Going, Animals/Wildlife, Nature, People/Cultures, Travel, and Weather. The GRAND PRIZE winner was the Inspiration/Keep Going photo at the top of the post. I have also added the winners of each category below because they are all worth taking a look at. Outstanding work! What are your thoughts?

Weather

Photo by Frederick Abels

Travel

Photo by Glenn Traver

People/Cultures

Photo by Bernardo Medina

Nature

Photo by Tracy Hagen

Animals/Wildlife

Photo by Ruston Agte

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Sarah Jane supporting the CIBC Run for the Cure :)

As you may know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. What you might not know is that, According to the Canadian Cancer Society breast cancer is the most common cancer among Canadian women (excluding non-melanoma skin cancer).

In 2009: 22, 700 women and 180 men will be diagnosed with it.

Doctor Kristi Funk, who has appeared on many television shows but most recently The View, has some statistics about how weight gain increases your risk. The following numbers relate to the amount of weight you have gained since high school:

-Lost or gained 4 lbs = no increased risk

-Gained 10 lbs = 10% increase

-Gained 10-20 lbs = 20 % increase

-Gained 20-30 lbs = 60% increase

If you have gained 40 pounds since high school you have increased your chances of getting breast cancer by 50%!

In addition to living a health active lifestyle to help decrease your risk, Dr. Funk suggests green tea. She claims that drinking 3 cups of green tea a day will reduce your chances of breast cancer by 50%...so drink up folks!

10 Most Expensive Cities in the World!

Global Property Guide has produced a list of the 10 most expensive cities to live in based on the “average price of a 120 sq. m., good-condition high-end used apartment in the city centres of more than 110 cities around the world”. Can you predict who came out on top?

The pricing is given in U.S. dollars. Here are the results:

1) Monte Carlo ($47, 578)

2) Moscow ($20, 835)

3) London ($20, 756)

4) Tokyo ($17, 998)

5) Hong Kong ($16, 125)

6) New York ($14, 898)

7) Paris ($12, 122)

8) Singapore ($9, 701)

9) Rome ($9, 166)

10) Mumbai ($9,163).

Cities that ranked as the least expensive include:

112) Cairo ($574)

111) Bangalore ($657)

The Science of Grocery Shopping

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The essentials of a grocery list include the following: fruits/veggies, milk, eggs, meat/poultry, bread. You know this, and more importantly, the grocery store designers know this. They take this information and use it to its fullest potential. The majority of grocery stores follow a similar layout as indicated by the image and you enter in the “Checkout” area. The floor plan is strategically designed to make sure you see everything the grocery store has to offer. The more you see, the more you are likely to buy because high impulse buying accounts for 60%-70% of all purchases.

Notice in the layout that the essentials I mentioned earlier are located at the back end and corners of the store. This means you must walk the entire perimeter to be able to get all the items starting on the right hand side. In addition, if you must go down an aisle, the most common products are placed in the center so you have to walk all the way there to pick it up. Once you got your food, it is unlikely you will turn back and go back down the way you came. Therefore you will continue down the aisle exposing yourself to more products. In addition, after walking down the aisle you will wind up on the “Checkout” side of the store and you will have to go back to the other end to get the rest of your essentials, which means you will walk down the next aisle to get there and probably buy unnecessary things. There are several sneaky tactics as work in the store. Too many to mention so I will leave you with a couple of my favourites:

-Timed bakery smells: makes shoppers hungry and want to buy more

-Eye level marketing: you will pay more attention to them, and so will your kids (as shown in the image below).

I would like to thank Professor Purac who lectured on this information and opened my eyes to many consumer habits.

Google It

One lazy day I was sitting on my couch and nothing was on television so I decided to test my knowledge with the popular game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Now the following question should be easy but proved to be very difficult for both the contestant and myself. Without cheating, see if you can answer the following correctly:

Which of the following is a true statement about the letters in the standard Google logo?

A) A) Both “O”s are yellow

B) B) Both “G”s are blue

C) C) The “L” is red

D) D) The “E” is green

I could not believe how difficult I found this question. Google is my homepage and I probably look at it upwards of 25 times a day! I could not even tell you what colour any of the letters are come to think of it. Considering I see that logo more than anything every single day… I should start paying more attention. How did you find the question? If you want to find the answer… Google it.

Advertising Hall of Fame

I was reading Born to Buy for my Children’s Advertising class and came across an alarming statistic…

“The average eight to thirteen year old is watching over 3.5 hours of television a day. American children view an estimated 40, 000 commercials annually. They also make approximately 3,000 requests for products and services each year” –Juliet B. Schor

Now this made me think about some of the memorable advertisements of both the past and the present. I would like to share my personal favourites with you…

Soft Drink: Dr. Pepper

Did you know Dr. Pepper was named by Charles Alderton who named it after the father of a girl he was once in love with?

Electronics: Mac vs. PC

Did you know that I used to have a PC, now I have a Mac… and I LOVE it almost as much as this brilliant ad campaign!

Clothing: The GAP

Did you know, that if you do NOT remember this ad… you must have been living under a rock. It's a classic... and this song will probably be in your head all day.

Health: Princess Margaret Hospital

I still get goose bumps when every time I see it. To donate click here

Athletics: Nike

Did you know that Michael Jordan made more money annually than all Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined!

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Beer: Heineken

Imagine?!

Hope you enjoyed my favourites!

OUTFOXED: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism

Did you know that in 2004, Rupert Murdoch’s media reached 4.7 billion people! That is ¾ of the population. Here is how some of it broke down:

-U.S. television network reached 280 million people

-Asian satellite network reached 300 million people

-Cable channels reached 300 million homes

-Magazines reached 28 million people

Fox news separated themselves from other networks by having ONE ideological perspective and hammering it home strongly and constantly. When you hear one perspective for long enough, you will start to believe it and follow it. Fox news has a great deal of right-wing bias and it is not hard to see.

Considering their slogan is “Fair & Balanced: We Report You Decide”, Fox news is anything but. In the OUTFOXED documentary former employees of the news network talked about the daily memos that were sent out each morning. It detailed what was to be talked about that day and what was NOT to be touched on. Most importantly, it was told HOW to report the content. In regards to the reporters and their method of delivery, news and commentary blended together. Making them very hard to differentiate.

This was all part of Rupert Murdoch’s master plan. When David Brock, President/CEO of Media Matters America, talked about Murdoch and how he ran Fox he stated the following:

“He wants all news to be opinion because opinion cannot be proven false.”

We as the audience rely on the media to get much of our information. After reading this post I hope you are more aware of where your news is coming from and I encourage you to get your news from a wide variety of outlets. This way you have a better chance of gathering the facts and forming your own opinion.

Polar Ice, On The Rocks

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There are approximately 20, 000 polar bears in the wild. Due to the reduction in sea ice in the Arctic, we can expect a loss of 2/3rds of the entire world’s population of polar bears over the next 50 years.

Last year it was proposed that they be added to the 2008 threatened species list. Polar bear deaths as a result of global warming are of great concern and rapidly increasing. It has also been foreshadowed to lead to extinction. Many are drowning because their homes are literally melting away.

I remember my Journalism Ethics professor standing in front of my class and telling this students that a sure fire way to sell a story is to use babies or cute animals. If the statistics are not tugging at your heartstrings then perhaps the video and image will. There are many petitions and ways you can show your support to this issue including Nature Canada’s petition. I encourage you to help shed light on this problem and do what you can, big or small, to help lessen the effects of global warming.

I would like to thank Sarah Jane showing me the above video clip to share with you :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

In the spirit of Thanksgiving weekend I have decided to make my post festive for the delicious occasion. I personally cannot wait for my turkey dinner and just thinking about it made me want to look up some interesting facts about it. The University of Illinois has compiled a list of intriguing “Turkey Facts” and I would like to share a couple with you. For starters

“the heaviest turkey ever raised was 86 pounds”

The average weight of a Thanksgiving turkey is about 15 pounds.

In the year 2005, Canadians ate 138.6 million kg of turkey! Now this may seem like a lot, but it is nothing compared to Israelis. They eat the most turkey out at anyone else consuming 28 pounds per person.

It is apparent that many of us love our turkey! I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving and has much to be thankful for. Bon appétit!

M&M's Not So Sweet Side

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To be honest, I have never really been one to track my eating habits. Luckily, I live with a calorie counter who has opened my eyes to many interesting facts. I was snacking on my beloved peanut M&M's and decided to look into its caloric information. I found an online calorie counter which told me that one single peanut M&M has 10.3 calories.

Now this may not mean much to you but check the following out:

You will need to run the length of a football field to burn that off!

Now this is assuming you are about 150 lbs -but still. You eat an entire package of that chocolaty goodness and you will be running for days to come. Now if you will excuse me, I have a mini marathon to complete…

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Chlamydia: hard to spell, easy to catch

It has come to my attention that STD rates are on the rise so I decided to investigate this matter and I was shocked by the statistics I came across. The trusty website Stop, Think, Be Safe! Has informed me that

"One in four people will have an STD at some point during his or her life."

Some are curable and some, unfortunately, are stuck with you for life.

Curable STDs include:

• Gonorrhea
• Syphilis
• Chlamydia

Incurable STDs include "The Four Hs"

• HIV
• HPV
• Herpes
• Hepatitis B

In addition to STDs, unprotected sex can also lead to many other things including pregnancy. Moral of the story: Stop, Think, Be Safe!

I Need My Beauty Sleep!

Everyone who knows me is aware of my love for sleep. I try and get my nine hours per night and I will frequently throw in a nap during the day. I am sharing this information with you because many people are not aware of the importance on sleep. It is every bit as important as food. According to NewsPick “Humans can actually survive longer without food than without sleep”.

On average, a person can survive on water alone for 1-2 months (without food). When it comes to sleep it only takes a few restless nights for an individual to experience intense personality and psychological changes. Randy Gardner holds the record for going the longest time without sleep. He lasted a total of 264 hours and at the end of the experiment scientist claimed if he went any longer it would have been quite dangerous.

So goodnight, sleep tight, and don’t let the bedbugs bite…

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