Cereal Killers

Gotta have my bowl, gotta have toys in cereal!

Remember the days when you bought your box of cornflakes, or coco pops, or whatever it may be. And the big exitement was the toy inside, thats what everybody always wanted.
I think the British were a lot different to Americans in how we gained 'the glorious prize'. Americans saw it as more of a prize 'that will choose its owner'. And therfore the prize belonged the whoevers bowl it fell into.
Here in Britain we took a very selfi...different approach. It was simply first to open the box and dig out the prize got it.

Now these were fun times, and at a time when breakfast seems to be more important than ever, shouldn't these moments be encouraged. I'm worried that we've become to 'safety consicous'. It's taking the joy out of everything - first playgrounds and then cereal.
We saw the 'cereal toys' slowly fade away as the transition was gradually made to books and dvds, and now we've reached a stage where thiers nothing, not even hardly any games on the back of the box anymore.
What do we get instead? Advertising, and competitions to enter if you want to win a prize trip somewhere. It's just not the same.

They've stripped away my glorious memories of childhood. I really do feel sorry for the children of today, they've missed the joys that we once experienced - great tv, toys in cereal, amazing playground games. They're all history now, and at the moment thier seems to be no way of bringing them back.

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Super Powers - Laser Vision

In this series of blogs I will be observing the various super powers that we'd all love to have. I'll look at the pro's and cons and see what we all think we could do with the powers. These powers won't necessarily be needed to act as a super hero, they could simply be thier to make your life easier. At the end of the each blog i will give a verdict on these abilities - Super? or Stupid?

Laser vision is a bit of an odd one. It's not one that many people would claim to want when given the option to have a super power. But it is a power that is heard a lot, and superheros like Superman are frequent users of it. I suppose it doesn't really offer all that much, it's a bit limited. But is that really the case?

Positives
Heat up food
This immediatly springs to mind. Just heat up anything instantly, it doesn't even have to be food, you could heat up water and then won't need a kettle.
Cut things with ease
I assume that laser vision can cut through stuff? Would make carving a chicken pretty simple...right?
Annoy people and play with animals minds!
Ok, so it's not the greatest idea ever, but why not use it like a laser pen, you can have a bit fun, and nobody will know it's you.

Negatives
Targeted eyes
If your eyes become your strength, wouldn't it be horrid to have someone try to take out your eyes to stop you.
Accidental laser vision
How the hell do you control laser vision? Sounds difficult, would be a nightmare at the opticians.
Dull power?
This is the first time i've struggled to think of things for these lists of positives and negatives, now that must surely mean it's not a particularly interesting power?

What you had to say
Twitter - What would you do if you had had laser vision?

@bryanjones63 Stare at Tories, MPs and voters

@HighHeeledHell probably sit on the tube and freak people out with it and pretend it wasnt me

@TomCallan Laser off certain peoples clothes ;)

@GeorgeRoff I'd use it to look at gir- oh wait, that's x-ray vision isn't it? I'd look through doors? :P

@JaimeCarroll If I had laser vision, I'd use it to open up bottles of beer and shoot down annoying pigeons.

Conclusion
It seems like a useful super power generally, but feels like an accident waiting to happen. Plus, it's not like you could fight much crime with the power(if thats what you wanted to do). Also, like a lot of powers, you'd be asked loads of favours by people because of the power. You'd always have to avoid bbq's. Generally it's a power thats a bit dull, and not something thats going to make you stand out, its certainly not going to be on the top of anyones list.

Verdict - Stupid

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The Power of Facebook - Part 1

Last month I asked my followers to tweet my some random facts. One that really caught my attention came from @TomCallan. He said that 'if Facebook was a country it would be the 3rd biggest in the world.'

Now this really fascinated me. It's a lot of people. Lets put it into perspective.
China has over 1.3 Billion people, making it the highest populated country in the world. In second place is India which is the home of over 1.2 Billion people. The 3rd biggest country is The United States more than 311 Million.(and just for those interested the UK is 22nd with around 62 Million).

Facebook has over 500 million active users. Which confirms that the fact is correct, it actually has close to double the amount of America's citizens, which is pretty big. It becomes easy to understand when you consider the vast amount of users across a number of countries, including a large chunk of America itself. And yet, around 70% of Facebook users live outside of the US. This also means that thier are over 70 different translations.
If Facebook was a country, it would be a very multi-cultural one.

The Facebook logo has become regonisable wolrdwide, and it is ranked 2nd in the global Alexa rankings(only coming behind Google).

Making 'The United Nations of Facebook'
I think a UNF name for the country would make the most sense, as it would be filled with a number of nations uniting.
I suppose the basics of a 'Facebook Country' aren't too complex, such as the FB logo would be the flag.

The trickier stuff comes when deciding details such as the form of government. It would be easy to say a democracy, because of Facebook being very much reliant on the people. We've also seen in the social networks history that a lot of decisions made by those that run the website have not been well recieved. Although, those decisions often work out in the end, or we simply adapt to the changes. I would personally suggest a Republic.

A country of Facebook users would also mean that anybody could be found and accessed through the website, privacy could easily become a thing of the past. Although, i feel like an impression is getting created that everybody would know everyone, but that obviously wouldnt be the case with over 500 Million people populating it.

It certainly would be an interesting prospect, and thier would be a lot more to consider when looking at how Facebook has transferred into something that has taken hold of the world. But i'll leave that for another blog.

I'll just leave you with an image that was released by Facebook not too long ago, and shows exactly how widespread it has become.

Facebooks world of users

A picture that really does some it all up. Courtesy of Facebook.

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Wierd World 1

The world is a wierd place. We're always talking about wanting to meet aliens, and trying to make new great discoveries. But thiers so many great things that happen around us that we know very little about, simply because it's not given that much coverage.
In this series of blogs i'm going to just give you few bits of information that i thought were interesting, or just a bit odd.
Some are odd stories that you may not know, others are just wierd world records that show some of the strange things in our world.

Hand Amputations
Some guy from New Zealand called Clint Hallam has had his right hand aputated 3 times!
He was the first ever recipient of a hand transplant. He lost his original hand after an accident with a circular saw in 1984.
Unfortunatly, after the transplant, it became infected and had to be removed again in 1988.
They tried another transplant in September 1998 which took 13 hours. For two years after this, he was able to move his hand and even write with it.
But for some reason Hallam voluntarily stopped taking his immunosuppressive drugs. Clint then requested to have it amputated again in 2001.

What's your name again?
Here's one of the world's longest names, which someone changed to by deed poll--

Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine Hulk And The Flash Combined
Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/673833-top-10-weird-world-records#ixzz1HvgzISJ6

Some Random Facts

- The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing
- A cow has four stomachs
- Toto the dog was paid $125 a week for his work in The Wizard of Oz.
- Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
- The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.

Thanks for reading, hope you learnt something new =D

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