With the world spinning in absolute confusion, through the loss of confidence in financial circles we find ourselves in a war zone of a different kind. We are being told, on an almost daily basis, of millions of dollars being written off, banks and large companies failing, homes being repossessed and the big bad ‘D’ word bandied about. We need to find ways to reduce stress fast! More than ever before, we need the therapeutic properties of laughter, because you simply cannot laugh and worry at the same time. Laughter will relieve the stress levels and help us take a new look at life.

Laughter Therapy:
There are numerous side-effects to the simple act of laughing:

• It reduces the levels of stress hormone

• It is the simplest and the best stress management there is

• It increases anti-body producing cells by 20%. This makes for a stronger immune system

• It is contagious, even when you don’t know what the others are laughing at

• A good belly laugh is the best abs work out you can have – and it’s for free

• When you feel like laughing the least, it is the very time you need it the most.

Laughter is easily produced, convenient and you can ‘fake it until you make it’. Laughter has proved to be so therapeutic, there over 6500 30-minute Community Laughter Clubs worldwide.
Pet Therapy:
Pets are a major source of support, decreasing feelings of loneliness and isolation. Pet owners have fewer minor health problems and have an increased perception of the ability to cope. When you combine laughter with pets, you have a winning combination.
The Value of Humour:
Humour cuts stress levels in half and gives you a more lighthearted perspective to life. After all, there are too many things which are ready, willing and able to weigh you down.  With the loss of confidence in the financial markets and the world-wide threat of depression, it is important that you keep your sense of humour, in order to keep your equilibrium and your sanity.

Humour helps you cope, conquer and carry on.

Take a few minutes to let these animals put a little laughter in your life.

Share this with a friend.

If you would like to know more about a once in a lifetime Blue Moon Opportunity that could completely change your life take a few minutes to go to Win A Resort. It might put a smile on your face.

Halloween, celebrated on the night of the 31st October, has its origin in the swirling mists of Irish tradition. The day after Halloween, the 1st November is All Saints’ official holiday.

In the United States Halloween has become the second most popular decorative festival, after Christmas.

This festival was regarded by many, as the Celtic New Year. It was a time when animals were traditionally killed and supplies stored up for the long cold winter ahead. The night was also known traditionally as the ‘festival of the dead.’ The time when the boundaries between the living and dead become blurred. Some however, believed the dead caused problems for the living, such as causing sickness, or crop damage.

Originally the two holidays were celebrated on the one day. All Hallows Day being the eve of All Saints’ Day. The name became shortened to Halloween.

Symbols of Halloween:
In Irish legend there was a gambling, greedy,  hard-drinking old farmer, known as Stingy Jack. He hoodwinked the devil into clambering up a tree, where Jack trapped him by carving a cross into the trunk. As revenge, the devil placed a curse on Jack, condemning him to forever wander the earth at night.  Jack only had a candle for light so he placed it inside a hollowed out turnip.

In North America the turnip was transformed into the larger and more easily found pumpkin. This was placed on the doorstep of the houses, with the lighted candle, to ward off superstitions.

For a century of film making we now have us the added imagery of ghosts, owls, zombies,spiders, mummies, witches, crows, vultures, black cats, goblins, skeletons and demons, to the Halloween festival.

Trick-n-Treat:
When anyone went outdoors is was felt a good idea to wear a costume, in order toblend in with all the ‘spirits’ of the night. This evolved, eventually, into trick-n-treat. Children, would knock on their neighbour’s doors asking for sweets, nuts and fruit for the Halloween feast.  The children had salt sprinkled in their hair to protect them against the powers of the evil spirits.

It was the custom in England and Wales to either give the children a treat of money or food. Otherwise they would perform a trick. This like removing the gate from its hinges and carrying it away and throwing it into the middle of a local pond. This custom has since led to antisocial behavior among older teenagers. In 2006 it was necessary to upgrade police surveillance of the festival, so as to prevent major acts of vandalism.

The Food:
Halloween comes at the finish of the annual apple harvest, so apples became a symbol of the festivities. Apples, rolled in sugar syrup and nuts, formed candy apples, which were handed out to the children.

In Ireland it is the time of the King Cake, or barmbrack. This is a light fruit cake, baked into a ring, in which lucky coins and charms have been placed. Anyone fortunate enough to receive a ring from the cake would find their true love in the coming year.

UNICEF
UNCIEF started a program in 1950 where they distributed small boxes to schools and some chosen stores. UNICEF asked the trick-or-treat children to collect small change donations from the houses which they visited. It is said the children have collected in the vicinity of $119 million for UNICEF. The program was sadly canceled in certain parts of the world, because of the concern for the children’s safety.

Televison
The evening of October 31st is also the traditional night to view horror, or ghost movies. Perhaps this year, the financial crisis and Wall Street has already provided enough horror stories.

If you would like to know more about the author take a quick look at a once in a lifetime Blue Moon Opportunity.

Many people have enjoyed the 1962-1966 television comedy McHale’s Navy about the adventures of a misfit PT Boat crew. We have been told that a real McHale actually existed in the tropical islands of the South Pacific, in Vanuatu (New Hebrides) in the Second World War. For all our searching we have not been able to verify this truth. Can anyone help us? Did a real McHale exist in the tropical islands?

In early1942, the Japanese reached the nearby Solomon Islands and the New Hebridean’s lived in real fear that their islands would be next. The Americans, however, arrived first, totally unannounced, in May 1942. Up to 100,000 soldiers were based in Santo, Vanuatu.
Only one Japanese plane bombed Vanuatu.  Bessie the cow was the only casualty, apart from the plane being shot down.
At the end of the war, the Americans disappeared as quickly as they had come, but not before Mitchner’s well known Tales of the South Pacific had been born.

We all love stories with heroes and a social message. They usually embody beliefs and concepts and ideological ways of questioning that attempt to make sense of our world. Perhaps legends and myths make reality a little more bearable and interesting. They are designed to inspire us and encourage us to dream.

The characters of many legends become so popular and familiar to us, they tend to take on a role of reality, though they do not necessarily have a basis of fact.

British Robin Hood:

Portrayed as a benign highwayman, Robin Hood is said to have robbed the rich to give to the poor. He was a fighter against injustice and tyranny, though a fugitive from the law. He led a band of seven outlawed yeomen (prosperous farmers or bodyguards in a noble or royal household), known as the band of Merry Men.

William Shakespeare makes reference to Robin Hood in a late 16th century play, ‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona’. Robin Hood even has a tombstone with his name on it, giving the legend more credibility.

British King Arthur:
King Arthur is a legendary British warrior who defended Britain against the tyranny of Saxon invaders.  In some tales King Arthur was associated with the Welsh ‘other world’. It was a 12th century French writer who added Sir Lancelot, the Knights of the Round Table and the Holy Grail to the legend.

William Shakespeare:
Most people claim the English William Shakespeare as being a very prolific poet and playwright of amazing genius. Others say ‘William Shakespeare’ is only a corporate name, representing a conglomerate of writers. While the controversy continues unsolved, the fact remains that Shakespearean plays have been translated into every major language and been performed more often, than plays from any other scriptwriter

Then there are the delightful myths such as the Irish Myth:

Some say the mischievous Irish Leprechaun, with his lucky four leaf clover, moves your television remote and steals your underwear and at least one of your socks in the dark of the night. Others say the Leprechaun reveals hidden treasures if you can manage to catch one.

Perhaps the myths (mysteries) of oversize strange creatures serve some oblique purpose in explaining the unexplainable and add spice to people’s lives.

American Big Foot:

In America it is reported that Bigfoot inhabits remote forests in the Pacific Northwest.

The Abominable Snowman:

There are fresh reports which speak of having seen fresh footprints recently from the Yeti or Abominable Snowman of the Himalayan Mountains.

The Loch Ness Monster:

In Scotland’s highlands there lives the Loch Ness monster. Fact or fiction? Either way it makes a great tourist attraction.

Maybe you can add a myth, or legend that you have always enjoyed, for there are more mysteries in life than we have answers for.

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A repentant would-be burglar in the United Kingdom sent his 91 year-old victim a boquet of flowers, with a card and an apology. He was sorry he had frightened her, but he thought the house was vacant a the time. He apologized for breaking in. He fled the house without stealing anything.

The local police are asking him to give himself up. What will they charge him with? Sending flowers to a would-be victim, or for breaking in and scaring a 91 year-old woman?

The language of flowers is not a new art however. Floriography is commonly thought to come from the Victorian age, when flowers were used to send coded messages. However flower language originated in medieval and Renaissance culture. Saints depicted in paintings are seen with flowers that were symbolic of the saint’s virtues.

Some of the most common use of flowers as a language are: red roses for love, pansies for thoughtfulness, carnations for admiration, white lilies for purity, pink roses for a lesser affection, white roses for eternal love, daisies for innocence and blue violets for faithfulness, to name but a few.

There is however a modern flower power that has left its mark on our society.

Flower Power had its most powerful rise in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s in the counter-cultural movement of the Hippies. These Flower Children were a symbol of non-violent ideology, standing against the use of war to solve international problems and in particular the war in Vietnam. The Hippies were determined in their call for social change, including a stopping of the threat of the nuclear cold war between the Super Powers, USA and the Soviet Union.

The early tweny year-olds and teenagers of the Hippy movement were known to give flowers to policemen and bystandgers and place flowers in the barrels of guns and revolvers, as a sign of peace not war.

This photo of a teenager placing flowers in the muzzle of the guns of riot squads, came to symbolize the era of the Flower Power movement.

The photo is courtesy of photos that changed the world

The Hippie generation became known as the ‘love generation’ as it widely embraced the sexual revolution of free-love. They were also known for their liberal use of soft drugs, such as cannabis, to explore alternate states of consciousness.

‘Give Peace A Chance,’ was their theme song. They practiced religious as well as cultural diversity, embracing Eastern philosophies and spiritual concepts, wildly rejecting  recognized institutions,  both through their actions and their outlandish mode of dress. Their brightly painted VWs became a common symbol of their movement, alongside their alternate and self-sustained life style. Sexual frankness was also their hallmark, with more open accpetance gained for bisexual, homosexual and transsexual people. For the first time unmarried couples could live or travel together.

The Hippies and their Flower Power left a major stamp on cultures world-wide, leaving a lasting influencing on popular music, health foods and the taking of vitamins, fashion, television, film, literature and art. It also was the period that saw the beginnings of the Cyber Space revolution. People would never be able to say what they do on the Internet, if it had not been for the revolutionary movement of the Hippies.

If you would like to find out more about a Genuine Blue Moon Opportunity and the author go to http://winaresort.com

Many feel Wall Street is floundering around like a headless dandy, leaving most investors with the sensation of having been axed at the ankles. However, even in the midst of a crisis, there is always a Blue Moon Opportunity, for those who have an eye to see it. While the markets are totally unpredictable and many companies and banks are going to the wall, others are reacting in a variety of ways.

Japanese Banks:

• Bonsai Bank – announces the necessity of pruning its dead wood and is cutting some of its branches
• Sumo Bank – put up a good fight, but like many others, it has gone belly up
• Karoke Bank – has been forced to a foreclosure sale and is believed to change hands for a song
• Samurai Bank – is soldiering even though it is suffering from sharp cuts
• Ninja Bank – is reported to be shaken but continuing in the black
• Kamikaze Bank – trading was suspended due to a sharp nose-dive
• Karate Bank – 500 staff got the chop when sharp pressure was applied to its board
• Sushi Bank – appeared to get a raw deal with something fishy going down
• Origami Bank – has folded sharply leaving some raw edges

Australian Banks:

• She’s Right Mate Bank – proving hard to put down under, so expected to survive the tough times

New ZealandBank:

• Kiwi Bank – poking around for early recovery in the undergrowth

Italian Banks:

• Chianti Bank – bottlenecked with customers choking after withdrawing too much too quickly
• Leaning Tower of Pizza Bank – is being propped up by local support
• Capuccino Bank –  sweetened by the vast number of its overseas branches
• Colosseum Bank – left in ruins and declared unsafe in certain areas

Swedish Bank:

• Abba Bank – is having a revival with its new international exposure

French Bank:

• Seine Bank – remains calm in face of world-wide confusion

Postscript: No matter how dark the gloom is, a laugh a day helps makes life a little more bearable.

This 77-year old man is still tree lopping and a winner at any age.

Dorothy Peterson, aged 85 years, of North Mankato finds it hard to find a good table tennis opponent. If there’s no competition she will continue using her home Robo-Pong machine which fires balls to her.

Fortunes are made by plastic surgeons and producers of anti-aging products, playing on the desire of those who try to make a vain attempt to stop-the-clock. Yet, aging is a natural process none of us can bypass. As there is no fountain of youth, it is important that the mind is not permitted to stagnate. Creativity and curiosity (yes, curiosity) are your two most effective weapons against aging. After all, you are never too old to learn something new. You also need to continue to react with others around you and live in the present.

In one sense, aging begins from the moment a person is born. Delaying the effects of aging, while maintaining good overall health has to be the ultimate goal. According to Valliant, author of the book Aging Well, aging successfully is like being tickled. – the best results are achieved with another person. Your sense of humour is another of your most powerful anti-aging weapons. Take a look at a few questions some people ask concerning aging (some tongue in cheek)…

• Q: Can men or women over the age of 60 find young, sexy members of the opposite sex who are interested in them?   A: Try looking in a bookstore under fiction, unless of course you’re loaded in the bank balance department.
• Q: Can 60+ still have good sex? Q: Can 60+ still have good sex?   A: Recent studies published on the British Medical Journal website show that an increasing number of the elderly, including 70+ are having good sex and more often, as well as women in this group being particularly satisfied with their sex lives.
• Q: Does sex, like a good wine, get better with age? A: Yes. A recent survey showed that even 50 year olds are more satisfied with sex, than either 30 or 40 year olds.
• Q: Who gives up sex first, the man or the woman?   A: Surveys show that it is the man who reneges on sex before the woman does.
• Q: Do programmes with high sexual content have an impact on you?   A: Studies show that when there is a high sexual content to a programme, people have more difficulty recalling the adverts. Q: It is wise to get married as a 60+?   A: Why not? As the expert says, it’s like tickling. Living gives a richer result when it’s shared with someone.
• Q: Is retirement necessary?   A: Absolutely not. How can you retire from life? Retirement is only a state of mind.
• Q: How can you increase the heart rate of your 60+ year old husband?   A: Tell him you’re pregnant. Q: Do 60+ year-olds have troubling finding fashionable glasses?   A: No, so long as they remember to check their foreheads first.
• Q: Why is it important for 60+ year old people to use valet parking?   A: Valets don’t forget where they park your car.
• Q: As people age, do they sleep more soundly?   A: Yes, but usually in the afternoon, while tending to stay awake at night. Q: What are the most common remarks made by 60+ year olds when entering antique stores?   A: ‘I remember those.’ ‘I used one of those only yesterday. How come it’s now an antique?’

Aging well is simply ‘Staying Alive’. Did you know that the 103 beats per minute of the 1977 Bee Gees song ‘Staying Alive’ has been proven to be the most ideal tempo to apply when performing chest compressions as part of CPR to someone?

You may have some other great questions or ideas about aging well. Add them to this list. You can also find out what a 60+ couple, who refused to retire, did to gain a new lease on life, through a Blue Moon Opportunity (an opportunity that changes your life). Take a few minutes to check it out at Win A Resort. You may find it inspirational.

You are presented, on an almost daily basis, with Blue Moon Opportunities (genuine opportunities that can permanently change your life). Opportunities that allow you to join the elite few, who are in control of their own destiny.

There are, however, some people who try to make opportunities where there aren’t any and most times these backfire on them, with devastating results. Here is just one such incidence, where blue smoke cost a man a fortune and changed his life for the negative.

A man in North Carolina purchased a box of very expensive cigars and because of their value, he insured them against fire. The desire to light up just one of these rarities, sit back and enjoy its luxury, proved too much for him. Within a few weeks he had smoked his way through the entire box of cigars. This was without even having paid the first premium on the insurance policy.

Going to the insurance company, the man claimed, “I have lost the valuable cigars through a series of small fires.” The insurance company adamantly refused to pay up, stating the man had consumed the cigars in a normal manner.

The judge agreed the claim was frivolous, however ruled that the man, “Holds a policy from the insurance company, which warrants the cigars are insurable and guaranteed against fire.” What the insurance company had failed to do was to specify on the policy what was an unacceptable fire.

Rather than go through the time-consuming and costly process of fighting the ruling of the court, the insurance company appeared to accept the judge’s ruling. The man was awarded $15,000 for rare cigars lost through a series of small fires.

Happily the guy cashed the cheque, believing he had what he thought was a once in a lifetime Blue Moon Opportunity to get away with duping the insurance company.

After banking the cheque, the man returned home to find two policemen on his doorstep. He was arrested and charged with twenty-four counts of arson. The insurance company used the man’s own testimony from the previous court-case, where it had been acknowledged he had deliberately lit the cigars. The man was convicted of burning his insured property and sentenced to one month in jail per conviction. A sentence of twenty-four months imprisonment, as well as having to pay a $24,000 fine.

Cigarette smoking has become socially unacceptable on a universal scale. What if the North Carolina guy had been able to purchase this largest cigar in the world, housed at the Tobacco and Matchstick Museum in Skansen, Stockholm, Sweden? There is no doubt that he would not only have choked on it, but maybe he would have been sentenced to more than just one month’s jail time for smoking it.

Did the guy really expect to get away with trying to outsmart the insurance company? We are all surrounded everyday with genuine opportunities, which could be used to better our life. Most of us let these opportunities pass us by because we lack the courage, or the finance to follow through.

For more information on the author and a genuine, life changing Blue Moon Opportunity, take a few minutes to go to http://winaresort.com

Time is an unstoppable dictator that dictates your life from the moment you are born to the moment you die. Yet it is something you don’t really give much thought to and often have very little understanding of. Yet time is the most precious commodity you have. You need to be aware of the ROI (return on investment) you are getting on your time, if you are to make the most of any Blue Moon Opportunity (one that could change your life) which comes your way.

The Measure of Time:

There are two measurements for immediate time - the calendar and the clock. The calendar is based on the phases of the moon and is the measures for periods which are longer than a day. The clock is used to measure less than a day. Then there is a third time measurement, known as geologic time. This measures past events which have shaped life on earth.

Local daytime was first measured by the shadow from an upright bar, cast on a simple sundial. Then the Egyptians produced the water clock which was able to measure the hours of darkness.

Time has since been measured in a wide variety of ways which include sand-through-an-hourglass and the burning of incense sticks, or candles.  There have been clocks which were driven by gravity, springs, electrical power, pendulums. Now we have the most accurate clock of all, the atomic clocks, which are based on the spin property of caesium atoms.

World Time:

The world is equally divided up by time zones, separated by exactly one hour apart. A Global Positioning System synchronizes time-keeping systems around the world, keeping you in touch with everyone else.

Enough Time:

Ancient cultures speak of before time began, while others speak of the dream time and the wheel of time. It is important you know exactly what you spend your time on. King Solomon wrote:

There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven–
A time to give birth, and a time to die; A time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted.
A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to tear down, and a time to build up.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance.
A time to throw stones, and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, and a time to shun embracing.
A time to search, and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep, and a time to throw away.
A time to tear apart, and a time to sew together; A time to be silent, and a time to speak.
A time to love, and a time to hate; A time for war, and a time for peace. – Ecclesiastes 3:1–8

Your Personal Time:

Time is your most valuable commodity and a vital component of your everyday life, while having an entirely different meaning for everyone. There is so much you can do with time, these are just a few:

• Find time
• Waste time
• Use time wisely
• Save time
• Kill time

However, you often only see time through the confused filters of your mind and well being. When you close your eyes at the end of the day, however, it is what you did with the time you had. Man has been able to create numerous ‘time saving’ devices, yet time is the one thing you never have enough of and once spent cannot be regained. Successful entrepreneurs are always on the look out for Blue Moon Opportunities, but as time is limited, you need to choose carefully what you do with your time. Always check out the ROI on your time. Like all successful people, learn to work ‘at’ a business not ‘in’ it.

You can learn more about the author  and a genuine Blue Moon Opportunity at http://winaresort.com

Time is a precious commodity which you never have enough of. It is really important to take time out each day to have a laugh, as laughter has been proven to be a stimulant which increases productivity. So let’s spend a few minutes and have a laugh over that most elusive of all things - time.

Here are just a few things you can do with time:

• You can be pressured for time,
• Waste time
• Desperately try to balance time (something we all have great difficulty doing).
• You can buy time.
• You can ask for a person’s time, or
• You can give them time.
• A person’s time is the one thing we all fight for on the Internet and here is a tip that may be just in time to help you leap forward in your business. “In a war you require study and logic.” Content is king on the Internet so that requires study and the world of the computer is based on logic. These two points are the underlying foundation of any successful Internet business.

You may gain time if you are flying internationally, but lose it again on the return journey. Often small amounts of time can make or break you, particularly if you are prone to playing the stock market. It takes time to find genuine Blue Moon Opportunities - ones that will truly change your life.

While time is a unit, or system for measuring a sequence of events and a vital element of your day to day living, it’s something you can spend, but never recover. Here are ten pieces of trivia where three minutes of time made a difference.

1. In Malaysia, Roslan Ngah, divorced his two wives in three minutes. Ngah had already divorced his third wife 7 years before and has 8 children from the three marriages.
2. A Spanish couple escaped death because they missed the Spanair flight by just three minutes. The plane crashed in Madrid.
3. The people of China kept silent for three minutes, marking in the 7.9 Sichuan earthquake on May 12th. However, cars, ships and trains blasted their horns, marking the start of three days of national mourning for the 12,000 killed and 18,000 missing.
4. In an attempt to jump-start the slumped economy and job market, Japan has launched the Tokyo based ‘Three Minutes of Happiness‘ stores, which sell design-heavy, extremely affordable, ‘recession chic’ necessities, from clothing items, to kitchen utensils. The shop is set up in a massive ice-cream parlour.
5. In the ‘big bang’ theory of the origin of the universe, Weinberg’s timeline refers to the ‘First Three Minutes‘.

Now, I have probably used up your three minutes of patience, but just give me a little more time.

1. According to a recent study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, sex has only to last 3 minutes to get great results. The test was done by women holding stop-watches.
2. Having had your three minutes of sex you may feel hungry. You can knock up a non-nutritious meal with three-minute noodles, but if you add a perfect three-minute boiled egg you may save the day. Also add the perfect cup of tea, having brewed loose tea-leaves for three minutes.
3. While you are at it you had better feed the goldfish, for the average goldfish has only a three minute memory span, according to everything2.com
4. While your are showering, remember the best songs are usually only three minutes long.
5. Finally the average person dreams for only three minutes. They say you can come to, change the end of your dream and go back and dream again with your ending. Wow - that blows the mind! Worth a try.

We are fortunate to live in Vanuatu, in the South Pacific, where there are no ‘three minutes’ for the locals, as very few people wear watches. They live on island time, guided by daylight and dark and turn up ‘whenever’. “See you in the morning”, could mean 6.00 a.m. when the sun gets up. However, Vanuatu, with its ancient culture and traditions, is the one place where you feel ‘Time can be Regained’, or at least your batteries recharged.

Let us know if you can think of any other great ‘three minutes’ of time.

You can find out more about the author and a genuine Blue Moon Opportunity at http://winaresort.com