Lonely Planet released its latest travel guide list of the world’s happiest places. Topping the list is the 80 tropical island archipelago of Vanuatu, in the South Pacific island, while Montreal in Quebec takes second position. Read more…
For long enough we have all been aware of the ‘High Five’, flesh on flesh action, of the younger generation. Now a new craze has hit America and may be about to become a world-wide phenomenon.
Michelle Obama definitely wants to be greeted correctly on June 3rd, the first official American holiday for a ‘Fist Bump Day’. Michelle insisted on being greeted with the official Fist Bump when she recently co-hosted ‘The View’, with Woopie Goldberg and the girls.
Michelle says she has picked the Fist Bump up from her young staff.
The first ‘fist bump heard round the world’, took place a year ago, on June 3rd 2008, when the charistmatic couple, Barack Obama and Michelle, brought the Fist Bump onto the national stage. It was during a pivotal moment in Obama’s presidential campaign, that the couple shared the private moment, of what became known as the ‘Thumb versus Fist’, or ‘Terrorist Fist Thump’. In the weeks following the incident, the ‘Knuckle Bump’ took America by storm.
One year after the legendary Obama fist bump, a new holiday hits the mainstream, called National Fist Bump Day. America is calling people from every class, race and religion to lay aside their differences with a show of respect and an affectionate ‘fist bump’ -‘knuckle knock’.
As of right now it’s not quite clear what the day’s celebrations will entail, other than than some knuckle rubbing. There is, however, a lot of ‘Fist Bump Day’ paraphernalia for people to buy, to commemorate the day.
Be ready to greet in the updated American way.
I have the privilege of living on the tropical island of Vanuatu in the South Pacific, the Dream Holiday Destination, also voted the Happiest Country On Earth in 2006. The local Ni-Vanuatu people always greet you with a warm hand shake and face-splitting grin. It gives you the feeling they are really glad to see you. (Not a bad way to go).
Anyway, let there be lots of gentle Knuckle Knocking/Fist Banging on June 3rd and try greeting everyone with a face-splitting grin. Might cheer up their day and even make you feel better by spreading a little ’sunshine’.
I’m Dr. Wendy Stenberg-Tendys and I’ve discovered how great it is to live on a tropical island in the South Pacific (voted the Happiest Country On Earth in 2006).
I’m offering you the opportunity to win your own piece of paradise (a million dollar tropical island getaway) so you too can live out of the Rat Race.
Right now you have a pretty good chance of retiring in opulent luxury with a property you can turn into your own bank account (it currently has an annual income of $Au250,000). You’ll make your friends green with envy, as you laugh all the way to the bank.
In case you’re wondering that is not me in the photo! And the photo is not a photoshop job. This was a genuine photograph taken through a special lens on a full tropical moonlit night. Isn’t it magic? This is where you’ll be staying when you win the 7 day holiday.
All you have to do is to CLICK HERE to purchase our Discount Voucher Right Now and you’ll have a pretty good chance of winning a prime piece of real estate for just Au$49. You can run it as a boutique business, or turn it into Cold Hard Cash. (The Island Getaway is worth around $1.8 million dollars).
No this is not a scam or some Internet con. It’s for real! You can check the entire project out at Win a Resort.
Oh, we forgot to mention, you’ll also be putting some really needy kids into high school (their parents live on under $1 a day according to the United Nations). All the money from the Discount Voucher goes to provide high school education grants to kids in a third world country, Vanuatu. We have our first student in the program right now. She’s such a honey and so deserving of the grant. She sleeps on a coral floor with her three sisters. We had to buy her a kerosene lamp so she could do her homework at night.
(Buying a Discount Voucher is a great way to celebrate International Mother’s Day! You could even give it away as a very unique gift.)
Wendy
P.S. We forgot to mention that you could soon be winging your way to Vanuatu on a 7 day holiday for two, airfares paid from Aus, NZ and Fiji, or $1000 CASH - Monthly Draw closes 30th May.
P.S.S. Wow - All that for one Discount Voucher! Takes a bit to get your head around it. Don’t Miss Out on this once in a lifetime opportunity - only 9 days left to the close of the first DRAW. Good luck in the DRAW. See you soon in Vanuatu.
Click here for your Discount Voucher.
The United Nations Development Programme in Fiji, is looking at placing a value on the time people spend on unpaid work. The report disclosed that women in Suva spend 58 hours a week on housework, compared to men who only spend 8 hours.
The report also showed that women in the tropical island nation of Vanuatu, voted the Happiest Country On Earth in 2006, have 25% less leisure time than men. (Who is kidding who, in a male dominated society?)
The manager of the UNDP Pacific Centre, says “It’s important to provide separated out data about the different roles men and women play in the community, if the UNDP is to understand how a particular policy might impact differently on different genders”. Without this kind of data, the Centre believes it would be difficult to design good policies or programs.
The word is out that people in general have 45 minutes more leisure time, per day, than they had 40 years ago. Half of that time is spent watching television (says some experts). The average person in a Western country devotes 2.5 hours a day to the relaxing hobby of watching television.
The following is a break down of an average person’s daily timetable, which was released in 2006 from an unknown source.
ACTIVITY TIME SPENT BY GENDER, MARITAL STATUS
Men Women Married Single
Phone calls, mail, email 7 min 14 min 8 min 14 min
Caring for non-household members 13 min 15 min 13 min 14 min
Religious, civic duties 16 min 21 min 20 min 17 min
Caring for family 20 min 43 min 45 min 17 mi
Educational activities 28 min 26 min 7 min 51 min
Buying goods, services 38 min 58 min 53 min 43 min
Eating, drinking 1 hr 18 min 1 hr 11 min 1 hr 24min 1 hr 8 min
Household activities 1 hr 20 min 2 hr 16 min 2 hr 8 min 1 hr 26 min
Work-related 4 hr 26 min 3 hr 4 hr 1 min 3 hr 18 min
Watching TV 3 hr 28 min 2 hr 41 min 2 hr 24 min 2 hr 47 min
Personal care, sleep 9 hr 13 min 9 hr 37 min 9 hr 8 min 9 hr 46 min
(If they serious about these figures then I am off the planet, as I am sure many of your are also!)
The Harris Poll published these results after a nationwide telephone survey, in 2004:
· 35% of adults preferred reading.
· 21% preferred to watch television
· 20% spend time with their family and friends
Harris Poll says these three activities have topped the list every year since 1995. However, it is believed that technology such as the Internet clearly influences the use of leisure time.
One has to question how these results were arrived at and their ability to truly represent an overall picture of life, either in 2006 or 2009.
It certainly feels the more ‘time-saving-devices’ you are presented with, you increasingly find you have less and less time to do the things you would really like to do. Time is your most valuable resource and must be used, protected, looked after and used wisely, just as you consider the use of any other valuable resource.
Here is another way you can help the overall picture in 2009. Help us to help give some really great kids a high school education. With out your aid, these high achieving primary school students will never get a chance to do the things they dream of doing. Take a few minutes to look at Win A Resort . It could change your life and give you more leisure time than you even dreamed of.
Elderly Australian couple, took a rundown property, with fabulous views and over a three year period they renovated and built it into a small successful boutique holiday resort. Now they are giving away the million dollar property, located on a tropical island.
The couple came up with the out-of-the-box idea of raffling the property on the Internet, in order to give all the money away to provide education grants for local kids, who will never to go high school. Many of their parents cannot read or write and live on under $1 a day.
In Vanuatu, a Lesser Developed Country, that was voted the Happiest Country on Earth, there is no free education system. The government statistics say only 18% of the kids get to high school level. 55 % manage to get to level 6, but 26% never go to school at all.
The project sounded easy and doable. Wrong! First there came the world-wide financial melt down and the merchant bank they were using to process credit cards online, closed shop. Other banks wouldn’t touch this kind of Internet project in the current financial climate, particularly as it was located on a tropical island, that just happened to be a tax haven, in the South Pacific, that Sweden voted the Dream Holiday Destination.
Local government ministers agreed it was a wonderful idea, but bureaucracy added to the couple’s problems, as they battled to register the charity. All money received from the raffle, is held firmly in trust, oversighted by a board of well known local citizens and business people, allowing many kids to benefit from the self-sustaining project, now and in the years to come.
The couple paid to have two websites built, from their fast dwindling cash resources. Only to discover they were nothing more than templated blog sites, with very limited capabilities. Refusing to give up, the wife decided to enter the highly complicated and competitive world of Cyber Space. After just two hours tuition, she set about to learn how to master the professional web builder’s program, Dreamweaver. Many hours later and a lot more grey hairs, the web sites were completed and online.
Freelance journalists interviewed the couple, but popular magazines and TV stations simply said, “They aren’t a celebrity such as Nicole Kidman.” The elderly couple approached one or two of visiting celebrities to the island, on board the project, but always with the same result. “Yes, they would love to help,” when talking to the couple face to face. Yet as the weeks dragged by, nothing.
Still believing wholeheartedly in their project, they enrolled the first student into high school in January, 2009. “Seeing the beam of delight on her face when she was told she had a high school education grant, made it all worth while,” the husband said. Up until then, only her older brother would get an education. Maimona and her three sisters would for the most part, be left uneducated.
Now the couple must wait for the full results of their eighteen months of hard work, blood, sweat and tears to bear fruit. Work that will bring hope to these kids. How many high achieving students will be left stranded and abandoned, or how many will be given the opportunity of getting a high school education and the possibility of fulfilling their dreams?
Take a few minutes to check it out at Win a Resort. Not only will it help some great kids, it could also completely change your life. Someone will win this million dollar property for just a few dollars. You could also win the opportunity to visit Rick and Wendy for free and check the property out yourself.
In an attempt to increase the number of tourists to the Cook Islands, a recent press release made false claims “The Cook Islands is the ultimate wedding and honeymoon destination, as unlike other South Pacific countries which require a 30 day wait, it allows couples to marry after only three days in the region. For those who can’t wait that long, a small fee can even be paid to waiver the residency requirement. The process could not be simpler, and the only paperwork required can be done in just half an hour once there“.
Vanuatu wishes to correct this false impression, as the marriage laws are the same in the tropical islands of Vanuatu, as in the Cook Islands. Any couple arriving on a cruise ship can have a ‘one day’ exempttion to lodge their paper work for their wedding. Not only are there cheap airfares available to Vanuatu, right now there are also numerous accommodation deals out there.
You have lots of great choices, like getting married on a private pier at Seachange Lodge, a boutique resort, or go for a large wedding, with all the trimmings, at the big resorts such as Le Meridien, Iririki Island, or Le Lagon. You could fly to Tanna and get married on the lip of a live volcano, Mt Yassur, or maybe try a deep sea fishing, or diving wedding. You could let the marriage celebrant perform the marriage on board the boat, then you take a dive afterwards. After all marriage is rather like going diving. You could have a custom wedding and even witness a pig killing ceremony.
There are numerous blue moon opportunities (once in a lifetime) for arranging your wedding, as well as any outer island trip, through John and Silvana, at companies such as Hotels Vanuatu.
The great news is that your wedding can be truly exciting and unique, particularly in the tropical islands of Vanuatu, named not only the Happiest Country on Earth, but it is in the South Pacific, the dream holiday destination of the world.
There is a new generation of video games which are being made so difficult, that many players last no longer than 10 seconds. Yet it is the very nature of the ultimate challenge that keeps many people coming back time and again, just as we need to always be on the look out for Blue Moon Opportunities that completely change our lives.
One producer of video games told us, “Ikaruga, re-released their latest video game in April for Microsoft Xbox’s Live Arcade. It is so difficult that some users post their best performances on YouTube.”
A video game researcher at MIT, Jesper Juul, says “There is an art to exasperating people in such a way that it keeps them interested in the game.” This is what makes video games different from all other forms of creative media. It’s all about the feeling of inadequacy and how stupid it makes you feel to get stuck somewhere. Juul explains “People love the rush it gives them when they eventually achieve. Isn’t that why athletes push themselves to the point of no return and beyond, so as to achieve a medal at the Olympics? It’s all about the feeling of satisfaction and being able to outperform others.”
It is facing the same impossible odds that pushed Wendy and Rick to take up the challenge and create Win a Resort and the Blue Moon Opportunity. It is the challenges of life that push us to give of our best, no matter what situation we find ourselves in. It’s all about how to think outside the box.
Rick and Wendy retired to a tropical island, Vanuatu, in the South Pacific. It’s great living in the Happiest Country on Earth and the home of South Pacific Survivors. The best decision we ever made.
Isn’t this cartoon by Mark Lynch fabulous. You need to check out his site.
Maybe you have some great out-of-the-box ideas to share, that pushes people in the ultimate challenge. It only takes one whacky idea to make you a success.
You can find out more about the author at http://winaresort.com
The Most Powerful Woman on earth, Angela Merkel, is hell bent on challenging the Happiest Countries on Earth, such as Costa Ricca, Columbia, Vanuatu, Dominica and Panama. Countries which always seem to feature high on the Happiest Planet Index.
In late Aug 2008, Forbes Magazine announced their 11th annual list of the top 100 most powerful women in the world. The magazine’s criteria for power is based on a composite of how much financial clout the women wield, public profile and how often the women were mentioned by the paparazzi. Women in general however, hold only 15% of the top corporate jobs. Less than 3% of USA’s largest companies have women chief executives and only one out of six company directors are female.
The magazine estimates the women on the list, control in the vicinity of $26 trillion dollars. These women are are defined by their jobs, rather than by who they are. It is said that some take home an annual pay of $11 million plus. They are women who took advantage of every Blue Moon Opportunity (opportunities that change peoples lives), that came their way.
Past career accomplishments, job title and the amount of money the woman controls, are taken into account by Forges magazine. The magazine then draws comparisons between the different financial realms the women work in, in an attempt to assess the women’s position on a level playing field.
Angela Merkel, nicknamed the ‘Iron Lady’, is following in the footsteps of ex British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, even down to having a similar kind of agenda. Vice Premiere of the People’s Republic of China, Wu Yi, who held third place last year, is also known as the ‘Iron Lady’. Wu Yi, having been in the top rankings, since 2004, has finally dropped from view this year.
Merkel is crusading to get governments around the globe, to join a Tax Cartel, so that a heavy-handed fist can be brought to bear on all tax havens. The recent purchase, by Merkel, of confidential client data of alleged tax evaders, stolen from a Lichtenstein bank, has highlighted Merkel’s tax-crusade. It is said the Lichenstein bank sold the same material several times over, netting the bank a tidy profit.
Tax havens play an important role in driving the tax rate down in high-taxed countries. Merkel’s crusade could cost the world more than her crusade is worth. Without the availability of alternative competition, afforded through tax havens, taxes would soar.
We live in Vanuatu, one of the tax havens the Iron Lady would like to close down. We sincerely hope Angela’s crusade dies in the traps.
You can find out more about the author and a genuine Blue Moon Opportunity at http://winaresort.com
The prestigious Annandale Gallery, built as a Methodist Church in 1860, converted to a Masonic Hall in the early 1920’s now holds a unique position in the landscape of Sydney, Australia. The gallery owners have earned their reputation in the art world, through specializing in showing the best of Australian and overseas contemporary art.
July 22nd was exceptional from the outset. The invitation spoke about rare art on view for the first time, from a remote tropical island, of the tiny South Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu. Secret ceremonial art which had never before been seen outside Vanautu. A group of nine Ni-Vanuatu artists, dressed in full regalia, would perform a secret sacred dance, from the island of Ambrym, at the opening. It all sounded rather mysterious and lots of fun.
Gentle island music greeted the guests as they arrived at the tall imposing building in the heart of a trendy upmarket inner Sydney suburb. Sipping a glass of French champagne the guests buzzed with excitement, as they admired the beautifully carved wooden figures and masks. Among the artifacts was a four metre wooden tam tam (tall thin log drum), one of the world’s largest free standing musical instruments.
“This art is unique to Vanuatu and traditionally kept hidden from the outside world, because it belongs to a secret and sacred society.” David Baker, the Gallery’s curator described the art as stunning. “Only similar piece has been found in a British museum. The art could easily be mistaken for any piece of modern artwork. This work has the art world agog.”
Suddenly a barely clad figure stepped up to the huge drum and began a steady methodical beat on the lip of the wooden carved face. A face that had been stylized to represent an ancestor. The slit up the front of the drum allowing the ancestor to speak once more. The eyes representing the morning star.
Four dancers, covered from head to toe, in what looked like a tent outfit made of dry leaves, with a painted wooden mask, topped with chicken feathers, covered the faces of the men. In a slow rhythmic, almost dreamlike shuffle, they advanced to the center of the room. With a monotone chant, they moved as one. In the middle of these four dancers, rhythmically stomping, clapping and chanting, came five other men dressed, in the full regalia of their secret society, a bright red hibiscus flower over one ear. ‘Full regalia’ being a misnomer.
Shock registered on the Sydney matrons’ faces as the five mature Ambrym men, dressed only with a wide bark belt slung low over their hips and a Nambas penis sheath, barely covering the essential part of their manhood, concentrated on their complicated sacred dance. The performers appeared to be unaware of the sensation they were causing, as their gleaming well formed buttocks jiggled up and down in time to the beat.
“It used to be that if a woman looked on these dancers she was killed. Even today, women are not permitted to touch these men,” one of the guests laughed, as she explained to me later, what she had been told. “When the dancers first entered the room it was rather difficult to know where to look. I haven’t seen that much bare buttock since my four children were babies.”
Two cultures could not be more different. Ladies who never even think about electricity when they casually switch on the lights, or put their hands under the tap for running water. Ladies who drive in their shiny modern cars to well stocked supermarkets to buy groceries from all over the world. Before them were men who sleep on woven mats on a coral floor. Water seldom comes from a tap and electricity is non existent in their home villages. Communication is often limited to the mystical language of the gong. Their supermarket is a ride in a dug out canoe to glean the fish from the ocean, or a walk out the to village garden.
Yet these dancers come from a nation voted as the Happiest Country on Earth in 2006. What is their secret? Their environmental footprint is one of the lightest in the world. Their longevity surpassing that of many other nations. A society where family relationships are valued far above possessions.
The head on collision of two cultures will long be remembered in the minds of all who attended the opening on July 22nd.
Take time out to find out more about the author and a genuine Blue Moon Opportunity at http://winaresort.com
