MASTER LIST #19: The 101 Best Films of the 2000s

On the heels of perusing so many "best of the decade" lists, I do get the impression that there is a lot more from this decade for me to see (particularly from Asia and Eastern Europe); I have passion for all these films listed, but I'm still left with a needling and probably wrongful suspicion that movies are a dying art form. I'm not making excuses here, but the fact is that, unless one is

MASTER LIST #19: The 101 Best Films of the 2000s

On the heels of perusing so many "best of the decade" lists, I do get the impression that there is a lot more from this decade for me to see (particularly from Asia and Eastern Europe); I have passion for all these films listed, but I'm still left with a needling and probably wrongful suspicion that movies are a dying art form. I'm not making excuses here, but the fact is that, unless one is

50% off for 2 hours only from 8pm -10 pm ( time ammended )

Belly piercing

Belly piercing

Eyebrow piercing

body art pictures

body jewelrybody piercing ideasbody art picturesbody piercing pics

50% off , X'Mas Eve ( 10-12 am )

Belly piercing

The Different Types of Body Piercing

Here's a short introduction to types of Body Piercings. You should get to know them before getting pierced. That way you can choose the type that is right for you.Ear PiercingEar piercing is by far the most common piercing seen. Women have had their earlobes pierced for decades, and men have started to do the same within the last 40 years. The earlobe piercing is the most socially acceptable

The Different Types of Body Piercing

Here's a short introduction to types of Body Piercings. You should get to know them before getting pierced. That way you can choose the type that is right for you.Ear PiercingEar piercing is by far the most common piercing seen. Women have had their earlobes pierced for decades, and men have started to do the same within the last 40 years. The earlobe piercing is the most socially acceptable

Tongue piercing

Jupiter and Neptune Triple Conjunction: The Finale

For much of 2009 Jupiter and Neptune have been sharing the same space in the sky inside the Zodiac constellation Capricornus. Over the last few months they have moved progressively closer to each other and are now aligned in what is called a "Conjunction." In fact, the year 2009 saw this happen three times in a row, what astronomers call a Triple Conjunction, a rare and beautiful alignment of heavenly bodies.

I had not seen Neptune before this year's Triple Conjunction. A conjunction creates an opportunity to easily locate the less-bright planets Neptune and Uranus. These two are just dim enough to be invisible unless you (a) know exactly where to look, and (b) use optical aid such as a telescope or binoculars. With bright Jupiter as my guide, I was easily able to find Neptune lurking in the neighborhood, a beautiful blue pinpoint of light (see my previous post on the subject, Blue Neptune). The third of the three conjunctions of Jupiter and Neptune is even easier to find this week because the waxing Moon passes just above the duo on the evenings of December 20 and 21. In fact, the Moon makes a splendid guide to the planets each month, having just passed near Mercury a few days ago, and later in the month approaching orange-red Mars and yellow-white Saturn.

For a more detailed view of the paths of Jupiter and Neptune across the night sky check the diagrams on Martin Powell's excellent astronomy website. With these detailed charts, you can get a clear perspective on how these objects slowly make their way from one Zodiac constellation to the next every year. As Jupiter now begins prograde motion away from Capricornus, it will speed across Aquarius and into Pisces during the winter and by spring will be closing in on Uranus, where in 2010 we will have a Triple Conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus. Scroll down this page to see an excellent animation showing the motion of Uranus and Jupiter across the sky in 2010. The heavens never cease to offer up opportunities for discovery. Here's to clear skies!

Labret piercing

Cheap Body Piercing - Get Body Piercing Done at a Cheaper Rate

Body piercing is thought to be an expensive affair. Many people think that it involves a lot of money. This is not true. You can get body piercing done at a cheaper rate too. You need not spend a lot of money for body piercing. You must know whom to approach to get body piercing done. You can get them at the best price. Find the hottest new body jewellery styles in the world at best prices online

Tongue piercing

Belly piercing

body piercing images

local body piercingbody piercing classbody piercing images

Labret piercing

Tongue piercing

Belly piercing

Geminid Meteor Shower 2009

One of the finest meteor showers of the year is the Geminids, so named because the meteors appear to emanate from the zodiac constellation Gemini. The shower peaks this year on Sunday evening December 13^th and for us on the west coast of the United States, we will be well placed for the peak of the shower at 9:00 pm. Given that there won’t be any moonlight for this meteor shower, conditions are ideal for a good shower that can produce up to 120 meteors per hour in very dark conditions. For those of us who live in urban areas such as San Francisco, we will see considerably fewer meteors. Nonetheless, if you can get yourself away from streetlights, houselights and allow some time to adapt to the dark, you will see some Geminids.

Meteor showers that occur at the same time every year are usually caused by some kind of debris trail that the Earth intersects, showering the upper atmosphere with fine particles in an unusually intense period of time. Based on the way in which the Earth intersects the tiny bits of rock and dust, the meteors will all appear to originate in a single point in the sky, a point known as the "radiant." The Geminid meteor shower appears to originate in the constellation Gemini and as this constellation rises shortly after sunset, this particular meteor shower appears strong all night long, as Gemini treks across the sky from the east nearly directly overhead and then dropping into the west.

NASA has a great website talking about the origins of the Geminids, and Sky & Telescope Magazine has a very helpful article (written by Tony Flanders, an astronomer I've come to know personally) that is full of good tips for seeing the Geminids.

The weather outlook is always a challenge for December, and if the skies are clear they are most assuredly accompanied by a cold evening, so dress extra-warmly for the Geminids and enjoy.

Belly piercing

Labret piercing

Belly piercing

KFOG Broadcast - Dec 10, 2009

Belly piercing

The Northern Sky: Circumpolar Stars and Polaris

I enjoy stargazing for many reasons, one of which is to get a sense of the motion of the sky as viewed from our vantage point here on Earth. As I have traveled around the globe, I've always tried to observe how the sky changes depending on where you view it from. One of the more fundamental things you can observe is the dynamic of the stars and constellations in the northern sky. For those of us who dwell in North America, we see the north star, Polaris, at the same height in the sky as we are located north of the equator. That is, for San Francisco at approximately 38 degrees north latitude, Polaris can be found due north, 38 degrees above the horizon.

For reasons you can read about in Wikipedia, Polaris does not move in the sky and therefore is never below the horizon. It is always fixed in the north above the horizon at the same arc as you are located north of the equator. However, the stars that surround Polaris also never dip below the horizon, but rather circle around Polaris in a 24-hour spiral that turns counter-clockwise. Long-exposure photographs show this effect very vividly.

Wonderful constellations and asterisms occupy the circumpolar region of the sky, including the Big and Little Dipper, Cassiopeia, Draco and Cepheus.

Tongue piercing

Body Piercing Places

Have you ever thought of going to one of those Body Piercing Places? Over the last twenty years, the popularity of body piercing has been renewed. A word of caution if your checking out Body Piercing Places and while their explaining how they perform body piercing, they tell you they will be using a piercing gun, You are not in a professional Body Piercing Place and you need to stay away from

Labret piercing

Tongue piercing

Astronomy Gifts for the Holidays / Telescope Shopping

If you are considering a gift for someone who enjoys astronomy (or want to share something with a young person who might like to discover astronomy), I present to you my astronomy gift guide for the holidays.

A. Astronomy Gifts.

At my local astronomy shop here in San Francisco, Scope City, I asked manager Sam and salesperson Steve what they would recommend for the holidays. Telescopes are plentiful and that warrants a separate section of this blog post - see below. But aside from telescopes, there are binoculars of all types, excellent books, tools such as Star Finders and Planispheres, and new this year, the Sky Scout, a hot selling item from Celestron that has the astronomy hobbyist world abuzz. Point the Sky Scout at an object in the sky and it tells you what the object is and provides additional details. For another approach, you can open a door for astronomy for someone with a gift subscription to Astronomy Magazine or Sky & Telescope Magazine.


B: Telescopes - Top 5 Things to Consider When Buying a Telescope

A telescope is a powerful scientific instrument which, when well cared for, can provide years of viewing pleasure. Top brands include Meade, Orion and Celestron. However, there is a very wide range of options, quality and performance to choose from so before you buy a telescope learn a few things about them. Telescopes.com offers some useful background information, as does Astronomics.com with its informative pages. The Bad Astronomy blog has a helpful article, and this post provides a lot of detail for the telescope shopper. If you summarize all of the articles and if I draw from my own experience, I would recommend five things to think about when purchasing a telescope.

1. Consider Binoculars. They are easy to use, can be used at daytime as well as nighttime, cost less than a telescope, and are a good first test of one's interest in the night sky.

2. Buy quality. Avoid the cheap telescopes at the department stores. They not only have generally poor quality optics, but end up being a turn-off for those who purchase them. It's worth the extra money to get something you will enjoy.

3. Start simple. As much as the high-tech telescopes look like fun, they are still complex instruments that will need some degree of care-and-feeding when you use them. The most basic scopes, simple refractors on a lightweight tripod, take little time to set up and are the most simple to use. Also, a simple telescope is not as bulky and heavy to carry around. For kids, try out the Celestron FirstScope (see below).

4. Be comfortable. You really need to feel at ease with a telescope, so in the best case go to your local astronomy shop and try out a few. Scope City will let you take their binoculars and telescopes out in front of the store and do the "Safeway Test" to see how well you can resolve items in the aisles of Safeway grocery store next door.

5. Learn to use your telescope at your local astronomy club. Amateur astronomers like to help others to learn about astronomy. The San Francisco Amateur Astronomers and San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers hold Telescope Clinics at their monthly star parties. These are excellent venues to bring your scope and learn to use it with astronomy enthusiasts. Check the Night Sky Network for a club near you.

C: For Young People.

Kids can benefit from astronomy gifts that are easy to use and make it simple to immediately start enjoying. I found numerous websites that showcase books for kids. Skymaps.com has a very well organized list of books for different age ranges, all the way from age 4 to young adult and educator. The Top 10 Astronomy Books for Kids on about.com offers some good choices. On the telescope front in 2009, Celestron premiered the FirstScope, an extremely simple telescope for kids that, from the reviews I've read, is surprisingly good quality yet very low price (about $50 at most outlets). It is an 'official product' of the International Year of Astronomy (IYA) celebration. But in the end I was most enamored with this simple recommendation from the Suite101.com blog:

"What children really need, more than 'stuff,' is for someone to take the time to stand outside with them on a starry night and point out planets and constellations. Teach them the sky. You can give coupons good for '1 Hour of Observing with Mom' or something similar."

Happy Holidays. Stay warm and enjoy the long dark nights.

Ear Piercing

Ear piercing is one of the oldest practices. Ear Piercing is a technique of making a very small opening in your ears so that any thing, which is of length equal to needle's front, can be easily inserted in that part. Ear piercing is one of the oldest practices. Ear Piercing is a technique of making a very small opening in your ears so that any thing, which is of length equal to needle's front,

navel piercing jewlery

navel piercing infectionsnavel piercing jewlery

body piercing course

piercing placespiercing studiosbody piercing galleriesbody piercing course

Belly piercing

About Body Piercing

If you know your world history, you will see that Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans have all practiced body art such as piercing and tattooing. However, not all of those civilizations pierced their bodies for the same reasons. The reasons for body piercing in the old days may vary from body decoration (to show the role or rank of a person in the society) to protection against evil. In our present

Labret piercing

It's mother & daughter.............

vertical navel piercing

vertical navel piercingnavel piercing barsnavel piercing dangersnavel ringstitanium navel piercing

Tongue piercing

Get Involved: Astronomy Lectures, Star Parties and Telescope Workshops

There are many ways to get involved with astronomy here in San Francisco, or wherever you may be. A great resource for finding events in your neighborhood is the Night Sky Network, a resource chock-full of information from astronomy clubs across the United States. Just enter your location and you can find out what is happening in your area.

Here in San Francisco, the California Academy of Sciences has an astronomy lecture series called the Benjamin Dean Lecture Series. The next lecture in the series will be on Monday December 7th. The topic is Saturn, presented by Dr. Carolyn Porco, the director of the imaging team for the Cassini spacecraft that is orbiting Saturn. You can get tickets for the December 7th Dean Lecture online.

The San Francisco Amateur Astronomers (SFAA) have their monthly meeting at the Randall Museum on December 17th and their "City Star Party" on December 26th at Land's End in San Francisco. The City Star Party on the 26th (weather permitting) will be a great chance to bring out new holiday gifts such as telescopes and binoculars and learn to use them alongside amateur astronomers. The SFAA and the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers have free telescope workshops before each City Star Party but please RSVP to them at clinic@sfsidewalkastronomers.org if you plan to come on December 26th.

I hope to see you at an upcoming event!

Tongue piercing

Nose Piercings

Nose piercing is a custom which was prevalent in the Middle East and then taken to India by the Mughals in the 16th century. In the 1960s when the hippies made their way back from India, they brought back with them the custom of nose piercing more as a sign of rebellion against society than anything else.There are three types of nose piercings: nostril piercing, nasal septum piercing and bridge

Tongue piercing