Woman drinks so much water she dies

SACRAMENTO, California (AP) -- A woman who competed in a radio station's contest to see how much water she could drink without going to the bathroom died of water intoxication, the coroner's office said Saturday.

Jennifer Strange, 28, was found dead Friday in her suburban Rancho Cordova home hours after taking part in the "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest in which KDND 107.9 promised a Nintendo Wii video game system for the winner.

"She said to one of our supervisors that she was on her way home and her head was hurting her real bad," said Laura Rios, one of Strange's co-workers at Radiological Associates of Sacramento. "She was crying, and that was the last that anyone had heard from her."

It was not immediately known how much water Strange consumed.

A preliminary investigation found evidence "consistent with a water intoxication death," said assistant Coroner Ed Smith.

John Geary, vice president and marketing manager for Entercom Sacramento, the station's owner, said station personnel were stunned when they heard of Strange's death.

"We are awaiting information that will help explain how this tragic event occurred," he said.

Initially, contestants were handed 8-ounce bottles of water to drink every 15 minutes.

"They were small little half-pint bottles, so we thought it was going to be easy," said fellow contestant James Ybarra of Woodland. "They told us if you don't feel like you can do this, don't put your health at risk."

Ybarra said he quit after drinking five bottles. "My bladder couldn't handle it anymore," he added.

After he quit, he said, the remaining contestants, including Strange, were given even bigger bottles to drink.

"I was talking to her and she was a nice lady," Ybarra said. "She was telling me about her family and her three kids and how she was doing it for her kids."

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Two of Richest Women in Entertainment

Singer Mariah Carey, formerly married to Sony music mogul Tommy Mottola, has sold 160 million albums.
Though her career took a temporary nose dive after her 2001 movie, "Glitter," bombed, the 36-year-old had enough juice to earn a $225 million net worth, placing her sixth on the Forbes list.
(Matt Sayles/AP Photo)

Britney Spears' recent domestic troubles didn't stop the former teen pop queen, now 25, from amassing a $100 million fortune, tying her with the Olsen twins for 11th place.
(Kevork Djansezian/AP Photo)

MySpace Hit With Online Predator Suits

Families Sue News Corp. and MySpace After Children Abused by Adult MySpace Users
By JESSICA MINTZ AP Business Writer

NEW YORK Jan 18, 2007 (AP)— Four families have sued News Corp. and its MySpace social-networking site after their underage daughters were sexually abused by adults they met on the site, lawyers for the families said Thursday.

The law firms, Barry & Loewy LLP of Austin, Texas, and Arnold & Itkin LLP of Houston, said families from New York, Texas, Pennsylvania and South Carolina filed separate suits Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging negligence, recklessness, fraud and negligent misrepresentation by the companies.

"In our view, MySpace waited entirely too long to attempt to institute meaningful security measures that effectively increase the safety of their underage users," said Jason A. Itkin, an Arnold & Itkin lawyer.

The families are seeking monetary damages "in the millions of dollars," Itkin said.

"Hopefully these lawsuits can spur MySpace into action and prevent this from happening to another child somewhere," he said.

Critics including parents, school officials and police have been increasingly warning of online predators at sites like MySpace, where youth-oriented visitors are encouraged to expand their circles of friends using free messaging tools and personal profile pages.

MySpace has responded with added educational efforts and partnerships with law enforcement. The company has also placed restrictions on how adults may contact younger users on MySpace, while developing technologies such as one announced Wednesday to let parents see some aspects of their child's online profile, including the stated age. That tool is expected this summer.

"MySpace serves as an industry leader on Internet safety and we take proactive measures to protect our members," Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace's chief security officer, said in a statement. "We provide users with a range of tools to enable a safer online experience."

But he said Internet safety is a shared responsibility, requiring users to "apply common sense offline safety lessons in their online experiences and engage in open family dialogue."

(Read More...)

Source: abcnews.com

What Guys Really Want

Click and See:

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Funny: Fishing

'World's Most Beautiful Woman' May End Her Career for Love

Actress Aishwarya Rai wears a diamond necklace during the unveiling of a new diamond jewellery collection in Mumbai October 3, 2006. (Prashanth Vishwanathan/Reuters)

'Brangelina' on Steroids: Indian Film Stars to WedQuestions Surround Film Career of Indian Bollywood Star
By STEVE GROVE

Jan 17, 2007— This week, Indian movie star Aishwarya Rai, a former Miss World, who is also one of the wealthiest women in India, announced her engagement to celebrity co-star Abhishek Bachchan, and all of India was abuzz.

Among the biggest questions: "Will she quit her acting career to become an obedient bahu (wife)?"

Though Rai hasn't announced any changes to her career, the rumors are rampant and history suggests it's possible. Female Hollywood stars in the U.S. make headlines for the lurid details of their private lives — obscene photos, sex videos, and eating disorders. But in India, the stars of "Bollywood" — the term used to describe the Indian movie industry — generally gain diva status for squeaky clean on-screen images and conservative off-screen values.

"The moment they get married, their life as a screen heroine is more or less over," says Gyan Prakash, a professor of Indian history at Princeton University. The thinking, he explained, is this: "Once you get married, how can you conduct on-screen romances?"

Bollywood Lights

Rai's relationship with Bachchan has recieved so much coverage in the Indian press that the couple has earned the nickname, "India's Brangelina." Indians pay even more attention to their stars than Americans do.

"Bollywood stars are revered like Gods," said Devika Chawla, a professor at the University of Ohio who researches marriage in India. "People follow them."

Time magazine named Rai one of the most influential people on the planet and Bachchan hails from the most famous acting family in India. Rumors of the engagement ran wild in recent weeks after their parents were spotted going to the temple together to seek blessings for the couple, whose horoscopes are said to be a mismatch.

Add to that the fact that Bollywood reaches an estimated 4 billion viewers per year, and the relationship starts to look more like "Brangelina" on steroids.

Though scrutiny of the Rai engagement has been intense, it is traditionally the on-screen personas of Bollywood stars that fans identify with, says Princeton's Prakash. Fans develop almost personal relationships with Bollywood characters, and have traditionally not been as engaged in the private lives of their idols.

(Read More...)

Source: abcnews.com

U.S. doctors to get free e-prescribing software

Initiative aims to get all U.S. doctors, pharmacies to use e-prescribing and eliminate prescription errors

By Grant Gross, IDG News Service
January 16, 2007

Doctors in the U.S. will have access to free, Web-based electronic medicine prescribing software within a month, a group of health-care providers and technology vendors announced Tuesday.

The goals of the National ePrescribing Patient Safety Initiative (NEPSI) are to get every U.S. doctor and pharmacy to use e-prescribing software and to eliminate thousands of injuries and deaths in the U.S. each year caused by prescription errors, supporters said at a press conference in Washington, D.C.

The e-prescribing initiative will eliminate common errors associated with handwritten prescriptions, including wrong drugs sold because a pharmacist can't read a doctor's writing, and a lack of drug interaction checks, said Dr. Nancy Dickey, president of the Health Science Center and vice chancellor for health affairs at Texas A&M University System.

"Paper kills," added Newt Gingrich, a former U.S. representative and founder of the Center for Health Transformation. "It is a clear fact that a paper prescription is dangerous."

Gingrich and other speakers pointed to a July 2006 study by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences that said 1.5 million U.S. residents are injured each year and more than 7,000 killed because of prescription errors. Only about 20 percent of U.S. doctors use e-prescribing systems, but the NEPSI program "literally takes away any excuse" that doctors have, Gingrich said.

Many doctors have complained of the cost of implementing an e-prescribing system, but e-prescribing vendor Allscripts LLC is making its eRX Now software available as a Web-based service, accessible with any PC, mobile phone or personal digital assistant connected to the Internet. About 20,000 U.S. doctors currently use eRX Now, according to Allscripts.

Some doctors have also raised concerns about the amount of training needed for office workers, but most people with any computer experience should be able to understand eRX Now in less than 30 minutes, Dickey said.

"The staff here has trained me in the process literally standing on the sidewalk," she said.

The free package could take away from other vendors offering e-prescribing software, but Allscripts Chief Executive Officer Glen Tullman said he hopes NEPSI can build on e-prescribing programs already started. The Allscripts software is designed to be interoperable with other vendors' e-health records software, and it will be able to import patient records from many major patient data management packages, he said.

Allscripts and other technology partners will not make money from NEPSI, but the vendors see business opportunities down the road, when full-featured e-health records are in place, Tullman said. Allscripts sells e-health record software, and putting an e-prescribing system in place is the first step toward full e-health records, he said.

Other technology partners include Dell Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Sprint Nextel Corp., which is making available a limited number of e-prescribing-enabled mobile phones to doctors without Internet access, Tullman said.

Representatives of Microsoft and Dell said the program will help their employees better manage their health-care options, and it will show U.S. residents the benefits of e-health records.

Another partner is SureScripts Inc., an e-prescribing vendor founded by two pharmacist organizations that has provided e-prescribing access to about 99 percent of U.S. pharmacies.

Thirteen health-care or insurance providers have signed up as regional supporters of NEPSI, with many providing training and promoting the program.

Doctors can sign up for the program starting Tuesday, and the software will be available within 30 days, Dickey said.

Source: infoworld.com

Top Brazilian Model: ADRIANA LIMA

Wal-Mart's New-New Adman

By awarding The Martin Agency its main creative account, the top retailer tries to put an embarrassing episode behind it and regain momentum
by Burt Helm and Pallavi Gogoi

After a difficult month that saw Wal-Mart (WMT) sack a star marketing executive and fire the ad agency that exec had helped select, the retailer has decided who will handle its roughly $580 million annual advertising budget. The Martin Agency of Richmond, Va., owned by the Interpublic Group (IPG), will run Wal-Mart's general market creative account, while Publicis-owned MediaVest will handle media buying and planning, Wal-Mart said in a Jan. 12 statement. The company also named three agencies to handle multicultural advertising: Southfield (Mich.)-based GlobalHue for African-American advertising, Los Angeles-based IW Group for the Asian-American market, and Houston-based Lopez Negrete for Hispanics.

The announcement comes after a roller-coaster ride for Wal-Mart's marketing side, including the abrupt dismissal in December of Senior Vice-President Julie Roehm and the related firing of Interpublic-owned Draft FCB just six weeks after its selection as Wal-Mart's ad agency (see BusinessWeek.com, 12/7/06, "Wal-Mart Leaves Draft Out in the Cold"). The selection is especially good news for Interpublic, as the beleaguered holding company will keep the high-profile Wal-Mart business. Interpublic shares rose 2.5% on the announcement. "We're excited to work with a high-quality group of people on a canvas that is very large, very visible, at a time when Wal-Mart is doing some of the most exciting things in its history," says John Adams, Martin's chief executive officer and chairman. Wal-Mart said it had nothing to add beyond its press announcement.

Upscale Initiative Stumbled

The agency selection process, originally announced this past May, was part of plans to refashion Wal-Mart's image beyond merely a big-box retailer known for low prices and attract consumers to shop for higher-margin items such as apparel and electronics (see BusinessWeek.com, 9/19/06, "Wanna Be Wal-Mart's Adman?"). After appointing John Fleming as chief marketing officer, the retailer brought in fresh talent from outside of its home state of Arkansas, including Roehm, then marketing chief for the Chrysler Group (DCX), and Stephen Quinn, chief marketing officer for PepsiCo (PEP) unit Frito-Lay. In October, Wal-Mart selected Draft FCB out of four finalists (including Martin) to lead the charge as its agency of record.

Chief among Wal-Mart's plans: Woo upscale shoppers by stocking its stores with fashionable apparel, including its new Metro 7 line, and place multipage ads with fashion bible Vogue. But that strategy backfired badly and third-quarter revenue and earnings fell short of expectations. "We expanded Metro 7 beyond what now appears to be the right segmentation," conceded Vice-Chairman John Menzer in the company's earnings conference call on Nov. 14.

More dramatic changes occurred during the week of Dec. 4. In short order, Wal-Mart dismissed Roehm and her deputy, Sean Womack. Both had been heavily involved with the agency selection process. Days later, it fired Draft FCB. Publicly, a Wal-Mart spokesperson would only say these actions were the result of "new information obtained over the past few weeks," and declined to elaborate. But people familiar with the situation say the two executive dismissals and the agency firing were due, at least in part, to violations of Wal-Mart's gift policies and a clash with its conservative culture. At the time, Roehm and Womack denied any wrongdoing.

(Read More...)
Source: BusinessWeek.com

Opera v9.10 build 8692

Opera is known as the fastest and smallest full-featured browser, a first choice for people using older PCs and Windows 95 and a brilliant alternative to the default IE from Microsoft. This new version has a chance to actually beat IE hands-down because it has a truckload of new and exciting features. It complies to all the current web-page standards, it has a completely new interface (you can choose from single window and multi-window view), built-in search, a download manager, an advanced mail/news reader, print preview, a huge bookmark collection and much more in a 2Mb free package! Well, the free package also includes banner ads, but Opera is believed to be completely free of spyware, unlike some of its competitors. It’s lightning fast as well as stable and it looks gorgeous. It’s simply perfect! For a complete list of features check out the official website, there’s vastly more to discover.

Opera, first of all, is client World Wide Web, that is the program for extraction of the information from WWW as the documents created with help HyperText Markup Language (language of a marking of hypertext HTML).
Low requirements to resources of system. Opera will work even on 386 computer about 6 Mb of operative memory.MDI the interface. You can open without special expenses of memory any quantity of windows inside one working window, having chosen thus a tabulared or cascade mode.

Changelog:

• CSS height:inherit now inherits the computed value
• Scripts in framesets now execute onload
• Applets inserted with innerHTML can now be called by javascript
• Fullscreen movies on youtube movies now start
• Fixed hang on Opera windows when starting Opera with a language file saved with mac style newlines
• An invalid system locale no longer causes missing text
• Capital letter "enctype" now doesn't break file uploads on ie virusscan.jotti.org
• YouTube videos progress bar now updates
• Images with broken exif data now display
• Downloading a widget now only sends one GET request
• Fixed 100% CPU when loading http://
• Fixed loading of netvibes.com
• IRC /quit messages now work properly
• Loading cnn.com now finishes properly
• Transfer status on IRC improved
• Fixed crash when performing 'copy link address' on a non-link
• Spell checking works better on debian
• Fixed crasher when trying to download a file to a full disk

Download

I downloaded and ready to use now ^_^

Beckham agreed Los Angeles move after advice from Cruise

By Jill Serjeant
Reuters

Jan 12, 2007 — LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former England captain David Beckham sought the advice of his actor friend Tom Cruise before agreeing his big-money move from Real Madrid to Los Angeles Galaxy worth $1 million a week over five years.

"I was on the phone to him (Cruise) for about an hour last night and an hour the night before," Beckham told reporters on Friday.

"Obviously I asked him for his advice because he is a very wise man and a very good friend of mine. It's going to be a big help for us to have friends when we arrive in LA."

Beckham, who announced on Thursday that he would be joining Major League Soccer side the Galaxy in August, appeared via satellite from Madrid at a Los Angeles news conference.

"I am coming not to be the superstar but to be part of the team, work hard and hopefully win things," said Beckham, whose five-year deal is the biggest in world sport.

"It is about the football. I am coming to make a difference. I would like to take (the sport) to another level."

The former Manchester United player said soccer had huge potential in the United States, particularly with children, despite its second-class status by comparison with basketball, baseball, football and ice hockey.

BIGGEST SPORT

"I am not saying my coming to the States is going to make soccer the biggest sport in America because that is going to be very difficult to achieve," said Beckham.

"But I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't believe I could make a difference and take soccer to a different level. This is something that I believe in."

Beckham was dropped by England after the 2006 World Cup and has spent much of this season on Real's bench.

He and his wife, former Spice Girl Victoria, have become two of the most recognisable and marketable figures in sport and celebrity culture.

The Galaxy said the club had sold more than 1,000 season-tickets on Thursday in the heady first hours after news broke of Beckham's signing.

Beckham told ABC television's Good Morning America on Friday the package was "an amazing amount of money."

(Read More...)
Source: abcnews.com

Supermarket Wars: Stores Use Dancing Animals, Size to Battle for Your Dollars

Grocery store Jungle Jim's boasts

attractions worthy of a theme park. (ABCNEWS.com)

Fire Trucks, Fish Boats Used in Layout of Jungle Jim's in Ohio

Jan. 13, 2007 — Fifty years ago, a trip to the grocery store usually didn't have many surprises. The produce usually looked the same wherever you shopped. The clerks were friendly and the bag boys would even help you carry your groceries to the car.

The modern grocery shopping experience now includes bigger crowds, less personal attention and so many choices that it can be downright confusing.

"Supermarket shopping is a difficult experience. I never find what I am looking for. Places are busy all the time. It's frustrating," one shopper told "Good Morning America Weekend Edition."

In recent years, many shoppers have abandoned their local grocery chains for bulk retailers like Costco, and Wal-Mart, who understand consumers like to buy more for less.

But now the race to build bigger and better has reached a new level.

Welcome to Jungle Jim's International Market in Fairfield, Ohio. A grocery store that looks more like a theme park, the sprawling mecca for foodies has over six acres of shopping under one roof.

Hosting more than 50,000 shoppers a week, it's a world tour of food fantasy from the Fabled Sherwood Forrest to Gilligan's Island. Displays include dancing animatronic animals, an authentic shrimp boat, aquariums, wine cellars and even a fire truck suspended over 1,000 different hot sauces.


Upping the Ante to Woo Shoppers

Showmanship, excess and a sense of humor translate into big business for owner and creator Jim Bonaminio. Jungle Jim's raked in over $100 million in sales last year.

"People get lost. We're ready to give people beepers here, like a restaurant, they get lost for days," Bonaminio said.

Jungle Jim's has become such a phenomenon, shoppers are actually coming from hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles away just to experience it.

Events like cooking classes, shows and wine tasting help shoppers make a day of it.

But in the end, it's the food that's the big draw. The produce section stretches for 1.5 acres. The store boasts one of the nation's largest wine collections. There are also cigars, more than 1,600 cheeses, a Titanic-sized seafood section and hundreds of honeys.

(Read More...)
Source: abcnews.com

Flakes of Snow, enjoy!