Coconut Cruncher

RICHARD WISEMAN, Feb 16, 2009, 12.00am IST Why do some people have all the luck while others never get the breaks they deserve? I set out to examine luck, 10 years ago. Why are some people always in the right place at the right time, while others consistently experience ill fortune? I placed advertisements in national newspapers asking for people who felt consistently lucky or unlucky to contact me. Hundreds of extraordinary men and women volunteered for my research and over the years, have been interviewed by me. I have monitored their lives and had them take part in experiments. The results reveal that although these people have almost no insight into the causes of their luck, their thoughts and behaviour are responsible for much of their good and bad fortune. Take the case of seemingly chance opportunities. Lucky people consistently encounter such opportunities, whereas unlucky people do not. I carried out a simple experiment to discover whether this was due to differences...

This guy had been on a long flight. The first warning of the approaching problems came when the sign on the airplane flashed on: "Fasten your seat belts." Then, after a while, a calm voice said, "We shall not be serving the beverages at this time as we are expecting a little turbulence. Please be sure your seat belt is fastened." As he looked around the aircraft, it became obvious that many of the passengers were becoming apprehensive... Later, the voice of the announcer said, "We are so sorry that we are unable to serve the meal at this time. The turbulence is still ahead of us." And then the storm broke. The ominous cracks of thunder could be heard even above the roar of the engines. Lightening lit up the darkening skies and within moments that great plane was like a cork tossed around on a celestial ocean. One moment the airplane was lifted on terrific currents of air; the next, it dropped as if it were about to crash. The man confessed that he shared t...

A humble apology by the initiator!

Little Rupert, who is so small he can fit in an adult's hand, was born after vets failed in their battle to save his mother. This tiny deer was delivered by Caesarean section at a wildlife hospital after his mother was killed by a car. At just six inches tall and weighing just over a pound, he is now in an incubator in the intensive care unit at Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital in Buckinghamshire. He has only recently opened his eyes. Les Stocker, founder of Tiggywinkles, said: 'Rupert's mother had very severe injuries. We brought him out and got him breathing and then he went into an incubator on oxygen. He is now being fed by a tube.' Staff are optimistic Rupert, now five days old, will make a full recovery. 'Deer are very, very tricky but this one has spirit. He's an extremely feisty little guy and quite pushy,' Mr. Stocker said.

PORK CHOPS? In a California zoo, a tiger gave birth to a rare set of triplets. Unfortunately, due to complications during pregnancy, the cubs were born prematurely and, due to their tiny size, they died shortly after birth. The mother tiger after recovering from the delivery, started to decline in health, although she was fine, physically. The veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused the tigress to fall into a depression. They decided that if the she could get surrogate cubs, perhaps she would improve. After checking with many other zo os across the country, they found that there were no tiger cubs of the right age to introduce to the mourning mother. The veterinarians decided to try something that had never been tried in a zoo environment. Sometimes a mother of one species does take care of a different species. The only orphans that could be found quickly, were a litter of weanling pigs. The zoo keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in false tiger skin and placed t...

Hey guys! Check out: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22556678-23272,00.html?from=mostpop Lets you know if you are left or right brained. What's the difference? Info also on page. Cheers

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to hot coffee. When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: "If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups and were eyeing each other's cups. Now if life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hol...

Would you just look at the expression on the "other" little girl's face! That is so adorable!!!

Its a hard disk in 1956....The Volume and Size of 5MB memory storage in 1956.In September 1956 IBM launched the 305 RAMAC, the first computer with a hard disk drive (HDD). The HDD weighed over a ton and stored 5MB of data.

Strange but true! Do you know? Letters 'a', 'b', 'c' &'d' do not appear anywhere in the spellings of 1 to 99 (Letter 'd' comes for the first time in Hundred) Letters 'a', 'b' & 'c' do not appear anywhere in the spellings of 1 to 999 (Letter 'a' comes for the first time in thousand) Letters 'b' & 'c' do not appear anywhere in the spellings of 1 to 999,999,999 (Letter 'b' comes for the first time in Billion) And Letter 'c' does not appear anywhere in the spellings of entire English Counting

A Full Glass Of Milk Very nice story to spread to... One day, a poor boy who was selling goods from door to door to pay for his hungry stomach, decided he would ask for a meal at the next house. On the way to school, he found he had only one thin dime left and he was very hungry. However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door. Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water. The woman thought he looked hungry, so brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it slowly, and then asked, "How much do I owe you?" You don't owe me anything," she replied. "Mother has taught us, never to accept pay for a kindness." He said... "Then I thank you from my heart." Years later that young woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled. They finally sent her to the big city, where they called in specialists to study her rare disease. Dr. Howard Kelly was called in for the consultation. When he he...

An American decided to write a book about famous churches around the World. So he bought a plane ticket and took a trip to China . On his first day he was inside a church taking photographs when he noticed a golden telephone mounted on the wall with a sign that read "$10,000 per call". The American, being intrigued, asked a priest who was strolling by what the telephonewas used for. The priest replied that it was a direct line to heaven and that for $10,000 you could talk to God. The American thanked the priest and went along his way. Next stop was in Japan . There, at a very large cathedral, he saw the same golden telephone with the same sign under it. He wondered if this was the same kind of telephone he saw in China and He asked a nearby nun what its purpose was. She told him that it was a direct line to heaven and that for $10,000 He could talk to God. "O.K., thank you," said the American. He then travelled to Pakistan , Sri Lanka , Russia , Germany an...

This is a fact my friend Swarna/El gave me- By the way, do you know the origin of the word " villain " ? In ancient Latin , 'ville' stood for a small habitat -- what we call today a village. the church hated the village people, because most of them didn't follow Christianity , but old pagan religion or sorts of nature-worship, like gypsies. So the church said, "all who lives in the villages [ville] are wicked and enemy of whatever good and faith" and so all "villain" [meaning one who lives in a ville] are bad people. So we still now kill the villains.

An old man lived alone in Minnesota. He wanted to spade his potato garden, but it was very hard work. His only son, who would have helped him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and mentioned his situation: Dear Son, I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I won't be able to plant my potato garden this year. I hate to miss doing the garden because your mother always loved planting time. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. If you were here, all my troubles would be over. I know you would dig the plot for me, if you weren't in prison. Love, Dad Shortly, the old man received this telegram: "For Heaven's sake, Dad, don't dig up the garden!! That's where I buried the GUNS!!" At 4 a.m. the next morning, a dozen FBI agents and local police officers showed up and dug up the entire garden without finding any guns. Confused, the old man wrote another note to his son telling him what happened, and asked him what...

My wife called, 'How long will you be with that newspaper? Will you come here and make your darling daughter eat her food?' I tossed the paper away and rushed to the scene. My only daughter Sindu looked frightened. Tears were welling up in her eyes. In front of her was a bowl filled to its brim with Curd Rice. Sindu is a nice child, quite intelligent for her age.She has just turned eight. She particularly detested Curd Rice. My mother and my wife are orthodox, and believe firmly in the 'cooling effects' of Curd Rice! I cleared my throat, and picked up the bowl. 'Sindu, darling,why don't you take a few mouthful of this Curd Rice?Just for Dad's sake, dear. Sindu softened a bit, and wiped her tears with the back of her hands. 'OK, Dad. I will eat - not just a few mouthfuls, but the whole lot of this. But, you should...' Sindu hesitated. 'Dad, if I eat this entire curd Rice, will you give me whatever I ask for?'...........Oh sure, da...

Try this one.... How smart is Your Right Foot? This is so funny that it will boggle your mind. And you will keep trying at least 50 more times to see if you can out smart your foot, but you can't. While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles. Now, while doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction. I told you so...And there's nothing you can do about it. If you say you did it... YOU'RE LYING to YOURSELF .. because it CAN'T BE DONE... the Mind is stronger then the foot..! Make sure you pass this on to your friends...they won't be able to believe it either!! Have a nice day....

To realize The value of a sister Ask someone Who doesn't have one. To realize The value of ten years: Ask a newly Divorced couple. To realize The value of four years: Ask a graduate. To realize The value of one year: Ask a student who Has failed a final exam. To realize The value of nine months: Ask a mother who gave birth to a still born. To realize The value of one month: Ask a mother who has given birth to A premature baby. To realize The value of one week: Ask an editor of a weekly newspaper. To realize The value of one hour: Ask the lovers who are waiting to Meet. To realize The value of one minute: Ask a person Who has missed the train, bus or plane. To realize The value of one-second: Ask a person Who has survived an accident... To realize The value of one millisecond: Ask the person who has won a silver medal in the Olympics Time waits for no one. Treasure every moment you have. You will treasure it even more when you can share it with someone special. To r...

Father : "I want you to marry a girl of my choice" Son : "I will choose my own bride!" Father : "But the girl is Bill Gates's daughter." Son : "Well, in that case...ok" Next - Father approaches Bill Gates. Father : "I have a husband for your daughter." Bill Gates : "But my daughter is too young to marry!" Father : "But this young man is a vice-president of the World Bank." Bill Gates : "Ah, in that case...ok" Finally Father goes to see the president of the World Bank. Father : "I have a young man to be recommended as a vice-president." President : "But I already have more vice- presidents than I need!" Father : "But this young man is Bill Gates's son-in-law." President : "Ah, in that case...ok" This is how business is done!! Moral: Even If you have nothing,You can get Anything. But your attitude should be positive

You may not believe in this but the advice is great! Read all the way down, you might learn something!!! ONE. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully. TWO. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other. THREE. Don't believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want. FOUR. When you say, "I love you", mean it. FIVE. When you say, "I'm sorry", look the person in the eye. SIX. Be engaged at least six months before you get married. SEVEN. Believe in love at first sight. //I do NOT n I won't! HMPH!! That's just CRAZY! EIGHT. Never laugh at anyone's dreams. People who don't have dreams don't have much. NINE. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it's the only way to live life completely. TEN. In disagreements, fight fairly. Please No name calling. ELEVEN. Don't judge people by their relatives. TWELVE. Talk slowly but think ...