Saturday, February 27, 2010
Dennis is dying of cancer
Revealed: why Hopper wanted deathbed divorce
Wife Victoria loses her inheritance if she’s not living with him when he dies
By Jack Bremer
LAST UPDATED 10:16 AM, FEBRUARY 12, 2010
The final days of the Hollywood actor-director Dennis Hopper, terminally ill with prostate cancer, are beginning to rival a Hopper movie for bizarre behaviour. Having suddenly announced in mid-January that he wanted a deathbed divorce from his wife Victoria Duffy, the 73-year-old star has since won a restraining order which forbids her to go within 15 yards of him.
Why Hopper would do this is now much clearer after the judge in the divorce case unsealed a copy of the 'prenup' Hopper and Duffy signed before their wedding 14 years ago.
Under the terms of the agreement, in the event of a divorce Hopper would keep all his property - including his complex on Venice Beach, Los Angeles, and large parcels of land in Arizona and New Mexico - and his art collection.
In addition, Victoria would have only 60 days to get out of the marital home. That gives her until March 11.
Most important - and key to the recent goings-on - Victoria was due to inherit 25 per cent of his estate if she and Hopper were still married and living together at the time of his death. But if they are divorced, she gets nothing. (Though she is allowed to keep what she brought to the marriage - two computers, two bookcases full of books, her granny's furniture and a 1973 VW Karmann Ghia.)
So now we know why Hopper is so desperate to stay alive - so that the divorce can proceed and Victoria's 60-day limit pass by.
Quite why Hopper wants his wife to inherit nothing is not so clear. She claims he's under pressure from his older children from a previous marriage, who now stand to carve up a great inheritance.
Hopper's doctor, David Argus, insists the Easy Rider and Blue Velvet star is of sound mind, even if he does not have long to go. And he also claims that Hopper has a better chance of survival if Victoria stays away from the hospital where he's dying - hence the restraining order.
"It is my belief and recommendation that the less Mr Hopper has to do with his estranged wife at this time, the more likely he is to have his life extended," Argus said.
Hang on in there, Dennis.
Wonderful English from Around the World
Only the English could have invented this language...
We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
Then shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!
Let’s face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren’t invented in England ..
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing,
grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?
Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.
If you have a bunch of odds and ends
and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
in which your house can burn up as it burns down,
in which you fill in a form by filling it out,
and in which an alarm goes off by going on.
And, in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother’s not Mop?
Only the English could have invented this language...
We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
Then shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!
Let’s face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren’t invented in England ..
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing,
grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?
Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.
If you have a bunch of odds and ends
and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
in which your house can burn up as it burns down,
in which you fill in a form by filling it out,
and in which an alarm goes off by going on.
And, in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother’s not Mop?
Friday, February 26, 2010
Two Interesting Years
Interesting Year 1981
1. Prince Charles got married
2. Liverpool crowned soccer Champions of Europe
3. Australia lost the Ashes (cricket) tournament.
4. The Pope died
Interesting Year 2005
1. Prince Charles got married
2. Liverpool crowned soccer Champions of Europe
3. Australia lost the Ashes (cricket) tournament.
4. The Pope died
Lesson to be learned:
The next time Charles gets married, someone warn the Pope.
Interesting Year 1981
1. Prince Charles got married
2. Liverpool crowned soccer Champions of Europe
3. Australia lost the Ashes (cricket) tournament.
4. The Pope died
Interesting Year 2005
1. Prince Charles got married
2. Liverpool crowned soccer Champions of Europe
3. Australia lost the Ashes (cricket) tournament.
4. The Pope died
Lesson to be learned:
The next time Charles gets married, someone warn the Pope.
the king of cool
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
I WANT ONE
Pygmy hippos share the same general form as a hippopotamus. They have a graviportal skeleton, with four short legs and four toes on each foot, supporting a portly frame. The pygmy hippo, however, is only half as tall as the hippopotamus and weighs less than 1/4 as much as its larger cousin. Adult pygmy hippos stand about 75–83 cm (30–32 inches) high at the shoulder, are 150–177 cm (59–70 inches) in length and weigh 180–275 kilograms (400–600 pounds).[7] Their lifespan in captivity ranges from 30 to 55 years, though it is unlikely that they live this long in the wild
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Hitler got it all wrong
Buddhism originated in India in the 5th century BC and inherited the manji or swastika. Also known as a "yung drung"[17] in ancient Tibet, it was a graphical representation of eternity.[18] Today the symbol is used in Buddhist art and scripture and represents dharma, universal harmony, and the balance of opposites. One can see swastika on the Pillars of Ashoka where the swastika is a symbol of the cosmic dance around a fixed center and guards against evil.
The paired swastika symbols are included, at least since the Liao Dynasty, as part of the Chinese language, the symbolic sign for the character 萬 or 万 (wàn in Mandarin, man in Korean, Cantonese and Japanese, vạn in Vietnamese) meaning "all" or "eternality" (lit. myriad) and as 卐, which is seldom used. Swastika marks the beginning of many Buddhist scriptures. The swastika (in either orientation) appears on the chest of some statues of Gautama Buddha and is often incised on the soles of the feet of the Buddha in statuary. Because of the association of the right-facing swastika with Nazism, Buddhist swastika (outside India only) after the mid-20th century are almost universally left-facing: 卍. This form of the swastika is often found on Chinese food packaging to signify that the product is vegetarian and can be consumed by strict Buddhists. It is often sewn into the collars of Chinese children's clothing to protect them from evil spirits.
In 1922, the Chinese Syncretist movement Daoyuan founded the philanthropic association Red Swastika Society in imitation of the Red Cross. The association was very active in China during the 1920s and the 1930s.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
This afternoon I was reading Richard Branson’s autobiography when I came across an interesting fact about the word “bollocks”. In 1977 when Virgin Music were promoting the Sex Pistol’s album “Never mind the bollocks, here’s the Sex Pistols”, the police arrested the manager of one of Virgin’s stores under the Indecent Advertisements Act of 1889 because the posters displayed in the shop window contained the word “bollocks”. The case went to trial. In preparation for the court case Richard Branson spoke to a linguist, a Professor James Kinsley, to clarify the meaning of the word. Turns out the word “bollocks” is an eighteenth-century nickname for priests. As priests generally seemed to speak such a lot of nonense during their sermons, the word “bollocks” gradually came to mean “rubbish”. The case was subsequently dismissed. So there you go: the word “bollocks” has nothing to do with testicles, it means “rubbish”. So the next time your boss has a crap idea …
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
AMAZING PHOTO but he either is very brave or very stupid
The hyena is Africa's most common large carnivore. Over the years hyenas and humans have come into close contact in Africa and, in earlier times, in Asia and in Europe, often leading to mutual predation. In ancient Egypt hyenas were domesticated, fattened and eaten, and in turn humans have on occasion become food for hyenas. Reputed to be cowardly and timid, the hyena can be bold and dangerous, attacking animals and humans.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
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