News

"Lubricate with Laughter"

By Rob Winters - Published on Tuesday, 26 April 2011 07:33

"I was three or four jokes into my routine, when I realized that one of the troublemakers my client warned me about was sitting dead center on the front row. With arms firmly crossed over his chest, and a frown deeply embedded in his face, he was glaring defiantly at me with eyes that said, "You'll never make me laugh." In my mind, I silently agreed by nicknaming him: Stoneface.

It was the beginning of a full day seminar on creativity in advertising. The meeting planner warned me that several members of the audience resented being forced to attend these workshops. She said, they had caused problems for previous presenters - including heckling them!"

Read more: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-main-ingredient/201104/lubricate-laughter

A growing trend - Vegetable gardening

By Rob Winters - Published on Friday, 22 April 2011 08:34

"A new generation of vegetable gardeners is transforming the urban environment and the way we are thinking about food.

They are planting on boulevards, digging garden plots in city parks, tearing the sod out of their back yards and even their front yards and filling their balconies with pots full of herbs and greens. It's the young, the urban, the cool. And the rest of us, too."

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/growing+trend/4627965/story.html

The Modern Guide to Breakups

By Rob Winters - Published on Tuesday, 19 April 2011 18:48

"Julie Spira isn’t just any writer. She bills herself as an expert on Internet dating, and wrote a book called The Perils of Cyber-Dating. When, in 2005, she met The Doctor on an online dating site, Spira was positive she’d finally found The One. “He seemed very solid and close to his family,” Spira recalls. He made it clear on their first date that, after the end of a lengthy marriage and a year of serial dating, he was looking for an enduring relationship. “That was very appealing to me.”

She took it as a sign of his integrity. It didn’t hurt that he was handsome, too. Eight months of exclusive dating later, The Doctor asked her to marry him."

Read more: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201012/the-thoroughly-modern-guide-breakups

Paralysed Dan wants to die

By Rob Winters - Published on Monday, 18 April 2011 20:27

"Paralysed since the age of three, Dan Crews hoped that he would not live to see the day that his money ran out.

Now, with his house in foreclosure in Antioch, Illinois and a nursing agency threatening to sue, family members face the heart-wrenching prospect of moving the 27-year-old man into a nursing home.

As a quadriplegic, Crews cannot move his body from the neck down. He relies on a ventilator and needs around-the-clock care, which had been paid for through a trust fund established in 1992 after a $6 million personal injury settlement."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/why--paralysed-dan-wants-to-die-bank-wants-his-home-and-his-moneys-run-out-20110418-1dl8f.html

"Married nursing home residents get break"

By Rob Winters - Published on Monday, 18 April 2011 20:20

"Ontario’s married nursing home residents will no longer pay a premium just to be together.

Health Minister Deb Matthews, responding to a Sun Media column by Christina Blizzard that documented the plight of the Springers, said spouses deserve to share a room without paying the higher semi-private rate.

“I read the story of Marjory, Paul and their family, and it is indeed a story that calls out for a response,” Matthews said Monday."

Read more: http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2011/04/18/18036581.html

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