Curious Benjamin

Well, the name of my blog sums up to an extent a characteristic of mine....'curiosity'.
I know that curiosity killed the cat but in case of human I guess all it kills is ignorance. It is one of the greatest virtue and one of the first and simplest emotion which can be discovered in human mind.
This blog is an attempt to put together all those little interesting things which I come across on a daily basis while satisfying this 'simple emotion' of mine.

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    “Even the wildest dreams have to start somewhere. Allow yourself the time and space to let your mind wander and your imagination fly”

    Oprah Winfrey

    Iceland Time Lapse

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    Vintage

    Vintage

    Life @ 42!

    “Aging is not ‘lost youth’ but a new stage of opportunity and strength”
    Well another year passed by with few hick ups and few good surprises.  Recently, have been looking at few of my school pictures and it seemed everything was just so recent.  Those moments of innocent pranks, endless chats, those school gossips. Everything felt like it had happened just yesterday!! And now when I look at this number in the adjacent picture, I really ask my self ‘am I really 42?’ ‘Have I really left 42 years of my life behind?’ ‘Am I really as ‘matured’ and as ‘grown up’ as a person aged 42 normally is supposed to be or do I need few grey hair?’
    Puzzled with all these questions I started thinking about the significance of number 42.  Curious enough, I started browsing the web searching for the answer.  That’s when I stumbled upon a phrase ‘“The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is 42.”  When Douglas Adams wrote ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, he added this phrase as a central joke which has become more famous over the years than the novel itself. Geeks have since wasted years and massive effort trying to ascribe some deep, symbolic significance to the number and its occurrences.  millions of Hitchhiker’s fans to this day persist in trying to decipher what they imagine was Adams’ secret motivations. Here are 42 things to fuel this fascination with the number 42.
    1. Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert died aged 42; they had 42 grandchildren and their great-grandson, Edward VIII, abdicated at the age of 42.
    2. The world’s first book printed with movable type is the Gutenberg Bible which has 42 lines per page.
    3. On page 42 of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Harry discovers he’s a wizard.
    4. The first time Douglas Adams essayed the number 42 was in a sketch called “The Hole in the Wall Club”. In it, comedian Griff Rhys Jones mentions the 42nd meeting of the Crawley and District Paranoid Society.
    5. Lord Lucan’s last known location was outside 42 Norman Road, Newhaven, East Sussex.
    6. The Doctor Who episode entitled “42” lasts for 42 minutes.
    7. Titanic was travelling at a speed equivalent to 42km/hour when it collided with an iceberg.
    8. The marine battalion 42 Commando insists that it be known as “Four two, Sir!”
    9. In east Asia, including parts of China, tall buildings often avoid having a 42nd floor because of tetraphobia – fear of the number four because the words “four” and “death” sound the same (si or sei). Likewise, four 14, 24, etc.
    10. Elvis Presley died at the age of 42.
    11. BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs was created in 1942. There are 42 guests per year.
    12. Toy Story character Buzz Lightyear’s spaceship is named 42.
    13. Fox Mulder’s apartment in the US TV series The X Files was number 42.
    14. The youngest president of the United States,Theodore Roosevelt, was 42 when he was elected.
    15. The office of Google’s chief executive Eric Schmidt is called Building 42 of the firm’s San Francisco complex.
    16. The Bell-X1 rocket plane Glamorous Glennis piloted by Chuck Yeager, first broke the sound barrier at 42,000 feet.
    17. The atomic bomb that devastated Nagasaki, Japan, contained the destructive power of 42 million sticks of dynamite.
    18. A single Big Mac contains 42 per cent of the recommended daily intake of salt.
    19. Cricket has 42 laws.
    20. On page 42 of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Jonathan Harker discovers he is a prisoner of the vampire. And on the same page of Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein reveals he is able to create life.
    21. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Friar Laurence gives Juliet a potion that allows for her to be in a death-like coma for “two and forty hours”.
    22. The three best-selling music albums – Michael Jackson’s Thriller, AC/DC’s Back in Black and Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon – last 42 minutes.
    23. The result of the most famous game in English football – the world cup final of 1966 – was 4-2.
    24. The type 42 vacuum tube was one of the most popular audio output amplifiers of the 1930s.
    25. A marathon course is 42km and 195m.
    26. Samuel Johnson compiled the Dictionary of the English Language, regarded as one of the greatest works of scholarship. In a nine-year period he defined a total of 42,777 words.
    27. 42,000 balls were used at Wimbledon last year.
    28. The wonder horse Nijinsky was 42 months old in 1970 when he became the last horse to win the English Triple Crown: the Derby; the 2000 Guineas and the St Leger.
    29. The element molybdenum has the atomic number 42 and is also the 42nd most common element in the universe.
    30. Dodi Fayed was 42 when he was killed alongside Princess Diana.
    31. Cell 42 on Alcatraz Island was once home to Robert Stroud who was transferred to The Rock in 1942. After murdering a guard he spent 42 years in solitary confinement in different prisons.
    32. In the Book of Revelation, it is prophesised that the beast will hold dominion over the earth for 42 months.
    33. The Moorgate Tube disaster of 1975 killed 42 passengers.
    34. When the growing numbers of Large Hadron Collider scientists acquired more office space recently, they named their new complex Building 42.
    35. Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has 42 illustrations.
    36. 42 is the favourite number of Dr House, the American television doctor played by Hugh Laurie.
    37. There are 42 US gallons in a barrel of oil.
    38. In an episode of The Simpsons, police chief Wiggum wakes up to a question aimed at him and replies “42”.
    39. Best Western is the world’s largest hotel chain with more than 4,200 hotels in 80 countries.
    40. There are 42 principles of Ma’at, the ancient Egyptian goddess – and concept – of physical and moral law, order and truth.
    41. Mungo Jerry’s 1970 hit “In the Summertime”, written by Ray Dorset, has a tempo of 42 beats per minute.
    42. The band Level 42 chose their name in recognition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and not – as is often repeated – after the world’s tallest car park.
    Source independent.co.uk

    Incredible Time lapse

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    Keep Calm

    Keep Calm

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    coffeeandartworks: The Eternal Conflict between Rock and Water http://bit.ly/xSjMMI

    coffeeandartworks:

    The Eternal Conflict between Rock and Water http://bit.ly/xSjMMI

    Source thecreativeweb

    “Age is whatever you think it is. You are as old as you think you are.”

    Muhammad Ali

    12 things happier people do

    Apparently, following are the 12 things happier people do on a consistant basis;

    1. Express gratitude.
    2. Cultivate optimism.
    3. Avoid over-thinking and social comparison.
    4, Practice acts of kindness.
    5. Nurture social relationships.
    6. Develop strategies for coping. 
    7. Learn to forgive.
    8. Increase flow experiences. 
    9. Savor life’s joys. 
    10. Commit to your goals. 
    11. Practice spirituality. 
    12. Take care of your body.

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    Weekend Humor

    Weekend Humor

    Positive Thinking

    “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity and an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” - Winston Churchill

    I am one die-hard believer of positive thinking and the changes it can bring about in any one’s life who chooses to practice it.  More often than not I personally try to practice it.   Recently, I came across a story of one such hell of a positive thinker.  Read on…

    Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!”

    He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

    Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, “I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?” Jerry replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.’ I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.”

    “Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,” I protested.

    “Yes it is,” Jerry said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It’s your choice how you live life.”

    I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it. Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body. I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, “If I were any better, I’d be twins. Wanna see my scars?”

    I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. “The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door,” Jerry replied. “Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live.”

    “Weren’t you scared? Did you lose consciousness?” I asked. Jerry continued, “The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, ‘He’s a dead man.’ I knew I needed to take action.”

    “What did you do?” I asked.

    “Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me,” said Jerry. “She asked if I was allergic to anything. ‘Yes,’ I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply… I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Bullets!’ Over their laughter, I told them, ‘I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.”

    Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.

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    Beautiful!

    Beautiful!

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    Graffiti

    Graffiti

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    Humor

    Humor

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