The Stockholm Metro or Stockholms tunnelbana is “the longest art exhibition in the world”. It opened in the 1950’s and is 105.7 kilometers long. The Metro has 100 stations, 53 above ground and 47 underground.

The concept begun to expose people to art, but later on it gave the subway system a more positive vibe. Commuters felt that it was safer and what better way to start the day than to see sights that appeal to the senses. The best part is that in a way it helped reduce crime. In the metro, you can see paintings, installations, mosaics, sculptures and inscriptions dating from the 1950’s. These wonderful masterpieces were done by hundreds of artists.

The showcased artworks at 90 of the 100 stations are remarkable because of their large scale, design and how it blends in or should I stay stick out, making the whole place unique. Multi-colored arrows show the way and  there are rainbow painted walls, bright red ceilings, which seem to ‘weigh down’ on the platform like billowing flames, a spruce forest which stretches a kilometer long and ancient-looking statues carved on the walls.

For Stockholm residents, it is a normal sight they see daily, but if you are just visiting you may take guided tours which will take you to four to five stations. They are done by Metro experts at an affordable price or you may purchase a ticket at T-Centralen and take the blue line to see the Rådhuset and Fridhemsplan stations. After, take the same line back to see the Kungsträdgården station.

Images from Nenyaki and Tobias Lindman

The holiday season is here! Time for joy, time for cheer – and time for kids to learn the true meaning of Christmas by drafting incredibly long must-have lists for Santa! After all, nothing says, “spirit of Christmas” quite like a big pile of toys! I have to admit, though, that no matter how ridiculous I think it is that Christmas nearly necessitates the draining of my bank account, I sure do like to see the rugrats’ eyes light up on Christmas morning, when they see the spread I (er, Santa) laid out for them. This magical moment, brought to you by mommy’s paycheck, stays magical for about how long it takes for the batteries to go in and the noise to begin. Then the magic subsides to a dull headache. Just for you, and just because I’m so nice, I’ll tell you what to avoid this year. Here is a list of five annoying toys you hope your kids won’t get this Christmas:

Zhu Zhu Pets. If you think hamsters are a pain in the butt, then try battery operated hamsters – battery operated hamsters that sing in really shrill voices, and that get stuck under furniture, and that have motion sensors so that they scare the living daylights out of you every time you walk past said furniture. Yeah. Enough said.

Fischer Price Corn Popper Push Along. This is an annoying classic that just won’t go away. And that’s probably because every time I push it somewhere to hide it, the kids hear the “POP! POP! POP!” and come to its rescue.

Talking Elmo. It doesn’t matter which Elmo you buy – Chicken Dance Elmo, Learn to Dress Elmo, Trash Talking Elmo . . . whatever. Elmo talks way too much. And the whole referring to himself in third-person thing is just plain creepy.

Anything with a microphone. Frustratingly enough, these godforsaken toys flood the market, and they scream for attention. In order to imagine how annoying these toys can be, picture a really bad, drunk karaoke singer . . . then picture waking up to that karaoke singer at 6:30 on a Sunday morning.

Play Doh. I’d love to meet the brilliant minds who decided this was a good idea, so that I could smear some Play Doh into their new carpet.

Okay, so you probably won’t be able to prevent your friends and family members (especially those who don’t know better, or who don’t like you) from purchasing these annoying gifts for your children. But, what you can do (and probably the only thing you can do besides run away from home) is to purchase yourself a big mug, fill it with egg nog, and drink. That’s right. And then drink some more. Merry Christmas.

Inge Kady loves her children. Their toys? Not so much. When she’s not scraping play doh out of the carpet she can be found studying day trading, Bakken Drilling, and the environment.

Photo Courtesy Of: madnzany

Watching movies is an experience. Nowadays, people do not just want to see the movie itself, but they like seeing it with other people while eating their popcorn. For some it is a way to relax and often it is a common ‘date’ activity for couples. They often see a movie and then have dinner after.  Others enjoy the luxury experience like lazy boy seats and unlimited popcorn and soda. This of course can differ from person to person because a big number of folks prefer watching movies in the comfort of their own homes via their computers or television. They like the solitude and economical value since there is less cost for gasoline, food and such.

“Many in the US simply can’t keep up with prices of movie tickets. A sixteen year old making minimum wage must work nearly four hours to afford seeing a film and purchasing concession items. Movie tickets for a poorer family might be 10% of a family’s weekly income. To an increasing number of people, movie tickets are now too high a price to pay for entertainment, especially when film rental is significantly less expensive.”

If only there was a way for moviemakers to add more value to the current prices or perhaps cinemas can have promos or discounted rates. It is a longshot, but it is one of the sure fire ways to get people to watch movies. In the Philippines, cities partner with cinemas to provide senior citizens the privilege of watching movies for free every Mondays. This perk gives cinemas some revenue since the government shoulders the fees. It just takes creativity and people to think out of the box to improve the situation. Otherwise, all we can do is pray that the tides change and economies improve in the coming months, so that more people have the spending power to relax and see a movie.

Time does take its toll, and in the recent years, we’ve seen a lot of good people go. Yesterday, it was Jimmy Dean’s turn. The country singer cum sausage king passed away on Sunday at the age of 81.

In his early years, he grew up in Plainview, Texas. His childhood years were not kind to him, but he got his break in the 1950s as a country singer. He is best known for his song Big Bad John, which became a hit in 1961. Now considered a classic, the song is about a coal miner who acted heroically by saving his fellow miners during a mining accident. The song got so big that Jimmy Dean got a Grammy for it.

Later on, the country singer expanded his horizons and founded Jimmy Dean Meat Co., which earned him a different kind of reputation. The sausages produced by the company basically became a household fixture for countless Americans. Aside from these activities, Jimmy Dean was also involved in other projects, one of which was as a host of The Morning Show (a CBS program).

The iconic entertainer and businessman had been suffering a variety of health problems, according to his wife. However, they were not that grave for them to think that the end was near for Jimmy. On Sunday, though, as he was sitting down in front of the television while eating, he quietly passed away.

He may have left this world, but let us not forget Jimmy Dean, one of the greatest entertainers of our time.

This piece of news is so hot, but I do not fully understand why. Still, everyone’s talking about it, I might as well jump into the bandwagon. Earlier this day, all the girls at the office were saying: It’s the end of the world! This hunk of a guy is gay, and he’s proud of it. What’s to become of us?

Is he indeed gay? Well, the news came straight from the horse’s mouth. Ricky Martin, the cute little boy who was the youngest member of the 80’s boyband (when that term hadn’t been coined yet) Menudo, has come out of the closet. He has been quoted all over the place as saying: “I am proud to say that I am a fortunate homosexual man. I am very blessed to be who I am.”

This was what he posted on his Twitter – both in English and in Spanish. Alright, I have to say that most of us knew that anyway, right? Then again, I guess it’s different when the person actually comes out and says it. I still don’t get the “fortunate homosexual man” part. Can someone enlighten me?

Anyhow, the 38-year-old is supposed to be writing a book – surprise! According to him, the memoir will highlight his struggle to hide his real identity. So what triggered this honesty? He is now a father of twins (born via surrogate by the way) and he says that he cannot hide who he is anymore.

I have a feeling we’ll be hearing more of this in the near future.

It is every librarian’s nightmare: library users NOT returning books on time. In school libraries, penalties are laid down left and right because students tend to forget that the book they borrowed is due on a certain date. Many students even forget to return the book forever – resulting in huge fines at the end of the school year.

In public libraries, it is harder to lay down measures and actually “get” the person who does not return books. After all, you can’t go after each and every person that does this. Sooner or later, they remember that they need to return the book and they do so. Of course, they have to face the consequences, don’t they?

But, have you ever heard of someone returning a book that has been overdue for 45 years? Yup, that’s exactly what happened at a British library recently. Dinnington Library is located near Sheffield in northern England. According to its principal assistant, Alison Lawrie, they received a Penguin first edition copy of “Quartermass and the Pit” by Nigel Kneale in the mail. It is not everyday that a library receives an overdue book through the post, and it is even rarer that this overdue book should have been returned in October 15, 1965! I was not even born yet!

As can be expected, the book was mailed with no return address. I do not blame the person – he or she is probably scared of the hefty fine that comes with the book! Lucky for him or her, the library’s records do not go as far back as 1965. Still, Lawrie says that they would love to know the story behind the book’s return and that the person will NOT be fined. Come forward, whoever you are!

News anchor icon Walter Cronkite passed away this month, and it is but inevitable that people would look for the next news personality to take his place. Well, maybe not literally but figuratively speaking. If Walter Cronkite was known for one thing, it was that he was the man that all of America trusted when it came to the news. Now that he is gone, who does America trust most?

Time conducted a poll with this exact question: “Now that Walter Cronkite has passed on, who is America’s most trusted newscaster?”

The choices were:

a. Katie Couric
b. Charlie Gibson
c. Jon Stewart
d. Brian Williams

And the results?

e. Katie Couric – 7% (that low?)
f. Charlie Gibson – 19%
g. Jon Stewart – 44%
h. Brian Williams – 29%

If the figures are to be believed, Jon Stewart has gained the trust of the American people. Now don’t get me wrong – I love watching Jon Stewart do his thing on TV. Indeed, I rarely watch TV but on the rare occasion that I do, I find myself watching this “newsman.” The interesting thing about this, though, is that Jon Stewart is primarily a comedian and not a news anchor!

Walter Cronkite and Jon Stewart have practically NOTHING in common. So how did America get from Cronkite to Stewart? Is it a reflection of the state of the news media in the country or is it a reflection of the American culture in general? Maybe there is a confusion between “trusted” and “funny”? You tell me.

…and gets 56 stars for it. The story is that Kimberley Vlaeminck, an 18-year-old Belgian, went to a tattoo parlor to get stars on her face. According to her, she asked the tattoo artist, Rouslan Toumaniantz, to put three stars near her eyes. As the procedure progressed, she said that she fell asleep. She only woke up when she felt a pain in her nose as the tattoo artist started adding stars there. BBC quotes her as saying: “I woke up when he was starting to tattoo my nose… I counted 56 stars, it is frightening.”

However, according to the tattoo artist, she knew exactly what was going on. He said that she ordered stars – and lots of them, it seems – all over her face and that she got exactly what she asked for. He also disputes the teenager’s claim that he probably misunderstood her instructions. Toumaniantz says ‘She was awake and looked in the mirror several times as the procedure was being done. She agreed, but when her father saw it, the trouble started.”

The question is, who is telling the truth and who is lying? Two totally contradicting stories – one of them is surely lying. My thoughts on this piece of news…it is one thing to fall asleep while getting a massage or while at the spa, but I don’t really think it’s possible to fall asleep while getting a tattoo. And to fall asleep through 56 stars? I don’t know. What do you think?

Even those who do not watch American Idol on purpose cannot help but know what’s going on in that show. We have to admit it, American Idol does have its allure and the publicity that it gets makes it just hard to ignore. So, this season is over, and it seems that the voting didn’t go as many expected.

In what many consider to be an upset, Kris Allen won over Adam Lambert. Lambert has often been described by the American Idol judges in superlatives: a real genius, an artist, on a league of his own, and so on. And yet when the final judgment came, it seems that he was not able to win majority of the voters of the show.

What happened? Theories and explanations abound, depending on who you ask. The people over at New York Times think that the choice “says something about the mood and mores of the country, that viewers are too conformist to anoint a sassy, androgynous individualist. Then again, maybe not: Mr. Allen’s victory may merely reflect the voters’ conventional taste in pop music.”

Personally, I do not think either idea is the cause. I think that people see the immense talent in Adam Lambert and they also see the well of niceness in Kris Allen. They saw the former as a sure win and the latter as an under dog. And I think that America’s heart was captured by the underdog. This is not to say that Kris does not have the talent – he does. But we all know that Adam will also go a long way even if he didn’t win the title. I guess it’s all fair in the end.

Well, not the real St. Innocent – he’s been dead for hundreds of years now. What I am referring to is his statue, which was stolen from a church in Italy in 1990. So where did he turn up?

Almost two decades after the heist, the bust of St. Innocent was recently found in the home of a couple residing in North Caroline. The bust is 350 years old, and is intricately carved. The antique is actually only one of the items that were stolen from the church in November of 1990. The other things that were lifted during the heist include 16 other statues (similar to the one just discovered) and two oil paintings.

Some facts about the stolen statue of St. Innocent:

-it is made of wood and painted with gold
-it was made by Diego da Careri, a 17th century Franciscan artist
-the current bust is not worth much by now since the head is missing, as well as part of the cross that the saint is holding.

So how did the American authorities get wind of the stolen bust? They were informed by certain officials in Rome that an Italian citizen had sold a statue to a dealer in antiques from Greensboro. This dealer then sold the statue to Neal Johnson from Charlotte, who then sold it to the couple.

Needless to say, the bust will be returned to the Italian church where it belongs. What about the money that the couple paid? I have no idea.