Brand new year

Today is December 31st. It is usually a day to make a list of our wishes or intentions for the forthcoming year and, why not, to remember the best moments of the year is about to finish. Now I am going to do that list.

1. First of all I would like that my family and friends were healthy and happy next year. Concerning health I am afraid I will not be able to do much but I will do my best to help them being happy.
2. I will keep making some physical exercise because it makes me feel better. Like the Romans said: "Mens sana in corpore sano" (mind healthy in a body healthy).
3. I have the intention to keep studying and searching for a more interesting job, despite the fact that it will be harder next year because of the crisis.
4. I will try to travel a little (I have not travelled a lot until now and I would like).
5. I hope to continue meeting new people and, if I am lucky, to make new friends.
6. I also would like that wars in the whole world end up and that people do their best to get along with everybody else. That is an utopy but it would be amazing if it happens.

I will try to fulfill my resolutions and I hope that my best wishes become real. Nevertheless, being realistic, I would be happy if at least one of them come true.

Happy 2009!

Snore or gym?

Lucky day for people who snore while sleeping. The results of an investigation reveal that heavy snorers burn more fat than people that do not snore, even when they are not sleeping. This study has been published in December issue of a medicine journal in the United States.
In this research work was involved more than 200 volunteers, some of them suffering from sleep-related breathing disorders like snoring or sleep apnea. Doctors used a calorimeter to obtain information about the energy expenditure of patients. This device measures the oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production and that let them calculate the calories that each patient burn per day.
It is known that people fat or obese is more propense to suffer breathing problems and maybe the excess of burnt calories is because if people is heavier then they have to use more energy to move their bodies. Obviously, if most of the snoring people is fat or obese then the fact that they burn more calories than other people is not relevant.
In any case, although burning more calories seems to be a good result if you want to reduce your weight, it has several inconvenients associated. In fact, people who snore has several problems like fatigue and other that reduce physical performance during the day. Moreover, it is not a wise habit, mainly if you do not sleep alone and you do not want to lose your bed partner.

Just like in the movies

Last Thursday four robbers stole 80 million euros from Paris diamond store in 13 minutes. That sounds like the script of a new Hollywood production, maybe starred by George Clooney or Matt Damon. However, it was no fiction. That happened this week in one of the world's most famous diamond store located in Paris.
Robbers entered the store, three of them wearing disguises. Staff thought that they were three women and one man, but the three women were actually men in drag. Despite the fact that all of them were holding guns, no shots were fired, only some staff were hit over the head. The thieves corraled people in the store and demanded all the all the store's merchandise.
According to police, the gang knew the names of some of the staff and the location of hidden jewels. That is the reason why the investigators consider that they had inside knowledge or had done intensive surveillance.
About the actual location of the haul, experts think that it can already be on the way to Eastern Europe, where it would be sold on the black market.
The stolen store is Harry Winston's on Avenue Montaigne in Paris and this is the biggest robbery in French history and the second biggest jewellery theft in Europe.

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Vocabulary learnt:

heist

a crime in which valuable items are taken illegally and often violently from a place or person

snatch

to take hold of something suddenly and roughly

haul

a usually large amount of something that has been stolen or is illegal

wig

a covering of artificial hair worn on the head to hide a lack of hair or to cover your own hair

reportedly

according to reports or other information, supposedly

Most powerful man in the world?

It is incredible but true. Somebody dare to hang up the phone on Barack Obama, and moreover, did it twice. The name of this brave person is Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and she is a Florida congresswoman. Apparently, she thought that the man was calling her was somebody from a local radio station and then she avoided to be their next victim. Other politicians like Sarah Palin, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez have been victims of crank calls from radio stations and their impersonators.
Their initial conversation lasted about a minute. She told him that she was not falling for the hoax and also compare him with an impersonator, saying that he was better than the actor that appears on Saturday Night Live. Then she cut him off. After this first attempt, Rahm Emanuel who is Obama's chief of staff, call her to explain that it was not a joke. As she had done before, she hung up on him, too.
It was necessary to call a close collaborator of her to clarify the situation and make the conversation with Obama possible. Obama did not blame her for being skeptical about the call and he laughed a lot, saying that in Chicago radio stations often do the same kind of jokes.
I think that if Obama has these problems every time he makes a phone call, then he should visit in person people he wants to talk to. Other possibility is video call. I am sure that his phone has this feature and it is very likely that people he calls have it too.
But maybe the solution to this is the way you pick up the receiver. Obama should do it like Bush does. He has eight years of experience doing it.

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While I was reading this story in newspapers I learnt some new vocabulary that I show below:

prank

mischievous trick or practical joke

mischievous

slightly malicious

crank call

hostile telephone call

deceive

to cause to believe what is not true

cut off

interrupt or break the line of communication

go along

cooperate

impersonator

someone who (fraudulently) assumes the appearance of another

I also learnt the expression

"appearances can deceive" 

that can be translated into Spanish as "las apariencias engañan".

Search resources

Nowadays, internet is the greatest source of information that we can have access to. We always are searching information, but sometimes it is difficult to find what we are looking for among all that results provided by search engines. In the next paragraphs, I will recommend you some pages that will help you to find information about films, tv programs, books and music. I am aware of the fact that there are hundreds or maybe thousands of pages like these but I will tell you about the ones that I consider the most useful among all I have ever visited.
If you want some information about a film, TV series or programs, an actor or actress then you should type in your web browser: http://www.imdb.com/. Then you should see a page where it is possible to obtain all kind of data related with movies and TV. Even if the film have not been released yet, you can get a lot of information (cast, plot, release date in different countries, etc.).
IMDB stands for Internet Movie Database and I think you should try it yourself.
If you prefer reading a book but you like to know about it before buying it or even to get it complete for free, you can visit: http://books.google.es/ or http://www.gutenberg.org/.
In the first page you have all the power of google search engine but specialized in books. Here you can search and view some or all the content of books, and get a lot of useful data about them, even links to bookstores where you can buy it.
The second page lets you download complete books in electronic format (txt, html or pdf) for free and it is legal, of course, because the books listed here are rights free.
In www.scribd.com you can view content of books and magazines that perhaps you can not find in google books. I consider that these three resources together can help you to find almost any information related to written word.
Finally, if you are looking for information about musicians, groups or lyrics you can try Music Lyrics Database. It is like IMDB but related with music.
I hope this resources can help you to find what you are looking for (at least, in terms of movies, books or music).