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Jennifer Dimaano

Don't let the profile picture fool you--I don't EVER wear my glasses (my BFF persuaded me to wear them and said I looked like a "hot librarian" in them, the picture proves otherwise). I'm sassy, a little eccentric, and a mad evil genius. People usually think I'm a little older than I really am. I'm prone to socially awkward situations. -.-"" I love using emoticons :D , visually aesthetic things (stuff that fall under this category: people, clothes/style, photography, interior design, places etc.), Britney Spears, and traveling. I (seem) to dislike more things than I like, but I never dwell. I have a crazy ridiculous sweet tooth--which is almost insatiable--a dry sense of humor, more bankruptcy to my almost nonexistent income, an overcrowded closet, and most important the best company a gal can ever ask for :'] I am a dreamer, not a do-er--which is kinda sad--but I try my best. Secretly, I am a dancer, I have been dancing since I was 3 and will never, ever, stop. I'm a noob to writing :O bet you didn't think so!? I used to hate writing papers, grammar (despite being born in Chicago my first language was not English), and was so close to failing my high school English class. It wasn't until my freshman year in university I realized I have a real knack for it, which is all that matters. Did I scare you off yet? >:D

Tornado touch down in Elmira New York

The tornado leaves many without power.

After intense storms, power lines and trees toppling down in Elmira, New York recorded its first Tornado touchdown of 2012.

According to reports a state of emergency was declared Thursday evening when winds peaked as high as 110 mph and the tornado traveled 10 miles bringing down trees and power lines as well as bring down the buildings and town infrastructure. Isolated fires were being reported as well.

There are about 16,000 in Chemung County still without power.

Karen Miner, Chemung County Office of Fire and Emergency Management Spokeswoman said, “New York State Electric & Gas is working through the night…to restore power and hopefully a lot of it will be on by tomorrow.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced utilities were being sent from western New York and Rochester to the Elmira to assist with the power restoration.

More severe thunderstorm warnings across the southern half of New York were issued by the National Weather Service and is to be moving eastward across the state.

According to Examiner New York was only one of 15 states that were impacted by the severe weather yesterday. The storm extended from Texas to as far as Connecticut, covering more than 1,500 miles. 92% of the severe weather reports consisted of damaging wind reports.

With only 15 confirmed tornadoes in New York this July, this may be the most inactive July tornado reports on record. The last July to hold the lowest number of tornados was back in 1950 for 23 reported tornados. With the month coming to a close, this year’s July will achieve the milestone.

London 2012 Olympic Games Ceremony

The highly anticipated Opening Ceremony is expected to be a “masterpiece”

The Olympic Opening Ceremonies is expected to be a star-studded event. What’s to be more impressive is the highly-anticipated show-stopper director Danny Boyle has for the world to see.

Danny Boyle is known for hit movies Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire have said the ceremony is to showcase the nation’s celebration. A billion people across the globe are expected to tune into the three-hour long show. The show consists of 10,000 adult volunteers, 900 children, 12 horses, 10 chickens, nine geese, three cows and a flock of sheep, along with sheepdogs.

During dress rehearsals, the audience was sworn to secrecy and was encouraged to use Twitter hashtags #savethesurprise and #savethesecret to provide some sort of coverage on the secret ceremony.

“The Ceremony is an attempt to capture a picture of ourselves as a nation, where we have come from and where we want to be,” Boyle released in a statement.

Olympic organizers held Boyle in the highest regard and insisted he was the man for the job to embody what the games are about. Bill Morris, director of Ceremonies said, “His ability as a storyteller, as a creator of spectacle, his background in both theater and film and the passion he has for this city and this project—they all just screamed at us…it wasn’t a difficult choice.”

London 2012 Chairman Sebastian Coe chimes, “Danny gets this…He gets the Olympic Games, he gets sports, he lives in London, he’s a stone’s throw from the Olympic Park, and it was just such an obvious fit.”

“I want it to feel like a very genuine expression of the welcome to the athletes and to the Games of the city, and especially from east London,” said Boyle back in 2010.

Chris Brown and Rihanna secret rendezvous

The couple has been spotted in the romantic French Riviera

Rumor has it Rihanna and ex-boyfriend Chris Brown has been secretly sneaking off to see each other. The couple has been spotted at Monaco’s à deux restaurant enjoying an “intimate dinner” together.

It’s been reported the couple has been stealing moments with each other while Chris shoots a video with Swizz Beatz and Ludacris on the Cote d’Azur. Rihanna, not too far away, was in a yacht. The couple was spotted kissing on the yacht of Malaysian billionaire Taek Jho Low in Saint Tropez along with other celebrities Kanye West, Kim Kardashian and Leonardo DiCaprio.

According to DailyMail Brown made the spur of the moment decision to visit Rihanna in the French Riviera. Before their meeting Rihanna was said to have spent some time getting ready for her rendezvous with Brown. It is rumored the two still have feelings for each other.

“She was really happy when he arrived. She spent all evening getting ready to see him. The waited till night so no one saw them,” said a source.

After the rendezvous, Brown left Rihanna to join his girlfriend, Karrueche Tran at Gotha nightclub, where he was spotted dancing shirtless with many other girls. Tran not looking too pleased at Brown’s action watched patiently as he continued to dance with the other girls. Sources close to Brown have revealed Tran puts up with Brown’s “philandering because she loves the “lifestyle.”

The high-profile couple split up a few years ago, when Brown assaulted the singer before the Grammy. Lately Rihanna has been tweeting ominous messages that insinuate towards brown.

“And there’s no stopping us right now. I feel so close to you right now!” Rihanna tweeted to Calvin Harris. “Your love pours down on me surround me like a waterfall. I wear my heart up on my sleeve like a big deal.”

Bugging issues plague Apple's new operating system

Several types of Mac models have encountered many problems with Mac OS X Mountain Lion

Apples new operating system Mac OS X Mountain Lion recently debuted and so far hasn’t impressed many users. The updated system has created more issues with system bugs and errors.

Mac OS X Mountain Lion attempts to seamlessly combine traditional features of the Mac OS desktop platform with features of the iOS platform, such as intuitive, sharing, organization and communication. The concept is to easily integrate the sharing capabilities Apple’s mobile devices has onto the Mac.

Since its recent debut many of the system’s first adopters have found many problems with it. Reviewers have noted many issues the upgraded system poses on earlier Mac models and even new MacBook Pro with Retina Display.

Mac OS X Mountain Lion user, Andrew Arnold rated the system “1 out of 5 stars.”

“I purchased, downloaded, and installed the new system several times and found it lacking. Actually, more than lacking, and more destructive. System files lock up and are unresponsive. No, my system isn’t tricked out, so I’m having to take it in for fixes. Thanks Apple! I love paying for your testing,” said Arnold.

Gizmodo’s Jesus Diaz found issues with the computers speed, “I used this computer for reviewing the final version of OS X 10.8 and, while it was perfect with Lion, the display is now very buggy,” Diaz wrote. Adding on:

“The zooming is often slow, the cursors sometimes disappear, some parts of the text fields don’t refresh properly in Safari, animated GIFs get garbled frequently, and videos sometimes get distortions, especially if you try to rotate them in QuickTime Player. At times, there is also a perceptible slowdown, even while this is a fully loaded system with 16GB of RAM.

“Perhaps this is a problem unique to my computer, but I doubt it. None of these problems were present with the factory-installed OS X Lion. And this computer was almost virgin before the upgrade from Lion to Mountain Lion.”

Apple is most likely to fix the bugs and errors in the system. According to IBTimes other users have found other ways to correct the issue. Social Media SEO’s Brett Reilly has posted steps to diagnosing the issues of Mountain Lion.

Cloud Atlas trailer debuts

The trailer sets high expectations for the once dubbed “unfilmable” book-turned-movie

David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas will be transformed to a possible blockbuster. The nearing six minute trailer was released on iTunes last night.

Cloud Atlas connects the past and present lives of its characters inhabiting different time periods. The trailer starts off with pianist writing to his friend about a half-written journal voyaging by sea to San Francisco in 1849. The trailer transitions to scene with Halle Berry pondering over a letter of a man’s inability to learn from his mistakes. Other scenes feature reincarnations of each character. Notable actors to be featured in the film are Tom Hanks, Korean actress Doona Bae and Hugh Grant.

The film is already being dubbed to have a possible Inception appeal. Matrix directors Lana and Wachowski and Run Lola Run German film-maker Tom Tykwer have collaborated to bring Mitchell’s “unfilmable” novel Cloud Atlas to the big screens. Mitchell gave his blessing to back the project to The Guardian last year.

“They aren’t attempting merely to film the book, which is why many adaptations come to grief – the novel’s already there, so why spend all that effort on an audiobook with visuals? Rather, the three directors have assembled Cloud Atlas and reassembled it in a form which – fingers crossed – will be a glorious, epic thing. The reincarnation motif in the book is just a hinted-at linking device, but the script gives it centre stage to link the six worlds with characters, causes and effects. A novel can’t do multi-role acting: a film can. The directors are playing to the strengths of their medium, just like I try to” said Mitchell.

The film makers promise a film that is “political, philosophical, with lots of action.”

Cloud Atlas is set to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and open up in U.S theaters October 26.

 

Mitt Romney's London Olympic preparation comment faux-pas

It will be a long week for Mitt Romney during his stay for the London Olympics

U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney has Britons stopping in their tracks amidst the Olympics hullabaloo about the foot in mouth comment he voiced about London’s “disconcerting” preparations for the games.

“It’s hard to know how well it will turn out…There are a few things that were disconcerting. The stories about private security firm not having enough people, the supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials…that obviously is not something which is encouraging,” Romeny told NBC.

British headlines are affront with judgment. “Mitt the Twit” scrawled across The Sun, “Who invited party-pooper Romney,” asked the Daily Mail, and “Nowhere Man”—referencing a comment made by Prime Minister David Cameron— asserted Times of London.

“We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world. Of course, it’s easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere,” Cameron said. The comment was a jab towards Romney’s, implied, lack of experience from helping organize the Olympics in Salt Lake City.

London’s Mayor, Boris Johnson used Romney’s comment to rally up the tens of thousands gathered in Hyde Park: “There’s a guy called Mitt Romney who wants to know if we are ready. Are we ready? Yes, we are!”

Romney hasn’t been in the city for two full days of his week-long overseas trip, to establish “foreign policy credentials” amongst voters, and already he has blundered. The comment about London’s preparations for the game was not the only bad move, but publicly referring to meetings with British spy agency M16, which is a no-no in England.

“I can only say that I appreciated the insights and the perspectives of the leaders of the government here and opposition here as well as the head of MI6 as we discussed Syria and hoped for a more peaceful future for that country,” Romney said.

In light of the scandal, an unknown staffer revealed to the Daily Telegraph that Barack Obama had botched “Anglo-American” ties and Romney better understood the “Anglo-Saxon heritage” between the two countries.

Google announces Google Fiber

A new ultra-fast, high speed Internet service at a cost-friendly price

On Thursday Google Inc. announced its release of their upcoming broadband Internet service Google Fiber to the Kansas City area for $70 per month. For added T.V. service, it is an additional $50.

Google Fiber is experimenting with optical fibers, bypassing local cable and phone companies. Google is claiming Internet speeds to be up to “one gigabit per second,” making it 100 times faster than other U.S. broadband connections. Google’s T.V. service is to provide “cable-T.V.-like” over fiber optics, as well, supplying customers with an expansive selection of channels. Channels not included in the service are ESPN, HBO, AMC and Fox.

Other cool Google Fiber features are a tablet for a remote (Google’s Nexus 7 tablet—retailing for up to $200 and the next best t thing to an iPad), DVR service, and one terabyte of Google drive storage.

Google is even providing consumers another option from the bundled service. If the $70 gigabyte speed and T.V. service is too much, Google is offering it’s customers a basic five-megabit “DSL-like” service for free—only stipulation is a flat $300 construction fee that will guarantee users free Internet connection for up to seven years.

Not everyone was too pleased with the Google’s broadband advancement. According to the Associated Press, Time Warner Cable spokesman, Justin Venech said he didn’t see “too many things that jumpted out at me beyond the speed.”

Adding on that “Kansas City has been competitive for video and broadband services for a long time…We offer advanced products and services today and we have experienced local employees delivering local services,” Venech said.

At a news conference held by Google in Kansas City, city mayor Sly James was pleased to announce the prospects the service may have to the city.

“We now have an opportunity to take a giant step and if we don’t it’s all on us. It’s going to be a great educational tool…That’s going to create innovators and entrepreneurs, and that’s exactly what we want,” announced James.

The faster speeds will not only be beneficial to day-to-day Internet activities, such as surfing the Web, e-mail, and watching videos, but better online back ups and sharing heavy files. Google is hoping this will encourage further development of advanced applications that will utilize the high speeds.

“Access speeds have simply not kept pace with the phenomenal increases in computing power and storage capacity that’s spurred innovation over the last decade,” Milo Medin, Google’s vice president of Access Services wrote in a blog post.

Spain's financial situation puts the country closer to a bailout

Spain’s regional bailouts creates a shaky central government

Spain’s economy is shaky; investors are demanding high rates to lend to the government while the politicians are trying to avert a bailout, along with regional deficit cutting into the central government’s finances.

The country’s regions seeking possible bailout puts the whole country at risk for a full international rescue—like those sought out by Greece, Ireland and Portugal. The government has to rescue its bank, from soured real estate investments, and its inability to recover money in their own financial markets.

Valencia and Murcia have said they will tap into an €18 billion emergency credit line the central government recently set up for cash-strapped regions. Catalonia is Spain’s most in debt region with a debt of €42 billion.

Investor concern about regional debt grew sharply when the central government was forced to revise Spain’s 2011 budget deficit upward for a second time to 8.9% in May—an embarrassment after four of the regions confirmed to having spent more than previously forecasted.

Interest rates on Spain’s ten-year bond benchmark went up .11% to 7.65% within the first hour of trading, but later went back down to 7.45% by early afternoon.

The country’s Ibex 35 stock index went up 2%, which helped recover only a fraction of the last three days of heavy losses.

Spain’s own central government is desperately seeking help from EU partners. Its economy is reaching its second recession in three years, mainly due to the 2008 collapse of the “property bubble” which fueled the economy. Spain denies it will need financial rescue for its public finances but many investors now think it’s only a matter of time.

Economy Minister Luis de Guindos traveled to Paris for talks with Pierre Moscovici after meeting on Tuesday with Germany’s Wolfgang Schaeuble. Spain has been pleading for Europe’s central to buy the country’s debt to ease bond yields, but pleas have “fallen on deaf ears.”

Sally Ride posthumously comes out

The first woman in space, comes out in a suiting manner

Sally Ride was known as a pioneer astronaut, being the first woman to enter space. Ride was a private character and to posthumously come out about her 27-year relationship with partner, Tam O’Shaughnessy.

On Monday, Sally Ride died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 61 in her La Jolla home. The details of her illness were not made known until the time of her death.

In her obituary, posted on her website it reveals her long-time partnership:

“In addition to Tam O’Shaughnessy, her partner of 27 years, Sally is survived by her mother, Joyce; her sister, Bear; her niece, Caitlin, and nephew, Whitney; her staff of 40 at Sally Ride Science; and many friends and colleagues around the country.”

Ride’s sister, Bear—identifies as gay—confirms the news during her interview with BuzzFeed, “The pancreatic cancer community is going to be absolutely thrilled that there’s now this advocate that they didn’t know about. And, I hope the GLBT community feels the same.”

Bear further explains in an e-mail that further provides support to Ride’s choice, “She was just a private person who wanted to do things her way…She hated labels (including ‘hero’).”

Fred Sainz, the Human Rights Campaign’s vice president for communications, said his initial reaction to the revelation about Sally Ride was, “What a shame that we didn’t learn this while she was alive.”

“However, the fact it was acknowledged in death will be an incredibly powerful message to all Americans about the contributions of their LGBT counterparts,” Sainz said. “The completeness of her life will be honored correctly.”

Though not everyone was fully supportive of the late come-out. Gay blogger Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Beast said, “She had a chance to expand people’s horizons and young lesbians’ hope and self-esteem, and she chose not to…She was the absent heroine.”

The relationship with O’Shaughnessy, despite being kept out of the public, was never hidden from family and friends.

Selita Ebanks punched another model

And broke her nose

Victoria Secret’s model Selita Ebanks broke Telemundo model Liza Irizzary’s nose, when Irizzary greeted Ebanks’ boyfriend, Terrence J, a warm kiss on the cheek in a Miami nightclub last year.

Irizarry said she was heading inside the Dream nightclub in Miami last November, when she came across and exiting Terrence J. She greeted him with a kiss on the cheek and a drunken Ebanks saw it differently.

“When she saw me, she said, ‘Don’t be kissing my man.’ I said to myself, ‘So what, that’s my friend.’ That’s when she hit me on the nose. I went to swing back—that’s when all her friends jumped in I felt hair pulling and fists coming at me,” recalled Irizarry of the Miami brawl.

A male friend broke the two up. Irizarry was bleeding and went to the washroom to clean her self up. The next morning she woke up with a broken nose.

“I was in so much pain…My pillow was covered in blood,” Irizarry tells the Daily News.

When she returned to New York and saw a doctor. The doctor told her she had a complex nasal fracture and nasal obstruction that required surgery.

Irizarry plans to file an assault and battery charge against Ebanks in Hudson County Superior Court. Despite having filed a police report and sending over her medical records, Miami Police haven’t arrested or charged Ebanks.

“I’m so angry, because she thinks she can get away with anything…You shouldn’t be allowed to put your hands on anyone for no reason. Me saying hello to someone doesn’t give you the right to hit me,” said Izizarry.

The suit is seeking cash for pain, suffering and medical bills. Edward Steinberg, Irizarry’s lawyer, commented on the suit, “We hope that with an action like this, Miss Ebanks will no longer attack or assault anyone…We think this is a very simple case of assault and battery by a woman, who maybe used her status and stature to feel like she could get away with something.”

Paul Rothenberg, Ebank’s lawyer commented on the suit “is nine months old and completely without merit.” Adding that his client says “the claims are baseless.”