`Last Airbender' rules Razzies as worst picture

The action fantasy "The Last Airbender" — about people who can command fire, air, water and earth — now controls something else: the Razzie awards for Hollywood's worst film achievements of 2010.

"The Last Airbender" led Saturday's Razzies with five awards, among them worst picture, worst director and worst screenplay for M. Night Shyamalan.

The movie also received Razzies for worst supporting actor (Jackson Rathbone, who was cited for both "The Last Airbender" and "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse") and for a special award, worst eye-gouging misuse of 3-D.

A spoof of the Academy Awards, the Razzies were announced the night before the Oscars, Hollywood's biggest party.


"Sex and the City 2" took three Razzies, including worst actress, a prize shared by co-stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon, worst screen couple or ensemble for its entire cast, and worst prequel, remake, rip-off or sequel.

Ashton Kutcher was picked as worst actor for "Killers" and "Valentine's Day," while Jessica Alba took the Razzie as worst supporting actress for four 2010 releases, "The Killer Inside Me," "Little Fockers," "Machete" and "Valentine's Day."

Shyamalan has been on a downward spiral since 1999 Oscar best-picture contender "The Sixth Sense," which earned him directing and writing nominations at Hollywood's highest honors. He won Razzies as worst director and worst supporting actor for his 2006 fantasy flop "Lady in the Water."

Despite terrible reviews, "The Last Airbender" managed to find a decent audience, pulling in $300 million worldwide at the box office. Shyamalan adapted the movie from the animated TV series "Avatar: The Last Airbender."

"He managed to take a cartoon property and make it even less lifelike by making it with real actors," said Razzies founder John Wilson. "Most people who like the show, and this would include my 14-year-old son, hated the movie. It made no sense whatsoever."

"The Last Airbender" was among movies that critics knocked for smudgy, blurry 3-D images. The movie was shot in 2-D and converted to digital 3-D to cash in on the extra few dollars theaters charge for 3-D screenings.

"They call it converted. We call it perverted," Wilson said. "The more times you trick the public and charge them that fee and don't really deliver, eventually it's going to be like Lucy and Charlie Brown with the football. Fool me ten times, I'm done."

Wilson said the characters of "Sex and the City 2" were getting too old to cavort the way they do, calling the movie "`The Expendables,' but with estrogen," referring to Sylvester Stallone's tale about aging action heroes.

"Sex and the City 2" also was offensive, Wilson said, showing Parker and her gal pal co-stars disrespecting Arab culture on a trip to Abu Dhabi and flaunting their privileged ways.

"It was released in the middle of a period of American history when everyone's scrounging not to lose their homes, and these women are riding around in Rolls-Royces, buying expensive shoes and just throwing money around like they're drunk," Wilson said.

info Yahoo

Kawali, Sundanese Restaurant

After exactly 3 months working in his new office, my friend took me to have dinner at a Sundanese restaurant. This is a tradition for us if got a job or who got promotions at work. The Sundanese restaurant that we were headed is located in Cikokol, Tangerang named Kawali. This is my first time to visit this restaurant. From the building had already indicated that this is a typical Indonesian restaurant, and also the atmosphere inside is very contrary to the current traffic in front of this restaurant.

When we walked inside, your ear will spoiled with typical Sundanese musical. And also many other ornaments that make this restaurant looks unique and interesting. We walked on to the gazebo located behind the restaurant. The atmosphere around this gazebo looks beautiful, because a lot of shady trees, and also a fish pond. The menu offered here are not all typical Sundanese, because this restaurant also offers some seafood cuisine. While waiting for our menus, we do not forget to take our photos and also joking around.

After waiting about 15 minutes, the menu are ready to served. But unfortunately, the food taste in here is just 'standard', not as special as the atmosphere here. But still, since it's already ordered, we cleaned all of the food. Well, I guess the right time to eat in this gazebo area is at late afternoon, because the weather is not too hot, and breeze also will make you comfortable. As the evening come,
so many mosquitoes have come out, and that disrupt our comfort, so we had to go home. Well, you'll never lose to try a new place with some new experiences.

Cheap Seat for Sport Games

Weekend is always enjoyable, especially if the weekend is filled with fun activities with friends or people we love. Of course a lot of activities we can do, start from watching movies in the cinema, watching a concert or you can also watch sporting events. Well, one of my favorite activities are watching sports. Because usually a lot of sporting events held on the weekend, one of which is the Chicago White Sox. You can buy the Chicago White Sox Tickets on the online site, because this way is more easy and convenient and does not need to queue.

Beside the Chicago White Sox tickets, you can also buy other tickets, including the Los Angeles Angels Tickets, for those who love this team of course. And for those who love the Chicago Cubs, you can also purchase Chicago Cubs Tickets at online sites. In addition, one more the advantage of buying tickets through online sites is that you will get clear information about all the match during the season.

Of course there's more tickets are sold, including the Houston Astros Tickets, Los Angeles Dodgers Tickets, and many others. With a cheap ticket price, plus the excitement of watching with friends will make the atmosphere more cheerful to support your favorite team. So what are you waiting for, book your tickets now.

How Hosni Mubarak Got So Rich

There are no Mubaraks on the Forbes list of the world's richest people, but there sure ought to be.

The mounting pressure from 18 days of historic protests finally drove Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from office, after three decades as his nation's iron-fisted ruler. But over that time, Mubarak amassed a fortune that should finance a pretty comfortable retirement. The British Guardian newspaper cites Middle Eastern sources placing the wealth of Mubarak and his family at somewhere between $40 billion and $70 billion. That's a pretty good pension for government work. The world's richest man--Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim--is worth about $54 billion, by comparison. Bill Gates is close behind, with a net worth of about $53 billion.

Mubarak, of course, was a military man, not a businessman. But running a country with a suspended constitution for 30 years generates certain perks, and Mubarak was in a position to take a slice of virtually every significant business deal in the country, from development projects throughout the Nile basin to transit projects on the Suez Canal, which is a conduit for about 4 percent of the world's oil shipments. "There was no accountability, no need for transparency," says Prof. Amaney Jamal of Princeton University. "He was able to reach into the economic sphere and benefit from monopolies, bribery fees, red-tape fees, and nepotism. It was guaranteed profit."

Had the typical Egyptian enjoyed a morsel of that, Mubarak might still be in power. But Egypt, despite a cadre of well-educated young people, has struggled as an economic backwater. The nation's GDP per capita is just $6,200, according to the CIA--one-seventh what it is in the United States. That output ranks 136th in the world, even though Egypt ranks 16th in population. Mubarak had been working on a set of economic reforms, but they stalled during the global recession. The chronic lack of jobs and upward mobility was perhaps the biggest factor driving millions of enraged Egyptian youths into the streets, demanding change.

Estimates of Mubarak's wealth will probably be hard to verify, if not impossible (one reason dictators tend not to make it onto Forbes's annual list). His money is certainly not sitting in an Egyptian vault, waiting to be counted. And his delayed exit may have allowed Mubarak time to move money around and hide significant parts of his fortune. The Swiss government has said it is temporarily freezing any assets in Swiss banks that could be linked to Mubarak, an uncharacteristically aggressive move for the secretive banking nation. But that doesn't mean the money will ever be returned to the Egyptian people, and it may even find its way to Mubarak eventually. Other Mubarak funds are reportedly sitting in British banks, and Mubarak was no doubt wily enough to squire away some cash in unlikely places. Plus, an eventual exile deal could allow Mubarak to retain some of his wealth, no questions asked, as long as he and his family leave Egypt and make no further bids for power.

Epic skimming is a common privilege of Middle Eastern despots, and Mubarak and his two sons, Gamal and Alaa, were a bit less conspicuous than some of the Saudi princes and other Middle Eastern royals seen partying from time to time on the French Riviera or other hotspots. The family does reportedly own posh estates in London, New York, and Beverly Hills, plus a number of properties around the Egyptian resort town of Sharm El Sheikh, where Mubarak reportedly went after resigning the presidency.

Mubarak also spread the wealth far and wide in Egyptian power circles--another Middle Eastern tradition--one reason he incurred the kind of loyalty that allowed him to rule for a remarkable three decades. Top Army officials were almost certainly on his payroll, which might help explain why the Army eased him out in the end--allowing a kind of in-country exile--instead of hounding him out of Egypt or imprisoning him once it was clear the tide had turned against him for good.

That money trail, in fact, will help determine whether Egypt becomes a more prosperous, democratic country, or continues to muddle along as an economic basket case. Even though he's out of power, Mubarak may still be able to influence the Army officials running the country, through the financial connections that made them all wealthy. And if not Mubarak, the next leader may be poised to start lining his pockets the same way Mubarak did. For Egypt to have a more effective, transparent economy, all of that will have to be cleaned up. There are probably a lot of people in Cairo who have been checking their bank balances lately.

info Yahoo

How to Fight Bad Customer Service

No matter how careful a consumer you are, sooner or later you will get stung with a product that doesn't work, a fee you shouldn't have to pay or a policy that simply doesn't make sense.
The good news is that you can complain effectively, and get results. You just have to know how. You must:

Know Your Rights

Sometimes companies get away with egregious behavior simply because their victims don't know the law. It's illegal, for example, for a company to knowingly report false credit information or for collection agencies to keep calling you after you've told them in writing to stop. Knowing the law, and letting the companies know you know, is sometimes effective in getting bad behavior to stop.

If your complaint involves a contract, warranty or guarantee, read all the fine print that came with it. You don't necessarily have to limit yourself to the remedies prescribed in these documents, but you should at least know what the company promised.

Know What You Want

Be clear in your mind and in all your communications with the company about what you want to happen. That way you won't get sidetracked. After all, the customer service rep's job, typically, is not to make you happy. It's to get you off the phone.

If the rep suggests ways to fix your problem at all, it will usually be ways that don't cost her or the company much. When my new laptop's hard drive failed for the second time, Dell wanted to send me yet another replacement part. But I knew from the start of my call that I wasn't getting off the phone until a replacement computer was on its way.

I'm assuming, by the way, that what you want is both reasonable and doable. Your definition of those two terms may vary from the company's, but you can't be ridiculous about it. The dry cleaner that ruined your jacket, for example, should be expected to buy you a new one. You shouldn't expect free dry cleaning for life.

Be Concise

Boil your story down to its essential elements; you might even practice first with a friend before you pick up the phone. Nattering on about irrelevant details will just make it easier for the rep to tune out or miss the point. Besides, you're going to have to repeat your story over and over and over to get results. Might as well save yourself some time by editing in advance.

Don't Be a Jerk

My husband, the most effective complainer I know, puts it this way: You don't have to be nice, necessarily. You do have to be polite. Hubby has used this not-nice-but-polite approach to get us a 50 percent discount on a garage door that was incorrectly installed, a free upgrade on our TiVo service (again, botched installation) and a number of other concessions from companies that initially insisted there was no way to accommodate us.

I've found being nice sometimes greases the wheels. My favorite ploy is to chat them up, then ask them how they would handle my problem if it were theirs, instead of mine. Many times, they'll respond to this treatment by connecting me with someone who can actually solve my dilemma.

Remember: The Company's Problems Are Not Yours

Customer service reps love to tell you exactly why the company's procedures don't allow them to do what you need them to do. Guess what: You don't have to care. How the company chooses to conduct its business is not your concern. What is your concern is getting your problem fixed, however the company ultimately decides to do it.

Carve Out Some Time

I'm convinced some companies try to wear you out with excessively long hold times. You can't force them to pick up the phone, but you can fight back by outwaiting them. Get yourself a portable phone or, better yet, a portable with a headset. That way you can do other things to keep your sanity while waiting for the company to see reason.

It took me three hours on a Saturday morning to persuade Dell to see things my way. I survived innumerable transfers, two disconnects and endless stretches on hold largely because I wasn't tethered to a desk the whole time. Thanks to my portable headset, I was able to play with my daughter, sort mail and even do a little light housekeeping while I talked to Sandy, Matt, Phyllis, Jason, Raina and the rest of the Dell crew about how they were going to get me a replacement computer.

Get Names and Call-Back Numbers

Sometimes you don't have three hours in a row to spend on the phone. Rather than start over from the beginning each time you dial, make sure you know how to get back in touch with the people who handled your last call. Having a name and number also comes in handy when you get transferred into voice-mail hell or the phone simply goes dead -- not that a customer service rep would ever, ever deliberately hang up on you. (Ahem, Sandy.)

Take Notes

I don't know why, but reps are inordinately impressed when you can tell them exactly when you were told what by whom. These details can also help when you're enlisting others to come to your aid.

When in Doubt, Get It in Writing

Consumer advocates usually recommend putting disputes in writing. The reality is that most problems get handled over the phone, and you don't necessarily have to conduct business by snail mail. If the issue involves a lot of money, taxes, legal issues or your credit report, however, put everything in writing and send the letters by certified mail, return receipt requested. Keep a log of all your communications with the company and copies of every relevant piece of paper.

Keep Moving Up the Ladder

You probably know that if you can't get what you want from a phone rep, you should ask to speak to a supervisor. But the folks with the real power may be several rungs up the ladder. If you strike out, try the company's marketing or public relations division. A letter sent to the company's president or CEO can often break through a logjam like nothing else. If a quick Google search doesn't turn up the name and address, check the web site. Don't fall for the customer service address that's prominently listed; you want the address where the CEO actually does business. If it's a publicly traded company, you'll find that in its SEC filings in the "Investor Relations" tab.

Social media may help you, or it may not. Social media expert Peter Shankman tells of the time he tried to get Delta's attention about a travel problem with repeated tweets to @Delta, only to get a response (and an offer to help) from @SouthwestAir. At least somebody was monitoring Delta-related tweets on Twitter, he says -- too bad it wasn't Delta.

Escalate

If the company is violating the law, you may need to contact the appropriate regulator. You'll need to do some research to find the right office (a Google search such as "Who regulates banks?" can get you started), but you can't necessarily count on results.

If you're having a problem with the government itself, the ultimate resource may be your local, state or federal representative. Many lawmakers pride themselves on taking care of their constituents on this grassroots level.

Then there's always the option of alerting the media. If the company's behavior has been particularly terrible or you think you might be part of a trend, you can seek out a sympathetic blogger or try contacting your local newspaper or television station to see if you can interest them in your plight.

If nothing else works, you can always hire a lawyer. It's not the easiest or most cost-effective way to get what you want, but sometimes it pays off. When a company is particularly entrenched in ignoring its consumers, sometimes that law firm letterhead is the only thing that will get their attention.

info Yahoo

Thai Food - Sour, Spicy, Delicious

This month is a special month for me, because in addition to the early years, many of my friends from overseas came to visited me here. And I also want to say Happy Chinese New Year, wish you all have a prosperity year ahead. This time I was invited by my friends to have a taste of the typical dishes from Thailand. One of the Thai restaurant is located in Benton Juction precisely in Karawaci Tangerang have a unique name, 'Thai Grasshopper'. This restaurant provides 2 seperated seats, the outdoor seat for smoking area and also indoors. Well, because we have 10 people, so we prefer indoor seats because the desk can be aranged together.

At the first time, I got confused when I read all the menus here, because I am still not familiar with the names of these Thai cuisine. Then, one of my friend recommends me the pineapple fried rice, it tastes very good. But I want to order another menu. Finally, my choice fell on one of the menu of this restaurant recommendations, the Pad Thai. For the drinks, I ordered strawberry juice mixed with other fruits so that the taste becomes sweet and sour fresh.

Finally, the menu that we've ordered come, Pad Thai is a kind of noodles with meat and tofu and the grated carrots and bean sprouts on top. It was also has a very unique taste but delicious. While my friends were enjoying their Tom Yam soup, a sour and spicy taste that gives a different impression on your tongue. We really spent the time with joy in this place, because it's very rare that we can spend
time together.

Time passed by and we've been here for more than 2 hours, and it's time to return home. When we went out, we found that the scene in Benton Junction at night was very beautiful. Ranging from decorative lights hanging from the trees, like white rain falling from the trees. And also there's a variety of entertainment provided by the manager. In addition, this area also as an international area, because
a lot of tourists who visit this place to eat and relax.