Winners of 81st Academy Awards

"Slumdog Millionaire" dominated the 81st Academy Award ceremony by winning 8 Oscars, including one for best picture. The award for best actor went to Sean Penn, while Kate Winslet won the Oscar for best actress. Did you enjoyed the Academy Awards ceremony live on your television? If you didn't, here is the complete list of Oscar winners.

Best supporting actress: Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Also nominated: Amy Adams - Doubt; Viola Davis - Doubt; Taraji P Henson - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; Marisa Tomei - The Wrestler

Best original screenplay: Milk
Also nominated: Happy-Go-Lucky; Wall-E; In Bruges; Frozen River

Best adapted screenplay: Slumdog Millionaire
Also nominated: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; Doubt; Frost/Nixon; The Reader

Best animated feature film: Wall-E
Also nominated: Bolt; Kung Fu Panda

Best animated short film: La Maison en Petits Cubes
Also nominated: Lavatory - Lovestory; Oktapodi; Presto; This Way Up

Art direction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Also nominated: Changeling; The Dark Knight; The Duchess; Revolutionary Road

Costume design: The Duchess
Also nominated: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; Australia; Milk; Revolutionary Road

Make-up: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Also nominated: The Dark Knight; Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Cinematography: Slumdog Millionaire
Also nominated: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; Changeling; The Dark Knight; The Reader

Best live action short film: Spielzeugland (Toyland)
Also nominated: Auf der Strecke (On The Line); Manon on the Asphalt; New Boy; The Pig

Best supporting actor: Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
Also nominated: Josh Brolin - Milk; Robert Downey Jr - Tropic Thunder; Philip Seymour Hoffman - Doubt; Michael Shannon - Revolutionary Road

Best documentary feature: Man on Wire
Also nominated: The Betrayal; Encounters at the End of the World; The Garden; Trouble The Water

Best documentary short subject: Smile Pinki
Also nominated: The Conscience of Nhem En; The Final Inch; The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306

Visual effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Also nominated: The Dark Knight; Iron Man

Sound editing: The Dark Knight
Also nominated: Iron Man; Wanted; Slumdog Millionaire; Wall-E

Sound mixing: Slumdog Millionaire
Also nominated: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; The Dark Knight; Wanted; Wall-E

Film editing:Slumdog Millionaire
Also nominated: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; The Dark Knight; Frost/Nixon; Milk

Best original score: Slumdog Millionaire
Also nominated: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; Defiance; Milk; Slumdog Millionaire; Wall-E

Best original song: Jai Ho - Slumdog Millionaire
Also nominated: Down To Earth - Wall-E; O Saya - Slumdog Millionaire

Best foreign language film: Departures - Japan
Also nominated: Revanche - Austria; The Class - France; The Baader Meinhof Complex - Germany; Waltz With Bashir - Israel

Best director: Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire
Also nominated: Stephen Daldry - The Reader; David Fincher - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; Ron Howard - Frost/Nixon; Gus Van Sant - Milk

Best actress: Kate Winslet - The Reader
Also nominated: Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married; Angelina Jolie - Changeling; Melissa Leo - Frozen River; Meryl Streep - Doubt

Best actor: Sean Penn - Milk
Also nominated: Richard Jenkins - The Visitor; Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon; Brad Pitt - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler

Best picture: Slumdog Millionaire
Also nominated: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; Frost/Nixon; Milk; The Reader

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Oscar Winners List Leaked?

The Oscar Winners list leaked! A document containing the signature of Sid Ganis, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences first appeared in a blog. The list stated that the ceremony, scheduled for Sunday, will see Mickey Rourke (best actor), Kate Winslet (best actress), Heath Ledger (best supporting actor) and Amy Adams (best supporting actress) as the winners. The paper also shows that British filmmaker Danny Boyle will be handed the best director award trophy, and his film “Slumdog Millionaire” will be named best picture.

Well, the Academy has dismissed the list as nothing more than a hoax and insisted the votes are still being counted.. Oscar spokeswoman Leslie Unger said: “The document is a complete fraud".

So, what you think about the list? Is it genuine? Off course it is not. But, what about the winners? are they really going to get the trophies on the big day? In my view at least some of them will. Take a look at the Oscar Winners list:

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Construction of Eiffel Tower in Pictures

Eiffel Tower is an iron tower situated beside the Seine River in Paris. It is one of the most recognizable and popular structures of the world. In fact it is one of the most spectacular landmarks in Paris. Named after its designer, engineer Gustave Eiffel, the Eiffel Tower is the tallest building in Paris. More than 200,000,000 people have visited the tower since its construction in 1889.

Eiffel Tower was built between 1887 and 1889 as the entrance arch for the Exposition Universelle, a World's Fair marking the centennial celebration of the French Revolution. To create the Eiffel Tower, about three hundred workers joined together 18,038 pieces of puddled iron, using two and a half million rivets, in a structural design by Maurice Koechlin. The tower was inaugurated on 31 March 1889, and opened on 6 May. Including the 24 m (79 ft) antenna, the structure is 324 m (1,063 ft) high (since 2000), which is equivalent to about 81 levels in a conventional building. The metal structure of the Eiffel Tower weighs 7,300 tonnes while the entire structure including non-metal components is approximately 10,000 tonnes.

So, that was a little bit of history. Now, let's take a look at the following images  and try to feel how with time, Eiffel Tower took shape. Yes, I am talking about the construction stages of Eiffel Tower, depicted through pictures. Take a look.

The structural design stage.

Start of construction.

Construction of a Pillar

Four pillars gradually taking shape.

Eiffel tower in March, 1888

Eiffel Tower in September, 1888

Eiffel Tower in December, 1888

  Completed Eiffel Tower in March, 1889

Present day Eiffel Tower

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Enjoy Online Shopping with ShopWiki

In our busy life, we hardly get enough time to look around and see what is available in the market? Even if we get some time for shopping, often time don't permit us to roam around and see where good items are available at best price. That's why many people have started to prefer online shopping, which is convenient and less time consuming.

But, online shopping may also become a time consuming process, when you don't know where to find the items you want. Am I right? Let me tell you what you can do in such situation. Ever heard about ShopWiki? ShopWiki (www.shopwiki.com) is an innovative and interesting shopping search engine, which was designed to help consumers find products at best price. Unlike other shopping comparison sites, which promotes stores affiliated with them, ShopWiki crawls and lists products from more than 200,000 online stores. It means, as a shopper, you will have more chances to find great products at the best possible price.

From household accessories to electronics items and from gift items to sports and recreational items, ShopWiki lists everything and anything you can imagine. To start your search, you can either use their search box or go to the specific product category. The products are nicely organized with relevant categories and sub-categories. So, you will never lost yourself. And if you need some tips or help of any kind in buying a product, they have a directory of gift buying guides for all types of people and seasons. Use those guides and suddenly you are an expert in shopping!

For example, you want to buy a gift for the cute little baby girl of your best friend. But this is for the first time you are going to buy a baby product. What you gonna do now? Just access the guides on gift for babies on ShopWiki and browse through the pages. There you find lots of valuable information on different kids of baby gifts along with beautiful images. Read their tips and advices for the type of product you want and go shopping by comparing which shop offers what product at what price. For example, you want to buy a good teddy bear, read their guide on baby toys and get some idea. Then, access the teddy bear search page (alternatively you can perform a search with their search box) to find what kinds of products are available in different online shops. On the search result page, you will see the product price, store name, product description and product image (if available). From their you can directly go to a store to buy the product of your choice.

Similarly, you can use their gift buying guides to buy beautiful gifts for all kind of occasions such as anniversary, Halloween, Christmas and birthdays. In my view, ShopWiki is a great online tool, that every online shopper must use. It will not only help you save time and money, but will also help you in buying the right product for the right occasion. Valentine's day is coming. Why don't you use ShopWiki to buy the perfect Valentine's day Gift for your love? Go and give it a try.

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Man kills 39,650 rats to win a contest!

Many parts of the Bangladeshi has been hit by rat attacks! The rat population soared because the rodents were feeding off the region's bamboo forests, which were blossoming for the first time in decades. Last year a plague of rats destroyed the crops of tens of thousands of people living in the remote south-eastern Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh.

So, to minimize the damages caused by rats, the Bangladeshi government started an unique contest. It was nothing but a competition of killing rats. Now, the winner of that rat killing contest has been announced. Binoy Kumar Karmakar, 40, a farmer from north Bangladesh won the contest by killing a total of 39,650 rats within a year.

Can you believe this? That man killed 39,650 rats within a year, which is equivalent to one every 13 minutes! The winning rat killer used traps, poison and flooding to kill the rodents. And as a reward, he got a 14in (36cm) color television from the government.

via: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7874517.stm

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Abandoned 1937 Bugatti sold for $4.4 Million

A 1937 Bugatti Type 57S car, which remained abandoned for half a century, has been recently auctioned for euro3.4 million (about $4.4 million). The 1937 Bugatti went under the hammer at Bonhams' Retromobile car show and sale in Paris. This Bugatti is especially valuable because it was originally owned by Earl Howe, a prominent British race car driver, and because its original equipment is intact, so it can restored without relying on replacement parts.

The car was sold on behalf of the family of its last owner, Dr Harold Carr, an orthopedic surgeon, who drove the car for several years. But since early 1960s it stood still in his garage in Gosforth, near Newcastle in northern England, until his death in 2007. Bonham's said a European collector bought the car.

via AP

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Laser Hair Removal Instructional DVD

Aesthetic VideoSource has released a new instructional DVD on laser hair removal. The title of the DVD is "The Complete Guide to Laser Hair Removal" and it is for the professionals only. This 1 hour 44 minute long DVD features two physicians — Christine Whitelaw, M.D., and Mark B. Taylor, M.D., who nicely explains how to perform laser hair removal on different parts of the body such as the face, underarms, back, bikini area, and legs.

The DVD also contains procedural demonstrations on male and female models. The demonstrations are performed with the help of both IPL and a combined Alexandrite/YAG laser machine. The DVD also discusses different related topics such as laser options, benefits and contraindications, hair growth cycle, treatment regimens, and procedure guidelines.

Want to get a copy of "The Complete Guide to Laser Hair Removal" DVD? You can order it by calling 1-800-414-2434 or visiting www.VideoShelf.com. The price is just $175.00 (plus shipping cost). Go and get it today and learn how to perform common laser hair removal treatments in different parts of the body.

Note: This product is just for the professionals involved in salon and beauty industry.

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Personalised Coffins!

Now, one can easily design their own personalised coffin or choose from a range of stylish designs. Thanks to LifeArt, an Australian company, who has recently launched a personalized range of environmentally friendly coffins. LifeArt offers families the option of personalizing a design by adding words that reflect and celebrate their loved ones character. This is really and interesting idea to make the final goodbye a little more personal. Isn't it?

Some of their designs features nice images such as a woodland glade, an open road, Sydney Harbour Bridge, a surfer catching a wave or a cowboy riding off into the sunset.

LifeArt coffins are manufactured from enviroboard, a form of cardboard, which meets the standards required by the funeral industry for either cremation or burial. So, customers don't have to worry about environmental factor.

More info:  www.lifeart.com.au

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81st Academy Awards Nominations

Only 19 days are remaining for the announcement of 81st Academy Awards or the 2009 Oscar night. The nominations for this year's biggest movie event were revealed on January 22, 2009. For the title of best motion picture, there are "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", "Frost/Nixon", "Milk", "The Reader" and "Slumdog Millionaire". The 81st Academy Awards presentation will be telecast live by the ABC Television Network on Sunday, February 22, 2009.

Take a look at the complete list of nominations:

BEST MOTION PICTURE OF THE YEAR
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
"Frost/Nixon"
"Milk"
"The Reader"
"Slumdog Millionaire"

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Richard Jenkins - "The Visitor"
Frank Langella - "Frost/Nixon"
Sean Penn - "Milk"
Brad Pitt - "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Mickey Rourke - "The Wrestler"

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Anne Hathaway - "Rachel Getting Married"
Angelina Jolie - "Changeling"
Melissa Leo - "Frozen River"
Meryl Streep - "Doubt"
Kate Winslet - "The Reader"

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Josh Brolin - "Milk"
Robert Downey Jr. - "Tropic Thunder"
Philip Seymour Hoffman - "Doubt"
Heath Ledger - "The Dark Knight"
Michael Shannon - "Revolutionary Road"

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Amy Adams - "Doubt"
Penelope Cruz - "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Viola Davis - "Doubt"
Taraji P. Henson - "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Marisa Tomei - "The Wrestler"

BEST DIRECTOR

David Fincher -"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Ron Howard - "Frost/Nixon"
Gus Van Sant - "Milk"
Stephen Daldry - "The Reader"
Danny Boyle - "Slumdog Millionaire"

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Courtney Hunt - "Frozen River"
Mike Leigh - "Happy-Go-Lucky"
Martin - "In Bruges"
Dustin Lance Black - "Milk"
Andrew Stanton - WALL-E

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Eric Roth and Robin Swicord - "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
John Patrick Shanley - "Doubt"
Peter Morgan - "Frost/Nixon"
David Hare - "The Reader"
Simon Beaufoy - "Slumdog Millionaire"

BES FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
"Der Baader Meinhof Komplex"
"The Class"
"Departures "
"Revanche"
"Waltz with Bashir"

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

"Bolt"
"Kung Fun Panda "
"WALL-E"

BEST ART DIRECTION
"Changeling"
"The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button"
"Dark Knight"
"The Duchess"
"Revolutionary Road"

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
"Changeling" Tom Stern
"Slumdog Millionaire," Anthony Dod Mantle
"The Reader," Chris Menges
"The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button," Claudio Miranda
"The Dark Knight," Wally Pfister,

BEST FILM EDITING
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall
"The Dark Knight," Lee Smith
"Frost/Nixon," Daniel P. Hanley, Mike Hill
"Milk," Elliot Graham
"Slumdog Millionaire," Chris Dickens

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
"Australia," Catherine Martin
"The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button," Jacqueline West
"The Duchess," Michael O'Conner
"Milk", Danny Glicker
"Revolutionary Road," Albert Wolsky

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
"The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)"
"Encounters at the End of the World"
"The Garden"
"Man on Wire"
"Trouble the Water"

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

"Slumdog Millionaire," "Jai Ho," A.R. Rahman
"Slumdog Millionaire," "O Saya," A.R. Rahman & M.I.A.
"Wall-E," "Down To Earth," Peter Gabriel & Thomas Newman

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
"The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button," Alexandre Desplat
"Defiance," James Newton Howard
"Milk," Danny Elfman
"Slumdog Millionaire," A.R. Rahman
"WALL-E," Thomas Newman

BEST MAKEUP
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," Colleen Callaghan, Fionagh Cush
"The Dark Knight," Peter Robb-King, John Caglione Jr.
"Hellboy II: The Golden Army," Mike Elizalde, Thom Floutz

BEST SOUND EDITING
"The Dark Knight," Richard King
"Iron Man," Frank Eulner, Christopher Boyes
"Slumdog Millionaire," Tom Sayers
"Wall-E," Ben Burtt, Matthew Wood
"Wanted," Wylie Stateman

BEST SOUND MIXING
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," Mark Weingarten, David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce
"The Dark Knight," Ed Novick, Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo
"Slumdog Millionaire," Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke and Resul Pookutty
"Wall-E," Ben Burtt, Tom Myers, Michael Semanick
"Wanted," Chris Jenkins, Frank A. Montaño and Petr Forejt

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," Eric Barba
"The Dark Knight," Chris Corbould, Nick Davis, Paul Franklin, Tim Webber
"Iron Man," John Nelson

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
"Auf der Strecke (On the Line)"
"Manon on the Asphalt"
"New Boy"
"The Pig"
"Spielzeugland (Toyland)"

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
"La Maison en Petits Cubes"
"Lavatory - Lovestory"
"Oktapodi"
"Presto"
"This Way Up"

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM
"The Conscience of Nhem En"
"The Final Inch"
"Smile Pinki"
"The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306"

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