As a woman of the world I found Patong particularly entertaining. The way the local girls were able to play the Western vacationers was quite astonishing. Without trying to understand Patong girls and their motives, I would say that Patong girls are some of the most devious creatures on earth. And good for them!

The attempts from the men at trying to understand Patong girls was largely – with a few honorable exceptions – pathetic. They were continually hustled at Connect-4 (of all things) and in the local game of hitting the nail into the wood block with the wrong end of the hammer (huh?). Trying to understand Patong girls was clearly beyond most men once they saw the pretty faces, lithe bodies and happy smiles. Something about these girls made men simply want to empty their wallets all over them.

The girls seemed to prey on those foreigners that appeared wide-eyed and curious. These were the ones that were the least likely to succeed when trying to understand Patong girls and the most likely to succumb to the ‘I love you’ line. These ‘gentlemen’ were invariably taken for a ride and no doubt not in the way that they would have liked.

This was an interesting trip, for sure.

Anyone with a television, the Internet, a radio or who reads newspaper will have heard of Mrs Sarah Palin, the beautiful bible believing Christian who manages to juggle the difficulties of being the Governor of Alaska, being Senator John McCain’s running mate in the forthcoming presidential election, and bringing up 5 wonderful children. This woman is a human dynamo with endless amounts of energy and passion. Sarah Palin is a hockey mom who just seems to love life.

Even at high school Sarah Palin was known as someone with immense volumes of passion and drive. She won the nickname “Sarah Barracuda” because of her aggression on the basketball court – she captained the ladies’ basketball team to success in a schools competition with a last minute free throw, ignoring the serious injury to her ankle that she had suffered earlier in the game.

Sarah Palin’s college and University career was varied, and she attended quite a few institutions before finally graduating from the University of Idaho.

I mentioned that Sarah Palin is beautiful in my first paragraph, and it’s not just me that thought so: the judges at both the Wasilla Pageant (which she won) and the Miss Alaska Pageant (where she finished a credible third) agree.

There is nothing more frustrating than waking up to a day of work with your new home business only to find that your computer or telephone isn’t working. Fixing it (or getting someone to fix it) will take up time that you cannot afford. Maybe you need to get a new phone? That’s an hour out of your schedule. Maybe you need to get a new computer and load all your software and data back onto it? In this worst case scenario you might have lost an entire day that would have otherwise been spent on your home business.

In the case of the broken phone and the broken computer you may have shopped around for the cheapest deals to start with. Now you can see why this is false economy that will effect both you and your home business.

A new home business could do a lot worse that take a look at Plantronics range of telephones and wireless headsets, and at Apple’s range of computers.

It always pays to be cautious about which filesharing version you end up choosing. This the case even for someone who is relatively experienced in this area (me). I am ultra careful when I choose any software to put on my computer; filesharing software is no exception.

So I decided, reluctantly, to change the version of Ares that I was using, and I desperately needed help in making the final decision. A friend of mine pointed me to the OfficialAres.com website. Wow! I’m really pleased he did because this made the choice much easier.

You see OfficialAres.com have these really helpful reviews: they are honest and unbiased. These guys call a spade a spade and do not pull any punches. I really respect that and it makes the reviews easier to trust. They made it clear that some versions of Ares really were not worth the hard disk space. Others met the grade. Of those that were worthy of decision, it was then down to the simple task of deciding which of the features matched my requirements.

I went with Ares Ultra in the end and this has been a wonderful decision. It was an upgrade from the tired old Ares Galaxy like you would not believe.

Last year Radiohead – the Britsh band – offered its album ‘In Rainbows’ to fans. What was interesting about this particular release was that the album was offered under a ‘tip-jar’ style arrangement where people paid as much as they wanted to. Essentially this was free music downloads offered by a top-rated band.

This year the mantle has been taken by Trent Reznor and his band, the Nine Inch Nails. Trent has long been an outspoken advocate of, if not free music downloads, then of freedom for customers to choose. Nine Inch Nails have recently ended their contract with their publisher and have chosen to offer their latest album, “the slip” for absolutely nothing. This is the first time such a large group have offered free music downloads with absolutely no way for customers to pay for it. Even if they wanted to.

The recording industry is going through somewhat of a recession as free music downloads in its varying forms starts to bubble to the top of the pile.

Soul Rebels is the newest exciting release from Summit Side Productions. Featuring over a dozen extreme sports, it takes you from the mountains, to the rivers, to the seas, as you witness some of the top athletes throw down their moves and explain to you why they do it. Rider segments include interviews and rider perspective on why we risk our lives for extreme sports, and the rewards that this gives us.

Starring: Lorenzo Worster, Shannon Carrol, Jonas Green, Cory ‘Midget’ Walters, Ben Coleman, Bubba Henderson, Renee Hanks, Mario Solis, Max Mancini, Eric Haendle, Ross Baker, Josh Storrer, Noah Sipila, Jesse Bath, Joel Jutagir, Brian Bozack, Sam Baker, Stephane Riendeau, Erich Wagar, Ben Dolenc, Chip Wasson, and many more.

Sports include: BMX, Mountain Biking, MotoX, Tele Skiing, Snowboarding, Surfing, Skateboarding, Wakeboarding, Kiteboarding, Base Jumping, Kayaking, Insane Wheelchairing and more!

Video Shot On Location: Northern California, Tahoe Backcountry, Maui, Wyoming, Southern California, Nevada, Utah, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.

I’m not one to hold back my curiosity very long, so when a friend advised me not to try smoking Salvia I simply had to buy some and find out for myself why.

First things first: don’t buy Salvia if you don’t like strong smells. Salvia really does smell like a week old dead animal in the sun. Well, it doesn’t smell like rotting flesh but it does smell really, really bad.

I got my Salvia from one of the many online retailers that specialize in the drug. It came in the form of crumbly black flakes which I was to put in my pipe. Smoking Salvia is not pleasant in itself and the taste is pretty bad (though nowhere near as bad as that smell…).

The high you get from smoking Salvia is pretty unique, and it hits you almost immediately. From a tingling sensation in your limbs to complete mess up, back to normality again, the trip takes around 8 minutes to run its course. Once you’ve finished you’ll notice that there are no ill effects associated with smoking Salvia.

At least there are no ill effects that we know of. Clearly scientists do not know for sure that there are no long term effects that may come back to haunt us. For now I’m satisfied that there are no short term effects!

Tangent, who mainly provides computer solutions to education, government, corporate, and healthcare markets, have announced Evergreen 17, a “green” and “ultra power efficient” touch screen PC.

According to Tangent the Evergreen 17 only consumes 24 watts, which is 72% less than the Energy Star 4.0 rating requires.

“Not only do users experience computing with a touch screen PC in a space-saving form factor, they also get industry leading power efficiency at 24 watts and 72% less energy usage than Energy Star 4.0 limits,” said Douglas Monsour, Tangent’s President. “This translates into cost-savings while, at the same time, helping the environment.”

The Evergreen 17 touch screen computer comes with the Via Eden 1.0 GHz (fan-less) processor or the ViaC7 1.50 GHz (low noise fan), hard drive capacity from 60GB to 250GB and up to 2GB RAM memory. Each Evergreen 17 is equipped with a high brightness TFT panel and resistive touch. It weighs15.8 lbs. and is only 2.25 inches in depth. The operating system is either Windows XP Professional (or Windows XP Embedded for server and web-based computing) or a Linux operating system.

The Evergreen 17 starts at $1,195 and comes with a one-year parts and labor warranty. The touch screen computer is available now over at www.tangent.com.