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Posted by admin as Baker's Dozen at 1:32 PM CDT

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The inconvenience involved in going to a physical betting hall provides plenty of reasons not to go there unless you have to. Because traffic accidents, the inconvenience, and hundreds of things to take care of will not really compensate the hassle for that possibility to place your bets at physical betting hall, though if you happen to be the type of person who thrives on casinos and gambling then going online could be the obvious answer. You can play with best bonus casino here.

You are not required to leave your home to have a go at online video poker or related games for everything can be done from your bedroom assuming you possess a functional computer plus, of course, a functional Internet connection. Though allowing for that, before setting out, there are a fair number of tenets that you’ll need to master regarding online video poker or related games, especially if you’re a beginner regarding this realm. So, calm down that tizzy of yours to ruminate what follows. Here is our compressed layout which was written up to spell out how to single out a trustworthy online video poker or related games address. The topmost thing that you as a discriminating Internet wagerer should hunt for is an online video poker or related games website of the sort that is prepared to guarantee top odds. Here are a lot of alternative hints regarding picking your online poker website.

Always ensure that the online poker website is legally licensed, e. g. by investigating the license information on site. If you are unable to track down any license information on a given online poker website, don’t even attempt to test the odds at this place. After, you’ll ponder very scrupulously the different bonuses and promos that the online poker website displays. For some more central advice, is obviously to place your wager at the beginning in minute amounts in place of frittering way too much instantly. First of all, check the integrity of this particular online poker structure prior to triggering some severe hazard, especially financial ones! Finally, mind this vital prompt regarding online blackjack. It can obviously only be this– to never forget that betting should mainly be concerned with fun and much less about becoming rich. Casino gambling is not a business, instead it’s a pastime that is intended to help you feel bright and life as a whole pleasant.

Then, having observed the sketched out guidelines, you can now go and acquiesce to the seduction of online poker…

Posted by admin as Baker's Dozen, Odds + Chances, World Of Gambling at 12:10 AM CDT

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In June 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States Navy led a squadron of four heavily armed warships into Sagami Bay, to the Port of Uraga, just south of the shogun’s capital at Edo. What the Americans found was a technologically backward, though intricately complicated, island nation, under the rule of the House of Tokugawa, that had been isolated from the rest of the world for two and a half centuries.

Whether or not the Americans realized the far-reaching effects of their gunboat diplomacy, they now set into motion a coup de theatre which fifteen years hence would transform the conglomerate of some 260 feudal domains into a single, unified country. When the fifteenth and last shogun, Yoshinobu Tokugawa, abdicated his rule and restored the emperor to his ancient seat of power in November 1867, Japan was well on its way to becoming an industrialized nation, rapidly modernizing and Westernizing in a unique Japanese sense.

Quite a transformation in just fifteen years, and much of the credit goes to a lower ranking samurai from the Tosa domain named Sakamoto Ryoma. When Ryoma fled his native Tosa in spring 1862, he was a “nobody.” Although he was a renowned swordsman who had served as head of an elite fencing academy in Edo, and was also a leader of the young samurai in Tosa who advocated the radical slogans Expelling the Barbarians, Imperial Reverence and Toppling the Shogunate, in the eyes of the power that were he was a “nobody.” He had never held an official post, and he never would. When in the following October the “nobody” met Katsu Kaishu, the enlightened commissioner of the shogun’s navy, it might have been with intent to assassinate him. But, of course, Ryoma did not kill Kaishu. Instead, this champion of samurai who would overthrow the shogunate and expel the barbarians became the devoted follower of the elite shogunal official. Kaishu opened Ryoma’s eyes to the futility of trying to defend against a foreign onslaught without first developing a powerful navy; and to this end Japan desperately needed Western technology and expertise.

Ryoma now worked with Kaishu, whom he called “the greatest man in Japan,” to establish a naval academy in Kobe, where he and his comrades studied the naval arts and sciences under their revered mentor. But certain of his hotheaded comrades called Ryoma a turncoat for siding with the enemy, which, of course, was not true. As if to belie the false accusation, in the following June Ryoma vowed, in a letter to his sister, to “clean up Japan once and for all.” What he was talking about was overthrowing the military government, which Kaishu loyally served. Earlier in the same month, ships of the United States and France had shelled the radical Choshu domain in retaliation for Choshu’s having recently fired upon foreign ships passing through Shimonoseki Strait. News of the attack deeply troubled Ryoma, who was concerned about possible designs among the Western powers, particularly France and England, to colonize Japan as the latter had China. When Ryoma learned that the foreign ships that had bombarded Choshu were subsequently repaired at a Tokugawa shipyard in Edo, he was fighting mad. “It is really too bad that Choshu started a war last month by shelling foreign ships,” he wrote his sister. “This does not benefit Japan at all. But what really disgusts me is that the ships they shot up in Choshu are being repaired at Edo, and when they’re fixed will head right back to Choshu to fight again. This is all because corrupt officials in Edo are in league with the barbarians.” But, now, through the good offices of Katsu Kaishu, Ryoma too was in league with some very powerful men. “Although those corrupt shogunal officials have a great deal of power now, I’m going to get the help of two or three daimyo and enlist likeminded men so we can start thinking more about the good of Japan, and not only the Imperial Court. Then, I’ll get together with my friends in Edo (you know, Tokugawa retainers, daimyo and so on) to go after those wicked officials and cut them down.”

Ryoma was not opposed to boasting, and he had a big ego, declaring to his sister: “It’s a shame that there aren’t more men like me around the country.” For all his boasting, however, Ryoma was also a realist. “I don’t expect that I’ll be around too long. But I’m not about to die like any average person either. I’m only prepared to die when big changes finally come, when even if I continue to live I will no longer be of any use to the country. But since I’m fairly shifty, I’m not likely to die so easily. But seriously, although I was born a mere potato digger in Tosa, a nobody, I’m destined to bring about great changes in the nation. But I’m definitely not going to get puffed up about it. Quite the contrary! I’m going to keep my nose to the ground, like a clam in the mud. So don’t worry about me!”

It seems that Ryoma was also an incredible visionary who foresaw his own destination. Four years later the “nobody” from Tosa forced the peaceful abdication of Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu, and the restoration of the emperor to power - the event that historians call the Meiji Restoration.

But how could Ryoma - who had plunged from the status of “nobody,” to that of outlaw, and one of the most wanted men on a long list of Tokugawa enemies - be of sufficient consequence to force the abdication of the generalissimo of the 267-year-old samurai government? And what were his reasons for doing so, even at the risk of his own life? To answer the second question first, and to put it quite simply, Ryoma was a lover of freedom - the freedom to act, the freedom to think, and the freedom to be. These were the ideals that drove Ryoma on his dangerous quest for freedom - which, of course, was nothing less than the salvation of Japan. But the greatest obstacle to this freedom, and to the salvation of Japan from foreign subjugation, was the antiquated Tokugawa system, with its hundreds of feudal domains and suppressive class structure, which men like Katsu Kaishu and Sakamoto Ryoma meant to replace with a representative form of government styled after the great Western powers, and based on a free-class society and open commerce with the rest of the world.

While Ryoma was painfully aware of the necessity to eliminate the shogunate, the means for revolution eluded him. Having abandoned Tosa, he was a ronin, an outlaw samurai - a status which at once aided and confounded him. Unlike his comrades-in-arms from Choshu, Satsuma and other samurai clans, he was not bound to the service of feudal lord and clan. On the other hand he did not enjoy the financial support and protection of a powerful feudal domain. After much trial and tribulation, and as his first giant step toward realizing his great objective, Ryoma devised a preposterous plan of convincing Satsuma and Choshu to join forces with one another as the only means to topple the shogunate. But Satsuma and Choshu were bitter enemies whose hate for one another surpassed even that hate which they had historically harbored toward the Tokugawa. What’s more, the braggart Ryoma had a reputation for exaggerating. When he told his friends of his plan, some initially dismissed it as so much “hot air,” while others simply thought he was crazy. But in addition to many other talents, Ryoma, a truly Renaissance man, was endowed with an uncanny power of persuasion. After a year of planning and negotiation, in January 1866, Ryoma, now an indispensable “nobody,” successfully brokered a military alliance between Satsuma and Choshu, which more than anything else hastened the collapse of the Tokugawa Shogunate.

Although the shogunate had not yet learned of the secret alliance, Tokugawa police agents strongly suspected that Ryoma was up to no good. On the night after the alliance was sealed in Kyoto, Ryoma was ambushed by a Tokugawa police squad, as he and a samurai of Choshu, who had been assigned as Ryoma’s bodyguard, celebrated their great success in a second-story room at Ryoma’s favorite inn, the Teradaya, on the outskirts of the Imperial capital. A young maidservant at the inn, named Oryo, had been soaking in a hot bath when she heard the assailants break into the house. Oryo immediately ran from the bathroom stark naked up the dark staircase to warn the two men upstairs. The scene is a very famous one, as is the ensuing battle, during which Ryoma wielded a Smith & Wesson revolver, his bodyguard a lethal spear, to fend off their assailants and escape through the backdoor. Equally famous is the wedding between Ryoma and Oryo, which took place soon after, and their subsequent trip to the hot-spring baths in the Kirishima mountains of Satsuma, which was supposedly the first honeymoon in Japan.

In spring 1867, Ryoma established his Kaientai, Japan’s first modern corporation and the precursor to the Mitsubishi. Based in the international port-city of Nagasaki, the Kaientai was a private navy and shipping firm through which Ryoma and his men ran guns for the Choshu and Satsuma revolutionaries.

In the previous June, Ryoma had commanded a warship in a sea-battle off Shimonoseki, in which he aided Choshu’s Extraordinary Corps, Japan’s first modern militia, comprising both samurai and peasants, in a rout of Tokugawa naval forces. While Ryoma’s anti-Tokugawa comrades from Satsuma and Choshu prepared to crush the shogunate by military might, the “nobody” from Tosa devised a plan to avoid bloody civil war and foreign intervention. Ryoma’s “Great Plan at Sea,” an eight-point plan which he wrote aboard ship, called for the shogun to return the reins of government to the Imperial Court; for the establishment of Upper and Lower Houses of government; for all government measures to be based on public opinion, and decided by councilors comprised of the most able feudal lords, court nobles and the Japanese people at large. Rather than merely saying that Ryoma was once again “blowing hot air,” or that he was “crazy,” there were now some among his comrades who felt betrayed. These men advocated complete annihilation of the shogunate to assure it would never rise again, and felt that Ryoma was a traitor. But Ryoma convinced one of his more level-headed friends, Goto Shojiro, who was a close aide to Yamanouchi Yodo, the influential Lord of Tosa, to urge Yodo to endorse the plan. Meanwhile, Ryoma continued to run guns for the revolutionaries, because he knew that the only way to convince the shogun to abdicate would be to demonstrate that his only alternative was military annihilation, which, of course, was no alternative at all. Lord Yodo took Goto’s advice and sent Ryoma’s plan to the shogun, as if it were his own brainchild. Eleven days later, on October 14, 1867, in the Grand Hall of Nijo Castle in Kyoto, as Satsuma and Choshu hastened their final war plans, the shogun announced his abdication before his adversaries had the chance to strike.

With the overthrow of the corrupt and decrepit Tokugawa regime, the “nobody” from Tosa had made good on his vow to “clean up Japan” - although, unfortunately for his country, he would pay for it with his life. Sakamoto Ryoma was assassinated one month later, on November 15, his thirty-second birthday, in the second-story room in the house of a wealthy soy dealer in Kyoto which he used as a hideout.

Equally unfortunate for Ryoma’s country was that cleaning up Japan “once and for all” proved to be too long a period of time, even for a genius like Ryoma. This is why, amidst the rampant corruption in Japanese business circles today, many people in Japan have expressed their wish that a leader of Ryoma’s caliber would somehow miraculously emerge. A couple years ago executives of 200 Japanese corporations were asked by Asahi Shimbun, an national daily newspaper, the question: “Who from the past millennium of world history would be most useful in overcoming Japan’s current financial crisis?” Sakamoto Ryoma received more mention than any other historical figure, topping such giants as Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, Saigo Takamori, Oda Nobunaga and the founders of NEC and Honda. Evidently many Japanese people today think their country needs a good scrubbing once again.

Copyright(c)2002 Romulus Hillsborough

About the Author

Romulus Hillsborough is a writer of Japanese historical biography, focusing on the Meiji Restoration. His widely acclaimed RYOMA - Life of a Renaissance Samurai (Ridgeback Press, 1999) is the only biographical novel in English of Sakamoto Ryoma (1835 - 1867), founder of Japan’s first corporation, key player in the overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate and one of the most revered men in Japanese history. More info: http://www.ridgebackpress.com.

Posted by admin as Baker's Dozen at 5:49 AM CDT

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What has sex got to do with a sorting out your finances? Well as you read on you’ll see how money is often inextricably linked with sex and how problems in one area can cause problems in the other. And if you don’t believe money’s linked to sex, just try going home tonight and saying “hello darling, I’ve just gambled this month’s mortgage on a losing horse at Newmarket, do you fancy an early night?” and see what response you get.

Sex and money have been linked for almost as long as money has been around. Many people find money sexy and are attracted to people who have lots of it. Money can represent power and that can also be very sexy and attractive.

Money is used to pay for sex (whether you realise it or not) and invariably money is involved in the whole dating process, where ultimately many people are expecting it to result in sex. Sex is used to sell and advertise and make money and it’s sex that’s withheld when there are problems with money. Even the language of sex and money is intertwined, with the meanings of “spent” and “saving yourself” taking on a whole different context.

It’s also often the case that when partners are willing to be dishonest about sex and cheat on each other, they will also tend to be dishonest about money. A lie about either one can be the catalyst for deception in the other. This can cause a spiral of deceit that will often destroy a relationship.

When people become anxious and worried about money and their finances then it can impact their sex lives too. This then becomes another cause of worry and anxiety and can impair people’s ability to earn money, manage their finances or discuss money matters with their partners.

So what should you do if any of these issues are impacting you?

Firstly, accept that money can be sexy and fun. Often we associate money and sex in a negative way with prostitution, seedy clubs and internet porn sites. If we see it more in terms of Marilyn Monroe’s “Diamonds are a girls best friend”, “Cuba Gooding Junior’s “Show me the Money” from Jerry Maguire or Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway in the original “Thomas Crown Affair” then we can feel much more positive towards it.

Don’t have arguments with your partner about money if it’s really about sex. Be honest about the real issues and talk it through like adults. And don’t use sex as a bargaining chip in discussions about money.

If you’re feeling down and depressed about money and it’s causing you problems in the bedroom then it’s better to focus on solving your financial issues than just spend more money on Viagra tablets.

And if your sex life is not all you want it to be, don’t try and compensate by overspending and getting your finances in a mess. It’s a simple fact that it won’t improve your sex life if you’re up to your ears in debt.

The reason people associate money with power and power with sex is really more about confidence. When people have a lot of money or they feel in control of their money then they tend to feel more confident. Imagine walking into a bar thinking about your latest overdue gas bill and the big outstanding balance on your credit card. Now imagine walking into a bar knowing you’ve got £1 million in the bank, a big house and no debts. How different would you feel? How much more confident would you be? And how much sexier would you appear?

And do you know the great thing about that last exercise you did. If you imagined it and felt the way I described then you don’t actually need the money. You just need to use your imagination. Next time you’re out just imagine yourself wealthy, get a vivid picture in your head and see how good you feel. You’ll exude more confidence and more charisma just through using your mind. How cool is that?

And if you’ve read all this and you’re saying to yourself, “money can’t buy you love” and “this is all far too material” then it’s unlikely that money is going to be attracted to you. The thing you want to realise is that it’s not about the money, it’s about the attitude. We are simply using money as a trigger and a catalyst. You can use whatever you want but for many people, money works.

Be honest and truthful with your partner about money and sex.

Seek to separate your finances from the bedroom. It’s rare that budgets are proposed as an ideal aphrodisiac unless you’re both chartered accountants.

Lastly, face up to the real issues and be honest with yourself. If you indulge in compensating behaviours, like overspending because you’re feeling unloved, do yourself a favour and sort out the real issue rather than create a new one.

Who would have thought that sorting out your finances could improve your sex life?

Andy Warren provides content for http://www.financialdetox.com

Financial detox (http://www.financialdetox.com) helps you to take control of your finances. Financial Detox provides easy, step by step guidance for your financial literacy. You can become confident and at ease with your money. Financial Detox gives you the structured support that you need to be in charge.

Posted by admin as Baker's Dozen at 3:40 AM CDT

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It happened again!

I was enjoying an evening with my little 2-yr. old son at the playground when, BAM, it happened. You ever have one of those moments in life when you know you are being taught an important lesson?

Picture in your mind a chaotic atmosphere of over fifty little children battling for their turn to play on a handful of playground rides and objects.

Recipe for disaster, huh? That’s what I thought, too, until my observations quickly picked up something else.

Sure, they were running into one another, crying and trying to get ahead of each other for the rides. They were walking across other children who had fallen down in front of them and were pushing one another to get their turn. They were running to their parents for comfort after getting their feelings hurt.

As I stood there taking in the scenery before me, those little blessings of life showed me some important lessons about relationship success. If you will indulge me a moment, I will share with you what I found out.

Relationship Success Lesson #1 - The Principle of Fun:

Not much to say here! It’s simple; these kids loved to have fun.

In adult relationships, life throws curves at us constantly. Responsibilities come at us from every angle. It takes conscious effort to remember to have fun together in life. I emphasize the word, “together”. I’m not talking about the type of fun where the husband plays golf and the wife shops.

The “heavy” takes it toll on relationships, and we do well when we give our relationship a time-out from the heavy and lighten up. Couples who play together, stay together.

Relationship Success Lesson #2 - The Principle of Fascination:

As I stood there watching, it was interesting to see how the younger children reacted to the older kids. It didn’t take much observance to see that they were taken by and fascinated with them.

Fascination! While it is not a word often associated with relationship success, if you want thriving relationships, you may just want to give it some precedence.

I was blessed earlier in life to have a couple who had been married over twenty-six years model this for me. Whenever anyone saw them together, they were holding hands and playfully giddy as if they had just started dating. When I asked what caused her to be this much in love with a man after so many years of marriage, she responded, “He fascinates me.”

Let that sink in a moment.

Are you an interesting person? Would you consider yourself intriguing? Do you have interests in life that cause other people to want to be around you, or are you often bored?

A few things to note:

* Bored people are boring people.
* Having interests will help make us more fascinating in life.
* In the world of relationship enrichment, “Couch Potatoes Need Not Apply”.

Relationship Success Lesson #3 - The Principle of Forgiveness:

As I stood and watched, two children were running on the playground in opposite directions, and I saw it coming before they did. They each circled the same object until they literally met in the middle. Two more kids came around and did the same thing.

Tempers flared, emotions ran high, tears ran down their cheeks and feelings were hurt. Less than two minutes later, they were off running and playing together, and all was forgotten.

What would happen in adult relationships if we learned how to do that? Instead of internalizing everything, we learn not to take it all so personally. Instead of holding grudges, we learn to hold hands.

Children have soft hearts - life can sometimes harden them.

Sheds a little light on the phrase, “Except you become like little children”, doesn’t it?

(C)Copyright 2004 advice-for-lifetime-relationships.com by Stanley J. Leffew
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED!

Stanley J. Leffew is the Author of, “How To Be Wanted For a Lifetime of Nights and Not Just a Night of a Lifetime”. His website is based on this same theme. Find out for yourself why feeding desire and leading-with-the-body in life and relationships fails to satisfy the longing of the human heart to connect at http://advice-for-lifetime-relationships.com.

Posted by admin as Baker's Dozen at 5:07 PM CDT

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“Nothing in life has any meaning except the meaning you give it. If you don’t like the way you’re feeling, change the meaning.” - Anthony Robbins

What are emotions? Emotions are nothing but feelings or a state of mind where your conscious focus generated a certain mental and physical state. The way we feel is arguably the most important aspect of life. No matter what we want whether it be more money, better relationships, more time or a better body, it all comes down to emotions. Huh? Yes! See it is not a better body or more money you are really after but rather the feelings you associate to having more money or a better body. Emotions form the core of our lives and more specifically the 7 human emotions that drive our behaviour.

All the emotions we experience are not only rooted in our own minds, but they are even “created” by us. Some people think that the emotions they experience are entirely out of their control and that emotions are spontaneous reactions to the events of our lives. If we are going to take control of our emotions, especially the 7 human emotions, then we need to understand that avoiding, denying or ignoring emotions will harm you more than actually dealing with them.

There are those that believe that there are 7 human emotions that drive all human behaviour. In reality there are only two human emotions that drive us. These two emotions are Pain and Pleasure. Everything we do in our lives we do either out of our need to avoid pain or our need to gain pleasure. These two categories of emotions contain all of either the positive or the negative of the 7 human emotions. Jeremy Bentham said it best: “Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure…they govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it”

The positive spectrum of the 7 human emotions will drive us to pleasure and that is why we pursue them. The negative spectrum of the 7 human emotions will drive us towards pain and that is why we will do anything to avoid it. It is also important to notice that we will do more to avoid painful emotions than we will do to gain pleasurable emotions as this is instinctive to our nature as human beings.

The 7 human emotions of Pain are:

1. Fear

2. Hatred

3. Anger

4. Greed

5. Jealousy

6. Revenge

7. Superstition

These are the emotions we are all trying to avoid as the experience of them will inevitable be a painful emotion.

The 7 human emotions of pleasure are:

1. Love

2. Sex

3. Hope

4. Faith

5. Sympathy

6. Optimism

7. Loyalty

“The secret of success is learning to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that you are in control of your life. If you don’t life controls you” - Anthony Robbins.

All emotions serve a purpose and a very important purpose as such. We all want to experience the positive side of the 7 human emotions and often we seek for it in the wrong places. Drugs, alcohol, smoking ex. are all devises we use to get out of pain and into pleasure. They are things we do to instantaneously suppress the negative emotions we may experience. The truth is that suppressing or ignoring an emotion will only amplify it until you deal with it. If we heed and utilize the signals that emotions give us we can change the quality of our lives and experience of life immediately.

This article is published with the permission of The Self Improvement Gym, a network of website dedicated to helping ordinary people create extraordinary lives and turning their dreams into reality. For more information please visit http://www.TonyRobbinsAudiobooks.com for free e-books, e-zines and other recourses.

Posted by admin as Baker's Dozen at 10:54 PM CDT

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Air purifiers have been around in various forms since the 1940s, when the first HEPA filter was designed to protect workers from airborne nuclear material. Since then, air purifiers have been used in hospitals, work sites, and homes to protect against viruses, mold, bacteria, pollen, pet dander, tobacco smoke, dust mites, and a great number of industrial and household chemicals. The people who stand the most to gain from air purifiers are those with allergies, asthma, and other respiratory ailments.

But everybody can benefit from having cleaner air in the home. The Environmental Protection Agency lists indoor air pollution among the top five environmental risks to public health. In fact, the inside of your home could well contain two to one hundred times more air pollutants than an outdoor urban environment.

Air purifier value varies widely. You can spend upwards of $1600 for the best air purifiers known to man, or you can spend as little as $70 for a good car unit. You can also spend an arm and a leg on junk if you’re not careful. One thing to keep in mind when buying an air purifier is unit-to-filter value. If your unit uses a HEPA filter, find out how much it costs to replace the filter. You may end up spending thousands on the filter alone. The question is, what kind of a machine do you want?

Home air purifiers use a number of technological approaches to cleaning your air so you can breathe more easily. They use HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filters; electrostatic filters, ion generators, ozone generators, ultraviolet light, and other methods to get rid of both large and miniscule particles. Some operate by drawing in air via a fan, cleaning the air, and re-releasing it. Others work by actually sending out “purifying agents” throughout the room.

Today you have two basic choices for home air purifiers: room air purifiers, and whole house purifiers. Generally speaking, room purifiers are better for air-cleaning efficiency and cost.

About the Author

Air Purifiers Info provides detailed information on home, ionic, ozone, and HEPA air purifiers, as well as reviews of the best air purifiers on the market today. Air Purifiers Info is the sister site of Air Filters Web.

Posted by admin as Baker's Dozen at 5:55 PM CDT

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March 17 is a very special day in the year everywhere there is an Irish population. It’s not only the National Day of Ireland, but it’s also the feast day of Patrick, Ireland’s national saint. In Ireland itself, as well as in hundreds of cities in the United States, Saint Patrick’s Day is celebrated with much fanfare. Pubs serve green beer, people wear green clothing, and everywhere you can see jewelry and other items patterned after symbols and figures reminiscent of Irish culture and customs.

Irish-themed jewelry is unquestionably appropriate to wear during Saint Patrick’s Day. Jewelers carry all sorts of items shaped like shamrocks, Celtic crosses, leprechauns, and images of the saint himself. Saint Patrick is credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland and, as legend has it, he drove all the snakes away — so now there is no snake to be found in all of Ireland. Gold pendants and medals bearing the image of the saint are very popular among the Irish and those of Irish descent who are living in other countries.

The versatility of gold lends itself well to jewelry design. Items can be made of purely gold or use gold as a backdrop to more eye-catching gems such as diamonds and emeralds. Actor Colin Farrell, himself a son of Ireland, is known for his trademark gold jewelry. He has even dabbled in jewelry design himself, creating a pendant to help raise funds for charity at the 2005 Respect Ball.

Emeralds are particularly popular stones in Saint Patrick’s Day jewelry. The color is reminiscent of Ireland, which is also known as the Emerald Isle. Perhaps this is why many couples who get married during the time near Saint Patrick’s Day like having their wedding rings inlaid with diamonds and emeralds — especially those with Irish blood running in their veins.

Claddagh jewelry comes in many variations and forms. Claddagh refers to a place near Galway Bay in Ireland, which was romanticized by many 19th century writers. Claddagh rings, earrings, bracelets, and other pieces of jewelry usually feature a crown. The Claddagh ring or friendship ring has a tradition associated with it. If you wear it on a finger on your left hand, you’re saying that your heart already belongs to someone else. But if you’re wearing it on your right hand, it means you’re on the lookout for love.

Of course, there are pieces of jewelry that are specific to men and women. Wearing a pair of shamrock gold or diamond cufflinks is a nice and discreet way to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day at a formal dinner. Women can wear charming claddagh bangles or anklets during the special day. Many jewelers also offer bracelets for children, which are adorned with shamrock and leprechaun charms.

There’s a saying that everyone’s Irish on Saint Patrick’s Day. Maybe by wearing Irish-themed jewelry during the day, you can even have some of the luck o’ the Irish rub off on you!

Sam Serio is an Internet Marketer, musician and a writer on the subject of jewelry and gemstones. For more information on jewelry and gemstones, we cordially invite you to visit http://www.morninglightjewelry.com to pick up your FREE copy of “How To Buy Jewelry And Gemstones Without Being Ripped Off.” This concise, informative special report reveals almost everything you ever wanted to know about jewelry and gemstones, but were afraid to ask. Get your FREE report at http://www.morninglightjewelry.com. Also includes informative articles, comparison shopping, rare book excerpts, & link directory.

Posted by admin as Baker's Dozen at 7:34 PM CDT

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