According to psychologist Michael Brickey, author of Defy Aging, and many other relationship experts, playful bantering or gentle flirting with someone outside of your marriage is harmless if proper boundaries remain intact. Those boundaries differ with each relationship, of course. What would be considered a violation in one marriage might be perfectly acceptable for another couple. Differences of opinions even occur within a marriage. For example, I know a woman who recently asked her husband to either give her his Facebook password or close out his account after she found an email that he had sent to a former classmate that she found to be rather suggestive. He disagreed and thought it was perfectly appropriate. Social media sites and online interaction are pushing this issue to dinner tables across the country — much more so than in the past. Katherine Hertlein, a licensed marriage and family therapist interviewed by Discovery News, explains, “You don’t actually recognize that you’re growing closer to someone on the Internet because it just looks like you’re having a conversation, and that’s why I think it could be really seductive in some ways.” Hertlein believes that cyber cheating is especially appealing to women, because they can get their emotional needs met behind a computer in the comfort of their home. However, many polls indicate that seemingly harmless online friendships often develop into intense emotional and physical affairs that can devastate marriages. Recent research has indicated that online cheating usually leads to physical encounters. So, when does flirting cross that invisible line from innocent bantering to dangerous dialogue? After researching the topic and talking to a few family therapists, I pulled together the following nine red flags. 1. When It’s Secretive. If you are deleting your emails — either to her or from her — that’s a red flag. Because by deleting them, you are guessing that your spouse would be upset if she read them, and that you are covering up something. Moreover, ask yourself this question: “How would I feel if I knew my wife (or husband) was corresponding to an attractive man in the way I talk to X?” If you feel an uncomfortable knot in your stomach upon answering that question, there you go. 2. If It Has a Sexual Agenda. This isn’t always obvious, of course. But if you notice that your correspondence with this person feeds your sexual fantasies (because an affair is often about sexual fantasy) then you are probably in dangerous waters. If the communications consist of subtle sexual overtones, watch out. If it feels like foreplay in any way, that’s not good. 3. If You’re Spending a Considerable Amount of Time Talking to Him/Her. According to marriage therapist Allyson P., a person needs to consider not only the content of the messages sent back and forth but also the amount of them. For example, if you are emailing a “friend” 15 times a day, that’s a tad extreme, even if the content is about SpongeBob SquarePants. A friend of mine confessed to me that she would spend two hours every night on Facebook chatting with an online buddy until she realized that was more time than she was spending with her husband. 4. If You Are Rationalizing. “He is just a friend,” is a statement that you don’t say to yourself when you’re involved in innocent communication. Do you feel the need to justify a very safe friendship? No. It’s obvious to you and to your mate that the companionship is completely appropriate. However, you may very well be investing in an unsafe friendship if you are constantly wrestling with guilt or feel the need to rationalize. 5. If It’s Meeting Your Personal Needs. If you are getting your intimacy needs met in an online relationship, or with a co-worker with whom you playfully banter, you might stop to ask yourself why. Be especially careful if you’re sharing intimate sentiments with that person that you don’t share with your husband, or if you feel like your online companion understands you in a way that your spouse doesn’t. Be on guard if you are getting fed in any way by him or her that you don’t at home. Better to address the holes in your life and fill them in safe ways, even if you can’t within your marriage. Keep in mind, a good sex life isn’t just about chemistry. 6. If You Talk About Your Marriage or Your Spouse. It’s disrespectful to share intimate details about your marriage or your spouse, and especially in a discourteous manner or with a flip attitude. Imagine that your wife was overhearing your entire conversation. Would you still say it? 7. If Your Spouse Doesn’t Like It. You have just won a red flag if a husband or wife has expressed disapproval of your communications with X, because it usually means that either the content of the correspondence or the amount of it is off balance — that the interaction isn’t totally appropriate, or the time spent talking (online or offline) with the person is distracting from family life. 8. If Your Friend Voices Concern. Pay attention if a good friend asks you why you are talking about this person so much, or if she says something like, “Wake up. You are married. He is married. You need to focus on what you have and stop obsessing about what you don’t.” Friends, sisters and mothers can often identify the red flags before a person is willing to recognize them herself. 9. If Your Intentions Are Wrong. Let’s say your wife is constantly knocking you down, nagging at you, telling you to lose 20 pounds because she didn’t intend to marry a beached whale. The natural, or at least easy, thing to do is to find an attractive woman who will feed your ego and tell you that you’re sexy, funny, smart and so on. Some folks may unconsciously seek out an admirer to get their spouse to take notice of them. It can be effective, but it’s also manipulative. There are healthier ways to increase your self-esteem and regain the power that you have lost in your own home. Originally published on Psych Central.
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Type: Book Title: God Save the Mark: A Novel of Crime and Confusion See all customer reviews Product Description: * mark n. An easy victim; a ready subject for the practices of a confidence man, thief, beggar, etc.; a sucker.-Dictionary of American Slang, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1960 That’s the long definition of a mark. But there’s a shorter one. It goes: * mark n. Fred Fitch What, you ask, is a Fred Fitch? Well, for one thing, Fred Fitch is the man with the most extensive collection of fake receipts, phony bills of sale, and counterfeit sweepstakes tickets in the Western Hemisphere, and possibly in the entire world. For another thing, Fred Fitch may be the only New York City resident in the twentieth century to buy a money machine. When Barnum said, “There’s one born every minute, and two to take him,” he didn’t know about Fred Fitch; when Fred Fitch was born, there were two million to take him. Every itinerant grifter, hypester, bunk artist, short-conner, amuser, shearer, short-changer, green-goods worker, pennyweighter, ring dropper, and yentzer to hit New York City considers his trip incomplete until he’s also hit Fred Fitch. He’s sort of the con-man’s version of Go: Pass Fred Fitch, collect two hundred dollars, and move on. What happens to Fred Fitch when his long-lost Uncle Matt dies and leaves Fred three hundred thousand dollars shouldn’t happen to the ball in a pinball machine. Fred Fitch with three hundred thousand dollars is like a mouse with a sack of catnip: He’s likely to attract the wrong kind of attention. Add to this the fact that Uncle Matt was murdered, by person or persons unknown, and that someone now seems determined to murder Fred as well, mix in two daffily charming beauties of totally different types, and you have a perfect setup for the busiest fictional hero since the well-known one-armed paperhanger. As Fred Fitch careers across the New York City landscape-and sometimes skyline-in his meetings with cops, con men, beautiful girls, and (maybe) murderers, he takes on some of the loonier aspects of a Dante without a Virgil. Take one part comedy and one part suspense and shake well-mostly with laughter. See the details
Continue reading …Democrats are trying to make political hay of Mitt Romney’s “corporations are people” line in Iowa earlier this week, reports Politico . The DNC is out with a new ad that replays the candidate’s exchange at the state fair, in which he argues that everything corporations earn goes back into “people’s…
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DancingChica says: PSP: More stars reportedly join ‘ DWTS ‘ – More stars reportedly … http://t.co/LCzsHJL
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Nicola Roberts has released the music video for her new single, “Lucky Day.” The single is the second to be lifted from Nicola’s forthcoming album, Cinderella’s Eyes. The albums lead single, the Diplo produced “Beat Of My Drum”, was released digitally on June 5th in the UK. The single failed to live up to chart Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Pop In Stereo Discovery Date : 12/08/2011 10:19 Number of articles : 3
Continue reading …Cirque’s GlidePoint NFC trackpad makes online shopping even lazier (video)
August 13, 2011 No Comment
We’ve seen NFC technology pop up in everything from smartphones to windshields , but a company called Cirque has now expanded it to desktops, as well, with its GlidePoint trackpad. Cirque’s system is relatively straightforward, consisting of its GlidePoint module (with an onboard NFC antenna) and a simple touch sensor. With these two elements working in harmony, users can scan a compatible card by hovering it over the module, while simultaneously using the trackpad to execute onscreen functions. The company has applied the same concept to its proprietary glass touch panel, as well, which could be integrated at payment terminals, or within tablets and touch-based smartphones. It remains unclear whether we’ll see this kind of technology pop up on the commercial level, but for more details, check out the demo video after the break, followed by the full press release. Continue reading Cirque’s GlidePoint NFC trackpad makes online shopping even lazier (video) Cirque’s GlidePoint NFC trackpad makes online shopping even lazier (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Aug 2011 10:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …This part is simple enough: Graffiti artist Shepard Fairey has a black eye and a bruised rib after getting jumped in Copenhagen over a new mural he made, reports the Guardian . Fairey, creator of the Obama “hope poster ,” writes on his own blog that it began when a “kid, maybe…
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The story behind the making of the film and the religious storm it caused are the subject of Holy Flying Circus As Brian Cohen, the hapless hero of Monty Python’s Life of Brian , finds out, it can be tricky stepping into the shoes of someone worshipped by all. And the fear of not passing muster is on the minds of all six actors cast as Pythons for a BBC comedy drama about the release of the film in 1979. Holy Flying Circus will tell the story of the making of Life of Brian and the righteous fury that surrounded the release of its satirical take on the gospels. It is the first attempt to dramatise the activities of the sextet who transformed the nature of comedy in this country and produced a British film now critically regarded as one of the very best. Coming together this summer to play Michael Palin, John Cleese, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam and the late Graham Chapman, the performers have admitted to feeling odd about playing men who have the status, if not of modern-day messiahs, then at least of comedy gods for their fans around the world. During the filming of BBC4′s Holy Flying Circus , which is written by Tony Roche, co-writer of In the Loop and The Thick of It , its stars were initially wary of impersonating such famous comics. “We wanted to be affectionate about the Pythons and we all had a sense they were our comedy heroes,” said director Owen Harris. “You could feel the anxiety in the room when the actors got together in character for the first time. We had a room full of Pythons.” Harris, who has previously directed the hit series Misfits , encouraged the actors not to worry too much about portraying their characters authentically. “We didn’t want impersonators, although in the end we have got an amazing set of Pythons. I don’t know what the originals will think. They will all be seeing it for the first time when it goes out next month,” he said. Comedian and writer Steve Punt, who plays Idle, found the humour of Roche’s screenplay guided the performances. “When you are playing someone who is not only an icon of comedy, but who is still alive, it does feel pretty strange. But the secret is the script. It is funny and not at all a forensic depiction of the people. It captures the spirit of the Pythons.” Darren Boyd, star of Case Sensitive , plays Cleese and has tweeted about how odd it felt to stand in a street “doing the silly walk” or thrashing things with a stick “a la Fawlty Towers “. But happily for Boyd, encouragement came down from on high. Stephen Fry, who makes a cameo appearance as God in the film, offered support on set. “God just gave me his blessing regarding my Cleese ‘look’. He was most enthusiastic. My life is complete,” tweeted Boyd. Next, one of the original Pythons, Terry Jones, gave the actor who plays him a remote blessing via Twitter. When Rufus Jones messaged him to say he was playing him in a BBC4 drama, the Python replied that his efforts were “all in a good cause”. This weekend the 69-year-old, who directed Life of Brian , told the Observer he “loved the script” of the new production. “It is a wild flight of fancy and I am keeping my fingers crossed about how I am played,” Jones said. Canadian comic Phil Nichol plays Gilliam, while Charles Edwards plays Michael Palin and Tom Fisher plays Graham Chapman, the most laconic Python, who died of cancer in 1989 aged 48. Unlike other recent BBC4 docu-dramas about comedians, such as Tony Hancock and Hattie Jacques, Holy Flying Circus aims to be a comedy in its own right. “It has a very different tone from other films in that strand,” said Harris. “We are calling it a fantastical reimagining.” Inspired by Python, the director said the film tells its story in an unorthodox way. “It is non-linear for a start, and has animation in it, like Terry Gilliam’s work. We took his drawings as a starting point and then applied our own craft. In the end some of the sequences are rather like the American cartoon Family Guy , although not visually.” The new drama centres on a notorious television confrontation that took place on 9 November 1979 between two of the Pythons, Cleese and Palin, and the Roman Catholic writer and broadcaster Malcolm Muggeridge, who believed that Life of Brian was a weak and scurrilous attack on Christianity. At Muggeridge’s side for the debate on the BBC2 show Friday Night, Saturday Morning was the Bishop of Southwark, Mervyn Stockwood. “You might say Holy Flying Circus is a comedy equivalent of the film Frost/Nixon , marking a historic TV moment, but that was much more factual and we are playful, although the debate itself is verbatim,” explained Harris. “I do wonder whether viewers will realise that, because some of it is quite extraordinary.” Although Life of Brian was a box-office success, it was met with a volley of international protest from religious groups. Thirty-nine British local authorities imposed some sort of ban. The plot centres on the unfortunate chain of events that follow the mistaken identification of a young Judean man as a new religious leader. Reluctant to the last, Cohen, played by Chapman, is tragically unable to clarify the misunderstanding. During the TV debate, chaired by the lyricist Tim Rice, Muggeridge called the film “squalid” and “tenth rate”. The bishop levelled some low blows too, accusing the film of being “fourth form revue” standard and implying the Pythons were “mentally deficient”. “It was a clash of cultures. Palin became quite frustrated, but both he and Cleese remained respectful. But the respect wasn’t returned,” said Harris. Terry Jones too, remains annoyed by Muggeridge. “It was quite a cheek because he had missed the opening of the film,” he said. “They had a good lunch and then arrived late at the viewing theatre that day.” Comedy BBC4 BBC Television industry Religion Comedy Vanessa Thorpe guardian.co.uk
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HollywoodLife says: Wow — Joy Behar FINALLY got married after being with her guy for 29 years! http://t.co/TbjpDDL
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BroncoP3t3_ says: RT @ LegendaryWriter : Man Found in Chimney After 27 Years: http://t.co/EJRZH4B
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