Internet search couple split
July 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment
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SHE is the vivacious Aussie girl who captured a city’s heart when a love-struck New York Romeo spotted her on the Subway and went to extraordinary lengths to track down his “dream girl”.
Camille Hayton says she is still recognised about three times a week on the streets of Manhattan as “that girl” and the question is always the same: so what happened?
Sadly for romantics the world over, there was no fairytale ending for Ms Hayton and 22-year-old Brooklyn web designer Patrick Moberg, the couple New Yorkers dubbed “the Subway sweethearts”.
“I say we dated for a while but now we’re just friends,” Ms Hayton, 23, said. “It’s really nice that people embraced the story. It is part of my life now.”
She said she dated Mr Moberg for about two months, but it just didn’t work out.
“I think the situation was so intense that it bonded us,” she said, adding it “bonded us in a way that you could mistake, I guess, for being more romantic than it was. I don’t know.
“But I wanted to give it a go so I didn’t wonder what if, what if?”
Ms Hayton, originally from the Melbourne suburb of Kew, is enjoying single life in New York, keeping busy with acting classes, working in two vintage clothing stores and as a waitress.
Last week she had a small role as a waitress in the long-running daytime soap As The World Turns and last year she was an extra in a “blink and you’d miss it” scene in the hit Sex And The City movie.
The budding actress plans to return to Australia in October to visit family and friends and enjoy Christmas at home.
The fresh-faced Aussie beauty captured the heart of New Yorkers and Mr Moberg when she was riding Manhattan’s No. 5 train last November.
Mr Moberg saw her and was struck by love at first sight. As he worked up the courage to talk to the mysterious brunette, he lost her in the crush of people getting off the Subway.
It was a fluke Ms Hayton was even on the Subway. She was travelling to a friend’s house to sleep on the couch after her group home, an 11-bedroom loft in the SoHo district, burned down on Halloween.
Smitten, Mr Moberg set out to find her in a city of more than eight million people and devoted a website to finding her, www.nygirlofmydreams.com
On the site he drew a picture of Ms Hayton with a red flower in her “fancy braided” brown hair, blue shorts, blue leggings and rosy red cheeks.
His unlikely cyberspace search captivated New Yorkers, receiving coverage in the New York Post, on local Manhattan television stations and eventually around the globe.
One of Ms Hayton’s New York friends recognised her as the girl Mr Moberg was searching for and played matchmaker.
“I just can’t believe it happened. It feels like a long time ago,” Ms Hayton said.
Japanese Staring Videos
July 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Japanese companies are always looking to meet the needs of the “niche-ist” of niche markets. For example, top-selling record label Avex has discovered a new way to reach extremely anti-social sets — the NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training), and the most reclusive of the recluses, the hikikomori. Most believe that these groups’ refusal of social participation stems from their lack of social skills. The hikikomori almost never socialize with other people and prefer to spend their time in their bedrooms, completely locked away from the world. The total numbers of NEET and hikikomori may have been overestimated in the past, but they do exist to some extent and are mostly male.
Avex is trying to reach these groups with a new DVD — part “corporate social responsibility,” part traditional content delivery, and part talent blog/model promotion. The DVD is called Miteiru dake (Just Looking), and it features various talent/models just staring straight ahead. That’s right, the models on the DVD do very little other than stare straight at the camera. According to the website, the idea is to get young males who aren’t used to socializing with women to become more accustomed to making eye contact and/or handle the fact that a sentient being sits across from them and awaits interaction. The DVD hopes to cure those afflicted with shyness so that they may rejoin society.
Japanese companies are always looking to meet the needs of the “niche-ist” of niche markets. For example, top-selling record label Avex has discovered a new way to reach extremely anti-social sets — the NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training), and the most reclusive of the recluses, the hikikomori. Most believe that these groups’ refusal of social participation stems from their lack of social skills. The hikikomori almost never socialize with other people and prefer to spend their time in their bedrooms, completely locked away from the world. The total numbers of NEET and hikikomori may have been overestimated in the past, but they do exist to some extent and are mostly male.
Avex is trying to reach these groups with a new DVD — part “corporate social responsibility,” part traditional content delivery, and part talent blog/model promotion. The DVD is called Miteiru dake (Just Looking), and it features various talent/models just staring straight ahead. That’s right, the models on the DVD do very little other than stare straight at the camera. According to the website, the idea is to get young males who aren’t used to socializing with women to become more accustomed to making eye contact and/or handle the fact that a sentient being sits across from them and awaits interaction. The DVD hopes to cure those afflicted with shyness so that they may rejoin society.
The result, from what one can see on the website, is strangely disconcerting. A girl will stare back at you for an extended period of time, expressionless and periodically blinking (the blinks are eerily profound). Once in a while the model will utter a phrase like “ohayoo” (good morning) or make a move to say something, but for the most part there is just an uncomfortable silence. Most of the women on the DVD are jimusho-based talento (most have blogs on Ameba and other DVDs of their own to sell), but there are also foreign women, young girls, and older women thrown in the mix to give the viewer experience in handling long, uncomfortable silences with those of different races and ages.
Weird.
Man survives 40 minutes underwater
July 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment
A MAN has been brought back to life after up to 40 minutes trapped in a car submerged in a river.
The car, which was towing a boat, went off General Holmes Drive and plunged into Cooks River at Kyeemagh, in southern Sydney, about 1.15pm (AEST).
A NSW Ambulance spokeswoman said a 40-year-old man was pulled from the car by police divers after it had been submerged for up to 40 minutes.
The man was taken to St George Hospital in a critical condition after he was resuscitated at the scene, she said.
Police said the man was rescued just after 2pm (AEST).
A witness said the man was trapped as the car became completely submerged in the river, just south of Sydney airport.
“He couldn’t get out,” the woman said on Macquarie radio.
“He was trying to get out, yelling to people. There was a man that went to swim to try and help him … but by the time he got to him the car had sunk because it had filled up with water.”
Police said there were unconfirmed reports two people had been in the car and a search was continuing for the possible second person.
Pelican Eats Pigeon - Gross
July 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Pelican Eats Pigeon - Viewed near three-quarters of a million times*, this is the original footage. Filmed in St. James Park, London Sunday 7th August 2005.
Japanese Vending Machine Robot
July 25, 2008 | 1 Comment
A Coke vending machine robot walking around outside of Shibuya Station in Tokyo. The Japanese schoolgirls looked shocked, as did many other people.
