Ok, ok, I'm sorry. It's just that the Atlanteans are considered a joke race among us Balrogs. Seriously, what kind of dumb race destroys themselves? Oh, wait... you all are humans right... Never mind, don't answer that... Anyhoo, legend has it that the Atlanteans were almost as powerful as we (the Maiar, of course) were...

(Yeah, I said "almost". They're all sleeping with the fishes now, so let's see you prove me wrong :P ) At least until their rather unfortunate accident that ended in a race wide dirt water nap...

But they supposedly had some cool weapons. Perhaps nothing as cool as the stuff us fire demons cook up, but cool nonetheless. And I think I've found one:

OK, so the site I found it on calls it an Ocean Bowie. But I'm sure we all know the truth. It's just a poorly disguised Atlantean bowie. I suppose they were trying to be sensitive to the unfortunate plight of the Atlanteans, but as one of the first races to win a civilization-wide Darwin award, I wouldn't have bothered. *cough*...

Anyway, it's certainly an interesting blade. A single piece, full tang construction, with sea blue patterned wood scales strategically pinned on a retro futuristic profile. The blade itself is actually not bad. A couple of unnecessary cutouts and perforations on the spine and the blade, but meh.

Beneath the blade and what I'm going to call the ricasso, is an interesting blade extension, that looks a lot like a fin. From a sailfish perhaps... Except without the spines... In fact, as you would expect from an ocean themed blade there many oceanic motifs at work. The hilt is rather interesting, with integrated choils for added grip, as well as an undulating finger guard, looking like another set of fins, extending down the front three quarters of the grip.

I thought the use of the extra circular and triangular scales above the grip, and along the ricasso, added a somewhat more mechanical feel to the fishy theme. Rather unusual but certainly a good representation of what the Atlantean culture was said to be.

All in all, certainly a decent blade. Can't really fault the Atlantean designers all that much on it. Perhaps a little too flashy for my taste, too much extraneous furniture, gills and fins and whatnot. But what would you expect from a race that drowned it it's own bathtub? :P

LOL... I kid... i kid...

Maybe... :)

Oceanic Bowie - [eBladeStore]

abruptly awakens my awareness.

Piercing it with a knife,

and vacillating my precious life.

the world feels like a violently swinging mace,

while speaking words cannot fall into place."

by Alexis Reyna =]

WHEATON, Illinois (AP) -- A gunman who took a dozen hostages in a suburban Chicago bank after wresting a gun from a police officer Friday died after shooting himself in the head, police said.

Hostages were released Friday after a gunman killed himself in suburban Chicago, police say.

The standoff began around 1:30 p.m., after a Wheaton police officer responded to a call of a hit-and-run accident near the bank.

When the officer arrived, the suspect grabbed the officer from behind, held a knife to his throat and demanded his gun, Deputy Chief Thomas Meloni said.

During an ensuing struggle, the officer was cut on a forearm and the suspect was able to take the gun and run the lobby of the Wheaton Bank & Trust, where he ordered everyone to the floor, Meloni said.

Police in Wheaton, about 20 miles west of Chicago, did not immediately release the gunman's identity.

As officers evacuated nearby businesses and homes and shut down streets and rail service, hostage negotiators talked to the gunman by phone. They were able to persuade him to release 10 hostages, leaving two behind, Meloni said.

"At one point the suspect began to close the blinds from inside the bank and he disconnected the phone contact with the hostage negotiators," Meloni said.

Shortly afterward, about 4:15 p.m., officers heard a single gunshot and they rushed in, Meloni said. He said the man was dead of a single gunshot wound to the head.

A spokeswoman for Central DuPage Hospital, Amy Steinbruecker, said the hospital treated and released the police officer who scuffled with the suspect for minor injuries.

Television footage showed dozens of people running from the four-story bank building, which includes other businesses, with their hands above their heads.

"We locked our office door, turned off the lights, drew the blinds," said Donna Price, 52, of McHenry, who works in the office building. "Then we heard a knock on the door and it was a SWAT guy. He told us to get out right now.

"I said, 'Let me get my purse.' He said, 'No, now."'

Price said police held people in a stairwell of the building before ordering them out.

"We all had to put our hands up on the back of our heads and run," Price said from a convenience store across the street where more than 100 people were crowded.

*I'm walking down an airport corridor... I'm pulling a wheeled carry-on type suitcase behind me and trying to keep up with the group that I'm with.  I'm barefoot, I can feel the texture of the carpet as I walk, and my feet are very, very cold.
I arrive at a food vendor area... the floor here is a dark brown? tile - also cold and slightly sticky from spills of sodas.  I'm very thirsty and I want to get a drink.  There is a line of cash registers to order and pay for your food, then a few feet behind that is a long counter where the food is prepared for you.  The drinks are self-serve at the end of the row of cash registers.  I'm standing at the register to pay for my drink when I feel someone standing too close behind me.  A man wraps his left arm around me and pulls me towards him... holding me in a headlock he has a knife.  I can feel the blade of the knife against my right cheek... my heart is racing and I look around for help.  I'm being monitored by a security staff... one of the members (female, blond) is behind the counter acting like an employee for the food service place.  We make brief eye contact.  I hear the man behind me making demands... the blade presses more onto my cheek then moves down to my neck... I feel it digging into my skin.  He wants something I have in my hand, so I drop it... he tells me to bend forward and pick it up, but he remains standing to keep an eye on everyone.  A security person to our right moves and catches his attention... I duck further down and hear the sound of something flying through the air, then a sickening thunk... I recognize the sound of a knife entering a chest cavity, and I hear the man behind me gasping, his voice gurgling, and I know he is choking on his own blood.  He falls backwards, his knife rattles on the tile floor.  I stand up to find the woman agent standing directly in front of me... she had picked up the cue that I was going to bend forward to give her a clear shot of the assailant.    There is a lot of chaos in the area... I walk forward to get something to drink, but I can't find any solid cups to hold the beverages... they all seem to be broken in half.

It ends up on the matter of screwdrivers. Unlike what seems to be the majority of the bloggy world, I am hardware people rather than software people, and so perhaps see this differently.

If I were advising the totalitarians (as I'm sure someone already is) I would tell them to be very afraid indeed of screwdrivers; not the square-section, two-foot-long, half-pound thing I still call my 'MOT screwdriver', but the small, inoffensive, plastic, clever, interchangeable kind, with a box of peculiar little 6mm hexagon bits that will fit anything.

It is unnecessary to specify in detail the very numerous and sometimes very highly effective (in the sense of direct action, or even guerilla warfare) uses to which, in a society repressed by a tyranny wholly dependent upon technology, such a screwdriver could be put. These are left as an exercise for the student.

Quote of the day: from Vaughan, A.: Obstruction danger: significant British railway accidents 1890-1986, ISBN 1852600551, on the subject of the Barnham Junction accident in 1963, which was caused by a washer left in a piece of signalling equipment:

One gets a nasty feeling wondering where the next washer is, at this moment...

If one knows that one's government is hated and despised, and one expects at any moment to face the direct action of an outraged public, one would do well to find a way of banning the public possession of any metal object at all (other, perhaps, than 'approved' objects). A firm line on any other kind of 'illicit' articles might also be wise.

Consider the ingenuity and skill of famous prisoners of war such as those in 'Colditz'. Consider that we are, and have been for some time, living in a huge open prison, of the kind prototyped in Northern Ireland. Consider that the public are so obedient to and unquestioning of apparent authority that anyone in a shoot-me vest, acting wholly in character, can do more or less what they like, including digging up Regent Street (once, many years ago, done as a Rag Week stunt). Consider the alternative uses of coins.

Will it be insidious and pre-emptive, like the campaign against photography, or will they once again resort to a staged spectacle? I'm inclined to the former; staging an 'act of terrorist sabotage' in order to stampede the sheep into yet more repression might also put ideas into heads. Better simply to let the Political Control and Surveillance Officers search everybody, all the time, and deem anything which has not recently been sold to their victim by a major contributor to party funds 'illegal'.

]]> http://colicoscreativos.wordpress.com/?p=1646 Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:22:58 +0000 eric http://colicoscreativos.wordpress.com/?p=1646 Existe cierto tipo de publicidad que no encaja en ningún medio más que en revista y similares; ese tipo de publicidad exige ser analizada por el espectador antes de comprender totalmente su significado y éso mis amigos, es una tarea titánica.

Lograr la total atención del lector de una revista equis, sin que gire la página a la menor provocación o desinterés, no es nafa fácil. Se tiene que encontrar el balance perfecto entre producto e imagen para obligar a nuestro lector a que le busque, que piense un poquito y esa publicidad al final es muy efectiva.

Es un acierto cuando se logra porque si el lector no puede identificarlo, perderá credibilidad en la marca y la misma perderá awareness. Sin embargo, estos anuncios lo han hecho muy bien:

Ambas gráficas están bien trabajadas, sin embargo la de la versión fruta es un poco más confusa que la versión pastel, y las dos forman un gran equipo ya que en conjunto redondean la idea y nos dan la oportunidad de ser testigos del beneficio de exactitud que venden los cuchillos Zwilling.

El detalle del layout en cada gráfica es exquisito, el tema de poner en outline el resultado de su uso se me hace acertadísimo y le da mucha vida a la gráfica, al mismo tiempo que le ayuda a suplir la ausencia de copy. Geniales gráficas creadas por BBDO Bangkok, again.

It's not that I am or ever have been masochistic, but more of too much of a coward to completely take my own life.  I don't really think I could outright kill anything, let alone anyone, let alone myself.  I'm too selfish and considerate of other to take my own life.  There's too many things I want to do and want to have for myself in the world to cause my own premature death.  And I don't want the people I love to have to deal with it.  Not just any mess I could make in the process, the body, my stuff, etc.  But I wouldn't want them to have to deal with the question: why did she do it?

The answer has never been that clear to me.  So I don't know what it could ever look like to anyone else.  No point in people pondering what you're not around to answer.  I guess that's why so many people leave notes - but I have horrible handwriting.

I remember one night in particular, the night I probably came the closest to bloodshed.  I was about maybe fourteen, the early high school years get kind of muddled in my memories. Hell, this might have even been before high school when I was twelve or thirteen.  But the age doesn't matter, because the visualizations of actions I couldn't complete are what's imprinted in me, ever since they arrived that night, in whatever year.

My dad was drunk.  Again.  And during this time period he almost always was.  My dad had the brilliance to happen to go through his worse bout of depression and drinking during my adolescence.  The time frames are almost exact when it comes to those two periods in our lives.  I feel so bad for my mom to have dealt with the both of us - and yet amazed that she's still alive after standing between those two hurricanes of misunderstanding and emotions.  I don't remember the events, the specific actions and words, leading up to it, but I'm sitting on the carpet of my room.  The door barricaded by my desk chair, because his sloppy shoving has broken the lock.

I've had enough.  I find solace the not-so-great rock of Papa Roach, their songs, so aptly named "Broken Home" and lyrics like "Cut my life into pieces, this is my last resort..." are hymns speaking to my soul, saying to me that there are people out there who have been there, they have turned this pain in the beauty with scream-singing and electric guitars.  I turn it up to drown out any pounding.  Maybe even in hopes that neighbors will come over to complain - they will notice.  Or even better, do what I can't do and call the cops.  I put it on repeat so I don't have to get up later.  The music illustrates the feelings that have always been in my head, the pain in my heart.

I take a Swiss army pocket knife out of my pocket and off of my keychain.  When I was even younger, my crazy Uncle Bob gave my dad a white one, my mom a blue one, and me a red one.  How fucking patriotic that it is the only weapon I conceal in my room.  It's dull as shit and I know it.

I won't know what it's like to be drunk until only a couple years later, but in this moment, like a rush of poisoned blood to my brain the childhood memories of chopping random backyard garden bits for playing "witches brew" with my best friend get washed ashore for the deep, pulsing idea of the window and the vast, open, freedom it presents.

But this night, I'm not thinking about running away, as I have though of and acted on before and after this night.  I see the possibilities in the window.  I see the possibilities of the window.  I see the emergency room and all the people who will have to notice - the people who can't ignore - that I'm in pain.  The professionals asking the questions - to my face.  All the answers I can give them...  No, I don't want to die.  The whole point is that I want to live.  And I just can't live with the situation breaking down at my bedroom door.  And I don't really know what else to do about it.  But maybe medical professional will...I just have to get to them.  I just have to make people see, make them notice what's going on.

I open the blue curtains my mom made for me the match the blue paint I picked out for the walls.  A second, darker blue is on the ceiling.  I stare at the window, I stare through the window, and I stare back at the window, and my reflection in it.  I visualize red - it's such a bold, strong color.  Strong, unlike me at the time.  It's such a beautiful color and I want to see it in truth.  I want to see it as truth.  I want to hold it.  My right fist is so much stronger, but my left hand is useless and better suited for sacrifice.  I want to dress it up in a custom fitted red glove, sequenced with precious glass stones, embedded everywhere.  Beautiful, bold, ready for a fight.

I want the red to reflect the pain.  Doctors and nurses come up with all kinds of "measurements" for pain, but when it's internal how can they ever tell the drug addict pining for drugs against heartbreak, or undetected tumor?  Some people have higher and lower tolerances to paper cuts vs broken arms vs child birth.  How do you know how much it hurts if you haven't had it to compare it?  But the red is visual.  The red you could see.  The stitches you could count.  The pain would be measurable if I poured it from my heart and placed it in my palm, let it drip off of my fingertips to everything I would be alive to point out that hurt me, and drip down my arms, reaching back towards the source.  The red would be triumph in still being alive.  The red would be my father's warning.

I press my fingertips on the glass and feel that it's cold outside.  I would still need to tell my friends and classmates what happened when I went back to school the next day, all stitched up.  I see my mom's face, crying and screaming, scared, and more hurt than the pain I could cause my self - and I know it would hurt me all the more to see her like that.  Not just because her baby girl was crying, but because no matter how many times she could scream "Why did you do this?!" I would be horrified at the fact that I know she already knows.  And she, baring the biggest heart I've ever encountered, would tragically blame herself, for being married to such a man who could drink his way into a monster, to the point he scares his own daughter towards death.  She would clean the pieces of glass, drive me to the hospital if we didn't call for an ambulance - and if the neighbors hadn't already.  She would tend to my mounds, and I would have to reassure her that it wasn't her fault, and I would have to avoid that it is his, because he is married to him.  And she stays married to him because she doesn't want him to drink himself to death in a gutter on the street, because somewhere in there is a good man.  He's just scared of the red, too.

The swirls of thoughts and visions and possibilities crowd my mind.  I press my forehead to the window to slow them down and cool them.  Tears hit the glass in patters reflective of stormier weather than the clear darkness outside.

If I broke the glass with my fist, it would be more holes to fill.  I would have to sleep in the cold.  In the dark.  In the loneliness I crave, I create, and I hate so much.  I defeat myself more than I let anyone else.  Not even my dad can fail me as much as I fail myself.  I almost tear the curtains in rushing them closed.  I turn the music off.  I turn the lights off and curl up in the softness and safety of blankets and pillows.

- - - - -

I later learn that my father has also has craved the red.  I find him another night, too drunk to finish putting his handgun back in it's case.  Too red under the skin of his face to compel his fingers to close the simple padlock.  His syllables are beyond slurs.  He calls my mom by an ex-wife's name, from over 30 years ago.  He calls out for his mother, who's been dead for over 50 years, when he sleeps that night.

He doesn't remember anything the next day.  Or he denies it.

I don't ask questions.  I don't pry or prod in fear of accidentally pushing.

Like anyone close to me would have thought in the aftermath that never happened for me, I don't think I really want to know the real answers anyway.

I went over the protocol in my head.  I waited until a week had passed in order to give him time. And then I let him know I was thinking about him and was wondering how he was doing by email.  Maybe it would have been better to call but I don't often call and I didn't want to intrude.  So I logged on and found out he read my message and he didn't respond.

Am I expecting to much?

I really liked this guy.

And now in order to save myself from impending pain (or so my head is telling me) I have already started my "cut this guy from my life" emergency plan.  It starts on its own as soon as the first cold knife of reality is thrust into my chest, I can't help it.

I am already ready to delete him from my myspace, phone, brain...

But I like him and hope that I am wrong.  I would like to find out what it would be like to be in a relationship with him. Please let me be wrong.

a more conventional rack:

go the cheaper route and ikea it out with this magnetic knife rack..

and just add some of these...

maybe some of these..

and perhaps these too..

or don't be so subtle. why leave it up to your guests' imagination that you're a little on edge, ready to pick up a knife at the drop of a hat... and throw said knife into place of misplaced hat. why not say "i'm a sophisticated man who cooks and needs a variety of knives, enjoys art and irony, AND will not hesitate to cut you" all in ONE lovely statement piece?

get your knife game up. scare your visitors and chop parsley with an 8" fish-gutting, handheld melee weapon... mantastic.

In large bowl cream together sugar, butter and flour. Add eggs, buttermilk and vanilla.

Pour into unbaked pie shell and bake for 1 hour at 325 degrees or until knife inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool and serve.

When police arrived on the scene they saw Knight standing over her with a knife in his hand. He was taken to the Clark County Detention Center where officers found Ecstacy and Hydrocodone in his possession.

The thing is that for the life of me, I cannot figure out where the heck they came from or why I can't get rid of them. I'm certainly not doing any weight lifting. I'm not swinging from the uneven bars. I don't chop wood. So what the heck?!

When I used my best friend Google, I basically learned what I already knew. They are caused from repeated contact or pressure. I have not been able to think of what the heck I have in regular pressure on my right palm.

I even wondered if it was a pencil or pen. But when I think about how I hold a pen, there's no way that's the culprit.

Anyway, if I figure out why I have three hard ovals on my hand, I'll let you know.

In the mean time, wanna see something gross? When I was doing my callus research, I came upon this site called beastskills.com. Well, this guy has pictures and directions for how to remove them. So disgusting! He uses a butter knife!

I won't make you look at it if you don't want to. But if you are curious, click to see more...

The hip hop mogul and ex-convict was arrested today in Las Vegas after allegedly beating his girlfriend and having a knife in his hand. According to Las Vegas Now, Suge was booked for assault with a deadly weapon, battery, domestic violence and possession of a controlled substance

The number of teenagers murdered in London has risen dramatically during the past two years and will reach an eight-year high in 2008, according to figures obtained by The Independent.

After the killing of 18-year-old Charles Junior Hendricks - the victim of a knife attack in Walthamstow, east London, on Sunday - the number of teenage deaths this year stands at 24.

That figure is just two short of the total of 26 from last year. With a full four months of 2008 remaining, the death toll looks set to rise above that number, making this year the most violent on record. The statistics, which date back to the year 2000, show that the average number of teenagers murdered in London was 17 for the first seven years, before suddenly soaring to 26 in 2007.

Mr Hendricks was the 50th teenager to be murdered in London since the start of 2007 - a toll higher than the previous three years put together.

Although the overall murder rate in London is at its lowest for several years, a growing number of the victims are youths. The Government has blamed the perception of knives and guns as status symbols for the rising levels of street violence, and recently enlisted the help of the England football team to publicise its latest anti-knife campaign.

However, two campaign groups said yesterday the cause was rooted much deeper within society, and both were pessimistic about the trend being reversed in the short term.

Angela Lawrence of Mothers Against Violence, a voluntary organisation which campaigns against gun and knife crime, described the figures as "too alarming for words".

"When we go into schools and talk to young people, or talk to young offenders, we're hearing very similar things. Young people feel that there is no hope and no future for them," she said.

Her views were echoed by Raymond Stevenson, the head of Urban Concepts, the group behind the anti-gun campaign Don't Trigger. The organisation was recently refused funding by the Home Office, and is threatened with closure. He said: "Young people are becoming more angry, more confused about themselves, and more anti-establishment."

Kit Malthouse, the deputy mayor of London with responsibility for policing, said: "These figures starkly underline the importance of putting violent crime at the heart of the mayor's priorities since he was elected."

[source: Independent]

  Fishing for Alaskan King Crab dangerous? Ha!  Driving a truck across a frozen ice road dangerous? Ha! Forgetting to lift the toilet seat at 3am dangerous? Ha!

  Hiking in the great outdoors is the most dangerous thing you can do on this great planet of ours!

Whenever I am in Red River, New Mexico each summer, I hike.  Ok, so you purists may not call an aging, overweight, crippled man-child, slogging through the woods in a pair of Nike Tennis shoes a true hiker, but I do the best I can.  There is nothing like the peace and serenity you get when you find yourself miles from nowhere, out in the dark, lonely forest, where all you can hear are birds chirping, the wind rustling through the trees, a large animal drooling at the sight of your approach, and the wonderful sound of your heart beating so hard it is all but bulging out of your throat.

Think of what can happen when walking all alone out in the wilderness.

You can get eaten by a bear.

You can get struck by lightning.

You can get hit by a falling tree, which had just been hit by lightning.

You can get eaten by a bear which saw you pinned under the lightning struck tree.

You can get eaten by a mountain lion.

You can get attacked by banjo-playing, redneck, lunatics as seen in the movie "Deliverance".

You can get attacked by heat-crazed squirrels.

You might stumble across "The Others".

You could get eaten by coyotes, wolves, alpacas, beavers, muskrats, elk, moose, deer, rabbits, skunks, chipmunks, field mice, fireants, mutated gerbils and hamsters, mosquitoes, or man-eating Bolivian Tree Pythons.

You could fall and suffer compound fractures of any number of limbs and appendages, miles from any kind of medical assistance.

You could lose cell-phone reception! Aaarrrrrgggg!!

You could find yourself in a large lava-field of rocks with absolutely no vegetation and then be stricken by uncontrollable diarrhea.

You could get lost and wander aimlessly for days before dying from starvation, heat-stroke, hypothermia, alien abduction, or scurvy.

Did I mention Bigfoot?

The great outdoors is one damn dangerous place!

Especially for slow, disabled, idiotic, unarmed idiots!

I now realize why every hiker I pass on the trail is either packing a pistol, a shotgun, a bow and arrow, Chinese throwing stars, numchucks, blood-thirsty dogs, or angry wives carrying heavy frying pans....

On the trails, It's every man for himself!! Survival of the fittest!!

So, this past spring, prior to our Red River trip, I decided that I was not going to become another grim hiking fatality statistic. I decided that I would never venture out alone, miles into the wilderness, without protection. So, I bought a knife. A big knife. A DAMN big knife.  More like a mini-sword than an actual knife. One of those glorious "have to hold it with two hands" big knives!  Where did I buy this little flesh-carving treasure?  Wal-Mart of course.  This little baby came with it's own "holster" to attach to my belt loop but the dang Knife was so heavy that when I tried it on in Wal-Mart, the knife proceeded to rip my pants straight down to my ankles, embarrassingly revealing my "High School Musical" boxer shorts that I was wearing.

  Of course, this did not deter me as I bought the mini-sword and stored it away until we arrived in Red River. 

 The first morning, I awoke at 6am for my first hike. As per my usual routine, I quietly slipped out of bed so as to not disturb the little wife, and I proceeded to slowly and quietly get dressed in the darkened bedroom of our condo. After applying bug spray, sunscreen, anti-aging cream, anti-acne cream, ben-gay, and some potent lip balm, it was time to hoist the mini-sword, now attached to my strongest belt, into position. Soon, I would never walk again in fear of any animal or human that I may encounter out in the woods. I would be packing the biggest blade that money could buy and I would now be a badass hiker with a bad attitude!  I reached across the dresser and grabbed the sword holster and slowly started to raise it into position to be tied around my John Goodman-esque waistline but did not notice in the near total darkness that the holster was upside down.

I think the knife fell out of the holster when it was about 12 feet above my foot. At least that's what it felt like when the blade fell from the holster and did a neat little half-somersault with a quarter twist just before slamming itself into the top of my right foot.  Those of you that know me know that my feet are numb due to a slight medical malpractice error that I had the pleasure of receiving 10 years ago. Numb feet or not, I let out the most blood curdling scream you could imagine as a geyser of blood started spraying upward from my spiked foot. My wife leaped out of bed hysterical as blood sprayed across the walls and up onto the ceiling fan. The whirling fan then managed to spray the blood in a near perfect circle around the remainder of the tiny room. Soon, I was screaming, totally covered in blood, as my hysterical wife darted around looking for a rag or towel as she was also completely drenched in blood. We looked like the winning Prom Couple on "Carrie".  Soon, my young son bolted into the room. He also quickly became drenched in blood and then fled in hysterics from the room.

It was not a pretty sight.  It cost over $300 to have everything in the room cleaned.  My wife and son will need years of therapy.  I had to toss a perfectly good pair of underwear into the trash for reasons I cannot divulge.  My family will only allow me to use plastic cutlery and "sporks". We have been banned from the condo for life. I needed 328 stitches, hours of surgery, and 3 months of rehab to be able to waddle normally again. Butg for all this, I did prove one major point.

HIKING IS THE MOST DANGEROUS ACTIVITY IN THE WORLD!!

That understood; most online business houses have gone on to win the confidence of the unseen customer, by assuring protection of sensitive details divulged. Now, online selling is prospering and stats say that by the year 2003, the retail trade had raked more than 52 billion dollars.

Now the conviction among consumers is on an all-time high. Most credit card companies assure of credit protection, and online selling merchants assure of safety by displaying a tiny lock icon, or a message that says that it’s a secure order site. Once the retailers realized that certain kinds of information couldn’t be beaten out of consumers, they relaxed on their norms.

Now the internet is an infinitely more comfortable domain for those buying online as well as for the sellers.