The Mocha Lisa: Masterpiece among cup-holding classic artworks recreated with COFFEE

Leonardo da Vinci’s early 1500s masterpiece Mona Lisa is one of the most beguiling and recognisable works in the history of art.

Over the years her fame has meant that she has been parodied many times – including when Dada artist Marcel Duchamp gave her a moustache.

But now American artist and caffeine-lover Karen Eland has modernised the image… by creating a copy of the Mona Lisa with coffee.

Continue sipping…

Mocha Lisa: American artist Karen Elands has recreated the famous artwork using just coffee.

Art of Obama in Coffee

Revenge of the StencilThe Art of the Foam Coffee Stencil

See the rest of the artworks here.

Coffee Reads of the Week – never say a word

Some of the articles I enjoyed reading over the net are worth sharing, too. Check out my weekly posts via the Coffee Reads series. I’ve got my google reader to back me up so do also check out my shared reads. Enjoy!

science: Mind Wandering May Lead to a Bad Mood by Jeremy Hsu
For the sake of your own happiness, don’t let your mind wander while reading this article. Setting the mind adrift from the here and now may lead to a worse mood regardless of whether the daydreams or thoughts are pleasant ones, researchers say.

relationships: 10 Things No One Tells You About Marriage by Diane Oatis
Five, 10, 15 years ago, it was all white lace and promises. You were young, dewy—and a little bit dumb. Who knew about all the things you would find out later? Since I’ve been married for 20 years, I’ve been elected to dig up some of the truths about married life. I had some ideas of my own, but I also polled a bunch of my long-married friends. They told me that over the years, their eyes had been opened—and it has not always been pleasant.

dating & relationships: What one’s favorite color signifies by Barrie Dolnick
Most of us have a favorite color. Maybe you’re drawn to sky blue because it makes your eyes stand out or you find forest green particularly comforting. Whatever the case, your preferred hue can reveal a lot about what makes you tick. And the same holds true for the people you date — you’d probably have a different impression of a date if he or she said, “My favorite color is yellow” versus “My favorite color is black.” That’s because color speaks a powerful, silent language. And I can help you understand it. I’m a success coach and best-selling author of Simple Spells for Love and other books, and I’ve studied color theory. So, look up your favorite color below — then, your date’s best-loved shade — and get some colorful insights that will benefit your romantic life.

career: What Not to Say at Work by Jenna Goudreau
A registered nurse at a county-run clinic in Long Island, N.Y., still carries a grudge against management. Last year, she was unable to get June 30 — her wedding anniversary — off to celebrate with her husband of 35 years. This year, she put in the request six months early, pointing out to her boss the 36th anniversary milestone. Overloaded with requests for the July 4 weekend, her supervisor did not agree to the time off, and instead asked: “Can’t you celebrate your anniversary another day?”

health & wellness: 8 Things Your Hair Says About Your Health by Melanie Haiken
When it comes to our hair, most of us worry most about what to do with it: how short to cut it, how to style it, whether to color it once it begins to go gray. But experts say that our hair says a lot more about us than how closely we follow the latest styles. In fact, the health of our hair and scalp can be a major tip-off to a wide variety of health conditions.

career: 10 Things Your Boss Isn’t Telling You by Alison Green
Part of being a boss is having difficult conversations. But managers are human, and while they should be tackling difficult or awkward topics head-on, in reality plenty of them shy away from it. Here are 10 things that your boss might be too uncomfortable to say to you.

relationships: 5 bad relationship habits to dump by Bob Strauss
OK, so you used to be married and now you’re not. You may be out there happily dating, but are the habits from your wedded days dogging you? Consider the fact that when you’re married, you have the luxury of a long, indefinite “’til death do us part” future in which to settle into a comfortable routine or slowly work through issues with your spouse. On a date, though, everything happens in accelerated time, with equally accelerated consequences. An indelicate remark on your first rendezvous may forever put the kibosh on a second. In fact, there are five key behaviors left over from your married days that can wreak havoc on your current romantic forays. We asked Marty Friedman, author of Straight Talk for Men About Marriage, to discuss how to recognize — and get rid of — these bad habits so your love life can prosper.

food: What you didn’t know about tequila by Felisa Rogers
The best tequila I ever drank came to me in a plastic jug. I was young, 20 maybe, with a decidedly unrefined palate. I certainly didn’t think twice about drinking from the unmarked plastic jug that our friend Danny proffered to me. Hey, it was alcohol, right? But even with my unrefined tastes, the second that tequila touched my lips I understood it was something special. It was so smooth, limes would have been an insult.

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So Swiss: Visit these Swiss Places, Lonely Planet says

Click on the image to see more of Switzerland, courtesy of Lonely Planet.

Benazir Bhutto expresses her distrust when she said, “I’ve never had a bank account in Switzerland since 1984. Why would the Swiss do this to me? Maybe the Swiss are trying to divert attention from the Holocaust gold scandal. ” Gertrude Stein nonetheless shows her confidence, “In a war everybody always knows all about Switzerland, in peace times it is just Switzerland but in war time it is the only country that everybody has confidence in, everybody.”

Graham Greene is being sarcastic afterall, “In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock! ” Larry David follows suit, “Switzerland is a place where they don’t like to fight, so they get people to do their fighting for them while they ski and eat chocolate. ” Ernest Hemingway takes Greene rather seriously and replies in an artsy manner, “Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture.”

Billy Connolly is curious, and so he blurted out, ”I’ve always wanted to go to Switzerland to see what the army does with those wee red knives.” Herman Hesse is a convincing chap, “Until 1914 I loved to travel; I often went to Italy and once spent a few months in India. Since then I have almost entirely abandoned travelling, and I have not been outside of Switzerland for over ten years.” But Geraldine Chaplin partly dissuades, “It’s the change of rhythm which I think is what keeps me alive. In Spain I hear so much noise from my window that can’t stand it. In Switzerland it’s the lack of noise that drives me crazy. “

But I guess, F. Scott Fitzgerald said the most fitting statement the Swiss deserves, “Switzerland is a country where very few things begin, but many things end.”

These famous people might have said it all. Experiencing the life in Switzerland is really something else.

As Lonely Planet puts it, “If you could travel only one European country, which might you choose? Italy? France? Germany? How about a taste of three in one? That can only mean Switzerland!” True enough, Switzerland is a “complex country of cohabiting cultures.” I have been around the French side of the country for quite a long while now, so hopefully soon I could visit the rest. It must be easier to rely on this list of travel places in Switzerland from Lonely Planet. Let’s do a roll call.

These are the places that I have not visited yet:

1. Basel
2. Bern
3. Central Switzerland & Berner Oberland
4. Fribourg (Gruyères)
5. Graubünden (Davos, Vals, Zuoz, Scuol and Guarda, Müstair)
6. Interlaken
7. Locarno
8. Lucerne
9. Lugano
10. Northern Switzerland
11. Neuchâtel
12. St Moritz
13. Swiss National Park
14. Ticino (Val Bavona, Monte Brè and Monte San Salvatore)
15. Zermatt
16. Zurich

While I have been to:

1. Geneva
2. Jura
3. Lake Geneva Region (Vaud, Nyon, except Les Diablerets)
4. Lausanne
5. Montreux
6. Valais (Sion, Leukerbad, except Matterhorn and Val d’Hérens)

I’d feature more about these places on my next blog posts.

Or better yet, Lonely Planet’s top 15 picks for Switzerland can do the trick. Out of this list I have visited 3 out of 15 interesting places so far. Let’s revisit this list soon! Gosh, good luck for me then!

Coffee, Sex and Other Weird Ways to Not Get Sick

Drink coffee!

Source: care2.com

You know about antioxidants and you’ve been religious about your daily dose of Vitamin C, but what else can you do to keep that tickle from creeping up the back of your throat or waking up in sweat-wet sheets and a chill shivering along your spine? Here are some of the weirder, but still efficient ways to keep those sick bugs at bay:

1. Kissing (and while you’rea t it, have Sex)!

Yes, kissing can help you fight off colds and flu! By exchanging bacteria back and forth, you are actually enhancing your body’s natural defenses and boosting your immune system. But that’s not to say you should go out and give a big smooch to any sicky around you…

Up the ante and have sex! Performed once a week, sex has been shown to increase immunoglobulin A (IgA) production, an immune-boosting protein that helps keep pathogens at bay.

Continue sipping…