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Sun Herald
Sunday January 29, 2006
Hip-hop with heart, dial-up dietitians and smelly phones.
Word of the weekRappers get real about music with a social conscience.Rap is returning to its politically active roots. The image of hip-hop artists as pimpin' entrepreneurs - such as Diddy and Snoop Dogg - is on the way out, according to Wordspy.com. The website defines "conscientious rap" as "rap music with lyrics that emphasise responsibility and morality". A case in point is Kanye West's Roses about how the poor can't afford medical insurance. Or, better still, 50 Cent's new initiative. No longer content to preach through his music, 50 Cent (right) - aka Curtis Jackson - is going into partnership with MTV/Pocket Books to publish graphic novels about the grim realities of life on the streets and along the way help kids with reading difficulties. The first title, by A Hustler's Wife author Nikki Turner, is due out in 2007. Word.Snack snapsHere's a food program for those who fancy a high-tech diet. In the US and Canada, slimmers who sign up with MyFoodPhone can zap mobile-phone pictures of everything they eat to a dietitian. Once a week, on a personalised web page citing the client's weight and other health details, the dietitian will give a video consultation about how to eat better. The damage? MyFoodPhone charges about $135 a month. The service is not yet available here but the Quebec-based company is "exploring ways in which we could deploy it in Australia". Check it out at www.myfoodphone.com.Chat and sniffGive your ears a rest from those annoying mobile phone ring tones. Japanese company Pixen Inc has developed Keitai KunKun smell tones, trinkets that hang off your mobile and release a fragrance with every incoming call or text. Fragrances include Doraemon, a scent that, according to the company website, "heals you with a refreshing fragrance". The technology is yet to make its way to Australia but as the Keitai KunKun ("mobile sniffing" in Japanese) collection includes a smell tone named Nioundesu with the tagline "it really smells", this might not be a bad thing. Little black bookIf your GP is sick of seeing you, get your clammy hands on The Hypochondriac's Pocket Guide To Horrible Diseases You Probably Already Have. The book, by writer and comedian Dennis DiClaudio, takes seemingly innocuous symptoms - for example, headache and memory loss - and suggests diagnoses such as cerebral sparganosis, in which a "parasitic flatworm lives in your brain". Add the very vague "emotional changes" to the list of ills and you could have alien hand syndrome in which "your own hand may attempt to choke you to death". And because DiClaudio is no doctor, he offers no cure. He writes, "I am one of you - cowering, anxious, obsessively washing his hands." The Hypochondriac's Pocket Guide (Bloomsbury, $25) is out on Friday.Hair today, gone...The latest hair-removal treatment to join waxing, shaving and laser is Elos. Unlike intense laser treatments, Elos uses light and radio-frequency waves to destroy follicles and permanently reduce hair. Most people need "about five treatments" to reduce hair forever, says Tamsin Lewthwaite of Grace Beauty Centre in Sydney, (02) 9262 1599. Bikini hair removal treatments start from $160 per session. Elos is also available at Instant Laser Clinics in Melbourne, 1300 660 607, www.instantlaserclinic.com.au.
© 2006 Sun Herald