Category: Interesting

A guy got busted for growing a forrest of marijuana in his underground bunker and here are pictures. [Link]

[source kottke]

An interesting article that lists 10 points that help make a problogger. I personally have three points I follow: Post often, posts must be interesting, and posts must be short. [Link]

We went to Beirut to film a TV show about the city’s newly vibrant culinary and cultural scene. Then the bombs started falling, and we could only stand on the barricades of our hotel balcony and watch it all disappear — again.

A nice piece by Anthony Bourdain at Salon.com [Link]

note: to read the full article you need to click on the sponsor logo at the end of the first page.

My brother is online now from Turkey. He left Lebanon yesterday with the Canadian Embassy on a crappy ferry boat and today, 20 hours later he arrived to Turkey. They had to sleep on the floor on the ferry and it was a fucked trip. He is now at a highschool stadium where surprisingly they have WIFI. This is what he had to say about the evacuation so far:

20 hours on a fucking ferry boat
it fucking sucks
seriously
it’s so bad
i will show you pictures when i get to kuwait
you will think i was on an african refugee boat
they’re so unorganized
those who aren’t going to canada, have to wait for the rest of the people to go to the airport to pick up luggage
then we have to find our way to Istanbul
i hate canada

update: my brother was very tired and exhausted when he wrote that.

Yesterday I was invited for another test drive by Alghanim Automotive. I was hoping they would give me some small crappy car so I could give it a bad review and show everyone that if the car sucked I would say it sucked. Sadly, that didn’t happen. Yesterday I took the new Cadillac BLS for a drive and it was far from being crappy.

I picked up a gorgeous silver top of the line BLS from the dealer and drove down to the Gulf Road. The BLS is the smallest car Cadillac makes and the one I drove came with a V6 2.8L Turbo engine pumping out 250HP so it was fast. As soon as I hit the Gulf Road I got a call from a friend who had spotted me. He asked me if I was turning into Jermey Clarkson and he then asked what car I was driving since it looked really cool. Now this came from someone who drives an M3 so you can imagine how good the car must look. Pictures actually don’t do justice to the hard edged geometrically cut car so you need to see it in person to really appreciate its beauty.

I closed the phone with my friend and blasted down the Gulf Road. The Cadillac BLS I was driving came with a 6-speed automatic and paddle shift. I am used to the F1 style paddle shift where you use your fingers to change gear but the Cadillac BLS is the one where you use your thumbs instead. It felt awkward at first but I quickly got the hang of it. The interior seems to follow the styling cues of the new Cadillac Escalade which is a really good thing since it means its very un-American. Everything felt very plush and sophisticated and I just love that in a car.

After a long drive I parked the car and took some shots of the exterior and interior. When I was done I drove back to the dealership and handed them the keys. Cadillac really have come a long way when it comes to aesthetics. There is no other car in the market that looks like a Cadillac, its got a style all on its own. The only downside I could think of with the BLS is the engine sound. I would have preferred a louder grunt from a 250HP engine but I guess many people would rather have a quiet engine than a loud one.

The price of the fully loaded Cadillac BLS is KD11,995 which makes its more affordable than a similarly specced BMW or Mercedes. Its a pretty cool car for a sedan.

I was looking for apartments for sale in Montreal when I found one located in Habitat 67. I hadn’t heard of the place before but now that I read about it I think it would be a really funky place to live in. Habitat 67 which is pictured above was built in 1967 but it looks like it could have been built today. Here is some info I found on it on Wikipedia.

It was designed by architect Moshe Safdie based on his master’s thesis at McGill University. It was designed to integrate the variety and diversity of scattered private homes with the economics and density of a modern apartment building. Modular, interlocking concrete forms define the space. The complex was built as part of Expo ’67. The project was designed to create affordable housing with close but private quarters, each equipped with a garden. The complex was originally meant to be vastly larger. It also failed in its goal of being affordable as the building is today quite elite.

Anyway the apartment I found is a 3 bedroom flat and costs $399,000 Canadian. Its expensive for a 3 bedroom flat and I can’t afford it but its nice to know that a piece of architectural history can be purchased for that amount. Check out the Habitat 67 website for more pictures and info. [Link]

Re-cut trailers refers to a re-edited film trailer that is created by re-editing footage from that film, or possibly just from that film’s trailer. Re-cut trailers have become a popular internet phenomenon since fall of 2005. In almost all cases, these re-cut trailers derive their humor from casting the film’s plot in a different light- these fake trailers present the film as something that it is very much not. For instance, a film with a murderous plot is made to look like a light and happy film, or vice versa. [Link]

Optimus Prime voice actor chosen for Transformers movie.
Johnny Cash on Sesame Street.
New trailer for The Fountain.
Get Rich Slowly, An Effective Three-Step Budget.
Diary of a girl from 1930s discarded, discovered and reuunited with its owner.
Jihad, Its Worth It.

Pimping your bike rims with programmable LEDs, I would love to do this on my bike. Its not really expensive, the kit costs less then $50. [Link]

Interesting… [Link]

From Kottke: KitKat bars have always been big in the UK, but when the company introduced some exotic new flavors, overall sales of the candy dropped 18%. [Link]

An interesting article where the author attributes some of the decline in rape to the availability of porn. I think it makes perfect sense. [Link]

Carlsb3rg posted this link to an article on ticketing corruption in the forum. Two researchers found that the number of parking tickets that legally-immune foreign diplomats acummulate in NYC and refuse to pay is a great measure of how corrupt their home countries are. Guess which diplomats blew away the competition… Kuwait! [Link]

I figured this is a good time to post this link since many people are travelling. Seat Guru is the ultimate source for airplane seating, in-flight amenities and airline information.

Say you are flying with KLM on their 747 jet and you reserved seat row 30A and want to know if you made the right decision. With Seat Guru you would know you didn’t since they have that seat marked as “Be aware”. On the other hand seat 35C is marked as a “Good seat”. Flying Lufthansa on their Airbus A340? Lucky you since you will have internet access plus if you are seated in either business or first class you get your own power port.

Very helpful info. [Link]

Red Bull sent us a couple of these to put up in our office.