Category: Interesting

In St. Petersburg, Russia they are looking for ways to keep customers at the pump. Phaeton holding announced that it will develop 15 “luxury” gas stations to capture the higher end of the gas market. The new stations will have free internet, sushi bars and women in “flight-attendant style uniforms” to attend to the vehicles. The idea is that customers are willing to pay a higher price for better service and that the gas stations might become the new hot spots. [details]

Why don’t we have luxury gas stations here? Actually, why don’t we just have more normal ones! They are too few and too far apart here.

I was adding stuff to my amazon wish list and one of the stuff I added was Nine Inch Nails new album called With Teeth which is coming out next month. Out of curiosity though I decided to check and see if any of the songs were available on P2P networks. Surprisingly they were! So I downloaded a whole bunch and I have to say these new songs are sooo fucking cool. I can’t wait till the new album comes out on CD. I noticed also its more electronic then the previous albums, one song sounds drum n bass while another sounds ambient. Overall though this is gonna be one amazing album. My favorite song is Right Where It Belongs. I have had it in loop for the past 30 minutes. I uploaded a 1 minute teaser so you can hear it. [MP3 Link] If anyone wants to preorder it here is the amazon link.

Lyrics to teaser above:

What if everything around you,
Isn’t quite as it seems?

What if all the world you used to know,
Is an elaborate dream?

Just read this on boingboing and found it too funny:

The president also has an eclectic mix of songs downloaded into his iPod from Mark McKinnon, a biking buddy and his chief media strategist in the 2004 campaign. Among them are “Circle Back” by John Hiatt, “(You’re So Square) Baby, I Don’t Care” by Joni Mitchell and “My Sharona,” the 1970s song by The Knack that Joe Levy, a deputy managing editor in charge of music coverage at Rolling Stone, cheerfully branded “suggestive if not outright filthy” in an interview last week.

So his friend Mark McKinnon gave him songs from his collection, thats stealing. [Link]

Just saw this cool thing on engadget. Its a rechargable handle pad for the Sony PSP. Basically it will add 4-5 hours over the regular battery life of the PSP for only $25. I haven’t had any battery issues myself but maybe if I was going to New York, the extra 5 hours of juice would come in handy. [Link]

There is this one pigeon I keep seeing outside my window which doesnt seem to have any toes. I don’t know what happened to them but its pretty fucking sad watching him all day long. He seems to be getting along fine with all the other pigeons, they don’t seem to be leaving him out of any of their activities but I know deep inside this pigeon wishes he had all his toes. He seems to be able to walk fine but every few seconds he tries to stand on just 1 leg, I guess cuz it might be his other leg hurts him or something. Anyway I took pictures for you guys to see.

Birdie Pic 1
Birdie Pic 2 (warning: not for pigeon lovers)

Have you guys tried Habbo Hotel before? I used to be addicted to it back when I was still in university. Habbo Hotel is basically an online community and its based in a hotel. You create your own character and you wonder around the hotel meeting people. You can hang out at the bar, or at the club or even in the lobby. The whole thing has a Sims feel to it although Habbo Hotel was around long before The Sims was released. If you guys never tried it before it is worth the experience. [Link]

Just read an article on The Register about how the latest Bluetooth scare is that if you go to the United Arab Emirates, someone might hack your phone, implant porn on it, and you’d end up in jail. There are many people out there with bluetooth phones who could easily fall victim to this. I know this because I have witnessed 2 fellow employees at work, both with new phones and both the first time owning a bluetooth phone. Someone in the office had a nokia phone infected with a virus and it sent it to the 2 new phones, the employees thought someone was trying to chat with them and accepted to install the virus. These were young men in their 20s so imagine the problems older less technology understanding people would face. It would really suck to get thrown in jail for mobile porn.

This has to be the longest lasting April Fools prank of the year. On April 1st Maynard Keenan the lead frontman for one my favorite bands Tool sent an email saying he found Jesus. This was an obvious attempt to mock Brian Welch from Korn who a few months earlier decided to leave Korn because “he had found god“. Surprisingly though many people didn’t get joke and till today people still don’t it was just a joke. Even Nibaq was telling me the other day that if I knew Maynard had found Jesus. Here is a link with details on this April Fools prank, something like a detailed history of it.

By the way, now that I think about it, Keenan sounds like a Lebanese family name pronounced Kin-3an. Interesting…

OK, this is like my dream room, this guy has it all!!! [Link]

I was walking in Salmiya yesterday when I noticed that there seems to be a lot more DVD and VCD hawkers on the street. A few minutes later while passing some more hawkers I noticed something really cool. One of the street hawkers had a portable DVD player with a built in LCD screen. That guy has to be the smartest hawker on that street. He can use the player to attract people to his stand and then allow them to try the movies before they buy it. This way he creates better customer satisfaction and people will come back to him remembering him as the hawker with the portable movie player.

Tips on how to remain anonymous and other tips. Link

This post is dedicated to Simply Stinni. BMW Films came out I think 2 to 3 years ago. They were short movies directed by famous people and starred famous people. For example the movie “Star” was directed by Guy Ritchie and starred Madonna. The budget was provided by BMW and each film had a different story then the other and different actors, except for one, Clive Owen. He played the same person in all the movies, a driver. Here is a summary of the movies from BMWfilms.com

Brace yourself for intricate plot twists, riveting car chases, and a dose of wit. All eight short films of The Hire, created by Hollywood’s finest talent, are available now for downloading and streaming.

These brilliantly produced films star Clive Owen as the driver. Hired for his superb driving skills and unshakable poise, the driver encounters unexpected obstacles that put his abilities to the test. Watch as each film reveals new depths of character, intrigue, and cinematography.

There are 8 movies in today. All free to download. Make sure you watch the Season 1 films.

[Link]

There’s an auction on Ebay for the thrill seekers out there. Tornado Attack, LLC and ‘Team Tornado’ is auctioning off the “co-pilot” seat in Tornado Attack One to secure your spot in an expedition which will conduct a tornado chase and put you in the eye of the storm. The TA-1 vehicle started life as a Baja trophy truck and has gone through a $250,000 upgrade that allow it withstand an F-4 tornado (158-260 mph). [Link]

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There’s a fairly simple way to achieve multi-player gaming on two PSPs using a single UMD disc, by starting the game on one console, starting an Ad Hoc Multiplayer game, then hot swapping the disc to the other device. It’s apparently working for Tony Hawk, Twisted Metal, and Ridge Racer with perhaps a few protocol tweaks here and there. More complete instructions here.

Nibaq got linked on boingboing.. fucking cool! [Link]