by Dan Reitman Comments Off on 2009 Bentley Man. on Man.
Here’s a highly amusing review of the latest uber-Bentley, courtesy of Vanity Fair magazine’s resident gay auto scribe, with a little help from the editors at Jalopnik.com.
Be sure to check out the photo of the “gay-friendly” climate control system. Immature? Perhaps. Hilarious? Definitely.
by Dan Reitman Comments Off on BMW has done gone brought sexy back.
There has been enough ink spilled about the questionable direction that former BMW design chief, Chris “I have an ego bigger than the J-Lo-sized rump of the 7 series sedan I designed” Bangle, took BMW’s styling over the past decade such that I will spare you from further whining about it. Suffice it to say, in an effort to break the cycle of look-alike Bimmers that were coming out of Bavaria in the late 1990’s – pretty as those cars were – Bangle ended up penning some cars whose looks were polarizing at best, and ass-ugly at worst. Now, with Bangle’s departure, BMW has returned to fine form with a new, more fluid design language, the first example of which is the new 2009 Z4. With the new Z’s introduction, BMW has proven two things, as far as I can tell: 1) BMW still knows how to build a gorgeous car, and 2) It is possible to build a hardtop convertible whose proportions aren’t awkward. Bravo.
by Daniel Wolfe Comments Off on Enjoy every song from The Beatles in audio and video, with lyrics!!
I recently went to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to visit the “Imagine” exhibition – inspired by John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Bed-in For Peace” of 1969, held in Suite 1742 of Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth Hotel. The exhibition woke up the inner Beatles fan in me, which had been sleeping since around 2007, when I had become all Beatled-out several months after acquiring the soundtrack to the Cirque du Soleil and Apple Corps Ltd.’s (the label owning all rights to Beatles music) joint project, LOVE.
What perfect timing, then, for this to fall into my lap. This appears to be every Beatles song (or at least every song that made it to a publicly available album) in video, with accompanying lyrics! Amazing! Enjoy:
The Beatles Video and Lyrics from A-Z (courtesy: BeatlesTube)
by Noah Bloom Comments Off on More disappointment for mobile telecom in Canada: Bell now owns all of Virgin Mobile
Just when you thought things were getting exciting in Canada with more MVNOs, Bell Canada goes and buys the remaining stake it didn’t own in Virgin Mobile Canada. And the CWTA, for some incomprehensible reason, lets them. In their statement, Bell said that their mobile outfit Bell Mobility has bought the remaining 50% of Virgin Mobile Canada that it didn’t already own for $142M CAD ($122M USD).
And if you’re wondering what that acronym (MVNO) in the previous paragraph stands for, it’s Mobile Virtual Network Operator. But if you are a mobile consumer in Canada, you might not even know what that is. You see, in most other countries (about 360), there are companies (about 400) that offer mobile services to their customers without actually owning cell towers and expensive networks! You ask, how’s that possible? These companies piggy-back on the big networks, but can still offer some sort of differentiated service or customer experience. Sounds great! And it still brings competition to a market, which means: new services, faster networks, and cheaper prices.
The preeminent global MVNO is Virgin. They’ve got lots of subscribers in the UK, USA, Australia, etc. There’s also Tracfone, Blyk, etc.
Well, back to Canada. MVNOs were great to bring some competition to the otherwise monopolistic market. Companies came along, even if many like Solo and Amp’d were cloaked as arms of the big guys, but now we’re watching them disappear. Bad bad CWTA. Letting the competition get eaten up by the big dogs is not good for Canadian consumers. NOT GOOD!
So here’s to the winners of the recent spectrum auction (Globalive, Quebecor/Videotron, Shaw) in Canada to bring potentially some fire into our market!
by Daniel Wolfe Comments Off on When English is the second language… Funny signs and lines from around the world
Bejing, China
IT IS FORBIDDEN TO ENTER A WOMAN, EVEN A FOREIGNER, IF DRESSED AS A MAN.
Cocktail lounge, Norway
LADIES ARE REQUESTED NOT TO HAVE CHILDREN IN THE BAR.
Doctor’s office, Rome
SPECIALIST IN WOMEN AND OTHER DISEASES.
Dry cleaners, Bangkok
DROP YOUR TROUSERS HERE FOR THE BEST RESULTS.
In a Nairobi restaurant
CUSTOMERS WHO FIND OUR WAITRESSES RUDE OUGHT TO SEE THE MANAGER.
On the main road to Mombassa, leaving Nairobi
TAKE NOTICE: WHEN THIS SIGN IS UNDER WATER, THIS ROAD IS IMPASSABLE.
On a poster at Kencom
ARE YOU AN ADULT THAT CANNOT READ? IF SO WE CAN HELP.
In a City restaurant
OPEN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK AND WEEKENDS.
In a cemetery
PERSONS ARE PROHIBITED FROM PICKING FLOWERS FROM ANY BUT THEIR OWN GRAVES.
Tokyo hotel’s rules and regulations
GUESTS ARE REQUESTED NOT TO SMOKE OR DO OTHER DISGUSTING BEHAVIOURS IN BED.
On the menu of a Swiss restaurant
OUR WINES LEAVE YOU NOTHING TO HOPE FOR.
In a Tokyo bar
SPECIAL COCKTAILS FOR THE LADIES WITH NUTS.
Hotel, Yugoslavia
THE FLATTENING OF UNDERWEAR WITH PLEASURE IS THE JOB OF THE CHAMBERMAID.
Hotel, Japan
YOU ARE INVITED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE CHAMBERMAID.
In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a Russian Orthodox monastery
YOU ARE WELCOME TO VISIT THE CEMETERY WHERE FAMOUS RUSSIAN AND SOVIET COMPOSERS, ARTISTS AND WRITERS ARE BURIED DAILY EXCEPT THURSDAY.
A sign posted in Germany’s Black Forest
IT IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN ON OUR BLACK FOREST CAMPING SITE THAT PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT SEX, FOR INSTANCE, MEN AND WOMEN, LIVE TOGETHER IN ONE TENT UNLESS THEY ARE MARRIED WITH EACH OTHER FOR THIS PURPOSE.
Hotel, Zurich
BECAUSE OF THE IMPROPRIETY OF ENTERTAINING GUESTS OF THE OPPOSITE SEX IN THE BEDROOM, IT IS SUGGESTED THAT THE LOBBY BE USED FOR THIS PURPOSE.
Advertisement for donkey rides, Thailand
WOULD YOU LIKE TO RIDE ON YOUR OWN ASS?
Airline ticket office, Copenhagen
WE TAKE YOUR BAGS AND SEND THEM IN ALL DIRECTIONS.
A laundromat in Rome
LADIES, LEAVE YOUR CLOTHES HERE AND SPEND THE AFTERNOON HAVING A GOOD TIME.
by Dan Reitman Comments Off on Yes, but how will it handle a marble surface? And how effectively will it storm a beach??
As I continue to contribute to NorthGeek, I would like to state here and now that I will try my absolute best to limit my gushing over BBC’s Top Gear, with this one post being the exception.
Suffice it to say, Top Gear is the highest rated show in Britain for good reason: the production values are staggeringly high and the casting is superb, with 3 opinionated, smart, charismatic, and hilarious hosts, who never mince words, be it about the cars they’re testing, their own social views, or even what they think of the BBC. If any car is not up to snuff, they will happily roast it to hell, without giving a hoot about what their advertisers might say.
So with 12 superb seasons under their belt, one would think Clarkson and Co. would be fresh out of ideas for how to tart up an otherwise mundane test-drive of a mundane hatchback – albeit a very good one, but a hatchback just the same. And then they did this. What isn’t shown on the video is host Richard Hammond first reading a letter from a viewer who asks why they don’t test-drive their cars more thoroughly. Enjoy.
To take an opening line from the original author of this post, when it comes to home theaters, I thought I had seen it all. Well, all that was worthy of my critical (yet practical – see: ‘egzak’) eyes… But this, well, THIS, I had never seen until early 2008. Yeah yeah, I know the date because the article is from February 2008 – whatever!
The giant Stewart Snowmatte screen isn’t all that’s impressive! There’s also the Sony ultra-high-resolution (4,096-by-2,160) SRX-S110 digital projector – this bad boy is on my “Need/Want” list, too! Just not sure if it’s a “need” or a “want” yet… Outfitted primarily with Snell speakers, Jeremy Kipnis’ $6 million home theater setup is an 8.8 system – that’s right, 8 speakers and 8 subwoofers. Although there are really more than 8 speakers. He has THREE center speakers, as he felt that just the one center was being too overpowered by the eight Snell THX Cinema & Music Reference towers he has surrounding the room.
This beast of a “home” theater is powered by two humongous General Electric 13,800-volt/800-amp step-down transformers next to Kipnis’ garage.
Amplified by two Mark Levinson N° 33h Amplifiers, thirty (yes, that is 30) McIntosh MC-2102 Amplifiers, and three Crown Macro Reference Gold Amplifiers, 13 Theta Digital Generation VIII 32-bit 8x Oversampling Dual Processors run the show.
Not really. This is, of course, the Aston Martin Lagonda. The weirdest, rarest, most obscure, and first 4-door super-car.
I adore this car. It is beautiful in the same, contrarian way that Gina Gershon is beautiful – fish-lips and all. Whenever I see pictures of the Lagonda, I am reminded of the sheer audacity; the chutzpah; the absolute BALLS, really, Aston Martin was walking around with that would have prompted them to produce this car back in the 1970’s.
I’m talking about this car because last night’s episode of Top Gear on BBC Canada aired a quick segment on the Lagonda, but I felt they didn’t really hammer home what a unique-looking beast this thing really is.
With more right-angles than a Frank Lloyd Wright abode, this thing cackled at wind tunnels, and would make a T-square blush. I only wish Aston – or anyone – still had the cojones to build another one now. The closest anyone has come to contrarian excellence in automotive design has been the Pontiac Aztek – and there really is nothing excellent about that rolling (and I will steal from the hilarious Patton Oswalt here) failure pile.
Sure, every modern Aston built since 2005 has been consistently, stunningly, tear-jerkingly gorgeous, from the V8 Vantage to the race-ready DBS, to the upcoming Rapide and the economically illogical One-77 – but they all look exactly the same. Seriously, Aston effectively stopped designing cars in 2005.
Not so with the Lagonda. It simply looks like no other car. The first time I ever saw one was actually in the flesh – a friend of my father’s, who has since passed away, was a big car guy and owned a British racing green example, which sounded even better than it looked. When I first laid eyes on it, I remember thinking, “that’s not an Aston Martin, that just looks like a flattened, 1970’s Detroit gas guzzler.” Indeed, the car was stupendously long, wide, and angular, but when my dad’s friend revved the big V12 engine and peeled out, I was immediately sold on it as a supercar.
But I really can’t blame Aston for not building another curve-less flagship. The fact is, whether it was due to poor reliability or the jarring exterior design, Aston only sold 600 or so Lagondas, a tiny fraction of how many DB9’s they’ve sold.
And the Lagonda was far from perfect. It – like most high-end British cars, if we’re honest – was woefully unreliable. The all-digital, light-up dash was incredibly cool in it’s day – it was dubbed the “Star Wars dashboard” when it first came out – certainly worthy of NorthGeek mention, but if the electrics decided to take the night off, which was often, you had absolutely no instruments, and were flying blind. Try that at 150mph. Not cool, then.
Having said all that, if I had the means, I would still park one in my garage, even if I knew that oil leaks and electrical gremlins would never allow it to leave. All the better, really.
