Sunburn Art

Have you ever been sunburned? Did you find your exposed areas a deep red color, itching badly with your skin peeling off?

Graham Plumb, got his backside sunburned, and instead of suffering in silence, he took his peeled skin and put together a map of the world. I saw it and it looks very cool, but if you are easily grossed out, don't see it.

You can find the map here.

Coffee, Starbucks, Lebanese Restaurant

I am impressed by Starbucks, not because of how good their coffee is, but in the way they package the whole experience. It starts with walking in Starbucks and being greeted by the Barrista. The warm colors and comfortable relaxing sofas tempt you to sink in them. The different Coffee selections have foreign names like Machiato, Latte, Frapuccino, cup sizes are in Italian. Ordering your coffee makes you feel like you are buying something exotic like a Lamborghini sports car or Bulgari jewellry.

You pay 1 KD (around $3) for your Latte and sit down to sip it, listening to the smooth jazz music being piped all over the Coffee shop.

Effectively, what you just bought was hot milk with coffee, which you could prepare at home by heating some milk and adding two spoons of Nescafe instant coffee, costing you around 100 fils (30 cents) or less.

I am not complaining, I still drink Starbucks and other coffees and happily pay the 1 KD or more for the experience. I am simply in awe by how they are able to sell me and others and we gladly come back for more. I thought no one else could beat those smart people at Starbucks.

Well, I had a heavy dinner at a Lebanese restaurant yesterday, after the dinner was over, the Lebanese waiter offered some sweets and white coffee (ahwa bayda). I never tried white coffee before. I thought it would be some light colored coffee beans from the green hills of Lebanon. The waiter came back with cups and a kettle. I poured the white coffee and what I got was flower scented hot water.

I thought no one could beat Starbucks in packaging and selling overpriced coffee, well I was wrong. Those ancient Phoenicians traders did. My hat off (or rather ghutra) to all the Lebanese. I will go again to that same Lebanese restaurant just to order white coffee.

Life and Death and XBox

Chopper dude's post - in loving memory - got me thinking about life and death. The wisdom I got from that post is live life to the fullest, don't hurt yourself, don't hurt anyone else and treasure good memories.

This Xbox banned ad sort of says that also:

What Year Do You Belong In?

You Belong in 1968

If you scored... 1950 - 1959: You're fun loving, romantic, and more than a little innocent. See you at the drive in! 1960 - 1969: You are a free spirit with a huge heart. Love, peace, and happiness rule - oh, and drugs too. 1970 - 1979: Bold and brash, you take life by the horns. Whether you're partying or protesting, you give it your all! 1980 - 1989: Wild, over the top, and just a little bit cheesy. You're colorful at night - and successful during the day. 1990 - 1999: With you anything goes! You're grunge one day, ghetto fabulous the next. It's all good!

What Year Do You Belong In?

Drugs? Does panadol count?

World's Best iPod utility - Introducing Artie

You filled your iPod with all your favorite music, all legal of course, no p2p downloads. If you bought your music from iPod's music store then you would get nice album art to go with your collection, but not all of us are that fortunate, so you settle for just seeing the song and artist's name.

Well, I proudly present to you, Artie, the best iPod utility I have ever used. Artie lets you select a group of songs from your iTunes and searches for the album art and automatically updates your music collection. You can find Artie here.

Artie is still a work in progress, don't worry it won't damage your iTunes music collection, it will only abort but you can always restart it. Another bug I found was that it cannot handle real long lists, so 50 songs at a time would be appropriate.

Enjoy.

Frogger

Tired of playing solitaire on your comp, I present to you frogger in flash.

Frogger is here.

Video Games save real lives

You are stuck to the screen, the world is in peril, you must save it from the evil slithering beasties as you get promoted from perilious level to level. Your palms are sweaty, you fingers are flying on the controls, you outmaneuver the opponent with a quick move to the right and a laser blast vaporizing it.

You awaken from your trance, look at your watch, 5 hours have passed. You wonder, what have you done with your life, 5 quality hours gone for a mere video game. You stretch your tense crouched muscles and sit up. Don't give up on video games yet, Video games can help cut surgical errors. According to the article:

The research involved 303 surgeons participating in a medical training course that included video games and was focussed on laparoscopic surgical procedures -- which use a tiny video camera and long, slender instruments inserted through small incisions. The study was conducted by Beth
Israel Medical Centre in New York City in conjunction with the National Institute on Media and the Family.

Doctors were measured on their performance of the "cobra rope" drill, a standard laparoscopic training exercise used to teach how to sew up an internal wound.

Researchers found that surgeons who played video games immediately before the drill completed it an average of 11 seconds faster than those who did not. Any errors committed during the training lengthened the time it took to complete the task -- indicating that faster finishers made fewer mistakes.

So play some more, you will be saving real lives soon.

Actor's Brother says "Climate change is the major challenge facing the world"

Richard Attenborough is famous for playing Ghandi and Chaplin among other movies. Everyone recognizes those two characters, Ghandi being the pacifist who managed to liberate India from the British and Chaplin the comedic tramp character that became popular during the movie industry's infancy.

Richard Attenborough has a younger brother called David who says that Climate change is the major challenge facing the world. Richard Attenborough did produce some nature programs for television and acted in a few minor unknown films.

I have two comments first about global warming and the second about minor actors stating major scientific conclusions.

Global warming, whether true or not is good for me as a Kuwaiti and Kuwait. Kuwait's intense summers have cooled down and are now bearable and our previous extremely short Winter and Autumn period are now much longer. Kuwait is getting rain showers as late as May which would have never happened 20 years ago and the dust storms are less intense. I can see more greenery in Kuwait when it was previously all sand and rocks. Our customer nations that buy our oil are experiencing severe winters and hotter summers, therefore increasing their demand for oil which helps us sell more oil and raises the price of oil because of increased demand.


If Global Warming is true, then we need more of it.

Now why do we listen to actors when they spout scientific truths, they do not have the knowledge, the research discipline or the complete facts. They make statements and we just digest them.

Anyway, have an excellent weekend.

Meatloaf - The Monster is Loose

Do you remember Meatloaf with his epic song, "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)"? The song was great but it had to be shortened for Radio but you can get the full 9 minutes and more on the album. There was also an unforgettable beauty and the beast themed video, that amazed everyone. Meatloaf is known for Operatic songs and the Video was like a mini movie.

Meatloaf released 2 Albums from the Bat out of Hell Series, the first one being:



Bat out of Hell


Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell

Meatloaf is now working on a third album:



Bat out of Hell III: The Monster is loose.


I love the album covers. Coincidentally, the title track, "The Monster is loose", got leaked out on the Internet, and now the monster is really loose.

You can find "the monster is loose" track here, it is also on myspace and Meatloaf's site but I could not find it.

From Meatloaf's Web site,

Bat Out of Hell III is Meat Loaf’s long-awaited next installement to the most successful rock music series of all time, with the two previous albums selling a total of 45 million around the world! Bat Out of Hell, released in 1977 and produced by Todd Rundgren, is the third best-selling album of all time, with 30 million copies sold worldwide, featuring such Meat Loaf/Jim Steinman standards as “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad,” “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth” and the show-stopping “Paradise by the Dashboard Lights.”

The Steinman-produced Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell, which came out in 1993, sold more than 15 million, with the classic “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That),” earning Meat Loaf a Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance.

Bat Out of Hell III continues the epic saga in grand fashion, with contributions once again from Steinman and Rundgren, and produced by hitmaker Desmond Child. Bat Out of Hell III promises to mark the triumphant return of the Bat Out of Hell franchise, completing this legendary trilogy!"

What's Wrong with this Picture?

  


Click on the picture to see a bigger view, can you guess what's wrong with it?