Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Rossi blames Maiden for his defeat...

Valentino Rossi (the Michael Schumacher of bike racing) is firmly placing the blame for his poor performance at the Donington GP on the shoulders of Maiden and the other bands who played the Download festival on the circuit a couple of weeks previously!

"Then there is the annual Download rock festival, which took place at the circuit a fortnight ago with thousands of heavy metal fans flocking to the venue. Blaming Iron Maiden and Megadeth was certainly on the agenda of Rossi, whose charge for a podium place was hampered by a deteriorating rear tyre. He finished fourth.

Rossi said: "We spoke to the Safety Commission. The surface here was done just three years ago, so it is not old. They resurfaced because they had a lot of bumps, but maybe the problem is not the aeroplanes but the concert of Marilyn Manson. They put the hot dog stand on the track, so maybe the oil is not very good for the grip."

Cooking oil, not engine oil, that is. Stoner's problems were confined to the start. As he hit the throttle, his bike skidded on one of the painted grid lines and a stream of bikes overtook him."

2000 times a 9/11

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Jolie on Bad Trip.

Angelina Jolie once took powerful drug LSD before a trip to children's paradise Disneyland.

Angelina Jolie once took powerful drug LSD before a trip to children's paradise Disneyland.

The Tomb Raider star admits taking the hallucinogenic drug before a trip to the tourist attraction in Orlando, Florida.

She says: "I remember taking LSD before I went to Disneyland. I started thinking about Mickey Mouse being a short, middle-aged man in a costume who hates life. Those drugs can be dangerous if you don't go into it
positively - I gave them up long ago.
Jolie - who has made no secret of her broad experimentation with drugs - also admits cannabis makes her "giggly".

She says: "I've done coke, heroin, ecstasy, LSD, everything. But the one that had the worst effect for me was pot. I felt silly and giggly and I hate feeling like that".

WTF? She's talkin about drugs like choosing different varieties of pizza..

Monday, September 17, 2007

Britney "Smears" !!

After last week’s disasterous “performance” at the MTV Video Music Awards, you would think it couldn’t get any more humiliating for pop-tard Britney Spears.

But you would be wrong. According to a report in The London Sun, the fallen pop princess was been banned from LA’s exclusive Chateau Marmont hotel after guests repeatedly complained about her “weird” behavior after she started on a spree going to various hotels and picking up food from peoples plates and "smearing" it on her face.

Which allegedly included smearing a plate of high-priced cuisine all over her face and grossing out the other patrons. A source said: “The diners were disgusted. You wouldn’t expect that from a teenager in a fast-food joint."

Looks like Britney was really hungry. Gross.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Google Maps Directions

Remember the old Google Maps, Get Direction? Well. I've had a lotta fun with that one.
But i think the bugs are fixed though. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go to Google Maps and Get Direction where you can enter two places and Google gives you instructions to travel.
Try from: Prudhoe Bay to: Rio Grande, Brazil.
Read Step 66.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Examples of Why Guys Shouldn't Drink and Invent

Here are some real, honest-to-goodness patented guy inventions unearthed by Scott Seegert in his recently published book. The illustrations are the inventors' actual drawings, taken directly from the official paperwork filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office. The year the patent was awarded is included to give you some perspective on where the male mind was during that time. Sure they're ridiculous. Even insane. But the sad reality is there are more than a few we secretly wish we had. Here are ten that we should be glad we have no access to.


Albert's Helmet-Mounted Pistol (1953)
Why should we actually have to hold a weapon in our hand? We're guys. Our hands are too busy doing other guy things to be involved in a firefight. Our head isn't doing much. So, thought Albert, if I just strap a gigantic pistol to my melon I can keep my hands free for more important things. As Scott notes in the book, "Once this powerful weapon has been securely strapped to the noggin, a quick blow into the firing tube is all it takes to... send a large-caliber bullet rocketing in a generally forward direction." Not to mention cause severe whiplash and/or spinal injuries from the kickback of this monster.



Bill's Swimming Apparatus (1881)
You have to assume the only thing Bill was looking for here was a way to set himself apart from the other dorks at the beach: Hey ladies. Feast your eyes upon my Swimming Apparatus. Watch as I take my winged, rod-reinforced, full-body flotation suit and slide gracefully into the water. Where I sink like a winged, rod-reinforced, full-body flotation suited stone. Scott says, "Although we can't prove it, we have every reason to believe that Bill was especially proud of the way the hood turned out." And I'm betting the ladies were too.



Andre's Penis Exerciser (1995)
Only twelve short years ago Andre realized that LDS (Limp Dick Syndrome, look it up), was caused by a lack of circulation to the muscles of the penis. What he failed to realize was that his solution of having us drop trou and repeatedly lift a weighted lever with Little Bruno at full attention involved foresight and effort. Two things we guys don't have in huge supply. So when Viagra debuted three years later, enabling Little Bruno to happy dance for hours on end at the drop of a pill, woman lost the only piece of gym equipment that would have given them the same viewing pleasure the Leg Abductor gives us.



Larry's Bleacher Pants (2005)
It's the 21st century and still no one has invented comfortable bleacher seats. Oh sure, you could bring you own cushion, but how do you juggle that plus a 32 ounce beer, two hot dogs, chili cheese fries and a giant foam finger? You can't. So you go home with a bad case of Bleacher Ass. Unless of course you're comfortable enough in your masculinity to attend a game wearing a pair of Larry's Bleacher Pants, which come complete with "buttocks-shaped foam cushion incorporated therein". A very, very large buttocks-shaped foam cushion. From the drawings, I'm guessing either Larry had a severely tender butt, or he spent some time on Brokeback Mountain.



Squire's Anatomic Underwear (2000)
Women have the Wonder Bra, so Squire figured it's time we guys got to experience "a never-before-achieved level of attractiveness by allowing (our) natural carriage and authentic masculine style to be expressed in a way that reflects (our) own image." Meaning we no longer have to suffer with compacted, crowded, flattened genitalia. We are now free to let our manly bulges ride high and full and proud. The way God and Squire intended.



Jack's No-Slip Hairpiece (1995)
This is the Hair Club for Men meets the movie "Saw". Jack's "innovation" over traditional hair replacement surgery, weaving, toupees, or plain old shaving yourself bald, is his far, far more humiliating No-Slip Hairpiece. Don't let the illustration alarm you. The plastic horseshoe looking thing is not stapled to your head. (Unless you request it.) It's merely permanently secured to your scalp with glue or "braiding". That piece of meat floating above his head is your new, thick, luxurious head of hair ready to be secured to your dome by driving those spikes into the horseshoe. Not even a hurricane force wind, or the embarrassment of a dead otter anchored to your scalp, could separate you from your new flowing locks. Just your dignity.



Dick's Daddy Saddle (2003)
I'm certain Dick's intentions were noble when he designed this saddle for loving daddies everywhere to wear while playing horsey with their little ones, but I just can't help but think that the next thing they hear after some guys strap this on will be, "I'm Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC..."


John's Head-Butt Game (1976)
1976 was a magical time. The country was celebrating its 200th birthday. We elected a smiling peanut farmer from Georgia to guide us after scandal rocked the White House. And those pesky child endangerment laws weren't on the books yet. Making John's Head-Butt Game the perfect rainy-day activity for your hyperactive little tykes. The rules are simple enough: two children try to knock each other off their respective floor discs using only their heads. While wearing wrist restraints. So the little rascals can't use their hands to cheat. Or break their unconscious fall. As Scott points out, "Sure it will be a little noisy at first, but within five or six minutes, the home will be as quiet as a coma."



Dan's Motorcycle Safety Apparel (1987)
Scott notes, "Guys are innately drawn to motorcycles. They're fast, they're loud, and they're an integral part of a favorite guy activity -- crashing headfirst into things." Which is fine the first couple of times. Then the brain swelling starts to get a little tedious. Which is why Dan invented this ingenious safety apparel. Why bother with a helmet when you're wearing an inflatable suit tethered to a canister of compressed air? Becoming airborne after a collision triggers the suit to cover your arms, legs and head in a way reminiscent of Maj. Don "Joey" West's body armor in 1998's Lost in Space. Only much less effective.



Harold's Pogo-Copter (1969)
Scott says that nothing "captures the very essence of guyness any better than Harold's Pogo-Copter." It's hard to disagree. How can you when everything we guys love - riding on things, showing off, putting ourselves in mortal danger - is combined into one incredible invention? The idea is to jump up and down on a wheeled pogo stick. Which would be dangerous enough all by itself. But Harold decides to up the peril ante by adding large whirling helicopter blades that spin dangerously close to your cranium. So you can attempt to make the thing FLY. A wheeled, flying pogo stick with blades whipping near your head. Lawyers everywhere just wet themselves.



Honorable Mention
Tom's Cleavage Revealing Pants (2002)
Now here's an invention guys can really get behind. During his research Scott found that occasionally "a guy will patent an item that he designed specifically for women, usually in an attempt to enhance his own ogling experience." This is one of those occasions.

Tom designed his Cleavage Revealing Pants to "allow onlookers to appreciate the wearer's butt cleavage." And what guy doesn't love to appreciate a little female butt cleavage? Chest cleavage is so five years ago. So we're with you Tom. As long as guys, especially Howard Stern and Prince, promise never to wear them. Ever.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Optimize BitTorrent To Outwit Traffic Shaping ISPs

These days, nothing worries an internet service provider more than peer-to-peer file trading. Depending on where you live, P2P can account for between 50 and 75% of broadband internet traffic. We mostly have the popularity of BitTorrent to thank for this crazy amount of data going to and fro.

This amount of traffic can raise the ISPs daily costs of delivering service, cause congestion either in your neighborhood or on the ISP's network, and force the ISP to buy increased bandwidth capacity.

But if you've been paying close attention to your BitTorrent transfers lately (or if you've simply been reading the news) you'll notice that ISPs have begun to take drastic measures to slow that flood of data currently clogging up their pipes.

Even though many of them deny it, most ISPs actively engage in traffic shaping, bandwidth throttling, connection denial or some such tactic to keep the amount of bandwidth consumed by high traffic applications on their networks to a minimum. While this does often ensure better performance for everyone in the neighborhood, it can mean painfully slow transfer speeds for those dabbling in P2P -- legit or not.

While there are valid arguments for and against shaping, we're not here to debate. We just want the fastest BitTorrent transfers possible.
Methods of Fooling ISPs

So how to get around an ISP that's throttling your BitTorrent traffic? You can try encrypting or your traffic, changing the default port number, changing the way the protocol behaves, reducing the amount of one-way traffic, or hiding your traffic within an encrypted tunnel.

Of course, different ISPs are employing different methods of control. None of these methods are guaranteed to work. But each one is known to work for some, and they are certainly worth a try.
How To Encrypt to Your BitTorrent Transfers:

The RC4 encryption offered by many popular BitTorrent clients today will obfuscate not only the header but the entire stream, which makes it considerably more difficult for an ISP to detect that you're using BitTorrent. Even if your ISP does not force you to enable encryption, you may be connecting to peers with ISPs that do.

Encryption began appearing on clients in late 2005. By the end of 2006, most actively-developed clients were updated with encryption. While not all torrent clients in a swarm will support encryption, most of them will. As a result, this small percentage of non-encryption capable peers may be a reason not to force encryption on a full-time basis, but there is no reason not to enable encryption that allows the falling back to a non-encrypted connection when needed.

If your favorite client is not listed below, check your documentation.

Azureus/Vuze
Azureus (which now calls its official client Vuze) is written in Java and therefore cross-platform. To turn on encryption, head to the Tools menu. Select Options, then Connection, then Transport Encryption. Check the "Require encrypted transport" box and select RC4 in the "Minimum encryption" drop-down menu.

Azureus/Vuze also offers an "Allow non-encrypted outgoing connections if encrypted connection attempt fails" option, which means you'll still be able to hop on torrents that don't have any encrypted seeders.

µTorrent
µTorrent (and now BitTorrent which is based on µTorrent) is a Windows-only client. In µTorrent, open up the Preferences panel and select the BitTorrent tab. Select Protocol encryption and then choose between "enabled" and "forced." µTorrent's "Enabled" option mirrors Azureus' option to allow unencrypted connections when no encrypted clients exist. It will give you more connections, but it won't be as effective at defeating traffic shapers.

µTorrent/BitTorrent also offers a option to 'Allow legacy incoming connections' which lets non-encrypted clients connect to you. This improves compatibility between clients but again, makes your traffic more vulnerable to shapers.

BitComet
BitComet is another popular Windows Client (98/Me/2000/XP). To turn on encryption in BitComet, head to the Options menu and choose Preferences. Then go to Advanced > Connection and select "Protocol encryption." There are options for "auto detect" and "always."

As with the others, "auto detect" will connect to more peers, but it won't hide traffic as well. You'll need to play with the settings in your program to see if it has any affect on your download/upload speeds.

Other clients that support encryption include KTorrent (Linux), rTorrent (Linux, Mac) and BitTornado (Windows).
How To Change Your BitTorrent Port Number:

The default port for BitTorrent transfers is port 6881, with some clients using different ports within the range of 6881-6999. As a result of ISP interference, all clients allow you to change the port number (or port range, sometimes) used for BitTorrent transfers. The setting is in the Options or Preferences for your client, or can be set using a command-line parameter.

Whenever you change your port, you need to adjust your router to allow incoming connections. An excellent service at http://www.portforward.com/ can guide you through the entire process of locating the current port being used (which allows you to change it), and then configuring your router to match.
How To Change the Way the BitTorrent Protocol Behaves:

The BitTorrent protocol has a distinct handshake. To control uploading by seeders, ISPs have learned to look for this handshake. The recent releases of both µTorrent and Azureus/Vuze include a "Lazy Bitfield" feature to hide seeders from ISPs. When Lazy Bitfield is enabled, the handshake is changed to make a BitTorrent seeder initially appear to be a non-seeding peer (sometimes called a leecher). This is done by sending a bitfield indicating missing pieces. Then, once the handshake is done, the client notifies its peer that it now has the pieces that were originally indicated as missing.

Azureus/Vuze
Azureus (which now calls its official client Vuze) is written in Java and therefore cross-platform. To turn on encryption, head to the Tools menu. Select Options, then Transfer. Enable Lazy-Bitfield here.

µTorrent
Lazy Bitfield is controlled in the Advanced section Preferences: peer.lazy_bitfield.
How To Reduce the Amount of One-Way transfers:

Most downloaders become seeders when they have 100% of the archive, then they spend the next several hours "paying back" the swarm until they have provided at least as many bytes uploaded that they downloaded -- a ratio of 1:1 or 1.00. As mentioned before, some ISPs make efforts to control seeders. Seeders generate one-way (outbound) traffic, and this traffic is sometimes the most troublesome for ISPs to handle.

Most clients are configured with a "speed limit" set Upload Maximum Limit in kB/s and an unlimited Download Maximum Limit. To reduce the amount of one-way transfers, the client needs to upload at the same rate (or less, overall) than it is downloading. While this means that the download will be a lot slower to complete, it also means that it will complete at a 1.00 ratio or above.

For example, perform your transfer with an Upload Limit of 30 KB/s and a Download Limit of 25 KB/s. When you first join you won't upload at all because you have no pieces to share yet. But after several minutes, the total bytes uploaded should be equal to or above the total bytes downloaded. When your download is complete, you will have little or no obligation to continue seeding as you already have uploaded enough to the swarm.

This tactic is not always effective or efficient. Some swarms have too few peers left that need data, making it difficult to reach your desired upload rates.

Many multi-torrent clients (Azureus/Vuze, µTorrent, BitComet, and others) provide the option of setting maximum upload and download rates on a per-torrent basis. These settings are found either in a right-click menu or in the Properties of each torrent. Some clients also allow Global Settings that affect all torrents being managed by the client, however the Global Settings do not provide a correct balance to ensure that a one-way transfer is avoided.

Azureus/Vuze provides the additional useful option of limiting the number of seed connections while downloading. This setting is found on the Options panel of each individual torrent.
How To Hide BitTorrent within an Encrypted Tunnel:

With the advent of Application-Layer Inspection, some ISPs may recognize and control BitTorrent traffic despite your best efforts.

You may be able to hide the BitTorrent traffic in an encrypted tunnel -- a transport path within the normal transport paths provided by TCP and IP. You can tunnel your traffic through cooperatives such as The Onion Router (TOR)* or I2P. Commercial Virtual Private Network (VPN) providers such as Relakks or SecureIX will also help keep your ISP from detecting exactly what you're doing. If you are familiar with SSH and SSH Tunneling, this is also a possibility. However, some ISPs even throttle or inhibit these encrypted tunnels.

Azureus provides in-client support for TOR and I2P. Other clients will have to set up the software as recommend on the TOR or I2P site.

*Note: TOR has been updated to allow peer-to-peer download data, despite any information to the contrary (it used to be prohibited).
Now For the Bad News

ISPs are taking advantage of more sophisticated shaping technology all the time, and many of the newer shapers won't be fooled by encrypted traffic. For instance, Sandvine (the shaping tool many believe Comcast and other ISPs employ) won't be fooled by obfuscating your traffic.

So what can you do beyond obfuscating?

The short answer is not much. There is no fool-proof way to do beat the shapers. You best choice is probably to switch to an ISP that doesn't employ anti-BitTorrent traffic shaping. In the long run, this also has the benefit of sending an effective message to your ex-ISP.

For a list of ISPs to avoid, have a look at the list maintained on the Azureus Wiki.

But what if you have no other option when it comes to ISPs? Start by calling customer service. Call now and call often. Disgruntled consumers often cost an ISP far more money than a large amount BitTorrent traffic. And by all means, try these ideas, though your results may vary considerably depending on what shaping tools your ISP is employing.

Speed Up your Web Site.

Lower loading times for your visitors.

While more and more people are getting access to high speed internet, there are many left on dial up. Be kind to those visitors and do a few, simple things to speed up your webpages. Not only will these tips give you a faster load time, most will also help keep your bandwidth fees low as well!

Compressing your Pages

mod_gzip
mod_gzip
is an external extension module for the WWW's most popular web server Apache, created in autumn, 2000.

Its implementation allows for using the compression method gzip for a significant reduction of the volume of web page content served over the HTTP protocol.

Starting with version 1.3.19.2a mod_gzip has found a new home.

Site Inspecting Tools

There are some software and sites that point out mistakes or poorly written-code. One such is a plug-in for firefox called FireBug. It allows you to view code of a page and make changes to it. It aslo gives statistics of all images and scripts downloaded from a particular site and the time taken. (Opera has a similar tool that can be downloaded from the Opera site).
There's an add-on for Firebug; Yahoo!'s YSlow. Click on YSlow icon on the bottom right of the Firefox window, ad it gives a list of flaws if any, and tweaks that can help fix the page.
YSlow also gives an overall grade to the page!


Use CSS For Faster Pages

Even if you decide to use tables, CSS can greatly improve your web sites load time! With your styles in an external .css file, the browser can cache all the formatting and stylizing for your pages instead of having to read each and every single tag all over again. Also it cuts down on long drawn out tags and replaces them with smaller class styles instead.

Use External Scripts

Use the same script on multiple pages? Switch to an external script. I'm not talking about remotely hosted, I mean loading javascript files from one source instead of adding all that code to each of your pages like this:

That way the browser already has it in it's cache and won't have to read it each time another page loads. This one saves a ton of load time, specially for larger scripts!

Remove Anything You Don't Really Need

OK, while this might sound obvious sometimes the hardest thing about creating a website is not using every fancy trick that you know. Images, flash and sometimes even sound files are very impressive.. but do you really need to showcase all your talents one one page?

Embedded sound files are something many people just find annoying anyway. You'd be surprised how many are surfing at work ;-). The last thing anyone wants is a loud music or sounds announcing to their boss that they're surfing. Also many people have their own music playing... hearing a song over top of what we're listening to is less than pleasant. As for Java applets, try to ditch them or if you want those effects, JavaScript unusually loads faster and can do just as much or more. Stand back and take a critical look at your website, you may see a few special effects that can be let go of for the sake of faster load time.

Avoid Nested Tables

OK, I'm not a big fan of using tables for layout anyway (I'm one of those people that believes content and presentation should be separate.. but thats another tip page). With that said, if in your templates tables seem neccessary (or the easier way to do it), try to avoid nesting. Why? When you place a table inside another table, it takes a lot longer for the browser to work out the spacing since it has to wait to read the entire html and then work out the layout. If at all possible, try using CSS to create the columns on your page.

Avoid Full Page Tables for Faster Rendering

If you use tables, try avoiding the whole page being one big table. The browser won't show anything until it's read the whole thing that way. For a faster loading webpage, either try multiple tables (not nested) or having stuff above the main table to make your content in the first table show up faster. That way your visitors will have something to read while the rest of your page loads. It may not really make you page faster, but it will feel like it to your visitors.

Split Up Long Pages - Multiple Short Pages Load Faster

By splitting up long pages into multiple pages you not only make the content show up faster but many people that see a very long scroll bar give up. Remember, people's attention spans are often shorter than a grasshoppers (OK, not literally, but you get my point) since so much information is available at our fingertips. Try breaking it up into more readable lengths.

Remove Excess "Whitespace"

Whitespace is the spaces between your coding, removing the unneeded tabs and spaces can help a lot! Doing this will take a lot of extra bytes off the total size of your page and will speed up load time quite a bit. (Careful using automatic squishers, I find they often squish too much and makes it rather hard to edit later.)

Keep Your Code Clean

If you do use a wysiwyg editor, most times the will add useless code to your pages for example, many will leave empty tags (ie. ). Removing any of those excess tags will not only speed up your load time, but make you pages validate a lot cleaner.

Speed up Images Load Time

Don't Go Overboard On Images

While images can greatly enhance the look of a site they can really slow it down if there are too many. Try to decide if all your images are really needed (quite a few nice effects can be done with css, so sometimes images are unneeded.). Images are obviously, the biggest culprits, when it comes to slowing down a site. Every image means a separate request sent to the server. Use image maps: they bring down the number of requests. Here are some more methods:

Height And Width Tags

When the page loads and the image size is already defined (ie. you've used the height and width tags), the browser knows where everything will be before the images are loaded. Otherwise the page has to wait and load the images before the text. Same goes for tables, so try to use width tags when possible on those as well for a speedier page.

Faster Images? Reduce Their File Size

There are many totally free, online image optimizers so you don't even have to install anything and it's extremely easy! Online Image Optimizer will greatly reduce the file size of your gif, jpg, or pngs and neither you or your visitors will be able to see the difference other than a page that loads a heck of a lot faster. They also keep the transparency and animations in gifs! For another JPEG reduction, try JPEG Wizard, also free, this one will only work with pictures in your hard drive not ones from the net. You can also choose some simple effects to be done (flip, mirror and rotate).

GIF vs JPG vs PNG

Go for optimized pngs. They have lossless compression (unlike jpgs and can be used without worry (gifs have the potential to have copyright issues) and load fast! With all that said, if you still want to use gifs and jpgs, here's a bit of fast info... If you don't need sharp resolution, choose GIFs over JPEGs, as GIFs generally load quicker. JPGs are generally best for photos, GIFs for anything else.

(I'd add a rant here about how Microsoft had held up the web's development with not making IE6 support png transparency... but *sigh* I've ranted about this already to anyone who will listen. Firefox, Opera and other modern browsers however have been able to show alpha transparency in png for years... oops, sorry, that was a mini rant after all!)

Here is a Loading time Checker to check the effect of the changes you make.


Your domain(s): Enter each address on a new line (Maximum 10)


Key:Slow,Average, Fast


Powered by iWEBTOOL


Well there you go, u can e-mail me or comment if you wish to add some of your techniques to the list.

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Celebrities paid to heat up Vegas clubs.


LAS VEGAS (AP) — Three years ago, as Paris Hilton was about to turn 24, the celebutante got a sense of her worth to the nightclub industry in Las Vegas. She had celebrated her previous three birthdays at Light, the Bellagio hotel-casino nightclub run by the Light Group. But for her 24th, another company swooped in with an offer that trumped the standard private jet to and from L.A., a free stay at a luxury suite, a sumptuous dinner and, of course, free booze.

The hotel heiress would get a big paycheck — Light was told $200,000 — just to party, but it had to be at PURE, a rival nightclub at Caesars Palac
"We said, `OK, well listen, we're not here to tell you not to make money,'" said a former Light executive, who did not want to be identified talking about industry specifics.

Celebrities often make appearances and walk the red carpet as part of the deal for coming to a nightclub. In return for generating media coverage, they receive all sorts of free goodies, if not cash. For nightclub operators, it has become the standard way of getting their establishments known.

Besides buzz, it generates more patrons, more people willing to pay a $30 cover charge, $15 for a cocktail and $500 for a bottle of name-brand vodka or champagne.

"If you quantify that in terms of the amount of press they got off it, the press they got off it was priceless," the former executive said.

This weekend, PURE is looking to re-create its formula with the opening of LAX and Noir nightclubs at the Luxor hotel-casino, with a grand-opening party Friday night hosted by Britney Spears. The company would not say how much it is paying her or whether Spears would perform.

A revamped club, Blush at the Wynn hotel-casino, also is hoping to cash in by opening Friday.

It's the start of a raucous couple of weeks that include Labor Day weekend and the MTV Video Music Awards — events that will attract plenty of partiers and paparazzi.

e run by the PURE Management Group.

Her people let the Light Group know that their former deal was off.

PURE managing partner Steve Davidovici said rumors of celebrity payments are exaggerated, and pointed to reports the group paid $250,000 to Spears eight months ago to host PURE's New Year's Eve countdown.

"That's a lot of sour grapes from other nightclubs, I guess," Davidovici said, while giving a tour of LAX, a plush club that resembles a chic 1920s opera house. "It's a third of those prices."

Even at that, the appearance fee, which works out to about $83,000, was money well spent, he said. The club sold a table next to Spears that night for $50,000, and some 3,000 revelers spent $250 on tickets.
"If you look at (the celeb fee) from a monetary standpoint, it's significant, but not if you're taking in half a million dollars," he said.

PURE nightclub alone will generate about $53 million in revenue this year, while the company plans to gross more than $120 million from its 12 venues in Las Vegas and the Bahamas, he said.

On Tuesday, PURE nightclub hosted Paris Hilton and her sister, Nicky, as they unveiled new products from Nicky's clothing line. The club later gushed in a release that the sisters "danced their hearts out for the admiring onlookers" as "the two socialites stuck to the main VIP stage."

At LAX, the central focus of the theater-like layout is a raised dais of booths in front of the dance floor for "super VIPs and celebrities," Davidovici said.

"Britney will definitely be up there opening night," he said.

Industry observers say such celebrity-spotting is worth the price of admission.

"It's fun to be famous and rich. That's why people pay to get in and watch," said Lori Levine, the president of Flying Television, a talent-booking firm in New York.
Well is that all people care about nowadays, being rich and famous?
I thought it was having fun and being happpy.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Optical Illusions

Some Awesome Illusions. The las one is the best. Try It!




If you take a look at the following picture , let me tell you .... it is not animated. Your eyes are making it move. To test this, stare at one spot for a couple seconds and everything will stop moving. Or look at the black center of each circle and it will stop moving. But move your eyes to the next black center and the previous will move after you take your eyes away from it.... Weird



Is This Possible?











You should see a man's face and also a word...
Hint: Try tilting your head to the right, the world begins with 'L'


NOTE: CLick on image and try.!

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Weed Saves Bush's Life.

Cannabis Sativa is the proper name for both marijuana and hemp. From 1619 until outlawed as "Marihuana" in 1937, Cannabis Sativa was the US' largest legal industry.

On October 2, 1937, the US Federal government passed the Marihuana Tax Act, which put a prohibitive tax on production of the "drug menace." To grow Cannabis Sativa legally, a citizen of the United States would need to purchase a Special Tax Stamp. To obtain the tax stamp, citizens were required to possess Cannabis Sativa when trying to buy the stamp. However, because of the rules of the Marihuana Tax Act, anyone who possessed marijuana without the stamp was then arrested as a drug dealer. The Federal government refused to release these Special Tax Stamps, thus ensuring that anyone who grew this ancient crop would be deemed a criminal. This was the beginning of marijuana prohibition.
The day the Marihuana Tax Act was passed, federal agents arrested Samuel Caldwell, 58, in Denver, CO, for selling two marihuana cigarettes. Samuel Caldwell became the first American convicted under the new federal law. He was sentenced to four years in Levenworth Penitentiary, and died a year after being released.

Despite the rampant propaganda of the 1930s against "Marihuana," where newspapers and Federal agencies condemned Cannabis Sativa as "the world's most dangerous narcotic," the US Federal government began issuing the Special Tax Stamps during World War II. Following the attack on Pearl Harbour, with imports of coarse fibers cut off by the Japanese, the US Department of Agriculture enacted a plan to ensure a steady supply of the world's strongest natural fiber by legally allowing Americans to grow Cannabis Sativa.

In 1942, the US Department of Agriculture made a fourteen-minute film for patriotic American farmers, titled "Hemp For Victory," on how to grow and process Cannabis Sativa. Shown in this film is the Special Tax Stamp issued for the price of only one dollar which clearly reads, "Producer of Marihuana." In the first year that "Marihuana" was legalized again, the USDA authorized at least 50,000 acres to be grown to support the US military. In 1943, the US Federal government's goal for Cannabis production was 350,000 acres, which the film even states is an "increase of several thousand percent."

The parachute used by George Herbert Walker Bush when his bomber was shot down over the Pacific in 1944 was 100% legal American "Marihuana." George W. Bush was not born until 1946. Therefore, legal "Marihuana" has saved the lives of two US Presidents.

During the three years that the United States was officially involved in World War II, nearly one million acres of "Marihuana" were legally grown throughout the country. For the next forty years, every Federal Administration denied the existence of the film, "Hemp For Victory." Finally, in 1989, independent researchers discovered two copies of the film in the Library of Congress. Yet to this day, the US Federal government refuses to admit that Cannabis Sativa has any uses, whether as medicine or as a resource.

This hidden history of Cannabis legalization should be reviewed by the voting public, especially considering that billions of tax dollars are spent each year incarcerating hundreds of thousands of otherwise non-violent Americans for what could be supporting our troops.

A Right to Life Saving Marijuana? A Federal Court Says No!

Angel Raich of Oakland, Calif., could be prosecuted for smoking cannabis even though her doctor says it is the only drug keeping her alive.
Ms. Raich has a host of health problems, including a brain tumor and severe scoliosis, that leave her in more or less constant pain and nausea, with nothing resembling an appetite. She and her doctor say that conventional medicines fail to do much for her, but that a joint every few hours brings enough relief from these debilitating symptoms to let her go on, to get her food down and to keep it down.
California state law has allowed marijuana to be prescribed and used in cases like hers since 1996, and a number of other states have followed suit. But federal law does not.
The feds want to reserve the right to prosecute Ms. Raich (see the note below), and her case has already been to the Supreme Court once, on the question of whether the state law protects her from the federal one. The high court said no in 2005, and sent the case back to the appeals court to hear her second claim — that no matter what the statute books say, she has a pre-eminent right to keep herself alive by using the drug her doctor says her life depends on.
Does the fact that Ms. Raich sued pre-emptively, and has not herself been the target of enforcement action, change the answer to the question above? Would it be different if the case before the court still concerned the medical marijuana user whose home actually was raided (she withdrew as a co-plaintiff in 2005)?

Source:New York Times

Well considering the fact that i myself am a smoker and though i know i cannot do much about the issue of legalizing marijuana, denying someone who is sick and suffering a pain-free life is utter injustice.Of course she's not dangerous nor is she doing any harm to anybody. If she lived in my country (im not gonna say where but weed is holy where i live), i would probably smoke a j with her everyday.
But anyway seriously what if President Bush was utterly ill and the only way to rid the pain was through the joint, what would the Federal Court do then? I bet there is more to it than just banning it as a drug and including it in Schedule I. Its as though a big reefer bud is gonna overthrow the whole of the world and make us slaves if we don't prevent it now. Fuckin dumbasses.
Also Read Weed Save's Bush's Life

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Dumbass Blond Joke

Ive been searching the internet lots recently wasting time looking for dumbass blond jokes.
Here is a blond(blonde?) joke that kinda made me realize that i shouldn't.
Blond joke

Too Much Google in your life?

No?.. Then check these out.

1.Toogle


Toogle is a Text version of Google's Image Search. Currently it creates images out of the very term that was used to fetch those images, later we will endeavor to create images out of the search terms entered by users past and present. But
Note: Before you typing words like "Sex"(which was the most searched term), or Britney Spears remember that it doesnt allow you to save or copy the images. Yet. Cool eh?

2.elgooG

elgooG is a parody of Google by "All Too Flat"( Whoever they are.) You might think this is a joke but even as i type now the site is being updated to reflect new changes. And Yes, you must type your search query in reverse to get your results.
Now what kind of people will this benefit??

3.GahooYoogle

GahooYoogle is a tool that allows you to use both search engines at the same time.
When you type in your related search words, GahooYoogle will give you the results from Google and Yahoo in a split screened frame. What this means, is that you can look at both search engine results at the same time to find out the best and most relevant search find. This is pretty interesting in the fact that you can more or less compare the different priorities of search results on both Google vs. Yahoo and based on your needs, you may be able to find the one you like the best. For example, I did a search on “Yahoo” and found that the Yahoo search engine displayed more of Yahoo’s products whereas Google’s results displayed more of Yahoo’s news on the front pages.
Now this site is cool!!!
Also check out PolyCola.com

4.Gwigle


It is a game that asks you to guess the query by looking at the first search results. Of course, the search terms are blurred. The game, created by a Google employee, is multi-level and if you think the first levels are too easy, wait for the queries from Image Search, Google Maps and Google Calculator. It will be pretty difficult to guess the queries and the options are pretty limited. Good luck and lemme know what level you are in. :)
P.S. The answer to the puzzle in the pic is of course "Google". lol

5.Guess The Google
Similar to the game above but instead of text your are given random images that are results of a Google Image Search. You need to guess the search term.

6.Google Image Labler

Google Image Labeler, a new feature of Google Image Search that allows you to label random images to help improve the quality of Google's image search results.
You'll be randomly paired with a partner who's online and using the feature. Over a 90-second period, you and your partner will be shown the same set of images and asked to provide as many labels as possible to describe each image you see. When your label matches your partner's label, you'll earn some points and move on to the next image until time runs out. After time expires, you can explore the images you've seen and the websites where those images were found. And we'll show you the points you've earned throughout the session.

7.Google Maps World War

This game can be played with 2 -25 other online players. Online players randomly receive a set of countries with troop hitpoints based on real world population data.To play: attack neutral and enemy countries in an effort to try to take over the world. You have a 20% chance of receiving more troops when you overtake an enemy country. More features to come! (currently in public beta status).
Now thats what I'm talkin about! (How to play ?)

Let me show you my pokeman, My Pokeman let me show you them.


lol Pokemon GD

Monday, September 3, 2007

DID YOU KNOW!!! COKE AND MENTOS CAUSES *BOOM*

Email rumor claims two boys in Brazil died after eating Mentos and drinking Coca-Cola at the same time.

A Mentos eruption (also known as a Mentos and Diet Coke geyser, soda geyser or just Diet Coke and Mentos) is a reaction between Mentos candy and cola Th experiment involves dropping several Mentos candies (usually 5–8) into a bottle of diet Cola resulting in an eruption occurring because of rapidly expanding carbon dioxide bubbles on the surface of the Mentos. Producing the reaction has become a popular science experiment and an internet phenomenon, with videos of Mentos eruptions and even Mentos performance art pieces being posted on sites like Google Video and YouTube.
The experiment can be done in reverse, forming a Mentos rocket. Typically a two liter bottle is used, with the cap replaced after dropping several Mentos in. The bottle is then shaken up and thrown on the ground, cap-down. If the bottle hits the ground hard enough to let the pressure break the cap off, the bottle will launch like a rocket.
Anyone attempting to put the cap back on to a bottle after the Mentos has been added should be very careful. The amount of pressure created by this reaction is enough to rupture the sides of the bottle, creating an explosion rather than an eruption or rocket.

One way to improve height of a Mentos reaction with Diet Coke is by freezing the Mentos. Gum arabic, like water, expands when it freezes, which allows the reaction to happen at a quicker rate, because the Mentos become more porous. Rock salt can also be used to produce a reaction of great height, because of the ions in the salt. A nozzle on the bottle is also effective for increasing the height of the reaction. When using Mentos, the Mint kind is the best choice, because they have a matte finish (better for reaction), whereas the finish on the fruit Mentos is a gloss finish.

Well, there you go. Think twice before you pop some mint while drinking cola.

My first Post.

Ok. I've created a blog. Now what? lol...