Category: Here & There

Levi’s iPod RedWire DLX Jeans

So, what do you know? The Apple iPod has gone to bed with a pair of Levi Strauss jeans, and the result is the world’s first iPod-compatible pair of jeans, called the RedWire DLX.

Designed for both men and women, The RedWire DLX jean comes complete with a built-in docking cradle, retractable headphones and a joystick in the watch pocket to enable easy operation.

The new Levi’s RedWire DLX jeans have been developed to be practical and leading-edge in their aesthetic. A crisp white leather patch and joystick, bluffed back pockets with hidden stitching, and clean minimalist buttons and rivets allude to the iPod’s famously pure design. Special care has been taken to marry the physical design with a great-fitting jean. Or so they say…

This is yet another iPod-based fashion apparel; after the haute couture fashion houses’ pricey iPod carrying cases, Burton Snowboards’ iPod-compatible waterproof snowboarding jacket, and Kenpo’s men’s jackets featuring iPod controls on the sleeve.

I wonder if Victoria’s Secret will be incorporating the iPod into some of its designs 😉

[Sources: Reuters, MacDailyNews]

Konami’s Penguin Adventure

Penguin AdventureI spent a big part of this past weekend playing Pro Evolution Soccer 5 on Playstation 2, which is a really cool game, although I think I’ve worn out my beginner’s luck in it now, and it seems that the more I play, the worse I’m getting at it.

Anyway, PES5 was developed by a company called Konami, and well the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear the name Konami is this game they developed back in 1986 which was called “Penguin Adventure“.
The story of the game follows Pentarou, a cute penguin who has to go on a quest to bring home a golden apple in order to cure Penko Hime (the Penguin Princess).

The game was for the MSX computer platform, and it must’ve been one of the best and most popular games of its time. It was a sequel for an arcade game by the name of “Antartic Adventure“.
I remember endless days playing that game with my sister and cousin. It was so much fun and so cool at the time.

The graphics were great (by 1986 standards) and the gameplay, depth and variety were really good.

I think it is certainly one of the games that could be revived today, especially on mobile phones.

That penguin is a legend that will live in my memory and the memories of many others forever, representing a beautiful time in our lives, when I guess we too thought life was just a quest to find some golden apple.

I don’t think we were too far from the truth anyway, as everyone of us has his own golden apple waiting for him at the end of one of life’s roads.

Happy New Year 2006

A year has ended, and a new year is just starting.
And so, I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year 2006. I hope it’s a great and happy year for you all, and that it’s full of joy and success.

My friend Evil Drako said something to me yesterday, that I would like to pass on to you too: may the best thing that happened to you in 2005, be the worst thing in 2006.

Another thought I have lurking around in my mind is that: ok, we ended a year yesterday, and started a new one today, but in reality it’s just like every other day of the year, we end one day and start a new one. So every night when we go to sleep, we’re ushering in a new day, new possibilities, another new start, and it’s really up to us what to do with it.
So I guess what I’m saying is that every day is a new day, every day is the first day of a new year ahead of us, and I’ll allow myself to borrow the saying, every day is the first day in the rest of our lives, so we should make the best of it and live the lives we want to live and that will make us happy.

I’ll stop rambling now and just wish everyone again an extremely great and happy new year 2006.

Pet Trees

Pet treesPet Trees are the latest craze from Japan, and, like most innovations from the Land of the Rising Sun, they’re incredibly small. Basically each Pet Tree is a real tree (well, mini-plant) inside a tiny plastic bell jar with a keyring attachment. A bit like a mini-me bonsai encased within a Lilliputian bio-dome.

Apart from a little TLC (Tender Loving Care) all you have to do to keep your pipsqueak of a plant healthy is water it every couple of weeks by placing the container in a saucer of water for a few minutes. As you nurture your Pet Tree it will grow inside its durable little container until it becomes big enough to be removed and planted.

Each Pet Tree symbolises a different strength and characteristic, so you can choose one to suit your mood.
For example, from the photo above: Victo is a cactus for luck and victory; and Rance, a cactus that symbolises unchanging love and courage.

More info on pet trees and how to buy them here.

How Magazines Lie To Us

CoverThese days whenever you look at a newstand, you find yourself in front of heaps of magazines with these gorgeous bombshells on the cover, and you wonder how come there are so many beautiful and perfect girls in the world, yet you never come across any that perfect in the real world. Well it’s because they actually don’t exist.

Ok, this isn’t like that movie Simone; Of course, those models exist in real life, but not in the form or perfection you see on those magazine covers.

Yes people, mainstream media is lying to us by creating this false version of reality that does not exist, a beautiful one, but fake. Just like advertising.

And then they ask why our trust in mainstream media keeps on declining.
Hello!

For example, check out the pictures below for a before and after of a photo of a model that was retouched to be magazine cover material.

BeforeAfter

For the whole modification process to get from the before to the after, go here.

This reminds me of when a magazine retouched photos of Kate Winslet to make her look slimmer and better, and how she ended up suing them for it.

[Via: Loic Le Meur]

7 Things to do with your Blog when you are on vacation

What should I do with my Blog when I go take a vacation?

That is a question I always find myself asking whenever I’m about to leave on a break, and up to now, the only way I’ve answered it is by telling myself I’d do my best to get online as often as possible to post on it. But that doesn’t always work out like I want it to. My last trip to London being a good example, with only 2 or 3 posts in that whole week.

Darren asks the same question over at problogger and comes up with the following 7 interesting options, some of which I’ll be considering the next time I’m about to go on a break.

1. Give your Blog and Readers a Vacation
2. Advance Posts
3. Retrospective Series (Run some older posts)
4. Guest Blogger(s)
5. Guest Posts/Series
6. Blog from the Road
7. Open Mike posts (Readers invited to post about certain topic)

The ones I think I’d be more interested in exploring are having a guest blogger take over for a while and programming some advance posts.

For more detail about the pros and cons of each one of these options, check out the original post at problogger here.

Extra Second in 2005

It seems like we will have to wait an extra second to ring in the new year 2006, and that’s because a “leap second” is being added to the last minute of the last hour of 2005.

Leap seconds are used to synchronize precise atomic clocks with the more variable rotation of the Earth.

Although the Earth’s rotation with respect to the sun has been used since ancient times to know the time of day, it is not like clockwork, and can speed up or slow down by a few thousandths of a second a day. This means that every day is not precisely 24 hours, or 86,400 seconds.
Without leap seconds, Coordinated Universal Time would slowly get out of sync with the time it feels like on Earth.

Leap seconds were first added in 1972, and a body called the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, in Paris, decides when one is needed.
The last leap second was added in 1998. This will be the 23rd one.

[Source: The Globe and Mail]

Gad El Maleh: L’Autre C’est Moi

Last night, I finally got to watch Gad El Maleh’s latest one man show “L’Autre C’est Moi“, and man was it funny! I laughed my head off.

Gad is simply hilarious as usual, cracking you up with every joke, move or word he tells, does or says.

I love the way he takes on all these different things from our everyday lives, that we got used to, and just makes fun of them with his amazing sense of humour.

From school, to flying, to skiing, to ikea, to swimming, to music, … he makes fun of everything.

I totally recommend watching this show to everyone who understands even a bit of French, it’s really worth it and so funny.

My score would be: 8.5/10

Air France Arabic In-Flight Instructions

After years of air travel, I’ve basically developed a deaf ear for the presentation of in-flight instructions that they have to play before every take-off, as I know every little detail by heart.

Anyway this time travelling to London aboard an Air France flight, I found myself listening to this weird recording of the in-flight instructions in Arabic.

It’s not that it was in Arabic that shocked me, that’s only normal as it’s a flight to/from an Arab country. What I found weird was how it was recorded in a broken Arabic language mixed with a certain North African accent, that made it both sort of funny and somehow unprofessional.
I mean Air France is a worldwide carrier, that has many flights to and from the Arab world; couldn’t they have found someone better to record well-formed, well-structured, well-pronounced Arabic in-flight instructions?

I know I’m being a bit too picky and that it’s good they have Arabic instructions in the first place, but well it’s a bit Amateurish for such a big airline company, and if they’re doing it, they might as well do it right.

Just my 2 cents…