Saturday, January 28, 2012
EIKO ISHIOKA PASSES
MORE CLASSIC ONE LINERS
- I was more nervous than a ceiling fan storeowner with a comb-over.
- Red meat is not bad for you. Fuzzy green meat is bad for you.
- If you think there is good in everybody then you obviously haven't met everybody.
- If you can't convince them, confuse them.
- All power corrupts. Absolute power is pretty neat, though.
- If your feet smell and your nose runs, you're built upside down.
- Here I am! What are your other two wishes?
- A hangover is the wrath of grapes.
- Confession is good for the soul but bad for your career.
- Gargling is a good way to see if your throat leaks.
CHANEL TAKES TO THE SKIES
Chanel Spring/Summer 2012 haute couture collection
Karl Lagerfeld looked to the skies for Chanel's couture show in Paris with an elaborate show staged in a Chanel-branded aeroplane.
CELTIC WOMAN : BELIEVE 2012
02. Nocturne ( 3:35)
03. Sailing ( 4:09)
04. The Foxhunter ( 3:30)
05. The Water Is Wide ( 3:32)
06. Bridge Over Troubled Water ( 4:05)
07. Black Is The Colour ( 3:45)
08. Follow On ( 4:51)
09. Ave Maria ( 4:20)
10. Teir Abhaile Riu ( 4:04)
11. You'll Never Walk Alone ( 3:59)
12. A Spaceman Came Traveling ( 3:50)
13. Songs From The Heart: Walking The Night/The World Falls Away ( 6:43)
14. A Woman's Heart ( 4:27)
15. The Parting Glass ( 4:12)
TRIVIA BITS
- Of all the words in the English language, the word "set" has the most definitions.
- Of the 2200 persons quoted in the current edition of "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations," only 164 are women.
- Of the two chipmunks, Chip and Dale, Chip has the black nose.
- Offered a new pen to write with, 97% of all people will write their own name.
- On 15 April 1912 the SS Titanic sunk on her maiden voyage and over 1,500 people died. Fourteen years earlier a novel was published by Morgan Robertson which seemed to foretell the disaster. The book described a ship the same size as the Titanic which crashes into an iceberg on its maiden voyage on a misty April night. The name of Robertson's fictional ship was the Titan.
- On 15th May 1948, the Australian touring team scored a world record total of runs in one day. In just under six hours they made 721 all out against Essex, at Southchurch Park, Southend.
- On 30 March 1867, Alaska was officially purchased from Russia for about 2 cents an acre. At the time many politicians believed this purchase of ' wasteland to be a costly folly '.
- On 7 January 1904 the distress call 'CQD' was introduced. 'CQ' stood for 'Seek You' and 'D' for 'Danger'. This lasted only until 1906 when it was replaced with 'SOS'.
- On 9 February 1942, soap rationing began in Britain.
- On a clear night over 2 000 stars are visible to the naked eye.
Friday, January 27, 2012
London Philharmonic Orchestra and Andrew Skeet - The Greatest Video Game Music - 2011
02. Legend of Zelda Suite [04:21]
03. Call of Duty – Modern Warfare 2 Theme [03:34]
04. Angry Birds Main Theme [03:17]
05. Final Fantasy VIII Liberi Fatali [03:14]
06. Super Mario Bros Theme [04:12]
07. Uncharted – Drake’s Fortune Nate’s Theme [01:52]
08. Grand Theft Auto IV Soviet Connection [03:07]
09. World of Warcraft Seasons of War [03:12]
10. Metal Gear Solid Sons of Liberty Theme [03:57]
11. Tetris Theme [03:29]
12. Battlefield 2 Theme [04:41]
13. Elder Scrolls Oblivion [01:52]
14. Call of Duty 4 – Modern Warfare Main Menu Theme [02:17]
15. Mass Effect Suicide Mission [04:51]
16. Splinter Cell Conviction [02:49]
17. Final Fantasy Main Theme [02:44]
18. Bioshock The Ocean on his Shoulders [02:19]
19. Halo 3 One Final Effort [04:04]
20. Fallout 3 Theme [02:22]
21. Super Mario Galaxy Gusty Garden Galaxy [03:49]
22. Final Fantasy XIII Hanging Edge (Bonus Track) [02:36]
MORE HOMER SIMPSONS WORDS OF WISDOM
- You can't go wrong with cocktail weenies. They look as good as they taste. And they come in this delicious red sauce. It looks like ketchup, it tastes like ketchup, but brother, it ain't ketchup!
- I saw this movie about a bus that had to SPEED around a city, keeping its SPEED over fifty, and if its SPEED dropped, it would explode! I think it was called "The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down."
- I don't have to be careful, I've got a gun!
- I'm normally not a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me, Superman!
- Oh, they have Internet on computers now.
- Marge I swear, I never thought that you would find out.
- Books are useless: I only ever read one book, "To Kill A Mockingbird" - and it gave me absolutely no insight on how to kill mockingbirds! Sure it taught me not to judge a man by the colour of his skin, but what good does THAT do me?
- Shut up, brain, or I'll stab you with a Q-Tip!
- I am so smart, I am so smart, S M R T, I mean S M A R T.
- I'm not gonna lie to you, Marge. See ya soon!
“IT’S A HEARTACHE” … BONNIE TYLER
LEGO’S LORD OF THE RINGS SET
When LEGO's Lord of the Rings sets were first announced, we only got a look at what Frodo and Aragorn would look like as the company's iconic minifigs. Now we've got a much better look!
The UK Toy Fair has kicked off this week and it's there this photo of the entire Fellowship was snapped. Those Hobbit hair pieces are to die for.
FAMED CLUBS ... FABRIC, LONDON
FABRIC, LONDON
No list of incredible clubs would be complete without the inclusion of this world-renowned London superclub. There isn't a nightspot on earth that can match Fabric's line-ups, a mix of globe-trotting superstar DJs and undiscovered talent. You'll find wild-eyed clubbers testifying to the quality of the venue's sound system. A customised Martin One system supplies impressive muscle, but there's a level of care and attention here that few clubs can match.
TITANIC 100 YEARS LATER
This April it will be 100 years since the Titanic's one and only sailing. And the centennial of the unsinkable ship's sinking, which took the lives of some 1,500 people, is already a bloated extravaganza of dubious taste and obtuse cultural history. If only there were lifeboats in which to escape it all.
At the end of March, Belfast, Northern Ireland, will open "The World's Largest Titanic Visitor Attraction," a glittering behemoth at the old shipyard where the Titanic was built. In size and sheer expense (north of $145 million), the building is equal to the original ship, at least in hubris. Once all the centennial festivities are done, this enormous white elephant will be available for weddings, which is only slightly less awful than using the wreck itself as a venue - as one couple did back in 2001, taking their vows crouched in a little submarine above the ruined prow.
April will also see a raft of Titanic cruises, including an excursion from New York to the site of the catastrophe, and a voyage retracing the ship's route from Southampton (though the plan is for the vessel to make it all the way to New York this time). And as one might have expected, "Titanic," James Cameron's megahit movie, is being rereleased—in 3-D, of course.
Not every Titanic commemoration is on a mammoth scale. This weekend in seaside Penarth, Wales, a restaurant will be throwing a Titanic party touted in the local press as "an evening of music, dinner and life jackets."
If you can't make it to Wales, there's always Orlando, Fla., where on Saturday nights one can enjoy "fun" and "merriment" at the "Titanic Dinner Event." The show is staged at "The Titanic Experience," a strip-mall "attraction" about a dozen miles down the road from Disney. Not only is there dining and singing, but for $64.95 you get to "Be a part of the splendour and surprises at one of the most famous dinner parties in history." What a surprise it would be if, after a sumptuous meal, two-thirds of the patrons were tossed in a tank of icy water and left to drown. But that might scuttle the merriment.
The Orlando enterprise is owned by Premier Exhibitions, the parent of RMS Titanic Inc., the outfit with international salvage rights to what's left of the ship. Much of the haul has been out and about in traveling shows. But, appropriately, the permanent displays are in Las Vegas and Orlando.
There is also something fitting in the fact that the Titanic tchotchkes are displayed by a company otherwise known for turning cadavers into entertainment. Premier Exhibition's bread and butter has been "Bodies: The Exhibition," a show of semi-dissected corpses preserved in plastic.
Premier Exhibitions is cashing in on the centennial of the Titanic disaster with an April auction to offload some 5,500 artefacts raised from the wreck, everything from chunks of the ship's hull to White Star Line teacups and passengers' possessions. The goods will be sold in one gigantic lot, appraised at $189 million.
At the other end of the market, the company has licensed a $19.95 "100th Anniversary Collector's Edition Necklace" almost surreal in its schlock value. On a silver-plated chain dangles an "ocean blue" heart pendant made of glass and reminiscent of the fictional jewel used as a plot device in Mr. Cameron's movie. Embedded in the glass is a crumb of coal hauled up from the wreck. This bauble is "destined to become a conversation piece and a valued collectible you'll want to pass down for generations to come."
Thanks to the success of the 1997 movie, an unfortunate number of people now think of the sinking of the Titanic primarily as the setting for a romance. And that ahistorical misunderstanding is behind much of the creepy centennial sentimentality.
A hundred years after the disaster, it's worth remembering why the Titanic loomed so large for so long in the public mind—what made it, according to Walter Lord, "The greatest news story of modern times." Lord, whose 1955 book "A Night to Remember" remains the essential Titanic account, wrote: "Here was the 'unsinkable ship'—perhaps man's greatest engineering achievement—going down the first time it sailed," and taking with it many of the most notable people of the day. "If this supreme achievement was so terribly fragile, what about everything else?" Lord asked. "People have never been sure of anything since." The Titanic century soon devolved into world wars, atomic anxiety and an angst rooted in the worry that our machines may not be entirely within our control.
This year, instead of sinking into a celebration of catastrophic kitsch, it's worth restoring the Titanic to its rightful place as a most modern memento mori. What should we remember? Steven Biel, in his cultural history of the Titanic, aptly highlighted Henry Adams's response to the tragedy: "Nature jeers at us for our folly."