The Nano seats four, and the basic model has no power steering, air bags, radio, or air conditioner. Oh yeah, and instead of welding the plastic and sheet-metal parts of the exterior are joined with adhesives: a glued-together car.
The Nano has a maximum speed of 70 kilometers per hour... or 43 miles per hour.
This thing would get eaten alive by most of the roads around where I live.
Eurogamer is reporting that 2K Games honchos have let it be known that the forthcoming sequel to 2007's mind-blowing BioShock is still being called BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams. Late last week the story got out (originating from another 2K source) that the "Sea of Dreams" was being dropped from the title.
Eurogamer also notes that it will have plenty more to report on the much-awaited sequel in the weeks to come.
It found common ground between Evolutionists and Creationists. And provided a reason to make peace between the two.
Just finished watching the episode. I'm now greatly enticed to buy up the season DVD sets, and check out what else I might have missed of this apparently very fine show.
It... has been reported, to this blogger... that today, March 22nd, has been declared, International Talk Like William Shatner Day.You are, urged... to modify your speech patterns, accordingly.
Over the past several days there have been a lot of tributes to Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton, the incorrigible moonshiner whose rascally and entrenched ways endeared himself to a devoted following not just in Appalachia but across the Internet. As has been reported here and elsewhere in the media, Popcorn took his own life this past Monday, rather than report to federal prison later in the week to begin serving an 18-month sentence for "illegally" making likker.(If you'd like to read more about Popcorn Sutton and his illustrious career, click on the "popcorn sutton" tag" and you can find lots of material that this blog has linked to over the course of the last year.)
Earlier today JR Hafer, a longtime friend of Popcorn's, forwarded along an essay that he had written. I personally think it's one of the finest that has been written about Popcorn Sutton: a man whose life story sounds like the kind of movie that Tim Burton or Terry Gilliam would probably make. You'll understand why I say that when you read JR Hafer's "The Legend of Popcorn Sutton".
Brace yourself y'all: this is one wild tale. Some stuff here, I didn't even know about until now :-)
And against the fears of how I had thought it would bear out, I am compelled to regard it as a far greater success than I had ever dared hope.
No rest for the wicked though. On to the next endeavor. But tonight, I will allow myself an all-too-rare sense of satisfaction, and share from experience that with patience and steadfastness, just about anything is possible.
We got a hint of it a few weeks ago in "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham". But this week's episode of Lost, titled "Namaste", gave us our first-ever confirming look at what Kate and Sawyer were put to work on early in Season 3: the runway on the smaller Hydra Island off the coast of the main Island. In this week's show, it was just "conveniently there" for Frank Lapidus to pull off his own "Chesley Sullenberger"-style miracle landing. And it let him bring Ajira Flight 316 down more or less pretty safely (considering that the only know fatality was his co-pilot).So in late 2004, Ben had Kate and Sawyer helping the Others clearing the runway. It must have been fairly well known among the rest of the Others what the purpose of the activity was, because Juliet told them later that it was "a runway" (before joking that it was for the aliens). But the Others have never been seen with any aircraft.
It's only four years later, in 2008, that the runway finally gets used, when Ajira 316 makes its landing.
So are you wondering also: Why did the Others put a runway there? Almost as if someone knew that it would be needed at that exact spot, waiting for Ajira 316?
I found the answer on Lostpedia: probably the definitive Wiki devoted to Lost.
According to the Official Lost Podcast for March 19th, 2009, it was none other than Jacob who ordered the runway to be built.
That both makes perfect sense and begs even more questions about Jacob. Hope we'll get to find out more about him soon, 'cuz he's the most captivating mystery that this show has.
Then tomorrow night at 9 p.m., UNC TV (the PBS network here in North Carolina) will also be broadcasting The Last One.
If you have not had the pleasure yet, I heartily recommend catching The Last One however you can. Neal sent over a DVD of it a few months ago and ever since then it has been making the rounds among friends and relatives. Everyone has said that it's an absolute hoot to watch! Now because of the sad events of this past week, it is also a fitting memorial to an American original character.
As an aghast world — from China to Chicago and Chihuahua — watches, the circus-like U.S. political system seems to be declining into near chaos. Through it all, stock and financial markets are paralyzed. The more the policy regime does, the worse the outlook gets. The multi-ringed spectacle raises a disturbing question in many minds: Is this the end of America?It's hard to disagree with the upshot of Corcoran's argument: that America has become a house of cards that's been living on borrowed time (and money that it doesn't really have).Probably not, if only because there are good reasons for optimism. The U.S. economy has pulled out of self-destructive political spirals in the past, spurred on by its business class and corporate leaders, the profit-making and market-creating people who rose above the political turmoil to once again lift the world out of financial crisis. It’s happened many times before, except for once, when it took 20 years to rise out of the Great Depression.
Past success, however, is no guarantee of future recovery, especially now when there are daily disasters and new indicators of political breakdown. All developments are not disasters in themselves. The AIG bonus firestorm is a diversion from real issues , but it puts the ghastly political classes who make U.S. law on display for what they are: ageing self-serving demagogues who have spent decades warping the U.S. political system for their own ends. We see the system up close, law-making that is riddled with slapdash, incompetence and gamesmanship...
"What's in a name?" More like "What's in the game?" So long as it is at least as thrilling and terrifying and thought-provoking as the original BioShock, doesn't matter to me what they choose to call BioShock 2.
And speaking of BioShock 2, 2K has announced that the game - now widely whispered to be coming out this October - will be released for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PC at the same time. Which will make lots of people very very happy :-)
Four teenage Spanish students have earned worldwide acclaim for the photographs they have taken of the edge of space, 20 miles above the Earth. The students pulled off the remarkable feat with a weather balloon, and a digital camera costing about $100. The instrument packaged that the kids whipped-up contained a means of tracking the balloon after its ascent via Google Earth.Plum amazing. And very cool, what young people are capable of doing these days (or anybody for that matter). Wouldn't surprise me if in the not too distant future, we'll be reading news of some high school student flying into orbit in a home-built spaceship :-)
And in the end, the experts concluded that it was nothing more than a replica of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
No word yet on whether a killer rabbit was also spotted in the immediate area.
Yesterday morning, in the hills of eastern Tennessee, world-renowned moonshiner Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton was buried during a small private service. According to Costner-Maloy Funeral Home, Popcorn left detailed handwritten notes about how he wanted the service to be conducted and who he wanted to be in attendance. He was laid to rest next to his mother and father.
Popcorn Sutton's final rest came a little more than a day and a half after he took his own life at his Parrottsville, Tennessee home. He had been directed to report to federal prison this Friday to begin an 18-month sentence for manufacturing untaxable alcohol. Popcorn had told the judge during his sentencing that he would rather die at home instead of dying in prison.
(Eric at ClassicalValues.com has posted some pertinent thoughts about Popcorn's death, including some choice words from his widow Pam Sutton. And since yesterday morning a keg-load of mail has been coming in about that piece by Yours Truly condemning the federal government for murdering Popcorn by driving him to the breaking point.)
On the website for Sucker Punch Pictures, filmmaker Neal Hutcheson - who had documented Popcorn in Mountain Talk, Voices of North Carolina and the acclaimed recent film The Last One - had this to say...
Those who were closest to him remember a kind and thoughtful man, independent in spirit to the very end.
The first time I saw Natasha Richardson, it was in The Handmaid's Tale. Despite a lot of problems with that film (I mostly watched it 'cuz much of it was shot on the campus of Duke University) I thought she radiated considerable poise and dignity in her role. Being a World War II buff, I also caught her in Fat Man and Little Boy. And then later on in Nell... which she appeared alongside real-life husband Liam Neeson.
Natasha Richardson passed away tonight following injuries she received on a ski slope in Quebec. She was then flown to a hospital in New York City, where she was surrounded by her family when she died this evening.
She is survived by her husband, two sons, and her mother, actress Vanessa Redgrave, in addition to many others.
Thoughts and prayers going out to her family tonight.
At this point I have lost count of how much money - the evidence for the actual existence of which is about as substantial as that for the Loch Ness Monster - has been "pumped" into the markets over the past six months.
Hyper-inflation, here we come...
I have officially run out of exclamations and phony expletives that I could possibly used to describe how walloped I am by this show. During the course of sixty minutes, "Namaste" crossed space and time and gave us possibly the biggest breadth of the Island's mythology and geography of any episode to date. Where to begin? Baby Ethan! Radzinsky! Jack meeting Pierre Chang! The Flame! YOUNG BEN! Christian Shepherd! A smidgeon of the Monster! Frank Lapidus (one of my favorite new characters from last season)! Sun kicking older Ben's ass! Hydra Island and the runway! What really happened during the Ajira 316 flight!
All that was missing was Locke. And he's lurking somewhere in 2007.
So Jack's DHARMA job is janitor and "LaFleur" is calling the shots. I'd said last time that I've thrilled at how Sawyer has developed as a character. Tonight, there was the hint that he's finally come into his own as the leader among the Oceanic 815 bunch. Gotta wonder if he's right: that his thinking has saved more than Jack's "rushing into things" ever did back in "the old days".
Not so much an action-packed episode, but still immensely satisfying. Cannot wait 'til next week!
