Jul
31
Dublin to host world’s first strip poker championship
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The Irish have made it come true. It started as an April Fool’s joke from Paddy Power, but created so much buzz - and interest - that it’s going to happen, and it’ll be held in Dublin.Come August 19th, 200 participants will risk baring all, to try their hand at becoming the first World Strip Poker Champion, which could bery well earn them a place in the Guinness Book of Records. Also at stake is a a “Golden Fig Leaf” trophy and a cash prize of 10,000 pounds sterling (USD18,630) in cash.
Jul
30
The beauty of business
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Read more at http://www.searchem.com/miss_universe
Jul
30
Paris bans nude tanning
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It must be burning hot in Europe, especially in Rome and Paris this summer. Yet, worried about encouraging an excess of pasty white skin on the banks of the River Seine, the Paris city hall has banned, among others, thong bikinis and topless sunbathing, not to mention outright nudity at the summer event known as Paris Beaches, Le Parisien reported yesterday. Defaulters face a fine.
Still, seasoned travellers know better than to visit Europe in the summer, when gridlock rules the streets and every attraction boasts endless, snaking queues. It’s time instead to be heading down under for some cool weather and great scenery, maybe some camping at Kakadu National Park ( http://www.travelt.com/darwin/index.html ).
Jul
29
Intel core 2 duo PCs revealed
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In an extravagant party, Intel has unveiled their new premium product, the Core 2 duo and Core 2 duo extreme processors for high end workstations and home PCs, with major PC manufacturers like Dell and Gateway making announcements about their own offerings powered by this CPU.
Pricing for the desktops will probably start from USD1050 upwards, with the sky as the limit ( or at least around USD5000 ). It’s supposed to offer increased speed and efficiency and uses less power. Gamers who have tried the Core 2 Duo have also said the new processors offer a much smoother gaming experience.
Meanwhile, Kazaa is paying out over USD 100 million to EMI, Warner Bros Music, Sony BMG and Universal Music, and promising to turn legit.
Once the world’s most popular P2P program for sharing of files, including music MP3 files, a combination of worries over spyware and viruses among the downloaded files and lawsuits filed against users for music piracy have alarmingly decreased the number of people using this program.
All the while, anti-piracy firms working for the recording industry were flooding the system with unlistenable fake files, frustrating for the user.
All in all, it remains to be seen if Kazaa can come up with a reliable revenue model which will be key to success in it’s decision to turn legit.
Jul
28
On the back of oil prices rising to ridiculous highs, Exxonmobil have posted record profits in excess of USD 35 billion dollars. Between the oil companies and the oil producing nations, they’re probably milking the rest of the world dry, while conspiracy theorists gossip that these same cartels are suppressing research and development into alternative clean cheap energy sources.Given that present crude oil reserves will only last a few more lifetimes, and demand for oil is rising everyday, fossil fuels will run out one day in the near future, and then we’ll face a stump.
Meanwhile, Floyd Landis has tested positive for testosterone in his A sample of blood taken. His B sample is under investigation. The jury is still out on that one, whether Floyd had taken any hormonal substances to boost his performance.
Fighting continues to ravage Lebanon and rocket attacks from Hizbollah continue to ravage the Israeli city of Haifa. With large numbers of guerrilla fighters in place, Hizbollah will not be an easy pushover, and with international pressure mounting, especially after that strike on the UN outpost with a precision guided weapon, it remains to be seen how long more Israel can continue this attack. Meanwhile, Israeli casualties and mortalities are mounting slowly.
Jul
27
Landis wins Tour de France
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After winning the final individual time trial to take a 30 second lead, Floyd Landis has taken the Tour de France title. Lance Armstrong is reportedly trying to woo Landis to his Discovery channel team.
Jul
21
Landis rides fast, in contention for Tour de France title
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A day after spectacularly losing the leadership of the race and dropping almost 7 minutes behind the race leaders, Floyd Landis has ridden fast to jump back into contention, in the final mountain stage of the tour.
The American, whose legs almost literally turning to Jell-O on the slopes of an Alp called La Toussuire, had been leading the race before yesterday before his spectacular collapse left him eight minutes eight seconds behind race leader Oscar Pereiro.
Not that today’s stage was any easy pushover. The Tour’s final mountain stage, over five Alpine passes, including the behemoth Col de Joux Plane, ending with a screaming descent into Morzine.
Landis attacked on the first climb, in what would be considered by most as an absurd plan at best, given the physical toll this stage would take. Most riders would have stayed with the main pack and conserve energy and attack later. Not Landis. From the first climb, the Pennsylvanian pushed his team to the front of the main pack, chasing down a small bunch of breakaway riders out front, and started to execute the plan.
Halfway up the first climb, Landis accelerated even faster, setting such a difficult that no one followed. Other riders were anticipating that he would burn out eventually over the next few punishing climbs.
Landis eventually caught up with the group of eleven breakaway riders who’d earlier escaped. Upon overtaking them, he commenced negotiations. Was anyone interested in forming an alliance?
No one took his offer. “Nobody wanted to work with me,” he later recalled. Alone, Landis set off at even greater speed, leaving them in his wake. Patrik Sinkewitz of T-Mobile, hung about in Landis’s slipstream for 70km.
Until the ascent of the Col de Joux-Plane, when Sinkewitz could hold on no longer. Landis had by this time opened up such a massive nine minutes and four seconds lead on the pack.
Landis eventually crossed the line in Morzine 5:42 ahead of Carlos Sastre of CSC. In the Classement General, Landis lies 18 seconds behind Sastre and 30 seconds behind race leader Oscar Pereiro.
Jul
21
Lebanon burning
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Lebanon is on the way to being all but destroyed by the Israeli offensive into Lebanon. All for 2 Israeli soldiers abducted by Hizbollah terrorists. And as these Hizbollah agents and weapons are deeply entrenched and hidden among the civilian population of Lebanon and Beirut, the missiles and rockets flying in from Israel are claiming innocent Lebanese lives and causing collateral damage.
So whose fault is it? Hizbollah, for starting the conflict? Israel, for their very violent response?
Granted, Israel maintains a loyalty to her soldiers, to never let any of them be forsaken, to fight tooth and nail for return of every single soldier.
This is a conflict which has it’s origins in distant history, before the time of Christ. When will it all end? When will there be peace in the Middle East?
Jul
20
Johnny Depp is Jack Sparrow
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Half the civilised world must have caught Depp’s latest outing as infamous pirate-comic Captain Jack Sparrow, who ( oops - spoiler alert ) makes a deal with demi-devil Davy Jones to raise him the Black Pearl in return for a hundred years of service on the Flying Dutchman.
Depp has, with his own ccol style and comic timing, made the role his own. Amusing kids and adults alike, he has singlehandedly propelled the movie to top grossing movie worldwide this year, and raised the anticipation bar for the last film of the trilogy.
And it doesn’t hurt to have Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom as eye candy for the guys and the girls respectively.
Jul
20
The Truth about free email and webmail service providers
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Yahoo! Mail, one of the most popular free webmail providers, was the first to up the stakes, giving a 100 MB of storage per free email account, far greater than the industry standard of between 2 to 6 MB.
Purists could argue that the first blow was delivered when Gmail by Google offered 1 GB, that is, around 1000 MB per free account. However, this is still a beta offering and not open to the public yet.
MSN has been concentrating on improving their search, but have now also replied by upping the storage space in their Hotmail to a 250 MB inbox and 10 MB attachment limit. There is a catch, though, that you must reside only in the U.S. of A. or in certain states in Canada. People residing in foreign countries only get the maximum or 2 MB per email account.
This still leaves other webmail providers like Mail.com out in the snow, offering a miserly 4 MB of storage space per account.
Presently, after having tried out the best, we still find Google’s Gmail email service the best, with the largest email size, and that still makes the difference.