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Cars are awesome. Since its invention, tons and tons of upgrades have sprung up, like a means to burn fuel much more efficiently, made them thrice as fast, and made them sexy beasts from their original clunky form.

There are outrageous cars, and OUTRAGEOUS cars. The former being the frivolous luxuries that have been added to the basic car form, and the latter being silly ideas built into car form. What’s more interesting to note is, if you know how to build a car, you can build your own dream car, however silly or funny anyone else thinks it is.

Here are 5 of the funniest/silliest/most outrageous cars I’ve seen on tv and the internet. (Take note, I’m not sure about the legality of these cars — it IS illegal to drive bumper cars or go-karts on the road, I think.)

The “Home” Car – I mean, come on! There are RVs and trailers — why build a house on a poor chassis? I’m pretty sure it’ll have loads of amenities inside to make it feel more like home, right? How would this go about then? Sleep on a bed inside, then wake up to drive elsewhere? Truly a mobile home, a similar car has appeared in the series Arrested Development, when George Sr. tried to get away with the “cabin car.”

The Stilletto – I see some batmobile in there, plus something from Star Wars … in all the wrong colors. Built from a 1960s Corvair, it really jumps far from the source material. If you look at it closely … and imagine it in black … it kinda reminds you of the motorcycle in the new Batman movie. Hmmm…

Judge Dredd Land Rover – Think about it, Land Rovers are pretty much monsters nowadays so what of the fictional future where Judge Dredd resides in? It combines the looks of a tank, an armored car and, well, the tires of a land rover. Made specifically for the movie, one is in display in the Rover Heritage museum in England.

The 2001 Chevrolet Camaro Police Car – It’s notweird or anything, but this sports car is the fastest pursuit car in terms of law enforcement. Plus, it’s only sold to police units. The silly thig is, the car looks above average when compared to normal street cars, but consider what police cars go through — they get shot at.

–Finally, my favorite—

The Couch Car! – I mean, come on! We have race car beds — but do they actually go anywhere? Think about having your own couch car, with a steering wheel mounted on the desk, stacked with your favorite snacks and beverages — then you literally park in front of the television. That’d be amazing. This car has caught the attention of the local media and has been featured in the Daily News … driving ‘round Times Square.

Those, to me, are the weirdest, silliest cars yet — any of you guys know any more funnier cars? (Yeah the batmobile doesn’t count, since it’d fill up this list quickly!)

Nearly a week later and I’m still not over it. CBS killed Moonlight!

What will happen of Mick St. John’s further sleuthing, vampire-style?

I’ve never really been a fan-fan, but I know when I like something. Apparently there’ve been cases where, a properly organized petition has managed to pull a show back from the land of cancellation. (sending in Mars bars for Veronica Mars, tons of bags of nuts for Jericho, etc)

Now, Moonlight fans are doing the same — with blood.

And I know what you’re thinking … no they won’t be sending in pints of blood to CBS! Tying up with the Red Cross foundation, fans are encouraged by their fellow Moonlight fans to donate blood — and the blood donated will be in the name of Moonlight and CBS.

And apparently, Moonlight star Alex O’Loughlin was impressed with the whole idea that he volunteered himself to be a spokesperson for the Red Cross. (Kinda hard to trust a vampire with your blood though, haha!)

I guess it’s gonna be a slow week then, with several shows turning in for the season (The Office!) and with Moonlight gone … I guess it’ll be cartoons that I’ll watch for now.

There have been several nostradamic predictions about the world’s end in the last couple of years — and, well, we’re all still here, right? In less than 20 hours (as of this writing) scientists are going to turn on the large hadron collider — a particle accelerator, that, well, creates black holes and may create strange matter. (And no, I didn’t just make up that term to funkify this little doomsday article!)

First off, what is the large hadron collider? It is a large (the name says it!) particle accelerator that’s located at CERN, near Switzerland. It is located in a tunnel that spans from Switzerland to France.

Basically, the experiment’s going to be trying to create a blackhole, sounds dangerous, huh? Well, it wouldn’t be a government-backed project if it would cause harm, right? But we’re talking about theories here. Like so many works of fiction, “something” could go wrong, for no particular reason; be it a miscalculation, an unpredicted result or a freak accident — well I’m here to scare you!

Here are 3 scenarios of what might happen once this badboy’s lit.

Gobbled by Strangelets. Strangelet, such a happy term, right? It’s short for “strange nugget,” and, well, there’s nothing happy about it. A strangelet is a bit of strange matter, (yes, I’m still not making that up!) that, upon contact with normal earth matter, turns the earth matter into strange matter itself. Imagine if this strangelet was stabilized, and, well, started turning the nuclei of nearby earth matter into strange matter — imagine this going on a thousand times over, at a speed that can only match the number of earth matter that comes into contact with the strangelet that’s growing. Bam! Instantly the earth will become nothing more than a huge ball of strange matter. Or, alternate scenario, since strangelets are anti-matter candidates, they may just blow up upon contact with Earth.

Devoured by a microscopic black hole. They say that a black hole evaporates in time because of Hawking radiation — and, well, say, for your normal average sized-black hole, it will take lifetimes before you ever see it happen. But a small, teensy, tiny microscopic black hole? If, say, they do make a black hole in the facility — it might not disappear — and since black holes are of such high density, placed on the earth’s surface, it’ll slice it’s way to the earth’s core like a hot knife through butter, after which, it’ll oscillate back, over and over, until it has consumed enough matter to slow down. By that time, the earth might be gone, by the way.

Nothing happens, and you have to die knowing that a failed experiment might’ve killed you like Y2K did with the panic back in ’99. It can just go kaput. Imagine the beams of particles being bombarded into one another, re-creating the big bang … and then poof! Nothing. I mean, life’s too short to be playing around with theories, right? And besides, what will advancement in matter studies do? Can we re-create another earth for which to try these sort of experiments on?

[Update: They pushed back the experiment, woohoo!]

Has life gotten any faster recently? If we can do things faster now, how come the number of people sleeping less than 8 hours has increased exponentially over the last few years? More and more people are indulging in the 4-four sleep, which, to the 8 glasses of water you have to drink everyday, is the equivalent of half the optimum number of hours people should be sleeping.

Here are a couple of things you’re missing out on big time if you aren’t getting the recommended 8-hours of sleep:

Attentiveness! Fact. Coherent thought is impossible after three days of sleeplessness. By day four, you’ll be a raving lunatic. While missing out a night’s sleep gives off a lesser version of this, the body will become sluggish and easily-tired during the day.

Lessened ability for learning and memory. While we sleep, the brain undergoes a process called “memory consolidation” — this is when the brain commits new information to memory, this is pretty important!

Proper metabolism. Sleep deprivation may affect how the body processes and stores carbohydrates, and messes up hormones that affect the appetite.

Repair-work. The body repairs itself during sleep. The immune system releases some antibodies only during sleep, so keeping up with sleep helps the immune system work a lot more efficient.

Dreams! Dreams rock. You can be anyone, or anything, and well, whatever parts of the last night’s dream may also give you ideas for what to look forward to. Plus, isn’t the whole world a lot better when you wake up fresh and energized for the day ahead?

Mother’s day is coming up — and well, you probably have a nice gift for your mum, or, well, reading the first part of the sentence has just reminded you. Not being your sibling, I’ve no idea why your mom is the best; there is, however a means of comparison by contrast. From childhood, we’ve heard tales of stepmothers making the children miserable — and, reading a couple of these evil moms will make you appreciate your parent a hundred million times more, if only your mom wasn’t that great already! (Thinking about it, were these tales crafted to give better appreciation for moms?)

The mother/stepmother from Hansel & Gretel – Married to a poor woodcutter, she coaxed her husband (h & g’s parents) to leave them alone in the woods. The kids overhear and leave pebbles along the path to find their way home. If that wasn’t enough, she tried the plan again, emptying the children’s pockets this time — when the kids tried leaving a trail of breadcrumbs. Animals ate the trail and they got lost. Of course this is the part where they stumble upon the witch’s candy house. How bad of a mother do you have to be, to leave your kids to the mercy of the forest, almost getting eaten?

The stepmother queen from Snow White – (Plus her magic mirror) So what if being born with skin as white as snow and lips as red as blood is a genetic miracle? Being really, really vain means getting your daughter banished from the castle, tricked into eating a poison apple, and well, generally tormenting her life with the 7 dwarves ‘til she croaked. She had a “Highlander” mentality — there must be only one. Would you have someone killed just because they were prettier than you are? That’s just vain to the nth degree.

Rapunzel’s Enchantress Stepmom – Normally you adopt children out of love, but this enchantress was different — in exchange for a cure to a poor man’s wife, she would then receive his pregnant wife’s offspring. She adopted the child and named her Rapunzel, then shut her out of the world in a tower with no doors, and, instead, she put poor old Rapunzel’s scalp on the line whenever she’d use it as a climbing rope.

Queen Narissa from Enchanted – From last year’s Disney movie, featuring the latest Disney Princess, Princess Giselle. This spiteful queen didn’t want to step down of her being queen, therefore the union between Giselle and Prince Edward must not happen to her. Not content to banishing her out of Andalasia, she used her dark magic to chuck her through a portal to a totally different dimension. If that wasn’t enough, by the end of the film, she turned into a dragon and totally wanted to eat Robert Phillip and Princess Giselle!

Queen Hera – Now for the baddest of them all, of fictional characters, no one was as hardcore as Hera. Not only is she the mother of the god of war, (Ares) out of jealousy for Zeus apparently giving birth alone to Athena, she gave birth to Hephaestus, an unsightly offspring, of which, Zeus didn’t approve of, so he was thrown out of Olympus with Hera not saying anything. If that’s not enough, check out her Wikipedia entry, under Hera’s jealousies for more stories of her deception towards her children. I’m guessing Lucille Bluth was based on her!

There was this episode of Seinfeld where George was telling a girl (for conversation) how the toilet paper hasn’t changed much since its invention — agreed. Though the well, medium it’s being used for, the toilet, has changed bit by bit over the years — there were overhead tanks, the usual 13-liter monster, and there are the water-conservation models.

Here are 5 of the latest innovations in toilet technology.

Toilet Tunes – Ever had a soundtrack for, well, whatever activity you choose to do by the toilet? If you have $30 you can get one of these automatic entertainment devices. With a choice of jazz, latin or nature sounds, it’s sure to cover up the sound of, well, whatever activity it is you do in there.

WashUp – Is a mash-up of a toilet and a washing machine. (Think toilet with a washing machine for a tank.) It uses the water for washing your clothes as the flush water — not only does it help conserve water, it also eats up one space instead of two! (My only concern would be, what if the clothes fall in the toilet after washing? Hmmm)

Kisses! – Is a lip-shaped urinal. Not that it’s innovative or whatever, it just gives guys something to help their aim.

Neorest AH – Developed in Japan, this hybrid tank draws inboard and outside water sources to fully utilize 5.5 liters for flushing, instead of the usual 13. Not only does it flush the toilet, the water gushes out of the hard-to-reach-spots, making it a self-cleaning eco-friendly toilet. Did I mention it also has seat warmers?

The Cell – This beautiful piece of tank-less wall-mount will be something you’d be tempted to keep pristine. It doesn’t eat up too much space, perfect for bachelors in small apartments.

Ironman. As far as comicbook characters go, he’s not one on top of my list, though this being Marvel Studios’ first live-action movie, it’s looking good for them.

What else can I say about it? From the looks of things, it IS the first big hit of the summer. Casting Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark is an inspired choice, and, well, Terrence Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow also fit in their roles as Jim Rhodes and Pepper Potts, respectively.

The movie starts out with Tony Stark living the futurist/industrialist frivolous lifestyle, never having regard for anyone but his self interests. While doing a demo for the United States army, he is abducted by a terrorist faction who wish to use his technology to take over the world. In captivity, he meets Yinsen, a brilliant scientist who manages to save his life from shrapnels that are making their way to Stark’s heart.

Forced to make a missile that would guarantee the terrorists’ success, he and Yinsen start work on their way out — the Ironman Mark I suit. (This all pretty much comes direct from the first Ironman story, just set in modern times.)

Seeing his life’s work being used as a leverage for modern wars, Stark spends the rest of the movie redeeming himself by becoming Ironman, and, well, keeping up with the sexual tension between him and Ms. Potts. Laughs, action and Stark’s arrogance makes for an interesting superhero movie. Go see it!

By the end of the movie though, I had this weird hankering for some Burger King.

]]> http://thebiglife.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/the-big-life-ironman-review/feed/ thebiglife http://thebiglife.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/the-big-life-ironman-review/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheBigLife/~3/281309503/ http://thebiglife.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/3-newsworthy-giants-of-the-animal-kingdom/#comments Thu, 01 May 2008 07:14:24 +0000 thebiglife http://thebiglife.wordpress.com/?p=75

I’m pretty sure everyone’s heard of the colossal squid that’s been in the news lately, and, well, in the animal kingdom, like in Texas, bigger is better! Here’s the colossal squid and a couple more giants that got their 15-minutes.

Colossal Squid

This gigantic, 26-feet long (that’s 8 meter sticks!), more-than-a-thousand-pounder was caught last year and is only now getting to be examined in New Zealand. The Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, is being thawed slowly for proper examination begins — apparently, it’s also the animal with the world’s largest eyeballs.

You’d imagine how much calamares it’d make, (and there would have been tons!) if not for the ammonia in its flesh. (Translated, it should taste/smell like stale urine.)

Giant Killer Croc

Pictures of this humongous croc has been circulating inboxes since 2003. Apparently, in Point Noire, in the Republic of Congo, several villagers started disappearing, and nobody had any ideas where they were until they found this huge 16-foot Nile crocodile. It took the army to take down this beast, and, well, they preserved it too, to check the insides for human remains.

Obese Chinese Cat

This 33-pound cat was apparently loved so much by its owner that it was fed what’s considered to be a feast for a cat everyday. News about this cat was reported in fluff segments of news programs, but animal rights thought making this cat obese was a form of animal abuse. The cat got too fat that it can no longer support its own weight with his legs.

When I’ve done all I can to live this wonderful, wonderful life of mine, maybe have a successful career, become a guajillionaire, raise amazing kids who will outdo me and carry my name, live on a farm and reap the rewards of a retirement, there’s only one thing to look forward to, right? However grim the inevitable is, and, well, honestly, I’m looking forward to an awesome death.

Something that involves me going in my sleep, or maybe one that involves me leaving a cliffhanger sentence? (“The treasure is buried in …”) Something like that. Now there are other, more awesome ways to go, but I won’t detail ‘em here. In fact, I’m here for the opposite. Like many people, (or maybe few?) I have a list of things that I DO NOT want to happen to me in my last moments.

Drowning or Asphyxiation or, just plain not breathing … to death. There should be parental discretion warnings just before the nightly news. Some news are just not meant to be seen by kid eyes. See, when I was a kid, there was this news about a giant ferry that sunk — and days and days and days of search-and-rescue have yet to catch up with the count of the people missing. Then they used the choppers — and we, of the “we eat dinner in front of the tv” families got a shocking view of bloated corpses on salt water. Just imagine, bodies bloating from too much water exposure, skin stretched out to as far as it can go, and well, terrors of the deep probably eyeing the delicious morsel just floating about. Freaky! So, say I’m out on a cruise … that thought will always, always linger in my head.

Medical malpractice. News in the Philippines are making waves because, as it turned out, some inept nurse or doctor “leaked” a “documentation” of an operation. Not only is this a violation of doctor-patient confidentiality, it’s also unethical. The worst thing is, you couldn’t do anything about it at the moment. You are heavily sedated, and that’s why hospitals always make me queasy. I’m never sure what they do there, maybe play a little sedated surfing, plus, interns might be there — I DO NOT want to be an autopsy body. So what will I do? Ask not to get anaesthetized? Or, the harder alternative, try to keep healthy?

(image from Lucid TV)

Decapitation or amputation. There was this .gif file circulating Digg a while back, like, supergluing your hands to the side of your head just before you jump with a noose on your neck. It’d then seem like you tore your head out your neck, right? Wrong. I’m guessing the flaps of skin, muscle and tissue, plus the bone would impede. What scares me is losing an arm, or a leg, or worse, a head, by accident. (Or some other brutal means.) I mean, come on! When the day for the dead rising comes, would I want to be the worst looking shambling zombie???

Alcohol poisoning. Respect the alcohol, or it will whup your ass. I certainly don’t want to go out like these guys. (Caution: NSFW, or, Not Safe For Work!)