HOLICRAP

Police grab $2 million worth of cars after Canadian street race

admin — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 14:31:42 +0000

This could be the plot for a movie, "Fast and Furious Canada," or maybe "Fast and Furious, the Young and the Rich."

Police in British Columbia say they impounded $2 million worth of high-end vehicles this week after witnesses reported the 13 cars racing on a metro Vancouver highway at speeds of 125 mph (200 kph).

The high-end race cars included a Ferrari, Lamborghinis, Maseratis, an Audi, an Aston Martin, Nissans and a Mercedes, according to a Royal Canadian Mounted Police press release.

Two of the racers would run side-by-side to block other traffic going in their direction on the highway while the others cars would take off in a race, witnesses told the RCMP.

"These drivers seemed to be looking for attention. Well, they definitely got the attention of police," Cpl. Holly Marks, spokesperson for the Lower Mainland District Regional Police Service, said in the press release.

What the racers, who police said are all under age 21, won't get is harsh punishment.

"Each driver will be charged with Driving without Reasonable Consideration and receive a violation ticket with a specified penalty of $196. Additionally, these drivers will be responsible for all associated towing and storage charges," according to the RCMP press release.

That's because police didn't actually catch them in the act and acted only on witness accounts. They weren't caught on radar, video or seen by a police officer, Superintendent Norm Gaumont, RCMP officer in charge of traffic enforcement for the Lower Mainland, told the Surrey Now newspaper.

"I know there's a lot of disappointment, wondering why we only charged them with an offence of $196. They fact of the matter is, we have to look at all the evidence we have and what we're able to prove," Surrey Now quoted Gaumont as saying. "That's why we've charged them with driving without due consideration for the public."

If police were able to charge the 13 drivers with more severe offenses, they could have faced forfeiture of their vehicles, according to a Vancouver Sun report.

The RCMP said most of the drivers were operating their vehicles on "N" class licenses, which means they had not yet attained full driving privileges. Only one of the drivers was the registered owner of the car they were driving, Gaumont told Surrey Now.

The drivers included 12 men and one woman, according to Surrey Now. Gaumont told the paper they were on their way to have a meal when they decided to race.

According to the Sun, the vehicles were:

2007 Ferrari 599
2010 Lamborghini Gallardo
2010 Lamborghini Gallardo
2009 Lamborghini Gallardo
2009 Audi R8
2012 Nissan GT-R
2010 Nissan GT-R
2010 Nissan GT-R
2010 Maserati Turismo
2010 Maserati Turismo
2011 Mercedes SL63
2011 Mercedes SLS
2005 Aston Martin DB9

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Cars

Race

Lamborghini

Ferrari

Porsche

Arrested

Teens

Best coffee table ever! by Bentley

admin — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 14:24:01 +0000

MULSANNE V8 TABLE

The Bentley 6 ¾ litre V8 engine is the heart of the new flagship Mulsanne and can trace its history back to the original design by Jack Phillips in the 1950s. Its tremendous power and torque is refined and controlled to give the ultimate driving experience but is now shown in all its glory making it the heart and focal point of any room. This engine may have had its day powering a Mulsanne during the engine development phase, but still has many years left as an interesting unique piece of automotive furniture.

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Your doggie in the car

admin — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 19:03:37 +0000

Your doggie in the car

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Dog

Car

Worm in raw oyster dish found in Hong Kong restaurant

admin — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 17:33:25 +0000

The manager said it's normal to have worms in them.

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Family has snake appear on hood of moving vehicle, keeps driving

admin — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 00:29:26 +0000

We were driving 65 mph down a highway when my husband caught something out of the corner of this eye...a snakehead coming out from under our hood onto our windshield!

Parked vehicles are nearly the perfect hideout for all manner of critters. The infinite nooks and crannies of an automobile are all but irresistible for everything from insects to rodents, household pets and reptiles. One Memphis family recently had a close encounter of the legless kind when a nearly three-foot-long gray rat snake crawled out from under their vehicle's hood as they drove down Sam Cooper Boulevard at highway speeds. The befuddled snake inched its way along the windshield, likely seeking shelter from the engine heat and vibration and around to the sideview mirror before falling to the roadway to the apparent delight of the terrified vehicle occupants.

The father of the family misidentified the reptile as a water moccasin, resulting in quasi-appropriate hysterics from some of the occupants. The result is plenty of distraction and a growing controversy in YouTube's comment base about whether the driver should have pulled over and let the snake slither away, or whether they were right in continuing to go on their way.

Here's a tip: If you spot a snake on your car, pull over, get a stick and escort it off, or at least wait in the vehicle until it goes away. Chances are, the animal wants off your ride as badly you want it away from your car.

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This shoe advertisement blows.

admin — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 14:50:20 +0000

This shoe advertisement blows.

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Shoe

Sneaker

Entire Apple Stores Being Faked in China

admin — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 15:01:00 +0000

At first, it looks like a sleek Apple store. Sales assistants in blue T-shirts with the company's logo chat to customers. Signs advertising the iPad 2 hang from the white walls. Outside, the famous logo sits next to the words "Apple Store."

And that's the clue it's fake.

China, long known for producing counterfeit consumer gadgets, software and brand name clothing, has reached a new piracy milestone -- fake Apple stores.

An American who lives in Kunming in southern Yunnan province said Thursday that she and her husband stumbled on three shops masquerading as bona fide Apple stores in the city a few days ago. She took photos and posted them on her BirdAbroad blog.

The three stores are not among the authorized resellers listed on Apple Inc.'s website. The maker of the iPhone and other hit gadgets has four company stores in China -- two in Beijing and two in Shanghai -- and various official resellers. Apple's Beijing office declined to comment.

The proliferation of the fake stores underlines the slow progress that China's government is making in countering a culture of a rampant piracy and widespread production of bogus goods that is a major irritant in relations with trading partners.

China's Commerce Minister promised American executives earlier this year that the latest in a string of crackdowns on product piracy would deliver lasting results.

The 27-year-old blogger, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the set-up of the stores was so convincing that the employees themselves seemed to believe they worked for Apple.

"It looked like an Apple store. It had the classic Apple store winding staircase and weird upstairs sitting area. The employees were even wearing those blue T-shirts with the chunky Apple name tags around their necks," she wrote on her blog.

"But some things were just not right: the stairs were poorly made. The walls hadn't been painted properly. Apple never writes 'Apple Store' on its signs -- it just puts up the glowing, iconic fruit." A worker at the fake Apple store on Zhengyi Road in Kunming, which most of the photos of the BirdAbroad blog show, told The Associated Press that they are an "Apple store" before hanging up.

The manager of an authorized reseller in Kunming, who gave only his surname, Zhang, said most customers have no idea the stores are fake.

Some of the staff in the stores "can't even operate computers properly or tell you all the functions of the mobile phone," he said.

"There are more and more of these fake stores in Kunming. Although they may sell real Apple products, some of those products were not imported through legal means. And they cost more."

Fake Apple stores are a "particularly egregious example" of brand piracy but their emergence is not surprising given the amount of product counterfeiting faced by corporations such as Apple, said Ted Dean, president of BDA China Ltd., a telecoms market research company.

He said a challenge for mobile phone companies and others selling branded products across a country as big as China is how to manage distribution, "especially when you push back into lower-tier cities," referring to cities in China's interior.

"And then, making sure people aren't copying it, faking it ... is absolutely a challenge," said Dean, who once saw a fake Apple phone in China that had an Apple logo -- but with no bite taken out of it.

It’s an Apple store! Or is it?

Went inside and poked around. They looked like Apple products. It looked like an Apple store. It had the classic Apple store winding staircase and weird upstairs sitting area. The employees were even wearing those blue t-shirts with the chunky Apple name tags around their necks.

You have already guessed the punchline, of course: this was a total Apple store ripoff. A beautiful ripoff – a brilliant one – the best ripoff store we had ever seen (and we see them every day). But some things were just not right: the stairs were poorly made. The walls hadn’t been painted properly.

Apple never writes “Apple Store” on it’s signs – it just puts up the glowing, iconic fruit.

The name tags around the necks of the friendly salespeople didn’t actually have names on them – just an Apple logo and the anonymous designation “Staff”. And of course, Apple’s own website will tell you that they only have a few stores in Beijing and Shanghai, opened only recently; Apple famously opens new stores painstakingly, presumably to assure impeccable standards and lots of customer demand.

And the best part? A ten minute walk around the corner revealed not one, but TWO more rip-off Apple stores.

Some store managers may have dozed off briefly during certain parts of the lecture on How to Completely Ignore Intellectual Property Rights:

Anyone from Apple want to come down to Kunming and break open a can of IPR whoop-ass?

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