Crystal Island: OK, we know, it is another Foster project. But this one is more equal than others for Crystal Island will be the largest building in the world when completed. Crystal Island’s vital statistics are, well, huge. The volcano-shaped superstructure will be 1,500 foot tall with 26,909,776 foot squared of floor space, that’s enough room to house 30,000 people. As you would expect from a Foster + Partners project, the self-contained city within a city has energy conservation and eco-friendly energy management at the very heart of the design. Crystal Island will generate low carbon energy from solar arrays and wind turbines located on the building with vast atriums to regulate the internal air temperature during the extremes of the Russian summer and winter. (more…)

1. Lack of Sleep. Duh, right? Well how come we don’t get enough sleep? It needs to be a priority and you need to muster up the proper motivation to make it happen. Now, not everyone needs 8 hours of sleep, but some do. How do you figure out how much you need? Experiment. Some good advice from Steve Pavlina is to wake at the same time each day, but go to sleep when you’re tired. Measure how much you need by how you feel the next day. Are you dragging with droopy eyelids all day? Then that’s not enough. If you feel mostly alert, then you’ve hit on the right amount for you.

2. Sugar. Avoid it. If you must eat sweets try to combine it with fiber which slows the absorption of sugar into the bloodstream. Most fruits naturally have both the sweetness and the fiber. The next time you have a candy bar or can of soda, watch for the subsequent energy dip that occurs within 30-60 minutes. Be prepared to nap because that’s what you will feel like doing.
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Al Pacino
Okay, we love Al Pacino. He’s lost a lot of the restrained brilliance of the young Micheal Corleone, but even in the midst of some of the most overblown screen rants Hollywood has ever seen, Al is just so damn watchable that we don’t care. As long as we’re not watching Revolution (1985) that is. In perhaps the worst casting since Sean Connery as a Russian sub commander in The Hunt For Red October, Pacino plays Scottish-American fur trader Tom Dobb. With his son and stunningly bad accent, he stumbles through the American revolutionary war in the most jaw-dropping array of coincidences, plot contrivances, and bad editing of the decade. That this film cost nearly $30 million to make and took in less than $400,000 domestic is a testament to a bygone era when moviegoers actually cared about what they were spending their money on. Sadly, you won’t find any excerpts from this film on the Net as proof, but if you’re diligent, I’m sure you can find a copy in the dollar bin at your local convenience store. (more…)

BEST PICTURE

“No Country for Old Men”

BEST ACTOR

Daniel Day Lewis in “There Will be Blood”

BEST ACTRESS

Julie Christie in “Away from Her” (more…)

Democrats

2004 - John Kerry* (38.4%) Howard Dean (26.4%) Wesley K Clark (12.4%) John Edwards (12.0%) Joseph Lieberman (8.6%) Dennis Kucinich (1.4%) Al Sharpton (0.2%)

2000 - Al Gore* (50.4%) Bill Bradley (46.3%)

1996 - Bill Clinton* (unopposed)

1992 - Paul E. Tsongas 33.2% Bill Clinton* (24.8%) Bob Kerrey (11.1%) Tom Harkin (10.2%) Jerry Brown ( 8.0%)

1988 - Michael Dukakis* ( 36.4%) Dick Gephardt (20.3%) Paul Simon (17.4%) Jesse Jackson (8.0%) Al Gore (6.9%)
Bruce Babbitt (4.7%) Gary Hart (4.0%) (more…)

1 - Adopt - Adopting someone is one of the greatest things you can do. You’ll change your life and someone else’s. Adopt a baby, a child, or a teen. By being adopted they’ll always know that there is truly kind people in the world and they’ll pay it back to society.

2 - Just Be Nice - This is something EVERYONE can do, you don’t need any money or any talent. Hold the door for someone, smile, or say hello. You will change someone’s whole day, week, month, year, or maybe even life. Then they’ll be nicer to others, which will just continue the cycle and you won’t even realize that YOU changed THOUSANDS of lives.

3 - Donate - Donate blood, food, time, money, or whatever you can. Donate online, help entrepreneurs in developing countries on Kiva, lend to people on Prosper, or just play the simple game on FreeRice.

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According to car site, MonsterAuto.ca, vehicle cloning is all the rage: “Here is how it works. Thieves steal a car, usually a high-end “desirable” car or SUV. Then they take the vehicle identification number or VIN from a similar vehicle and slap it on the stolen car. Because each VIN is unique like a fingerprint, the stolen vehicle become a clone of a legitimate vehicle. Add some fake papers, and the thieves are ready to sell you a vehicle that looks perfectly legal.”

When the police come knocking on your door, you have no legal recourse – you have to hand over the stolen property. Statistics show that this horror story is happening to more and more people ever year. In 2007 there were over 1.3 million cars stolen cars in the US, with over 250,000 or 1 in 5 of these stolen vehicles sold to unsuspecting victims. In the UK, this is being called that fastest growing car crime. And Canadians are being hit just as hard.

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1. Collect everything in one place.
Take out everything and put it in a pile. Empty the entire drawer, and pile it all on a counter or a table. Take everything out, down to the last paper clip.

2. Choose the essential.
Pick out only the few things you love and use and that are important to you. Just sort through the pile, picking out the really essential stuff. Be very selective. Put the important stuff you pick out into a separate, smaller pile. (more…)