Holiday Drink-Of-The-Week: Chocolate Orange Cream

Makes 1 drink

* -- Bittersweet cocoa powder (for garnish)
* -- Superfine sugar (for garnish)
* 1 1/2 ounces Godiva chocolate liqueur
* 1 ounce Bailey's Irish cream
* 3/4 ounce Gran Marnier Centenaire
* -- Orange twist (for garnish)

Instructions: Mix two parts bittersweet chocolate powder and one part superfine sugar on a small plate. Rub the outside rim of a martini glass with water and then dip the outside rim into the chocolate-sugar mixture. Set aside

Add Godiva liqueur and Bailey's to a shaker filled two-thirds with ice. Shake for 30 seconds and strain into martini glass. Float Gran Marnier Centenaire over the top and garnish with orange twist.

Kurt Cobain's smashed guitar sold for $100,000

A guitar used by late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain on the band's first US tour has been sold at auction for $100,000.

The smashed Fender Mustang guitar was sold by Sluggo, a punk guitarist and friend of Cobain, to an unidentified private collector, according to Yahoo Music.

The instrument was destroyed onstage in New Jersey, after which Cobain decided to trade it with The Grannies and Hullabaloo guitarist for a working one for the next gig.

Sluggo held on to the guitar for a number of years before eventually lending it to Seattle’s Experience Music Project for display.

Jacob McMurray, senior curator at the Project, told Yahoo Music: “It’s a really cool looking guitar because it’s smashed and held together with duct tape and Kurt Cobain wrote on it. There’s not a huge amount of broken Nirvana guitars out there.”

The guitar is the second-highest selling piece of Cobain memorabilia to date, following the $131,000 sale of his Mosrite Gospel Mark IV guitar at an auction in 2006.

The $99 (refurbished) iPhone 3G

Just in time to spend your newly acquired Christmas cash. AT&T is now offering the 8GB iPhone 3G in refurbished form for just $99 with a two-year agreement, while the 16GB refurb is $199 on contract in either black or white.

Don’t Starve a Cold of Exercise

You have what seems to be a really bad cold. You are coughing and sneezing, and it is hard to breathe.

Should you work out?

And if you do, should you push yourself as hard as ever or take it easy? Will exercise have no effect, or make you feel better or worse?

A study reports that investigators found no difference in symptoms between groups with a cold that exercised and ones that rested. And there was no difference in the time it took to recover from the colds. But when the exercisers assessed their symptoms, people said they felt O.K. and, in some cases, they actually felt better.

Vice Squad

Superfluous Suspenders is more than just a good name for a really, really awful improv team; it’s a free license to do whatever gangly dinosaur dance pops into your plastered head and still be surrounded by a pack of leering wolves.

Stuff White People Like - #19 Traveling

White person travelling can be broken into two categories - First World and Third World.

First world is Europe and Japan, and man, this travel is not only beloved but absolutely essential in their development as white people.

Every white person takes at least one trip to Europe between the ages of 17-29. During this time they are likely to wear a back pack, stay at a hostel, meet someone from Ireland/Sweden/Italy with whom they have a memorable experience, get drunk, see some old churches and ride a train.

What’s amazing is that all white people have pretty much the same experience, but all of them believe theirs to be the first of its kind. So much so that they return to North America with ideas of writing novels and screenplays about their experience.

Upon returning home, they will also find an affinity for a particular beer or liquor from a country they visited. They use this as an excuse to mention their travels when at a bar. “Oh, I’ll have a Czechznlishiyush Pilsner. You see, that was my favorite beer when I was travelling through Slovenia and the Czech republic.”

The second type of white person travel is Third World. This is when they venture to Thailand, Africa or South America. Some do it so that they can one up the white people who only go to Europe.

But like with Europe, white people like to believe they are the first white people to make this trip. As such, they should be recognized as special and important individuals.

That’s right, by going to a country, riding around on a bus or train, staying at a hotel or hostel and eating - they are doing something important for the world.

If a white person shows up in your country, you can make them feel fantastic by saying how you’ve never seen a white person before, and that you are amazed by their iPod - “a device that plays many songs? impossible!”

They might give it to you, then you can sell it for profit. Repeat as necessary.

Fail of the Day

Nearly the End of the Line for S.U.V.’s

Even a federal bailout could not save three of the last remaining plants in the United States still making sport utility vehicles.

Reeling from its financial problems and a collapsing S.U.V. market, General Motors on Tuesday closed its factories in Moraine, Ohio, marking the passing of an era when big S.U.V.’s ruled the road. The moves followed the shutdown last Friday of Chrysler’s factory in Newark, Del., which produced full-size S.U.V.’s.

F.D.A. to Reconsider Plastic Bottle Risk

Weeks after its own advisory board accused the Food and Drug Administration of failing to adequately consider research about the dangers of bisphenol-A, found in many plastic baby bottles, plastic food containers and metal can linings, the agency has agreed to reconsider the issue.

The F.D.A.’s draft risk assessment in August, finding the chemical safe as it is now used, stood out against a tide of recent scientific opinion. The National Toxicology Program, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, has said there was reason to be concerned that BPA, as the chemical is called, could harm the brain, behavior and the prostate gland in fetuses, infants and children. Canada added the chemical to its list of toxic substances this year and has said it will ban BPA from polycarbonate baby bottles.

Music industry says it will stop suing illegal downloaders

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has announced that it plans to end lawsuits against people who illegally download music.

In a statement issued Friday, December 19, the RIAA declared that it will instead team up with internet service providers to prevent music piracy.

"We think this is going to be a different form of stick, but we absolutely think this will be a meaningful alternative approach that will have a significant impact," an RIAA spokeswoman told Reuters.

The RIAA, which represents major record labels including Warner Music Group Corp, EMI, Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, will pursue lawsuits that have already been filed, but have said that they do not intend to file new suits.

Instead they will issue warnings through ISPs to those who download music illegally. If users fail to heed warnings, their internet service may be disconnected, the RIAA said.

Since 2003, the music industry filed approximately 35,000 music piracy lawsuits.

Cousin Marriage OK by Science

In an age of sexual liberation, marriage between cousins remains taboo, at least in the United States — and from a scientific perspective, laws against the unions are a socially legitimized form of genetic and sexual discrimination.

That argument, raised Monday in an editorial in Public Library of Science Biology, may turn the stomachs of people raised to disapprove of any form of incest. But dispassioned analysis suggests that cousin marriage is no more troubling than childbearing by middle-aged women.

"Women over the age of 40 are not prevented from childbearing, nor is anyone suggesting they should be, despite an equivalent risk of birth defects," write zoologists Hamish Spencer and Diane Paul. Bans against cousin marriage, they say, should be repealed, "because neither the scientific nor social assumptions that informed them are any longer defensible."

Scientists research sex chip to stimulate pleasure in the brain

Scientists are developing an electronic "sex chip" that can be implanted into the brain to stimulate pleasure.

The chip works by sending tiny shocks from implanted electrodes in the brain.

The technology has been used in the United States to treat Parkinson's disease.

But in recent months scientists have been focusing on the area of the brain just behind the eyes known as the orbitofrontal cortex - this is associated with feelings of pleasure derived from eating and sex.

A research survey conducted by Morten Kringelbach, senior fellow at Oxford University's department of psychiatry, found the orbitofrontal cortex could be a "new stimulation target" to help people suffering from anhedonia, an inability to experience pleasure from such activities. His findings are reported in the Nature Reviews Neuroscience journal.

First partially-solar-powered cargo ship launches in Japan

The $1.68m project involved the installation of 328 solar panels, which produce 40 kilowatts of power -- a measly 0.3 percent of the engine power required to move the 656-foot, 60,000-ton ship when fully loaded with 6,400 cars, but enough for seven percent of the juice required for lighting and other systems. That's a slow start, but we'll take what we can get

Toyota Goes Electric With a Hush-Hush Concept

Toyota is bringing a small electric city car concept vehicle to the Detroit auto show, where it will appear alongside the redesigned Prius hybrid.

No one's saying much about the car beyond confirming it is purely electric and smaller than a Prius. "It's a concept we are bringing to the show basically to confirm our interest in electric vehicles," spokeswoman Jana Hartline says, according to the Detroit Free Press.

The Japanese automaker, which expects to post its first operating loss in 70 years, is accelerating the R&D of batteries and could introduce EVs as early as 2010 — at which point it also plans to roll out the first plug-in Prius hybrids as part of its campaign to move beyond oil.

Vice Squad

I don't know who came up with this "lifting my ass up off an invisible ledge" pose that girls are doing all of a sudden, but I would like to personally thank him for turning the world into a mental jacuzzi party.

Stuff White People Like - #18 Awareness

An interesting fact about white people is that they firmly believe that all of the world’s problems can be solved through “awareness.” Meaning the process of making other people aware of problems, and then magically someone else like the government will fix it.

This belief allows them to feel that sweet self-satisfaction without actually having to solve anything or face any difficult challenges. Because, the only challenge of raising awareness is people not being aware. In a worst case scenario, if you fail someone doesn’t know about the problem. End of story.

What makes this even more appealing for white people is that you can raise “awareness” through expensive dinners, parties, marathons, selling t-shirts, fashion shows, concerts, eating at restaurants and bracelets. In other words, white people just have to keep doing stuff they like, EXCEPT now they can feel better about making a difference.

Raising awareness is also awesome because once you raise awareness to an acceptable, aribtrary level, you can just back off and say “Bam! did my part. Now it’s your turn. Fix it.”

So to summarize - you get all the benefits of helping (self satisfaction, telling other people) but no need for difficult decisions or the ensuing criticism (how do you criticize awareness?). Once again, white people find a way to score that sweet double victory.

Popular things to be aware of: The Environment, Diseases like Cancer and AIDS, Africa, Poverty, Anorexia, Homophobia, Midde School Field Hockey/Lacrosse teams, Drug Rehab, and political prisoners.

Fail of the Day

American Apparel Lays Off Hundreds

American Apparel has announced it's cutting hundreds of jobs, despite posting the strongest sales in retail versus its competitors. The company is reducing its expansion plans, hence the layoffs.

All the cuts come on the heels of many, many, lawsuits against Charney for subjecting employees to sexual harassment but also some rather odd ones involving scam e-mails, potential blackmail (against Charney), and general sketchiness. It's amazing that the economy is what's causing the company to cut back and not Charney's penchant for winding up in court.

Theiving Bastards: As Economy Dips, Arrests for Shoplifting Soar

Police departments across the country say that shoplifting arrests are 10 percent to 20 percent higher this year than last. The problem is probably even greater than arrest records indicate since shoplifters are often banned from stores rather than arrested.

Much of the increase has come from first-time offenders making rash decisions in a pinch, the authorities say. But the ease with which stolen goods can be sold on the Internet has meant a bigger role for organized crime rings, which also engage in receipt fraud, fake price tagging and gift card schemes, the police and security experts say.

Museum of Contemporary Art Takes Broad’s Lifeline, Appoints New Chief

The Museum of Contemporary Art announced Tuesday that it had accepted a $30 million rescue offer from the philanthropist Eli Broad and would appoint a new chief executive officer and a cultural advisory committee to oversee the troubled museum’s operations and management.

The agreement caps a tumultuous few months for the museum, long recognized as having one of the country’s most esteemed collections of postwar art. But its equally esteemed and ambitious exhibitions program has for several years outstripped its financial means, causing the museum to eat through most of its endowment and land in a deep financial crisis.

VHS gasps its last breath

VHS already had a proper burial when JVC became the last firm to shut the door on VHS player production, but there was still one nail in the coffin that wasn't quite hammered shut.

Today, it all ends.

The last notable distributor of VHS films -- Distribution Video Audio out of Palm Harbor, Florida -- has shipped its final truckload of tapes, probably to a small town library or a mom 'n pop shop in a place you'll never hear of.

According to co-owner Ryan J. Kugler: "It's dead, this is it, this is the last Christmas, without a doubt."

An unceremonious way to exit, sure, but we have a sneaking suspicion that it'll one day be able to say it made it longer than practically every other physical film format that succeeded it.

XRoad G-Map app brings bona fide navigation to the iPhone

At long last, iPhone users who have grown increasingly frustrated by using Google Maps as their primary navigational tool can find relief... sort of.

Available right now in the App Store, XRoad's G-Map application requires no internet connection whatsoever in order to function; rather, it packs oodles of maps into a 932MB package that covers most of western America and a few sporadic locales on the east.

We're a bit baffled (and angered) by the not-at-all-comprehensive coverage, but we suppose we can expect updates to patch the gaps in the near future.

It provides most of the same amenities you're used to seeing on real-deal GPS units, including POI editing, memo capabilities, location searching, etc.

A word of caution, though: early reviews don't seem too stoked about it, so you may want to gloss it over good before hitting your card for $19.99.

Vice Squad

It's sad when a couple can't have children and the woman is forced to dress up and pamper a lap dog or a kitten as her sad little surrogate baby. But do you have any idea the kind of human tragedy that occurs when a couple can't have pets?

Stuff White People Like - #16 “Gifted” Children

White people love “gifted” children, do you know why? Because an astounding 100% of their kids are gifted! Isn’t that amazing?

I’m pretty sure the last non-gifted white child was born in 1962 in Reseda, CA. Since then, it’s been a pretty sweet run.

The way it works is that white kids that are actually smart are quickly identified as “gifted” and take special classes and eventually end up in college and then law school or med school.

But wait, aren’t there white people who aren’t doctors or lawyers, or even all that smart?

Well, here is another one of those awesome white person win-win situations.

Because if a white kid gets crappy grades and can’t seem to ever do anything right in school, they are still gifted! How you ask? They are just TOO smart for school. They are too creative, too advanced to care about the trivial minutiae of the day to day operations of school.

Eventually they will show their creativity in their elaborate constructions of bongs and intimate knowledge different kinds of mushrooms and hash.

This is important if you ever find yourself needing to gain white person acceptance. If you see their kid playing peacefully, you say “oh, he/she seems very focused, are they in a gifted program?” at which point the parent will say “yes.” Or if the kid is lighting a dog on fire while screaming at their mother, you say “my he/she is a creative one. Is he/she gifted?” To which the parent will reply “oh, yes, he’s too creative and smart for school. We just don’t know what to do.” Either situation will put a white person in a better mood and make them like you more.

But NEVER under any circumstance imply that their child is less than a genius. The idea that something could come from them and be less than greatness is too much for them to bear.

Fail of the Day

CMU students design equipment that senses football moves

Dr. Narasimhan is a computer engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and she and her students are equipping gloves and a football with remote sensing technology to measure everything from grip and trajectory to speed and position.

The technology would ultimately be able to tell without doubt whether the ball was caught before it bounced off the ground.

It could also show such things as who actually has the ball in a pileup, whether a runner has crossed the goal line inside a mass of humanity and whether a receiver has control of the ball before he goes out of bounds.

New Prince songs leak

5 new tracks find their way to the web. Have a listen here.

Is it Time to Raise the Gas Tax?

Even at its highest, the price of gas in America hasn't come close to European prices. Governments there have made taxes the keystone of their campaign to cut consumption, promote alternative transportation and go green. It may be time for the United States to do the same.

Surfers, Rejoice: Some Extreme Waves Getting Bigger

The largest waves in the Pacific Northwest are getting higher by seven centimeters a year, posing an increasing threat to property close to the shore. And the strange part is: Scientists aren't sure why.

A new Lost trailer premieres

App Developer Strikes E-Book Deals With Major Publishers

ScrollMotion, a New York mobile app developer, has concluded deals with a number of major publishing houses, and is in talks with several others, to produce newly released and best-selling e-books as applications for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Publishers now on board include Houghton Mifflin, Simon & Schuster, Random House, Hachette and Penguin Group USA.

Having these big names is a big step forward for iTunes itself in becoming an e-book shop and the iPhone in becoming a legitimate e-book reader and competitor to products like the Kindle and the Sony E-Reader.

U.S. Firms Join Forces to Build Car Batteries

Fourteen U.S. technology companies are joining forces and seeking $1 billion in federal aid to build a plant to make advanced batteries for electric cars, in a bid to catch up to Asian rivals that are far ahead of the U.S.

The effort, the latest pitch from corporate America to inject federal dollars into a project, is similar to an alliance that two decades ago helped the U.S. computer-chip industry restore its competitiveness. Participants include 3M Corp. and Johnson Controls Inc.

Many experts believe battery technology and manufacturing capacity could become as strategically important as oil is today. Auto makers, including General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., say they plan to roll out plug-in electric cars by 2010. But the U.S. has limited capacity to make the lithium-ion batteries those cars will need. Asian producers such as Panasonic Corp. dominate the car-battery field.

Federal energy laboratories, including the Argonne National Lab, are advising the alliance, and more companies are expected to join. Together, the consortium members estimate the plan to build the first large-scale lithium-ion battery plant in the U.S. could cost $1 billion to $2 billion.

Experts say the plan faces several hurdles, including its high cost and the fact the U.S. has lost the lead in battery manufacturing.

Vice Squad

As cool as it would be to have telekinesis, you know there'd be no way to keep your brain under control when a girl like this walks up with her top held together by one stressed out button.

Stuff White People Like - #15 Yoga

Although its origins are from India, one can find more yoga studios in white neighbourhoods such as Kitsilano or Orange County than in Kolkata. Participation in this activity requires large amounts of money and time, both of which white people have a lot of. Yoga is basically the practice of stretching for one hour. Stertching should only take five minutes, other peoples would rather spend the extra fifty five minutes playing in an actual sport or spending time with their families and friends.

Yoga is also an expensive activity. It gives white people the chance to showcase their $80 pants. The cost of four yoga classes is equal to the amount of money it would take to pay for uniforms and travel costs of an AAU Basketball team in the inner city. Lastly like other stuff that white people like, yoga feels exotic and foreign (ties into post #2 about eastern religions) and deep down in some way, white people feel that participation makes up for years of colonial rule in India.

Please note that opening up Yoga studios in Brampton or Surrey will yield little success

Fail of the Day