Hotel 747 Now Boarding

Oscar Dios has transformed a retired Boeing 747 into motel for the budget-minded traveler, and parked it outside the Stockholm airport.

The 25-room, 85-bed Jumbo Hostel is scheduled to open next week and is now accepting reservations on its website for stays beginning Jan. 15. Dorm rooms start at 350 Swedish kronor ($45), with deluxe private rooms at $1,350 Kroner ($175).

For even more, you can spend the night in the plane's cockpit, which has been converted to a sort of honeymoon suite and is the only room on the plane with its own bathroom and shower.

Fleet Foxes to play "Saturday Night Live"

Fleet Foxes will be appearing as the musical guest on the January 17th episode of Saturday Night Live, hosted by Rosario Dawson, no doubt mostly thanks to my praising review of them a little more than a week ago. IAO carries a lot of weight, let me tell you.

The Seattle natives will perform "Blue Ridge Mountains" and "Mykonos".

I suggest you tune in.

Pretty Good...Pretty Good.

Vice Squad

This girl was worried about her “big hips” which is girl for a “fat ass” which is guy for: lying alone in bed with your wubbie jammed into your face crying, “Why can’t this wubbie be a pair of ‘hips’ or ‘fat ass’ or whatever they fuck they’re calling heaven these days?”

Stuff White People Like - #30 Wrigley Field

One of the best things someone can do to gain the respect and trust of a white person, is to attend a baseball game with them at Wrigley Field, the home of the Chicago Cubs. When most people think of the Chicago Cubs they think of tradition, ivy covered walls, Fergie Jenkins & Harry Caray. A more accurate representation would be khaki shorts, frat boys & rich white business men on their iphones. The 1980s television show Perfect Strangers best illustrates this point. In the opening credits, foreigner Balky Bartokomous is taken to Wrigley Field. This was more or less symbolic of what Balky had to do, to understand white America.

Ethnic person (third from left) gaining the trust of white people

Reasons why white people like Wrigley Field
1. Experiencing tradition at a high cost
2. Located on the North Side
3. Its Trendy
4. Comfortable Surroundings

1. Experiencing tradition at a high cost

The main reason why people flock to Wrigley Field each year is the fact that it is one of the few ballparks that is trapped in time. People come to experience baseball tradition (although the definition of tradition when it comes to baseball is sketchy, remember the sport did not integrate until 1947). However this tradition comes at a high cost, which white people don’t mind. On prime dates a ticket in the bleachers costs $45. But this does not deter rich white people from enjoying the “simpler things” in life. Wrigley is an old stadium where people still pee in troths, but white people love paying top dollar to do this. They also like being around “real baseball fans”, even though most of the people in the bleachers are drunk rich frat kids that aren’t from Chicago and have no idea who Ernie Banks is. Compare that to the left field pavilion in Dodger Stadium , where tickets are $11 and the people are much more fun and less irritating However the left field pavilion is generally the hispanic section which makes it less of a tourist attraction than the Wrigley bleachers (Unlike having black friends, it is not yet cool to have Hispanic friends)

2. Located on the North Side

Wrigley Field is located on the North Side of Chicago. The North side is basically the gentrified, trendy part of Chicago. Also many white people listen to Jim Croce (whom most think is black) and the perception of most non-Chicago people (the majority of Cubs fans) of the Windy city is through the song “Bad. bad, Leroy Brown”

Well the south side of chicago
Is the baddest part of town
And if you go down there
You better just beware
Of a man named leroy brown

This is one of the main reasons why people do not venture to watch the Chicago White Sox. They are located on the South Side which is viewed as the “baddest part of town” where of course black people named “Leroy” live.

3. Its Trendy

Liking the Cubs right now is trendy. They haven’t won a World Series since 1908, they are located on the North Side and celebrities like them. Bill Murray, John Cusak, and Hillary Clinton (although she flip flops between them and the Yankees) are all Cubs fans. One should keep up to date on things that are trendy in order to befriend more white people. ie) eating expensive Indian food, shopping Organic, or going on a wild rose detox. So for the upcoming season, try to know at least one player on the Chicago Cubs and defend Mark Prior at all costs

4. Comfortable Surroundings

Wrigley Field is known as the Friendly Confines and white people feel comfortable there because other than Ronnie Woo Woo, most Cubs fans are white (and we are not talking about the white people that go to White Sox games). Next to a Dave Matthews Band reunion concert, one can not find a bigger collection of khaki shorts and golf shirts than the Wrigley Bleachers. Also once a friend of mine was sitting in the bleachers next to a pretty girl with an LSU sweater. She was talking about Baton Rouge and said “I love it but I can’t stand all the n%#%%ers” TRUE STORY. What is most disturbing is the fact that she said this in such a nonchalant manner. Simply put, this individual from the south finally found a place in the North where she felt her views were acceptable. I sense that if she were sitting in the Left Field Pavallion at Dodger Stadium, she would not be so open about her true feelings.

So if you find it difficult to befriend white people, it doesn’t help to know a little something about the Cubs and to suggest a trip to Wrigley Field.

Fail of the Day

Just Because...

Vice Squad

Yeah, that’s what the world needs right now. More of your cum in it.

Stuff White People Like - #26 Manhattan (now Brooklyn too!)

Often times if you ask a white person about where to travel, you will get a lot of responses. But if you ask them about New York, white people will go nuts. They love the city universally and all either live there, have lived there, will live there or want to live there.

White people like New York because it has artists, restaurants, a subway, history, diversity, plays, and other white people. It literally has everything white people need to thrive! The only thing it’s missing is nature, but Central Park is right there, and since you are walking all the time, you are outside!

If you are from New York, tell this to a white person. They will instantly be interested in you “what part of New York? and you are really from there?” When they inevitably tell you about your home town (”I know this great italian place…”) you should respond by saying “man, I thought place was only known to New Yorkers.”

Another secret fact about white people, if you are in group setting and the topic of New York City comes up, find the highest ranking white person and say “oh, are you from New York?”

To them, this means you are calling them cultured, cool, and urban. They will respond with something like “oh, well, I’ve spent a lot of time there,” or “I lived there for three years.” You will have instantly become more popular than all other people in the group.

Fail of the Day

The Airborne Elegance of the A380

Take a tour of the elite, upper deck of Emirates' first A380, where you can grab a shower in the front, and mill about the cocktail lounge in the back.

The new model will serve the 13-hour Dubai-New York route thrice weekly, with a second A380 expected to be deployed on the Dubai-London route in December, followed by New Zealand in February 2009. The rapidly growing Emirates has 57 more A380s on order through June 2013, which will make it the largest operator of the behemoth.

Fly Through the Remnants of a Supernova

New observations of a star that exploded 330 years ago have been combined into a three-dimensional fly-through.

The video begins with a rendering of the dense neutron star left over from the supernova explosion and takes you flying through and around visualized data gathered by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope.

Obama's Presidential Limo Will Be a 'Rolling Tank With Windows'

According to Presidential vehicle experts, the new limo is a beast-like General Motors truck-based Cadillac that is so tough it's like a 'rolling tank with windows.'

Among the vehicle's main features are windows that are 5 inches thick, 19.5-inch Goodyear RHS tires (same as super tough trucks), and possibly even a lock safety mechanism that seals off the car like a bank vault in case of an emergency.

Because the Secret Service keeps details of the limo understandably private, even the most knowledgeable security experts don't really know how much gadgety tech is being installed in the new ride. But it's not stopping them making a few informed guesses.

In an interview with CNN, security expert Ken Lucci says rubber gaskets likely protect the car against chemical weapons and that the body will be made out of a tougher material than before. The most recent limo used by President Bush used some combination of a dual hardness steel, aluminum, titanium and even ceramics to break up possible projectiles. And there are usually steel overlaps that cover any gaps a door might leave.

Sushi Moguls Buy Japan’s Priciest Tuna

Two sushi bar owners paid more than $100,000 for a Japanese bluefin tuna at a Tokyo fish auction on Monday, several times the average price and the highest in years.

The 282-pound premium tuna caught off the northern coast of Oma fetched 9.63 million yen ($104,400), the highest since 2001, when a Japanese bluefin tuna brought in 20 million yen, market official Takashi Yoshida said.

Mr. Yoshida said the purchase -- about $370 a pound -- went to a Hong Kong sushi bar owner and his Japanese competitor who reached a settlement to share the big fish.

The Hong Kong buyer also paid the highest price at last year's New Year event at Tokyo's Tsukiji market, the world's largest fish seller, which holds near-daily auctions.

A slightly bigger imported bluefin caught off the East Coast of the U.S. sold for 1.42 million yen ($15,400) in Monday's auction.

"It was the best tuna of the day, but the price shot up because of the shortage of domestic bluefin," Mr. Yoshida said, citing rough weather in December. Buyers vied for only three Oma bluefin tuna Monday, compared with 41 at the 2008 New Year's auction.

Typical tuna prices at Tokyo fish markets are less than $25 a pound. But bluefin tuna is considered by gourmets to be the best and goes for very high prices in restaurants.

Premium fish also have advertising value, and are seen to underscore a restaurant's quality, as a rare wine does.

Because of growing concerns over the impact of commercial fishing on the bluefin variety's survival, members of international tuna conservation organizations, including Japan, have agreed to cut their bluefin catch quota for 2009 by 20% to 22,000 tons.

Vice Squad

Faggy can be rough when it's 5 AM in a back room of the Cock, but if you can get it to just the point where your life looks like the cover of a Beat Happening album, there's no touching it.

Stuff White People Like - #25 David Sedaris

For many of you, this post will be a confusing as you wonder who exactly this David Sedaris is. He is a humorist who writes for the New Yorker and has seveal books including Barrel Fever and Holidays on Ice.

His stuff is kind of funny, but white people go crazy and will pay hundreds of dollars to hear him read from his own book. Let me say that again, they will pay money to see someone read from a book they have already read. They know the jokes are coming, they know the punch lines, but they feel the need to hear the author actually say it.

White people universally love David Sedaris. So if they ever ask you “who are you favorite authors?” you should always reply “David Sedaris.” They will instantly launch into a story about how much they love his work, and the conversation will go from there, and you don’t have to talk about books any more.

It is also safer than saying Jonathan Franzen, Dave Eggers, or Shakespeare. White people are very divided on these authors and might actually ask you questions about why you like them. Stick with David Sedaris, you can’t lose! If they do you press you, just say “I read a lot, and I never laugh out loud from a writer, but Sedaris is just brilliant.”

This advice will make white people respect you, trust you and more willing to invite to you parties.

Fail of the Day

Burton's 'Porn Boards' Heat Up The Slopes

For the current snow season, Burton launched a limited-edition series of snowboards called "Love" that show bare-backside images from seventies Playboy magazines, featuring the tagline "I'm on the market for someone who's looking to score serious action, no matter where they like to stick it".

Now for me, the story ends there. Well done Burton. Big pat on the back. I'd love to work for you writing copy, but it sounds like you've already got an absolutely great group of fellows doing that for you.

As with anything good, however, there come naysayers. If you're interested in what they have to say, click here.

I didn't think so.

Ski in the comfort of your living room

This actually looks kind of sweet, as far as these new confangled interactive video games go. Okay, apparently 'confangled' is not a word, but it should be and you know what I mean.

SkiGym promises to improve your skiing ability and give you a workout in the process. You can either hook the fully-motorized device up to your PC and play the included Alpine Ski Racing game, or simply use it on its own as a piece of exercise equipment.

Not surprisingly, this doesn't come cheap (that's what she said), costing around $2,300.

The Dick Tracy watch has finally arrived. Honestly.

I remember as a kid seeing Dick Tracy with Warren Beatty and Madonna and thinking that the camera phone watches were easily the coolest thing I'd ever seen. Rumors of their development swirled, especially in the midwest where I grew up.

Similar claims that the hoverboards seen in Back To The Future II existed in a magical land called California were not only reasonable, they were taken as fact. It would just be a matter of time until these great advancements in technology would make their way to Minnesota.

Alas, after moving to California solely in search of these items and finding only lies and disappointment, I am happy to report that one is finally a reality.

The LG wrist watch camera phone packs a touchscreen LCD, 3G data, and a built-in camera for videoconferencing. LG should be showing it off at CES next month, with plans to release it in Japan and Europe. I'm sure the U.S. will follow shortly after that. As will the fulfillment of a long awaited childhood dream.

And so the world will be restored to balance.

TV for the iPhone now available

SlingPlayer Mobile gives consumers their entire home TV experience, including local channels, local sports teams, video on demand, pay per view, etc. Any program that you can watch on your sofa back home, you can now watch via your iPhone using a standard network connection (3G Cellular, WiFi).

In addition, SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone users can also control their home digital video recorder (DVR) to watch recorded shows, pause, rewind, and fast forward live TV, or even queue new recordings while on the road.

New Röyksopp Album Coming Soon

Norwegian downtempo duo Röyksopp haven't blessed us with a proper album since The Understanding almost four years ago, but that's about to change.

On their website, Torbjørn Brundtland and Svein Berge announced that Junior, their third album, will be coming out on March 23.

This time around, they've recruited themselves an all-star team of icy Scandinavian pop-goddess collaborators: Robyn, Lykke Li, Anneli Drecker, the Knife's Karin Dreijer.

Drecker and Dreijer have both laced Röyksopp tracks in the past, Dreijer on "What Else Is There" and Drecker on "Sparks"; Robyn and Lykke Li are both new to the group.

Here's the tracklist:

01 Happy Up Here
02 The Girl and the Robot
03 Vision One
04 This Must Be It
05 Röysopp Forever
06 Miss It So Much
07 Tricky Tricky
08 You Don't Have a Clue
09 Silver Cruiser
10 True to Life
11 It's What I Want

The first single, "Happy Up Here", is out March 9.

The duo are also offering a new non-album song, "Happy Birthday", for free download on their site.

Apple Drops Anticopying Measures in iTunes

Apple said it would begin selling song downloads from all four major music companies without the anticopying measures that have been part of its iTunes store since it opened in 2003. It will also move away from its insistence on pricing songs at 99 cents.

They are the product of a new deal between Apple and the three largest music companies: Sony BMG, the Universal Music Group and the Warner Music Group. As the recording industry has sought for years, the price of many older and less popular songs in the store will drop to 69 cents beginning in April, while the biggest new hits will go for $1.29. Others that are in more moderate demand will remain at 99 cents.

As the disclaimer above indicates, you'll have the opportunity to upgrade the songs you've already purchased on iTunes at $0.30 a pop, and $0.60 for videos.

Also, you will now be able to download songs straight to your iPhone using 3G.

Presenting...Jaydiohead

Well, The Grey Album combining Jay Z with The Beatles was popular enough, so why not try a mash-up of Jay Z with Radiohead. The result is Jaydiohead. It's actually pretty well done, if you're into that sort of thing.

Vice Squad

This is kind of what the world is going to be like once we win the War on Terror, end poverty, and give every child on earth a laptop. Life will become one big Saturday afternoon where everyone’s friends and all horror DVDs come with a gram of pot.

Stuff White People Like - #23 Microbreweries

White people don’t like stuff that’s easy to acquire. Beer is no exception.

They generally try to avoid beers like Budweiser, Labatt’s, Molson, Coors, and Heineken because if it’s mass produced it is bad. No exceptions.

So when they need a beer, they turn to microbrews who seem to be located almost exclusively in New England, Ontario, Quebec and Colorado. Being able to walk into a bar and order a beer that no one has heard of makes white people feel good about their alcohol drinking palate.

A friend of mine once met a white guy who brought a notebook with him to every bar. He would then keep a record of all the beers he drank and his experience with them. He called it his ‘beer journal.’

Also of note: most white people want to open a microbrewery at some point. One that uses organic hops.

Fail of the Day

Alphabetical Order

Erica Weiner's Lower East Side studio is a house of vintage trinkets and found objects, which she transforms into antique-inspired jewelry with a decidedly modern edge.

Among the retro and vintage is this gold letterpress necklace ($60), which features an old typewriter key used on the hand-cranked Vandercook Proof Presses, dipped in fourteen-karat gold and hung from a 22-inch gold-vermeil chain. The old keys were destined to be melted down and recast until Weiner rescued them.

With slightly varying fonts and sizes for each letters of the alphabet, you can wear one to represent just about anything.

Holding a bag and box with one hand

A German condom company named Condomi makes these shopping bags with handle cutouts to make it look like you're cupping crotches when you carry them. They come in a man and woman.

That's a bag I would be proud to carry.

Beijing to Get A Broadway of Its Own

The distance between a Broadway show and an authentic Chinese meal is about to get a lot shorter, at least for theatergoers in the Eastern hemisphere. A $686 million construction project will bring a 32-theater complex to Beijing, where imports of Western musicals and other shows will play year-round.

The entertainment complex is being built by Beijing Shibo Real Estate in the city’s Haidian district, and is expected to run more than 100 shows a year. Its biggest theater will seat 2,000 people, while others will accommodate 300 to 500 audience members. Translated versions of Western musicals like “Mamma Mia!” and “The Lion King” have become increasingly popular in China, and theatrical producers like Cameron Mackintosh and Nederlander Worldwide Entertainment have previously announced plans to bring their shows to that country.

Kyoto Celebrates a 1,000-Year Love Affair

The last year has been busier than most in Kyoto. This city, known for its shrines, temples and blazing autumn hills, is celebrating the millennial anniversary of Murasaki Shikibu’s episodic story of love and loss among the imperial set.

Considered by some to be the world’s first novel, “Genji” evokes particular pride in Japan’s ancient capital. The author’s ancestral home was on Teramachi Street, and she served as a lady-in-waiting at the imperial court. Even better, Lady Murasaki set much of the amorous action involving her decadent hero, the “Shining Prince,” in the mansions and palaces of Heian-kyo, as Kyoto once was called.

Law on Flu Vaccinations May Be Tested

New Jersey, the first state in the nation to require flu shots for young schoolchildren, set a Dec. 31 deadline for parents to obtain flu vaccinations for their children. It was part of a new policy requiring a total of four additional immunizations for schoolchildren over the objections of some parents who worry about possible risks from vaccinations.

The requirement applies to children between 6 months and 5 years who are attending licensed day care and preschool programs. State public health experts said that flu shots for young children are important for overall public health.

Is It Healthy to Store Food Near a Microwave Oven?

I would say no, the New York Times claims yes. What do they know?

Blu-ray’s Fuzzy Future

I'm glad I just got myself a Blu-ray player!

This year will be crucial for the new format. Heavy holiday discounting and the natural decline in electronics prices over time have pushed prices for some Blu-ray players under $200, a drop of well more than half in the last few years — and into the realm of affordability for many. At the same time, Blu-ray’s backers, including Sony and the Walt Disney Company, face a growing chorus of skeptics that says the window for a high-definition disc format may be closing fast.

One reason is that discs of all kinds may become obsolete as a new wave of digital media services starts to flow into the living room. On Monday, for example, the Korean television maker LG Electronics plans to announce a new line of high-definition televisions that connect directly to the Internet with no set-top box required. The televisions will be able to play movies and television shows from online video-on-demand services, including Netflix.

“The Blu-ray format is in jeopardy simply because the advent of downloadable HD movies is so close,” said Roger L. Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates. a research and consulting company. “Streaming video from the Internet and other means of direct digital delivery are going to put optical formats out of business entirely over the next few years.”

This just sounds like a good way for scientists to get free cocaine

Buzz has a whole new meaning now that scientists are giving bees cocaine.

To learn more about the biochemistry of addiction, scientists in Australia dropped liquefied freebase cocaine on bees’ backs, so it entered the circulatory system and brain.

The scientists found that bees react much like humans do: cocaine alters their judgment, stimulates their behavior and makes them exaggeratedly enthusiastic about things that might not otherwise excite them.

What’s more, bees exhibit withdrawal symptoms. When a coked-up bee has to stop cold turkey, its score on a standard test of bee performance (learning to associate an odor with sugary syrup) plummets.

Like I said, a good way to get free cocaine.

Vice Squad

Sorry but the band has to be disbanded at 30. And we’re not saying you’re on coke but you have to give that up too. There’s a reason John Peel, Joe Strummer, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, and John Entwistle all died in the wee hours.

Stuff White People Like - #119 Sea Salt

Regardless of how much a white person cooks or how long they have lived in their current home, they all have a tube of sea salt in their pantry. In fact, it’s one of the few foodstuffs that white people will actually bring with them when they move. This is because sea salt is expensive and while white people have money, they didn’t get that way by throwing away $7 packages of salt.

When white people think about regular salt, all they can think about is sodium and poor health. When they think about Sea Salt they think about France. So it’s no surprise that it has become so popular.

But Sea Salt is like Trader Joes, Banksy, or The Shins–entry level to their respective field. Therefore, it is important that you learn about other more expensive salts so that you can complain about not having them. To a white person, this shows that you know and love expensive things but feel sad that you can’t yet afford them.

From here you can fill up an entire evening by making the same complaints about art, real estate or Europe.

Fail of the Day