Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi smiles during a news conference for her new movie 'Memoirs of a Geisha' in Tokyo November 28, 2005. The movie, based on a best-selling novel, is the first big-budget Hollywood romance to feature an almost entirely Asian cast. (Yuriko Nakao/Reuters)
He works at a Wendy's, and his name is Ronald MacDonald -- but now he may be known as the Hamburglar. Two workers at a Wendy's in Manchester have been charged with taking money from the safe. One of the suspects is Ronald MacDonald.
Police said the restaurant's manager called them early Monday morning after he saw MacDonald and the other man taking cash out of the restaurant's safe.
The labels inside U.S. Border Patrol uniforms have been making many federal agents feel uneasy. It's not the fit or feel of the olive-green shirts and pants, but what their labels read: “Made in Mexico.''
Agents and lawmakers are concerned about the consequences if the uniforms for agents charged with combating illegal immigration fall into the hands of criminals or terrorists.
Rather than recording on the surface of the media, the holographic technology records inside the disc on a photosensitive material. The holographic patterns are stored with a signal laser beam in conjunction with a reference beam.
Shipments of the 300-GB product will begin in 2006, with an 800-GB product expected in 2008 and a 1.6-TB version in 2010, D'Ambrise said.
FOR TIPS ON FINDING THE PERFECT SNOWBOARD SIZE READ THIS:
As in many industries, there is an abundance of misinformation in the snowboard world. The following tips come from years of experience in the industry, and are designed to cut through some of the tech talk and misleading jargon.
If you would like us to find you the perfect board for your needs, please post the following information: Weight, Shoe size, Preferred style of riding, Ability level, Areas at which you most typically ride.
Where your nose is, does not determine what size of snowboard you should ride! Or your chin, ears, shoulders or any other body part for that matter. These are the silliest rules for sizing boards that could possibly be imagined, and yet they persist. We hear new ones everyday, "my friend told me that a board should come to in between my chin and my nose." Why, are you planning to nibble on it? These generalities are good ways to end up with a completely inappropriate board. Why do such rules exist, you ask?
It is due to the fact that finding the right board takes a bit of research and knowledge. The easy way, however incorrect, is much quicker. A snowboard reacts to only two factors, how much pressure is being applied to it (weight), and where that pressure is coming from (shoe size). Boards are designed around riders of a certain weight. The total weight range for a given board will be around 50 pounds (although manufacturers tend to exaggerate this range to make their products sellable to a wider variety of customers).
Two men who stand six feet tall and have there noses at identical heights, may be separated by 100 pounds of weight. This would change the boards they should ride by two entire categories of stiffness, and length. You will also want to make sure that the board is appropriate for your shoe size. One half to three quarters of an inch of overhang (yes, overhang) off the edge of your board is ideal (when wearing snowboard boots, and measured at the stance angle that you will ride). We will discuss this more below when we address width in detail.
The 2006 edition of the Pirelli Calendar, a cult object for more than 40 years for people who love photography, beauty, and the evolution of society, has been presented in a world premiere in Paris.
Jennifer Lopez, making her Pirelli Calendar debut, Giselle Bundchen (chosen for the 2001 calendar by Mario Testino), Guinevere Van Seenus, Kate Moss (who made her debut in the famous 1994 Herb Ritts edition), Karen Elson (extremely young in the Herb Ritts 1999 calendar and also appearing in the 2001 edition by Mario Testino), and Natalia Vodianova (who made her debut in 2003 with Bruce Weber and also starred in Nick Knight's 2004 edition) are nude, sexy and gorgeous in 27 shots that make up the most transgressive edition of "The Cal".
So you have kidnapped Matt Damon. Good for you. Millions of Americans think about doing this their whole lives but never realize their true Matt Damon kidnapping potential. You are living the dream.
A Stafford, Virginia, Electronics Boutique store was the scene of an armed robbery this morning. According to sources, the perpetrator made off with two Xbox 360 systems, forcing the store manager to hand them over at gunpoint.
Photocopier supplier Canon is warning customers to take better care of their office equipment during the Christmas period, claiming that the festive season traditionally leads to a 25 percent hike in service calls due to incidents such as the classic backside copying prank.
Such a stunt, a mainstay of the office party, often results in cracked glass on the copier, with 32 percent of Canon technicians claiming to have been called out to fix glass plates during the Christmas period after attempts to copy body parts went wrong.
Tim Andrews, a Canon employee from London, said: "We always fit lots of new glass to copiers after New Year due to 'rear-end copying.'"
IN a surprise statement to a shocked America, General Motors (GM) revealed that the popular SUV known only as the H2 made by GM subsidiary Hummer (previously of AMC) was in fact an elaborate joke on an unsuspecting public.
“It was all just a bit of fun really,” said GM Vice-Chairman Robert Lotz, “I mean look at it,” he continued laughing, “it’s hilarious, it looks like an oversized toy.”
More details continue to emerge hourly but it is now apparent that the H2 was intended as a private joke between engineers. The plans were accidentally found by management and considered genuine. A middle management director, whose name has been withheld, gathered up the plans with the intent to re-file them. However the director did not immediately get around to it. He found the plans in his briefcase when conducting a market research exercise and, on a whim, decided to pass the plans around. The result was very positive. The H2 scored well in several subsequent focus groups.
The Indiana home economist who invented Stove Top Stuffing in 1971, Ruth Siems, died at her home in Newburgh. She was 74.
Siems developed the stuffing, one of General Foods Corp.'s (now Kraft Foods Inc.) top convenience products, in 1971 while working at the corporation's White Plains, N.Y., facility, the Evansville (Ind.) Courier & Press reported.
In 1975, General Foods was awarded a U.S. patent for the stuffing, with Siems' name preceding three male co-inventors, the New York Times said. She retired from General Foods in 1985 after a 33 1/2-year career.
Today, Kraft Foods sells about 60 million boxes of it at Thanksgiving, a company spokeswoman said.
"It's a few reports of consoles here and there not working properly," said Molly O'Donnell, a spokeswoman for Microsoft's Xbox division. "It's what you would expect with a consumer electronics instrument of this complexity .... par for the course."
Gaming fanatics lined up for hours Monday to be among the first to purchase the next-generation system, which was in short supply despite its starting price tag of $299.99. Microsoft hopes to sell 2.5 million to 3 million of the new systems in the first 90 days.
O'Donnell urged anyone with Xbox problems to call 1-800-4myXbox or go to www.xbox.com. If the problems can't be resolved immediately, Microsoft said it will pay to ship the console overnight to a repair center, overnight it back once it's fixed, or ship a replacement.
Just how widespread is the scope of 360 problems, though? It's a little too early to call whether these problems are systemic or isolated bugs. Consumers have to spend a little more time with the machines and we do, too, testing out various games and Xbox Live experiences.
We also need to divide the hardware problems from the software bugs. Microsoft has been alerted to these issues and are currently investigating. We should have a statement from them shortly.
Is there enough evidence to shout "recall"? While there are plenty of stories in the games press and blogging scene this morning, many of them seem centered on one fellow's experience - a poster called "Jsgongwon" on the Xbox-Scene forums who included pictures of his crash, which apparently happened repeatedly during Project Gotham Racing 3. "So far haven't been able to play one track without crashing... also got this crashing on Xbox Live screen and on startup too..."
Shoppers waiting in line for the new Xbox 360 video game player scuffled outside a Wal-Mart Supercenter when a manager improvised rules for who would get the game first. It took more than 10 police officers to restore order, though no one was arrested.
A crowd of about 300 people were waiting late Monday for the game to go on sale at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. Some of them had waited 12 hours when a night manager said the Xboxes would be sold on a first-come, first-served basis, instead of using a number system devised by customers. "It was like a mosh pit," 30-year-old Michael Pearman of Newark, Del., told the Cecil Whig.
Forget slaving over a hot stove, fishing out the giblets and peeling the veggies -- this year's Christmas Dinner is coming out of a soda bottle.
Topping the menu is a delicate smoked salmon pate drink, preparing the palate for sodas flavored with turkey and gravy or a dull green liquid masquerading as brussels sprouts.
On the side, try a sip of wild herb stuffing or broccoli casserole garnished with cranberry sauce, then wash it down with dessert -- pumpkin or Pecan pie soda.
Jones Soda Company is known for its unorthodox flavors, and markets its products as "good old soda, with a twist."
Parents are calling for the recall of the recently released game 'Freeway' after reports a teenager was found playing in traffic.
Witnesses say he was playing the game for 26 hours in a row. The 15 year old told police that he was just trying to cross the road, but latest research shows that children that play computer games in their youth will unknowingly act out the game later in life.
We find it difficult to believe that the popular game 'pac-man' is influencing our children to grow up listening to repetitive music while chomping down pills.
Seems that the Xbox 360 launching today is about the only news out there. You can read [H] evaluation of the Xbox 360 and see what they thought of MS’s next-gen console.
We came into this review with a very skeptical eye, not wanting to be bowled over by high tech hardware, flashy graphics, catchy games or marketing hype. The reason we must be careful in these types of situations is that we are not only hardware enthusiasts, but we are also gamers at heart; products like the Xbox 360 cater to our weaknesses for high horsepower hardware and graphically impressive games.
A 17-year-old boy who was one of the first in this city to buy one of the much-anticipated new Xbox 360 video games was assaulted and robbed as he left the store, police say.
The boy was attacked by two males around 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, when stores nationwide began selling the new Xbox system. The attackers took the game valued at about $450 and fled on foot. The boy suffered minor injuries to his face, police said.
This combination recorder and stereo system allows you to preserve your classic vinyl records by recording them to CDs so you can enjoy your favorite music when traveling without damaging the delicate original medium, or having to manage an oversized protective case.
It takes a few simple steps to faithfully transfer an LP to a digital audio CD-R or CD-RW, and at any time during recording you can pause to select only certain songs, turn the album over, change albums, or make compilation recordings. Unlike many single-function audio components, this system is more than just a recorder—it accommodates 33s, 45s, and 78s, and has a built-in AM/FM stereo .
Windows certainly wasn't greeted as inevitable when it was proposed in the autumn of 1983. It seemed an outrageously ambitious goal to construct a universal software layer on top of the IBM PC platform, infamous for its low-level quirks.
When Microsoft started talking about Windows, Apple was a few years away from the release of its groundbreaking HyperCard—but it wasn't until 1990 that Windows 3.0 was actually useful, with another year before Visual Basic 1.0 made Windows development feasible for users.
Google Base beta went live yesterday giving you a way to add any kind of information you like into a searchable database.
You can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they search Google Base. In fact, based on the relevance of your items, they may also be included in the main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle and Google Local.
Excessive computer gaming has the hallmarks of addiction, suggests new experiments on "drug memory". The researchers argue it should be classified as such, enabling “addicts” to start seeking help.
They compared 15 men in their 20s who admitted that gaming had chased other activities – such as work and socialising – out of their lives, and 15 game-playing but otherwise healthy controls.
But excessive computer game players showed classic signs of craving when they were presented with freeze-frames from some of their favourite games – they desperately wanted to play, expected to feel better once they did, and fully intended to indulge again as soon as possible.
Capable of being rolled up into a pouch the size of a small handbag, this is the worlds most portable musical keyboard, allowing you to play impromptu performances virtually anywhere.
The electronic piano has 49 soft rubber keys that cover a four-octave range and are attached to a flexible neoprene pad (the same material used in wetsuits) that rolls into a compact cylinder for convenient portability. The keys are sensitive enough to be played with a light touch for relaxed playing, and the control panel houses a single speaker, volume control, and a jack for connecting your headphones or an amplifier.
Melissa O'Neil's self-titled debut album will be available November 22. Not only is Melissa the first female Canadian Idol, but at 17, she's also the youngest North American Idol - ever.
Melissa O'Neil (born July 12, 1988 in Calgary, Alberta) was the winner of the third season of Canadian Idol. She is a high school student at Lester B. Pearson High School, born and raised in Calgary, Alberta (parents Tim O'Neil and Alison Yeung). O'Neil has worked at a daycare centre, and has been involved in local musical theatre productions. Her mother has been quoted as saying that the singing only really started three years ago.
Mang Films created by David O'Grady a Freebord Pro rider shows you how it's done in Canada. A skateboard that acts like a snowboard. Big deal you say. Well, until you see the video, reserve judgment. At the very least it’s worth watching just to see Mang ( Dave O'Grady ) pummel down a road at over 60 km ignoring the stop signs.
A tiny parcel of land in southwest Indiana is some of the priciest real estate in the world. Owen County officials are trying to sell a 1-square-inch plot of land for $1,500. At that rate, an acre of land would cost nearly $7 billion. No buyers ponied up for the postage-stamp-sized plot during a tax sale.
A US court heard how a man searched for the words "neck," "snap," "break" and "hold" on an Internet search engine before his wife died. Robert Petrick is charged with murdering his wife, Janine Sutphen, nearly two years after her body was found floating in a Raleigh lake
If you liked the Bunny Suicides and you would like to help the author, Andy Riley would surely appreciate it if you bought his book. You can purchase the books here and here at Amazon.
Louise Ogborn was always willing to take on extra shifts at McDonald's in Mount Washington, Ky. Ogborn's mother had health problems and had recently lost her job, so the 18-year-old did whatever she could to help make ends meet.
On April 9, 2004, Ogborn offered to work through the restaurant's evening rush, trying to be helpful and make a few extra dollars. "I was just going to eat and then clock back in and help until somebody else came along that could help," she said. But Ogborn couldn't have known that her noble gesture would turn into a terrifying ordeal that she says will haunt her for the rest of her life.
A cow of 1.45 metres in height pushed at an angle of 23.4 degrees relative to the ground would require 2,910 Newtons of force, equivalent to 4.43 people, she wrote.
But now, much to the relief of dairy herds, the sport of cow-tipping has been debunked as an urban, or perhaps rural, myth by scientists at a Canadian university
Microsoft Corp. expects to sell up to 3 million of its new Xbox videogame consoles within 90 days of the console's launch, an executive said Tuesday.
Bryan Lee, chief financial officer with Microsoft's Home and Entertainment unit, told investors and analysts at the Harris Nesbitt Media and Entertainment Conference that the company is aiming to sell between 2.75 million and 3 million consoles worldwide within 90 days following its Nov. 22 debut in North America.
The North American debut will be followed by a Dec. 2 launch in Europe and a Dec. 10 launch in Japan.
If your preordered one of the two Xbox 360 bundles EB Games offered online, you received an e-mail this morning. If you placed your order early, the news was good. "Currently, we anticipate enough inventory at launch to fill all orders for the Ultimate Bundle placed before August 30 and all orders placed for the Core Bundle before October 28," read the e-mail. The company said it plans on shipping the consoles out on November 21, meaning by week's end, most should have arrived at their destinations.
Unfortunately, customers who ordered their Xbox 360 bundles more recently may be in for a very long wait. On EBgames.com, each bundle's product description now bears the following stark warning in red bold type: "Due to high demand, orders placed after October 26th may not ship until 2006."
The fluffy creation contains special pads filled with an eco-friendly gel that can be easily heated in a microwave or with a hot water bottle. Being padded, the new bra packs a little more bulk than most regular designs, but the Japanese arm of Triumph insisted the look was more chic than sheep.
Get in now for your chance to win an iPod Nano. Photoshop is not only OK but recommended. Enter the photo contest below for your chance to win an iPod Nano.
In any case, the iPod isn't the first Apple connection to the Xbox 360. Because the new game console uses an IBM chip similar to the G5 in Apple's Power Mac, Microsoft used the Apple desktops to test out early Xbox titles.
Some industry observers are applauding Microsoft for designing iPod integration into the Xbox 360 the ability to stream in music.
Podcasting, a new technology that lets anyone create and distribute radio shows automatically over the Internet, is showing no signs of slowing. Over the past six months, the number of podcasts has jumped 25-fold to 5,302 feeds in mid-May. Remind anyone of the early days of the World Wide Web?
If you looking to get an Xbox 360, you are going to have to drop some serious coin in order to get one. I found out that if you have money, online retailers will still let you pre-order a Xbox 360. How comes? I thought there is a shortage? Seems the shortage is limited to low priced bundles (if you can call them low priced).
Gamestop shows very visually that all their Xbox 360 bundles are sold out besides the Omega Bundle ($1,999.69) and the Omega Bundle with a Dell Plasma Screen TV ($4,499.68). So not only Microsoft is playing games also the retailers are doing it.
Compared to Gamestop, Amazon actually has now new 'reasonable' priced Xbox 360 bundles available for pre-order. Their initial Xbox 360 bundles are gone. Now Amazon.com (through Toys'R'Us) offers three Xbox 360 bundles each priced at $999.95:
They're calling it a "girlcott." Some teenage girls are calling for a boycott of trendy retailer Abercrombie and Fitch over some racy T-shirts.
The shirts have slogans like "Who needs brains when you have these" or "I had a nightmare I was a brunette." The protest began in the Pittsburgh area when about two dozen girls demonstrated outside an Abercrombie's. Now, the protest is spreading.
Ohio State University student Elizabeth Ritter says the shirts are degrading and she wouldn't wear one. A statement from Abercrombie says the shirts are very popular with young women, their target market.
A couple of years ago an Abercrombie catalog featuring topless models caused such an uproar it was pulled.
Please buy my DVD so I can rasie my penis, I mean money to buy a new camcorder, so I can bring you guys even better videos. DVD's are sold by donation. Starting donations around 5 bucks.
Wacom Technology Corporation’s new Intuos3 6x11 pen tablet is specifically designed for photographers, designers and artists who are using multiple monitors or a widescreen display like the 23” Apple® Cinema HD display.
The Intuos3 6x11 features an active area with an aspect ratio (height-towidth) that is a great match to the screen aspect ratio of either a widescreen display or two standard displays used together. This provides optimal pen control and efficient use of the entire tablet.
“With as much as 50% of the creative community soon using either widescreens or dual monitors, we’re confident that the Intuos3 6x11 is going to be very popular,” said Michael Marcum, Wacom’s Director of Product Management. “The Intuos3 6x11 is really a demonstration of the importance we place on identifying emerging customer needs and providing products in a timely way to meet those needs.”
No, not the magical fluff marshmallow cream that I consumed per pound in the 1990s, this is a more hardcore fluff. This fluff is elegant, classy and sophisticated. This fluff case is made out of soft faux fur (no fluffs were killed in the making of this) and an interior satin lining. The satin protects your iPod from being scratched while giving you a sense of sexiness and prestige and/or a false sense of invincibility. This fluff is available for $35 and only supports 4th generation models.
A new Merrill Lynch report has broken down the cost of the Xbox 360 compared to the PS3 and makes the assumption that the 360 will be half the price of the PS3 in 2006.
The PS3 will not only be significantly more costly than Xbox 360 at launch, but will continue to operate at a cost disadvantage for several years. … We think that the Xbox 360 could be selling at half the price of PS3 in the latter half of 2006.
Former attorney general and governor candidate Heidi Heitkamp, a well-known Democrat, got a surprise birthday president from her brother that fits her politics, though maybe not her yard.
Heitkamp said she woke up Saturday morning to find a young donkey in her yard, a 50th birthday present from her brother, Joel.
"It's just about the cutest thing you ever want to see," Heitkamp said. "My biggest problem is, I can't figure out how to warm up a two-quart bottle."
Heitkamp said the young donkey is well behaved, but has a habit of braying loudly when trains pass near her Mandan home.
Heitkamp said her family has a history of unusual gifts.
The success of the first issue, with Lingerie Bowl twins Cassie and Mallie more on the cover, took us off guard. Girls and Corpses is now featured in magazines all over the globe like: MAXIM, PENTHOUSE, FHM, BIZARRE, CKM and others. We have definitely struck a nerve or at least a funny bone.
Google is hiring programmers to work on making OpenOffice “better”. Why that is mighty nice of them. Hopefully they can turn OO into a leaner, meaner open source office suite. After the reports last week showing extremely poor performance compared to MS Office, this could be just what OO needs.
Google plans to hire programmers to improve OpenOffice.org, a demonstration of its affinity for open source initiatives and one the company believes also shows sound practical sense. OpenOffice has its roots in Sun Microsystems' StarOffice suite of programs. Five years ago, Sun turned its proprietary software into an open-source project.
Monday said its iTunes online service has sold a million videos in under 20 days, sending shares up almost 5 percent.
iTunes, the most popular online music store, began selling about 2,000 music videos and episodes of ABC's "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" for $1.99 on October 12. Topping the list of big sellers were music videos by Michael Jackson, Fatboy Slim and Kanye West, as well as episodes of ABC shows.
A British man was sentenced to four years in jail Tuesday for masterminding a "phishing" fraud that stole identities and bank details from users of the eBay auction site.
Real Big Fisher
Prosecutors said David Levi, 29, of Lytham, England, led a six-man gang that stole nearly 200,000 pounds ($360,000) from more than 160 people. They sent e-mails to eBay customers, pretending to be from eBay, asking for bank details.
In phishing schemes, fraudsters typically bait victims with e-mails purportedly from legitimate online businesses. The e-mails direct recipients to bogus Web sites, where they are asked to re-input information such as credit card numbers and passwords.
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