These flags charts are the striking work of Brazillian artist Icaro Doria. Each flag is amazing and overwhelming at the same time. Although the representation may not be 100% accurate, they certainly make a point.

Click the link below to see larger versions of the flag

Via brazilianartists.net

Would you post your secrets online? Even if it you would remain anonymous? These folks did over at postsecret.blogspot.com. It’s interesting that you have to write on a postcard and actually mail it in via snail mail. Now that takes effort!

After spending five and a half hours on the tarmac in Austin Texas late last year, It was interesting to read that 2007 was one of the worst travel years on record.

Here are a few of my favorites from a USAtoday article:

• A passenger in first class on a British Airways Delhi-London flight in March awoke to discover that a corpse, upgraded from coach, had been propped in a seat in his row.”She kept slipping under the seat belt and moving about with the motion of the plane,” Paul Trinder told Britain’s Sunday Times. “When I asked what was going on, I was shocked to hear she was dead.”
• A 64-year-old man was hospitalized earlier this month after chugging a liter of vodka rather than surrendering it at a checkpoint in Germany’s Nuremberg airport.
• SkyWest airlines apologized to a passenger who said he was forced to urinate in an airsickness bag during a short flight in March because the only restroom was closed due to a malfunctioning light. The man told the Salt Lake Tribune he’d had two “really big beers. It was like I had no choice.” The pilot called police upon landing in Salt Lake, but the airline later gave the passenger a travel voucher in addition to the apology.
• In July, a flight from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Turkey turned back after the crew was unable to break up a fight involving three inebriated men. It started, said the Russian News and Information Agency, when one of the men was “given the cold shoulder” by a woman he was chatting up and hit her in the face.
• Toilets overflowed on an Amsterdam-Newark flight on Continental Airlines in June, causing passenger Collin Brock to tell a Seattle television station King 5 News, “I was forced to sit next to human excrement for seven hours.”
• Passengers weren’t the only ones guilty of bad behavior in 2007. In April, a Northwest Airlines pilot locked himself in an airline restroom, where he had a loud, obscenity-laced conversation on his cellphone as passengers boarded his flight in Las Vegas. When confronted by a passenger, the pilot cussed at him. The flight was canceled as a result of “inappropriate language by a crewmember,” the airline said.
• A stowaway squirrel on an American Airlines flight from Tokyo to Dallas in February caused the plane to land in Honolulu. An airline spokesman told the Associated Press the pilots were worried the “varmint” might damage the plane’s wiring.
• Nepal Airlines personnel sacrificed two goats on the runway in front of a malfunctioning Boeing 757 to appease the “Hindu god of sky protection,” Reuters wire service reported in September. After the goat sacrifice, the plane took off for Hong Kong.
• Not even Vatican-backed Mistral Air was willing to appeal to a higher power when authorities confiscated holy water from pilgrims returning from the Roman Catholic shrine at Lourdes, France. The airline’s president cited rules that ban carry-on containers holding more than 3 ounces of liquid, telling the Associated Press, “These (regulations) have to be respected.”

[Thanks JC]

Faith SFX is a talented beatboxer. It’s great how he grabs regular people of the street and has them beatboxing in no time.

Sure there are a lot of cool iPhone / iPod Touch stands out there. This one is 100% green! Never tested on animals and completely recyclable.
[Hint, it will also work with a $1 bill]

via swissmiss

The Honda Odyssey Viking spot isn’t all that cool. Oh yeah, sure I think I’ll buy an Odyssey because it reminds me of the old van culture of the 70s + 80s. But van culture is so much cooler now, right? Nothing says cool better than a Honda mini van.

I know men who are cringing right now at the thought of even owning a mini van. Because they’re probably thinking “Hey, that commercial was pretty cool.” “If I purchase that mini van, I probably won’t feel like a soccer mom driving it.”

Commercials over the years have certainly become more entertaining. Agencies will use bands you never thought would end up in commercials. They use humor as the main hook. They dig deep and deliver a result that has you saying “what the heck was that?” I still haven’t seen anything as cool as the Honda “Cog” spot. It’s nothing short of brilliant. The funny thing is that the commercial is two minutes long and I remembered that it was Honda. How many times do you see a spot and cannot for the life of you remember who it was for. Only in Europe does an agency get to produce something so cool that it becomes an instant classic.

Isn’t it nice when things just work…

Congratulations dinosaurs – welcome to the nineties! Now you can trade in your 8-tracks, cassettes, and compact discs for the latest new fangled technology. An MP3 player!

Fans can purchase songs including the tired and overplayed Stairway to Heaven and Whole Lotta Love digitally for the first time. Guitarist Jimmy Page was quoted as saying that he was pleased with the move, which would “better enable fans to obtain our music in whatever manner they prefer”. Wow Jimmy, you are right on the cusp of technology. What’s next, a haircut? Say it isn’t so.

Although the group have sold more than 300 million albums worldwide their release on digital stores like iTunes will only add more cash in ‘ol Robert Plant’s pocket. Good thing I already ripped my CD’s.

From time to time I like to google my name – Stephen Chip. It’s not that common a name really. My grandfather, of Hungarian decent, shortened it from Chipkar when my father was a boy. He said it sounded more American and would be easier for people to pronounce. The funny thing is that anytime I give my last name, I always have to say “CHIP… C, H, I, P”. Most people will repeat ship, chips, etc. So, either way it requires some additional work on my part.

I googled my name and much to my amazement, I found this from the Old Bailey Proceedings, 25th April, 1688:

Stephen Chip , was Indicted for stealing from Ann Jennings of Branford in Middlesex, on the 7th of April, 1 Silver Porrenger value 20 s. 2 Silver Tasters value 8 s. 3 Jacobus pieces, Rings, 30 l. in Mony, and other things : It appeared that the Prisoner had been her Apprentice, and that he had left open the Windows whereby other Thieves had got into the House, and that she had lost the things at several times; but the Prosecutor not being positive as to the Prisoner, and other circumstances concurring, he was brought in not Guilty.

Wholly crap, I don’t remember jumping in a time machine and going back 319 years. Amazing there is even a record of it. The good news is THAT guy was found not guilty.

I’m not talking about the counterfeit watches you can buy in the middle of Times Square in NYC. These are authentic fake watches. Sweet idea. More of a bracelet than a watch but still very clever.

realfakewatches are wristwatches that only work for one minute every day (well, two for analog ones). they are being made by linda kostowski and invited other designers.

the watches are laser cut from three pieces of genuine leather and manually assembled. they are fastened with velcro. each one comes with both a unique time (hand-picked by our randomizer robot) and a thinglink engraved on the back.

I stopped wearing a watch a couple of years ago. I’ve never missed it. I think at this point it would seem weird if I started wearing one again. If I want to know the time, I just check my mobile phone.

The other day a random conversation broke out about what it would be like to be a worker who cleans septic tanks. As you can imagine, the jokes ensued. A crappy job with crappy wages. What do you do? I work with crap all day, and you? So after about 5 minutes or so, all jokes were exhausted.

Speaking of crap, here is an ad that makes a point… I guess. I especially like the title “There are better ways to make career”. Click here to see different angles.

You would never be able to get away with anything like this in the states. Everyone is far too PC and uptight.

I’m sure you can remember back at some point in your life either seeing or writing a message on a dirty car window. Maybe something incredibly witty like “WASH ME” or “HONK AT ME”. Of course some others out there may recall something a bit more dirty but let’s save that thought for now.

Artist Scott Wade has posted a gallery on his site of just that – Dirty Car Art. I’m most impressed by the level of detail that he’s able to achieve. A nice little video can be seen on Yahoo!