via trendland. The Spa House designed by Metropolis Design in Cape Town, South Africa. Incredible. Check out the photos below.
vinnykumar
Mochi is one of my favorite Japanese desserts… it is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice pounded into paste and molded into its shape. It was traditionally made in a ceremony called Mochitsuki. The traditional process involves pounding the rice with wooden mallets in an usu (traditional mortar). Two people alternate the work: one pounds the cooked rice while the other wets the mochi. They must keep a steady rhythm or they may accidentally injure each other. Check out this process below. Amazing!
Jay-Z and Beyonce celebrated the birth of their baby girl, Blue Ivy Carter, this weekend. Jay-Z took to the studio a day after to share his thoughts on the situation, calling this “the most amazing feeling in the world”… this song was produced by the Neptunes.
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Jimmy Kimmel recently asked parents to give terrible presents to their kids for Christmas (and to send in the video). Check out their reactions… I’m sure I would’ve been mad if I received a half eaten sandwich on Christmas morning. Haha. Video after the break.
via zeutch. Cool bridge design by WXY Architecture for Xinjin County, China. More photos below.
via dvice. More photos below.
Originally conceptualized in 2009. Russian architects Arch Group have completed the first of their tiny hotel rooms for napping at airports. The Sleepbox unit at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport contains two beds and can be rented for between 30 minutes and several hours. Sleepbox, a personal, rentable, portable box with a bed and outlets to juice up your gadgets. It is constructed from ash-veneered MDF, although future units could instead be made from metal or glass-reinforced plastic. It is the perfect private rest stop for any airport, features include up to three beds, sockets for charging up gadgets, luggage storage space under the bed, LED-reading lamps, electric-driven blinds, Wi-Fi, safety deposit box and even a touchscreen TV.
Available options include:
Matted film on windows with changing transparency
Mood lighting – LED lamps with changing light colors
Built-in media block (TV, touch-screen monitor)
Wi-Fi router
Alarm, intercom
Safe deposit box
Built-in payment station with magnetic keys
This is a video of a surfer in San Diego surfing in the midst of bioluminescent algae that, when disturbed, glows bright blue. Video after the break.
On the beaches of Southern California, a phytoplankton called Lingulodinium polyedrum is responsible for a spate of red tide. Massive algal blooms like this make the water ruddy during the day, but disrupting the microorganisms at night results in bursts of electric blue bioluminescence.
Man v. Food (Vending Machine Edition) – Update #2
Haha… here’s the second update to Prasanth’s quest to eat 1 of each item in the vending machine. You can see the previous update here.
As of 1:33pm this afternoon:
Prasanth: “So now I’m at 3 kcal and roughly 3 g’s of sodium in 3.5 hours. Here’s my dilemma: I have 3 more hours to go, but I’m not sure I could get through the entire next row in that amount of time. Should I even try? I don’t want to get 1/2 way through and then get nothing.”
Amar: “Go big, or go home.”
Kavitha: “I agree with Amar…”
Prasanth: : “Thanks coach; that’s all I needed to hear. Also, this is far and away the most disgusting thing I’ve ever done. And keep in mind that I’ve been to Mexico with Roshan…”
As of 3:30 this afternoon:
Prasanth: Little over an hour to go… I feel bad for whoever has to sleep next to me tonight.”
As of 4:00 this afternoon:
And that is all folks… Looks like he made it through 3.5 rows at 3,920 calories. Haha. I believe he made like $200. Ranvy heard from him via text message:
Ranvy Singh: “Are you alive?”
Prasanth: “Barely. Or extremely. Depends on your definition.”
Prasanth: “Let me just say, of all the humbling experiences I’ve had in my life – bowling, being forced to take anger management classes, bowling, losing to TJ at anything, bowling – this was by far the humbling-est thing I’ve ever done. I don’t know what feels worse, the 4 lbs of salt and sugar and corn by-products rotting in my gut, or the dark specter of defeat looming over my head (but probably the 4 lbs of crap).”
Haha… this is great. If there were a zombie invasion in the world of Smurfs… it may look a little like this.