In the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport, a handful of buyers will get a rocket that gleams across the planet’s surface faster than any true production automobile that has come before.

More pics and a nasty nasty price tag after the jump…

Particulars include 1,001 horsepower, 16 cylinders, 8 liters of engine displacement, 4 turbochargers, all-wheel drive and a dual-clutch automatic transmission.

The removable-roof version of the Veyron coupe costs 1.4 million Euros, or roughly $2.1 million.

Bugatti’s main achievement is making a car that weighs nearly 4,400 pounds — about 1,100 more than a Corvette or Porsche 911 — accelerate and handle so well.

Overall, the car is so overqualified for public roads that even the ultra-rich who can afford to buy it would be better off with a more approachable sports car. At speeds that test the limits of more ordinary performance cars, the Bugatti feels bored. And when a car makes a Lamborghini seem tastefully understated, there’s a problem.

source



After just 20 minutes in a helicopter above the Manhattan skyline, autistic artist Stephen Wiltshire was ready to re-create a city that took hundreds of years to build. Wiltshire is drawing a 20-foot panoramic view of New York – all from memory. The 35-year-old artist’s autistic disorder affects his ability to interact with other people. It has also given him a photographic memory – and a gift for putting it on paper. “I just looked without drawing,” said Wiltshire as he explained how he is able to draw the skyline without referring back to a photograph of the city. “Everything is like a TV show,” he said. “I have never drawn from a sketchbook.”

New York is the last in a series of eight panoramas of major cities across the world, including Dubai and Tokyo.

Bio after the jump…

Stephen Wiltshire is an artist who draws and paints detailed cityscapes. He has a particular talent for drawing lifelike, accurate representations of cities, sometimes after having only observed them briefly. He was awarded an MBE for services to the art world in 2006. He studied Fine Art at City & Guilds Art College. His work is popular all over the world, and is held in a number of important collections.

Stephen was born in London to West Indian parents on 24th April, 1974. As a child he was mute, and did not relate to other human beings. Aged three, he was diagnosed as autistic. He had no language and lived entirely in his own world.

At the age of five, Stephen was sent to Queensmill School in London, where it was noticed that the only pastime he enjoyed was drawing. It soon became apparent he communicated with the world through the language of drawing; first animals, then London buses, and finally buildings. These drawings show a masterful perspective, a whimsical line, and reveal a natural innate artistry.

Aged eight, Stephen started drawing cityscapes after the effects of an earthquake (all imaginary), as a result of being shown photographs of earthquakes in a book at school. He also became obsessed with illustrations of classic American cars at this time (his knowledge of them is encyclopaedic), and he drew most of the major London landmarks.

The teachers at Queensmill School encouraged him to speak by temporarily taking away his art supplies so that he would be forced to ask for them. Stephen responded by making sounds and eventually uttered his first word – “paper.” He learned to speak fully at the age of nine.

In 1987, the BBC QED programme, ‘The Foolish Wise Ones’, featured Stephen’s astounding talent. Stephen was introduced by Sir Hugh Casson (past president of the Royal Academy), who described him as “the best child artist in Britain”. Stephen’s work has since been the subject of numerous television programmes around the world. He has been featured in many books, and his own third book Floating Cities (1991) was number one in the Sunday Times Bestseller List.

Meanwhile, Stephen’s artworks were being exhibited frequently in venues all over the world. In 2001 he appeared in another BBC documentary, ‘Fragments of Genius’, for which he was filmed flying over London aboard a helicopter, and subsequently completing a detailed and perfectly scaled aerial illustration of a four-square-mile area within three hours. His drawing included 12 historic landmarks and 200 other structures.

In October and November 2003, thousands flocked to the Orleans House Gallery in Twickenham, near London, England, to see the first major retrospective of Stephen’s work. The exhibition covered the 20-year period, from 1983 to 2003, and comprised 150 examples of Stephen’s drawings, paintings and prints.

In May 2005, following a short helicopter ride over Tokyo, he drew a stunningly detailed panoramic view of the city on a 10-meter-long canvas, from memory. Since then he has drawn Rome, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Madrid, Dubai, Jerusalem and London on giant canvasses. The last drawing in the series was of his spiritual home, New York. He completed his masterpiece at Pratt Institute, the world-famous college of art and design, in New York in October 2009.

source and image, bio taken from his website

A lot of folks don’t know how much of a motorcycle nut that Mike is. So much so, it had long been rumored that there was some sort of clause in his contract that allowed him to hop on a bike every now and then. Either way, here are some pics of the latest rendition of the Air Jordan Six Rings sneaker alongside one of the Michael Jordan Motorsports bikes.

Apparently these sneaks are extremely rare, like so rare that they were only made for members of the team and their families. How playa is that? Jealous much!!  Here is a look at not only the Air Jordan 6 Rings just, but also that sick Jordan-Suzuki American Superbike pictured here.

more pics after the jump…
Photographer Brian J. Nelson. The colorway is clean and matches right up with the motorcycles and the team uniforms.

spotted at freshnessmag.com



Late in the first period of the Spurs win over the Kings on Saturday a bat swooped into the AT&T Center and descended onto the court. Players scattered and officials stopped play. The bat circled and left only to return — briefly.

That’s when Ginobili performed his Halloween trick, swatting the bat out of the air with a bare hand. He then carried the creature off the court to thunderous cheers.

…but, as you would figure, no good deed goes unpunished. Peep Manu’s tweet after the jump…

On Monday, Ginobili posted:

“Just wanted to give you guys an update on the bat situation. As many of you already know, it wasn’t a great idea. Not only for the fact that bats are great part of the ecosystem, but also, because some carry rabies, which is an incurable disease. That’s why I had to get vaccinated today [and it wasn't just one shot!].”

At the time, Ginobili was a hero.

After he caught the bat, the theme song to “Batman” played, and a few Sacramento players applauded, too. A trainer emerged to squirt sanitizer on Ginobili’s hand.

“That was amazing,” teammate Tony Parker said. “The legend continues with Manu. Unbelievable. … He’s always doing crazy stuff.”

Ginobili was worried about the crazy consequences of his actions on Monday.

“Only 0.5 percent to 3 percent of the bat populations carry the disease, but If you can’t find the animal, it’s not recommended to take any risks, it can kill you!” Ginobili wrote. “Since after the incident, the usher took it outside and the bat flew away [not lying!], there was no way of knowing if he was infected or not, so I had to do the safe thing.

“Finally, please, don’t do it at home or anywhere, avoid contact with bats, skunks, raccoons, rats and animals like that.”
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I had to post this picture because this picture is hilarious!!! If you watch sportscenter you know that last night LeBron James and the Cavs visited Madison Square Garden to play the knicks, and of course a ton of celebs where in the house.

Look … love him or hate him, the dude is one of a kind crazy.  Is he really fishing through about 3k for a $1 tip?Look at that stack!!! good lord. Its like that one dolla bill doesn’t even match!

I have so many questions… What did he buy with that stack that left him with a single? Why isn’t there at least a 5 and a couple of 20s? What causes you to pull out the entire knot, when you know you have all 100s? I’m so curious about this whole situation

BTW, I like that Jumpman vest he is rockin… a couple more pics after

from espn:

Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers‘ 11-time All-Star, regained the top spot on the NBA’s list, bumping 2008 No. 1 Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics to second.

Bryant had the most popular jersey in 2007. The Lakers are a Western Conference-best 35-9 this season.

The league’s rankings are based on sales at the NBA Store in New York City and NBAStore.com since the start of the 2008-09 season through January 2009.

New Jays are hot… there is a lot to these new sneaks so head over to Darren Rovell to read the full interview, here is a little about them:

The shoe was designed by Chicago native Jason Mayden, not the usual Tinker Hatfield. It features a chassis that’s meant to mimic blown glass, which means that each shoe is technically different in its pattern. The pleats in the shoe are really a nice touch. Shoe designers can learn from the simplicity of this, instead of the hodgepodge garbage we’ve seen of recent.

The majority of basketball shoes being sold today are Jordans. How is the brand so dominant?:

“We’ve been here for 23 years and each year we try to ask ourselves the same question and that is ‘how have we gotten to this point?’ And every time we come up with this answer that we’ve put so much energy, in terms of trying to build the best product. In doing that, we try to also create a certain style that’s different than anybody else and somehow we’ve always been able to connect to the consumer, to the athlete, to the little kids. This (Jordan brand) team is a lot bigger and each and every day our dedication is trying to build the best product, trying to relate to the consumers, building something that is totally special and unique. Obviously my legacy was when I played the game of basketball. I haven’t played since 1998 — we forgot about Washington D.C. (laughing) — and for whatever reason, we’ve been able to maintain that focus with our consumer with that business within the business. I think a lot of that credit goes to people that are on the podium and all the people back at Nike and in the Jordan brand for that diligent effort to continue to connect.”

This is the new Gatorade joint… it looks like they tried to go a little bit Nike in this new add. I’m feeling it… what are your thoughts?

Wow, X is 38 years old today… He has definitely had his trouble lately but he did bring us many bangers. If they had ipods when I was in high school this would definitely be on my pregame playlist. Lets hope this cat can get it together … Rough Riders Anthem after the jump: