Germans and the Italians, both great at what they do but what if their talents were combined? Italian's are always one for their flair, finesse and beauty whilst the German's are known for their engineering, precision and attention to detail. The BMW Gran Lusso Coupe is a fine example of the collaboration between the two nations, with the design house of Pininfarina from Italy tasked to design the concept but proudly bears the badge of the Bavarian Motor Works. It will be showcased at Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este 2013, which is held on the shores of lake Como, Italy, at the Grand Hotel. The annual event which is organized by BMW is perhaps the most significant one that celebrates the mystique of historic cars but also that of inspiring concepts. So its of no surprise why BMW chose to unveil the car here.
Italdesign Nazca C2
It is not the first time BMW seeked Italian inspiration in their design, one of my earliest memories was the Nazca C2 which was designed by Italdesign. A sleek long bodied race car with a futuristic design powered by a mammoth V12 engine, made popular by the game Need For Speed 2, Special Edition. At that time BMW were not famous for such elaborate concepts but there is was, something that could match what was coming out of the stables in Maranello or Bologna. It is still quite a work of art, which is one of the trademarks of Pininfarina, providing a timeless end product.
BMW 8 Series
Coming back to the Gran Lusso Coupe, although long gone and forcefully forgotten by many, the car does irk ones memory to the design lines of Chris Bangle. I for one was a fan of the former designer, his bold designs did change the face of BMW but it was that which formed the bench mark of much of the models we see today. The car shares its bold and large statue to that of the Seven Series but in a Coupe form, which leaves one wondering, could this be the 8 series revival?
Like many concepts of the past, it will be put out to the jury and even if not put into production it just shows what a fine marriage can be achieved. The pictures below is enough to prove that and if your eye is sharp, you will also spot former Bucket Babe Dominque Lamon who featured in the official photo shoot for the car. Nice one Dom!!!
The King of EDM is back! He's previous releases have been good but his latest offering featuring vocals from Kyler England harks back to his previous material, the song is pretty epic and has been featured on his Club Life episode 318, 319 and 320! My favourite choon at the moment as well!
I've always maintained that South Africa have some of the most beautiful woman in the world and todays featured girl just proves my point. Not only has she been hotting things up in front of the camera's in SA but also the USA with her having featured in Calendars and shows. It gives us something else to be proud of when we see these local lasses excelling abroad.
Nikki du Plessis
Bio
I'm a local Pretoria girl that loves to have a good time. I'm friendly and get along with pretty much anyone. I absolutely LOVE to travel and I'm actually leaving for the US in July again for a really awesome underwater project in Key West, FL. Make sure to check out the website on the new exciting challenges I have to go through. I'm fun, wild and adventurous! I love to go on biking trips with my own very trendy, sexy Harley Davidson and some friends. I love my family and friends an will always help anyone that's in need of anything.
So keep SMILING, because life's a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about"
Marilyn Monroe
PS: Remember to vote for me in the FHM Top 100 sexiest woman in the world and rate me as your FHM Girlfriend :)
Accomplishments
New model Search Sports Illustrated South Africa- Won badge for "Girl of the day" and "Girl of the week"
Face of Purple Beauty Salon
Winner of "Repixelate Dress for Success" competition
1. Hot girls and hot cars go hand in hand, what ride would you like to see yourself in?
Thats easy! A BRIGHT yellow Lamborghini Aventador!
2. What sandwich are you most likely to make for me? and will it be toasted or plain?
I'm the MASTER sandwich maker! I can make you ANY sandwich with ANY ingredient and you'll love it! But I'd probably make you a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich ;)
3. What type of music gets your booty shaking?
Anything with a hip beat, from House music to R&B!
4. Dream cover shoot?
FHM! In a little sexy yet classy Victoria Secret lingerie set.
5. If given a choice, full time model or full time executive, what would you choose?
Definitely full time model! Much more fun being in front of a camera than sitting behind a desk from 8-5.
6. Everyone loves popcorn (well I think they do) what's your topping/ sprinkle of choice?
Oh my goodness.. SALT and VINEGAR! With bit of cream cheese and chives to give it some personality ;)
7. Anyone holding that hand yet? or is it available?
Oh its TAKEN! By the LOVE of my LIFE :D
8. Growing up you must have had someone you aspired to be, so who is your role model?
I know it sounds cheezy but Marilyn Monroe is my role model! She had such a short life, yet touched so many peoples hearts.
9. Obviously being a feal you would love fashion, favourite label/ designer?
Easy, Easy, Easy! Victoria Secret Lingerie and Sissy Boy clothing.
10. Which city is your dream party destination?
Miami, South Beach baby! and I would love to try New York City!
At 9:30pm on Wednesday the 25th of May 2005, I was staring at myself in the mirror of my bathroom wondering what was going on. I was left almost dumbfounded after what I had witnessed, did that really happen? Or was it just a bad dream and I'll wake up soon to go to work. As scary and saddening to me, I can't imagine what the players felt at that instant.
It was the Final of the Champions League, Liverpool FC proved any doubters wrong as they made it through the group stages by the skin of the teeth or should I say by the "OH YOU BEAUTY!" off Gerrards right foot. Then went on dismantle Bayer Leverkusen and humble European giants Juventus before taking on English Champions Chelsea in a thrilling semi final which saw only one goal being scored between the two legs, although Jose Mourinho would still say there wasn't any goal scored.
As I stood there in my bathroom, I said to myself, it can't end like this. All that hard work throughout the season, being written off countless times but rising to the challenge over and over again, it would be wouldn't be right. I made my way back to the lounge to gear myself for the pain that the second half could have in store. I sat there and I prayed to the the all mighty, as I'm sure many supporters of Liverpool did. We all prayed for a miracle because that was the only thing that could save us.
Being 3-0 down at half time in a major final against opponents of the highest calibre would bring down the spirits of any team but Liverpool FC were not just any team, they didn't have any manager, and they didn't have ordinary fans! For during that 15 minutes, the thousands thats travelled to Turkey who were at the Ataturk Stadium in Istanbul made their voices heard by belting out You'll Never Walk Alone, so loud that it and the vibrations could be felt in the change rooms. That coupled with the words by new manager Rafael Benitez reignited belief into those players.
There was still a mountain to climb but with Steven Gerrard leading his troops, he showed them the way. Getting the first goal in the second 45 was always going to be important and a well placed header by Captain Fantastic of the cross from John Arne Riise beat Dida and found itself in the corner of the net, that ignited something beautiful. Two minutes later the Red men were on the attack again, Dietmar Hamann passed the ball to Czech International Vladimir Smicer who didn't think twice and struck a low shot towards goal, which prompted Milan Baros to make his most vital contribution during the 90 minutes... getting out of the way!
There I was in my lounge barely finished typing out my text message after the first goal to send to my cousin "and the comeback begins" the score was 3-2. I looked up to the heavens, well my ceiling and thought "maybe there is a God?" In what seems like a flash they were on the attack again, who else other that Steven Gerrard breaking his way into the box only to be brought down by Italian hard man Gattuso. Penalty! Step up Xabi Alonso, with practically the whole world watching, he struck his first attempt which was parried away by Dida only for the Spanish superstar to rocket home the rebound. "Mission Impossible. Accomplished!" said the commentator while Alonso nearly had his head ripped off by Baros during the celebrations.
That equaliser sent every Liverpool supporter into a sense of ecstasy I for one was lost for words, belief was always there but to actually see it happen was truly extraordinary. Carlo Ancelotti still says its the worst 6 minutes of his life and what transpired after that will go down as one of the memorable defensive display in a final with Carragher playing through cramp and Hyypia the being the stalwart that he was but the main talking point being Dudek's double save in extra time..
With nerves already half shattered from the 120 minutes, penalties were next to come but by then one already had a feeling that the Gods were looking down on us. Many sing the praises of Dudek which is duly deserved but spot kickers deserve mentions too, the moment got the better of Riise who had his saved but Cisse, Smicer and Hamann who might I add played the game with a broken toe, all converted to hand Liverpool the win and their 5th European Cup. It was an evening of mixed emotions, we all heard stories of the great European Nights of yesteryear but there it was, back for us to enjoy again. There was a particular fan that caught my attention, an elderly gentlemen sat on his own in the stands , overwhelmed with what he witnessed, in tears he took off his shirt to wave as acknowledgement to the players as they made their way around the ground.
Saturday will mark 8 years to that day but it will forever be etched in my memory, it was one of the greatest nights of my life and has been dubbed as the greatest final ever played, to quote a football great "The English club proved that miracles really do exist" - Diego Maradona. More importantly was what that game meant to me, like everything there was a moral to the story. Never give up, fight for what you want as you will be rewarded, never to dream but believe!
Mashups are risky to do, there have been many done in the past and most of them end up being terrible and more of an annoyance than a pleasure to listen to. MTV back in the day did some decent ones but apart form that no other really strikes the mind till now. Dr Pihl...no not the TV Psycho...logist as @MishToTheD and @StephanieBe teased me about last week on twitter. Its pronounced "Doctor Peel", has taken probably one of the hottest songs at the moment and mashed it with one of my all time favourite tracks by those French guys M83. The two are extremely awesome songs but the production value of this mashup really stands out, anyone can make a remix but you need skill to make mashup of this quality.
Wednesday marked the opening day of Google I/O 2013, I/O: Input/ Output is a conference held by Google in San Francisco for developers focusing on building web, mobile applications for a better user experience.
The opening Keynote not gave us a brief rundown on what Google have been doing in the past year and boy were they busy! Here are some of the highlights from the keynote.
All Access
Google's answer to streaming music but being Google this isn't your normal music store it integrates the music you already have in your library and learns from that the type of genres you like. From there is it selects the music of your preference and shows it in your favourites tab. There is a "Listen now" feature where by a click of a button it creates a play list of non stop music from your favourites, the list can be viewed and edited to the listeners choice. This app will set you back about $9.99 a month.
Games
Ever played a game on your PC, completed a certain level but you also have the same game on your mobile/ tablet and have to go complete that level again? Annoying right? Now with Google "Cloud Save" this problem is a thing of the past when have a game on multiple platforms. By saving your accomplishments on the cloud, it recognizes what level you are on next no matter whichever device you use! Another cool feature is creating groups to race your friends, one of the demo's involved a game called "Racer" which is a digital Scalectrix. A group of 5 friends all of which had different devices joined the game to race each other, they lined up their devices and the track was overlayed over ALL devices!
Google+
There were 40 new features added to Google+ but without doubt the most talked about one was the Photos. Everyone loves to take pictures but not all come out great, with the new auto enhance feature Google have created basically photoshop with a click of a button. One can adjust the settings if you want to do an advanced edit to pictures.
Another feature called "Auto Awesome" searches your album and locates pictures that were either taken consecutively or on a burst mode then creates an animated gif with them! How cool?! It also can detect pics that were taken in sequence to create a perfectly stitched panoramic.
But by the best feature for me is "Auto Highlight", my albums contain thousands of pictures, what this does is select the best pictures from the bunch and group them together. It used advanced algorithms to detect the best quality photos, pictures with landmarks or scenery, pictures with people and it even can detect if a picture of the same thing has been taken twice! It sorts everything out for you!
Hangouts on Google+ has reached a whole new level, like everything else it is available on all platforms and with features like group hangouts with group video and file sharing it is a massive threat to WhatsApp and has beaten Blackberry to its release of BBM on multiple platforms.
Chrome OS
Theres a lot to offer from the operating system but the demo given to us was one that left many speechless. We've seen attempts by many Software companies to make a voice command functions but Google seemed to have overtook them in a flash. To prompt a search the user simply has to say "Okay Google" and tell it to search, it will then search and with a voice prompt tell you the results! One can then do multi and in depth searches.
Google Maps
My field of work requires me to visit some of the not so ventured areas in the province and Google Maps helps me a lot! Google has a host of imagery in its archives by means of satellites and streetview, using measuring tools were able to create 3D models of buildings. Having integrated all of this they are able to give the user a more realistic view of their route. Google Maps will now also be user based where by it adds places of interests that are prefered by you. For example if you like Italian food it will give you recommendations of restaurants near to you and it will also have a brief summary of what it has to offer. The user can also take pictures and upload it to Google's archive and they will then populate the info to that location. To demonstrate they have created a virtual tour of the Vatican by just using user images.
Planning routes has even been taken a step further when you want to travel from A to B, besides giving you the shortest route by route it now also gives you options of public transport in the area, be it taxi, bus or train. It even has schedules for the trains and buses detailing the stops it makes on the route.
Google Maps is basically transforming to Google Earth as one can also zoom completely out of the atmosphere to view it from space but here where it gets even cooler. The Sun is in its exact position of that current time and if one has to rotate the Earth the side in darkness will have the lights one in the various cities and all the clouds shown are real time! MIND BLOWN!
Google as always didn't disappoint but to see the things they're doing is just amazing, there are over 900 million Android users in the word, over 48 billion Google Play app installs and with their new device the "Pixel" or otherwise known as "Chromebook" which runs Chrome OS, they're sure to keep growing in the market and make known that they are a force to be reckoned with!
You feel it in your fingers, you feel it in your toes, no its not love its the cold! Winter is making its icy way to our shores and YOU can help the underprivileged keep warm this year. In its 4th year running, the Twitter Blanket Drive has grown with collection points and events around the country and donations coming in from far and wide. Twitter is the fastest growing social media network at the moment and with millions using its service to share thoughts, vent frustration or keep informed with the latest news, TBD gives the user an opportunity to give back to the community.
On Saturday, May 25th there will be collection points for blankets nationwide. All blankets collected will be distributed to deserving charities. For more info, search the hashtag #TBD2013 alternatively you can follow @TBDZA or @TBDAfrica ....or if you're not on twitter they do have a Facebook page.
For my Durban peeps, Wakaberry have gladly joined the party by allowing all their stores to be collection points for blankets from 12pm onwards. The the main collection point being the Durban North store where you'll be able to meet some of the fine folk that organized this event.
