catapult

If you're at all into cars you no doubt recall the 2001 movie The Fast and the Furious, perhaps better known for catapulting Vin Diesel's popularity as an actor than for its technical accuracy. Hey, it's Hollywood, so we can overlook a few glaring inaccuracies as long as there's flashy eye candy and some cool stunts. But one thing that they keep bringing up in the movie, is the idea of a "ten-second car", a car with the ability to run the quarter-mile from a standing start in ten seconds or less. Well in the real world, such a car is pretty damn rare, and almost never an actual car that you would be able to drive on the street. We're talking specially prepared race cars, made of flimsy ultralight materials that would probably never even make it out of your driveway without scraping a piece of bodywork off, let alone something you'd consider driving to the grocery store.

But if you were indeed looking for such a ten-second car, and you were hoping to drive it down to the local Quick-Mart so you could impress the gaggle of 14-year old boys who hang out there, look no further. Witness the SSC Ultimate Aero TT, a 1183-horsepower car that rips the 0-60 run in 2.8 seconds and goes on to tag the quarter-mile in 9.9 seconds. And no, you don't even have to drop the $1.2M in coin that you had saved away for the Bugatti Veyron, which by the way takes 10.8 seconds to complete the quarter-mile. Oh, no, you can be the real-world Dom Toretto for $550,000.

I personally don't feel the need to travel the 1320 feet in ten seconds. If I'm looking for a stylish way to impress the 14-year olds, I would actually save about $450,000 and get a Porsche Cayman S Design Edition 1 instead. It's black, it's sexy, and it comes with a matching briefcase, watch and pocket knife. Sign me up.

Ok, for those of you who, like me, don't have the dough for a ten-second car yet, try the ten-second burger challenge instead. "I live my life one Quarter-Pounder(TM) at a time ... for those ten seconds or less, I'm free." - Ronald McDonald.

jukebox

I was spending some time on Yahoo! Music Videos, and came away from it pretty impressed at the great collection of music videos that you can pull up on there. Especially the availability of some of the older ones, some which I haven't seen in years. So I decided to make a list of some of my favorite music videos.

Michael Jackson, Beat It. This is probably on everyone's favorite video list. Well it should be. Only MJ has the massive pop appeal that can separate two rival gangs in a knife fight and make them break out in synchronized dance routines.

Kool & The Gang, Fresh. Wow this one is ancient, you can really tell it comes from the early days of music videos before a lot of money went into the production. But I loved the song, and was glad to find the video for it on here.

Sade, Smooth Operator. An oldie but goodie. Not really much of a plot but I really enjoyed the jazz club ambiance and Sade is still the bomb after all these years.

Wham!, Careless Whisper. Another old one, I remember watching this video over and over again on MTV. It was #1 for weeks on end. Classic love story about trust, betrayal, and regret. Where the heck is George Michael going in that big circular building at the end? Is he going to jump off? Or just mope around and look sad for a few more hours?

R.Kelly, Down Low. One of the finest R&B videos ever made if you ask me. Epic story line with gangster underpinnings, a hottie temptress who leads our man R. down the wrong path to betray his boss (none other than old-school R&B legend Ron Isley), and a heart-breaking tragic finale.

Maroon 5, She Will Be Loved. When this came out, I thought, wow, what a great story. A confused man torn between the girlfriend his own age, or the tragically neglected hottie mother. For some reason the part where Adam Levine sits in the old American car wearing the 70's era shades really speaks to me.

Kanye West, All Falls Down. I really enjoyed this video, I thought it was a neat concept, almost all of it from Kanye's point-of-view. When he climbs into the x-ray machine and rolls through I just bust out laughing.

Chemical Brothers, Get Yourself High. Oh man, this is one of the best videos ever. I couldn't stop watching this one and the tune was stuck in my head for days. Not to mention the kung-fu DJ FX are hilarious. When the guy busts out the big boombox under his shirt it's like, whoa! It doesn't get any better than this.