novelties

Beijing Has Some Awesome Interchanges

Since the 2008 Beijing Olympics are coming up in only a couple of months, we decided to take a look at the ancient Chinese city through the magical powers of Google Earth. What we found was much like a Chinese Dragon, both beautiful and terrible. The preponderance of Geographic Web content on the digital globe has us thinking a trip there would be most awesome, but the traffic and interchanges would make a New Englander cringe.

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news

VW Unveils Olympics Edition Beetles for Beijing Games

The people's car will be playing an automotive role during the people's games of this summers Beijing Olympics. Volkswagen is the exclusive automotive sponsor of the upcoming smoggy games and New Beetles will be the official shuttle for all manner of Olympic official and Government overseer. What you have here are the winning submissions from Volkswagens Vmagination online Olympic art car design campaign, held in China. Adding these snazzy paint jobs to the long-in-the-tooth bug will make them a bit more visible to the spectators and cameras alike. We think this is a pretty savvy move for VW, since this will probably be the most watched Olympics in quite a while.

shanghai auto show

Making Things With Light: The VW Gala in Shanghai

In our day, we have witnessed some interminable press events, but this one literally wandered so slowly off with the cake that we're not sure that the cake was there in the first place or if the thieves may actually have left it behind. The shebang started off in a promising manner, oddly enough; the Pudong Expo building a stunning, gleaming cube featuring a lobby stuffed with art. We were then treated to a short fashion show. All well and good. Suddenly, the mind-numbing madness came. A television personality named Cathy hosted a panel featuring a group of execs who, barring Audi/FAW's Werner Eichhorn, literally dullarded us out of the room. As one attendee noted, VW China Kopfk se Winfried Vahland is one of those boring people who has no idea how boring he actually is. They were joined onstage by Mo Huilan, silver medalist in the '96 Olympics on the womens' vault. The banter was bilingual and pedantic. Out of desperation and disinterest we decided to fool around with long exposures on our camera. A galleria of streaky ennui is below for your enjoyment. Share our pain, won't you? – Davey G. Johnson More »