I was quite shocked to hear of Collin McRae’s passing today. The World Rally Champion (WRC) legend crashed in his Squirrel helicopter in a field near his home in Scotland. It appears as though his son and other guests have all perished in the accident. It is just so ironic how these types of accidents happen to people that earn a living in such a high risk profession. For those of you not familiar with WRC here is a video of the motorsport; a tribute to McRae.
Update: Helicopters are trouble as of late. Prodrive chief executive David Richards had to crash land his helicopter.

Now you will no longer need to park your new Aston Martin at West Coast Customs for 3 weeks to have Louis Vuitton leather seats installed. LVMH has purchased Aston Martin to place the marquee auto name next to its stable of high-end products including leather trunks and wallets to champagne and cognac.

Update: Louis balked at the $800 Mil price tag and passed on the majority stake purchase.

The Apple rumor windmill has been silenced. The device is no longer hidden away in the patent office or FCC’s paper piles. iPhone has arrived - well not until June really. I need not post any details here for every single blog in the world has highlighted the features better than I could. All I will add; yes I will be getting one. No, I will not be first in line for Apple is notorious for first generation hardware issues.

Update: Now that the full details of the iPhone (possibly temporarily named) have been flushed out I see this device as less revolutionary than a simple aggregation. The lack of third party apps, built-in battery, lack of memory expansion and no 3G make the phone a über stylish iPod with phone support but not a full smartphone. The Blackberry Pearl is still top of the list for my phone succession.

Update 2: iPhone ring tone sure sounds like a xylophone.

It’s a whole other ball game now.

Straight from pitchfork and the bands official website:

It’s official, the Smashing Pumpkins are currently writing songs for their upcoming album, their first since 2000. No release date has yet been set, but the band plans to begin recording this summer.

I was very disappointed when they broke up and the hideous Swan project released a sub par album. This is really great news as I believe the Smashing Pumpkins produced some of the best studio music ever.

The inevitable failure of the UMD movie format, seen clearly from the declining levels of movie studio and retail support, is yet another costly lesson for the entertainment industry in the pointlessness of proprietary physical media #

The PSP really is best left to be a portable gaming device.

Does this happen to anyone else? When I sit at my home computer for a rather short amount of time, say 1 hour, my shoulders around my neck start to get really tense and painful. Must be this kitchen chair I sit it. A real chair with some comfort is in order.

Furniture order is delayed again. They must have had to raise more cattle to tan that hide that will be stretched across. We are hopeful for an end of April delivery but I am not holding my breath – anymore.

A friend of mine needs your support. Matt Downey and I attended the same high school where I was a year younger. He was branded the joker; always making the crowd laugh and bringing a smile to everyone’s face. A very popular individual indeed. Unfortunately, Matt has been diagnosed with a brain tumor for a second time. The first go at this was in 2001 where the mass was determined benign. This recurrence does not come with such an outlook being diagnosed by pathology as malignant. Here is a link to Matt’s Patient Journal. I firmly believe the more people that think / meditate / pray, whatever it is that you do, the higher the probability of a positive outcome.