Empire Magazine celebrated their 20th birthday with a special photo collection of leading actors re-creating some of their more famous and iconic roles. This Mel Gibson one is pretty great.

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Come this January, a who’s who of adult entertainment talent will descend upon Las Vegas, first for the Adult Entertainment Expo–the largest US adult industry trade show–and then for the AVN Awards, the awards show commonly referred to as the Oscars of porn.

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Something a little different this time around: I’ve been in Helsinki, Finland this week checking out cleantech developments with a group of other bloggers ( and many thanks to FinnFacts for bringing us here!). While I’ve been a little slow to get posting on the stories I’ve heard (stay tuned here and at sustainablog for those posts), several of my colleagues fought off the jet lag well enough to get started. A few posts from Finland:

• Karl Burkart at MNN and Ian Thomson at Cleantechies.com provide a bit of background on the Finnish cleantech sector.
  
  
• Jen Boynton at Triple Pundit gives us five fast facts about Finland, and offers some advice to Metso Corporation about sustainability and biomass as a fuel source.
  
  
• Hendrick Morkel at Arctic Start Up takes a look at Eniram’s efforts to cut shipping fuel use and emissions.

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I just today started looking for Christmas gifts. Recently I stumbled upon Papabubble’s pop-up shop in Cappellini and I was all set to get my friends and family avant-garde candy confections for Christmas. And I most likely still will. However, this gorgeous, sugary mammal was just brought to my attention. And I am smitten.

Some will be disgusted by the thought of a 5-pound gummy bear. The amount of sugar and chemicals and artificial sweeteners and preservatives that go into creating such a magnificent beast is enough to scare anyone. To be exact the 5 pound gummy bear clocks in at 12,600 calories. It is the same as 1,400 regular gummy bears. Is that it? Wow. I love candy and I love gummy bears and I am seriously thinking about ordering a bunch of them up as gifts. I just don’t know if the gift will be a hit or if someone will hit me after I present them one of these guys.

Zeger Reyers “Rotating Kitchen” recently went on display at the “Eating the Universe” exhibition at Germany’s Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. It will continue rotating through February 28th of next year. An alternative title for this installation could have been “What My Kitchen Looks Like After I attempt to Cook.”

rotating kitchen from Zeger Reyers on Vimeo.

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You’ve heard of the G-spot, and hopefully the P-spot, but what about the PS-Spot? We’ve written about it before on our advice site and in our book, SEX: How to Do Everything: Just beneath a woman’s perineum (that short bridge of tissue between the vaginal opening and the anus) is a tightly packed tangle of blood vessels alternately known as the perineal sponge, the perineal body, or — you guessed it! — the PS-spot. Like other erectile tissue, this mass fills with blood upon arousal and can be sensitive to massage and pressure via the perineum, via the lower back wall of the vagina (opposite the G-spot), or via the anus. Just because every women’s magazine hasn’t written a million articles on it (like they have on the G-spot) doesn’t mean it’s not deserving of your love and attention. Who knows, it could be your magic button.

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As I posted earlier this week Simon Doonan did venture down to DC this week to assist and oversee the holiday decorating at the White House. The Washington Post has some photos of what Doonan and the Obamas did, and I must say, they’re pretty safe and traditional. Which I guess is appropriate for the White House. The thought of neon and snow machines and drag queen snowmen had me in at tizzy all week. But Doonan kept it cool, and oh so not gay, with his old lady decorations.

One standout in the home is the 400-pound gingerbread house made by the White House’s pastry chef Bill Yosses. It took Yosses and his team six weeks to build the monster. And as someone who obsesses over sweets as much as I do over dollhouses I must say it is quite impressive. In a year where Washingtonians say the White House Christmas decor has been scaled down, in obvious response to the economic client, this house is grand. The Washington Post slideshow is here.

Over the last 40 years Dieter Rams has established himself as one of the most influential designers of our time. His work at Braun alone has solidified his legacy, not to mention his accomplishments at Vitsœ and his company sdr+. “His elegantly clear visual language not only defined product design for decades, but also our fundamental understanding of what design is and what is can and should do.” The upcoming release of “Less and More: The Design Ethos of Deiter Rams” includes sketches and models of some of his famous designs as well as a critical reevaluation of his work today from a host of contributing, contemporary designers. And, of course, you can’t have a book about Rams if it doesn’t at least mention his 10 Principles of Design. For more, watch Gestalten’s interview with Rams himself.

Wind power opponents often cite aesthetics, noise, and bird kills as reasons for not wanting wind farms or turbines nearby… call it renewable NIMBYism. General contractor (and past installer of Christo projects) A.L. Huber has installing a next-generation vertical axis wind turbine at its Overland Park, KS headquarters that designers claim addresses all of these complaints lodged against wind installations.

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They say we spend a combined 6 months of our lives waiting at red lights. To make that time a little easier to sit through is this year’s winner of the Red Dot Design Award, Eko, Damjan Stankovic’s “ecological and economic traffic light concept.” An easy to install circular time keeping device surrounds the red light and “counts down” the time until the light turns green. The idea is that not only will drivers and pedestrians be more at ease knowing just how long they’ll have to wait, but Stankovic also hopes this will encourage people to actually turn off their engines, thus cutting carbon emissions. I’d be curious to see a trial run of this product. Would drivers really be more relaxed by shutting off their motors and then turning them back on again? Think about how many red lights you hit on your daily commute. Would you really turn your car off and on, over and over again? Of course, if it really did cut down on carbon emissions, it might be worth it.

Stankovic has designed a host of other nifty little items, most of which have also won awards. The pop-out electric wall socket is clever for people running a lot of outlets, and it’s a lot better looking than a power strip. My favorite is the combination night light/bookmark, a triangular light that shuts off as soon as you lay your book over it.

Andrew Hearst previously talked about David Hockey’s iPhone paintings here. His Daily Mail link appears to be dead now, but I came across another article about the prolific artist and his new painting medium. Using the Brushes application he’s created gorgeous iPhone paintings that look like watercolors. The New York Review of Books’ Lawrence Weschler documents the process.

It is a lovely read. Thinking about a 70 plus year old painter finding a new way to express himself just makes me all giddy. And the thought of producing art and sharing it in real time, via email and text, without galleries involved, is very intriguing. An accompanying audio slide show is here.