For Escobar, it at first paid off spectacularly, with Forbes magazine ranking him among the world's 10 richest men in 1989, when he was in his thirties.

Escobar purchased the 22sq km (8.4 sq miles) Napoles Estate, about 320km (200 miles) from the capital Bogota, in 1978.

He turned it into a fantasy land with concrete dinosaurs, a bullfighting ring and a private zoo that would have made Michael Jackson jealous, with giraffes, elephants, kangaroos and hippopotamuses.

To keep them company, he built a herd of concrete dinosaurs.

Above the entrance gate to the estate, the never-subtle Escobar put a plane he had used to smuggle cocaine into the US.

At home on Pablo Escobar's ranch

French explorer and adventurer Xavier Rosset is about to embark on a 300 day trip to live alone on a remote tropical island in the South Pacific. His adventures will be filmed and used for a 52 minute documentary.

Xavier’s only luggage will be a Swiss army knife, machete video camera and a solar panel for charging the camera. He will spend 10 months alone on an island to develop another way of life through an exciting adventure, a return to the elemental sources. Xavier will survive alone on an island without human interference and without polluting emissions.

The ambition of this documentary is to make a reflection on our lifestyle, our current system and our relationship to nature. And the most important thing is to put the dream and emotion at the heart of adventure natural.

He will find timber to build a shelter, feed on the rudimentary fishing, plants and the harvesting of rainwater to survive.

The philosophy of this adventure is quite different than the existing issues which are aimed competition and the elimination of participants through a system of testing and votes. The primary motivation of this documentary is to draw attention to our planet, on our perception of the world around us and different ways to preserve the future.

Most men have forgotten how to live with nature because we have so far arranged the world according to our needs and desires that these bases, so important, have disappeared.

THE PRIVATE ISLANDS BLOG: Xavier Rosset, 300 days alone on an island

Just before arriving in Sanzhi, there’s an interesting site hugging the shoreline - an abandoned hotel/apartment complex that looks like somewhere ET might call home. I first heard about this a couple of years ago, but it was only recently that I was able to get out there.

Accounts vary on the origins of this complex, and indeed, as to whether it was meant to be a hotel development or a housing development. Apparently, it was constructed in the 1960s and included/was to include a dam to protect it against sea surges, floors and stairs made of marble and a small amusement park. The site was commissioned by the government and local firms and there is no named architect. Local papers at the time reported that there were numerous accidents during construction which caused the death of some workers. As news of these accidents spread, no one wanted to go there, even to visit, and the project was subsequently abandoned. The ghosts of those who died in vain are said to still linger there, unremembered and unable to pass on. The complex was left in its unfinished state because no amount of redevelopment will bring people to the area due to superstitions about ghosts, and it can’t be demolished because destroying the homes of spirits and lost souls is taboo in Asian culture.

When I was there, I met four young university students who were passing by and stopped for a look. They didn’t want to get too close to the buildings for fear that the ghosts would take them. They told me there was “heavy evil” in the buildings.

FILE Magazine Project - San-Zhr Pod Village by Craig Ferguson

Hans Reiser's arrogance and his lack of compassion for his estranged wife helped persuade jurors to convict the computer programmer of first-degree murder, a member of the Oakland jury said Tuesday.

Reiser juror explains what led to conviction

With a nod to the glory of Imperial Russia, Red Square Las Vegas transports guests to a world of romance and intrigue. Along with an impressive caviar selection, you'll enjoy such perestroika-inspired Russian and internationally influenced favorites such as Siberian Nachos, Roquefort Filet Mignon, Strozapretti Stroganoff, Salmon Kulebyaka and Certified Angus Rib Eye. Plush, private red velvet banquettes compliment the dazzling Russian-inspired d�cor, which has been featured on the Food Network, the Travel Channel, as well as in such magazines as W and Conde Nast Traveller.

The crem brule (sp?) almost made me cry.

Red Square - Mandalay Bay - Best Las Vegas Russian Restaurants

Introduced in Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea in 1870, and popularized by Walt Disney in 1954, the Nautilus is still the most famous of all submarines. Kirk Douglas and James Mason starred in the movie, but the novel’s menacingly sharklike vessel, with its opulent Victorian interior, was the real star, and ignited the dreams and imagination of many a youngster.

I want they. They will be mine.

Inside the Nautilus | Home Entertainment

Neighbors, friends, elected representatives—I am Margaritaville. My father was a simple shrimp-boat captain who set course for a sleepy fishing village almost 40 years ago. He didn't want much. A little plot of land, some skanks, maybe a flask of rum to warm his swollen belly. I'm not sure a little boy was in the plans, but he raised me with love and, more importantly, a love of this land.

From the crisp scent of vomit-soaked pizza boxes baking in the sunrise on East Sound Pier, to the pink-and-orange sunsets softly shimmering behind the West Railyard prostitute encampments, I love every inch of this town. I took my first body shot right around the time I spoke my first word, and that word was "body shot."

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Toward a Sustainable Margaritaville.

Oh god yes

Bacon Salt

The cradle of Christianity was rocked by an unholy punch-up when Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests came to blows in a dispute over how to clean Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity.

Merry Xmas, Jesus.

Seven hurt in punch-up at Church of the Nativity - Times Online

The story begins in any of the three dozen taquerias supplying the Bay Area Feeder Network, an expansive spiderweb of tubes running through San Francisco’s Mission district as far south as the “Burrito Bordeaux” region of Palo Alto and Mountain View. Electronic displays in each taqueria light up in real time with orders placed on the East Coast, and within minutes a fresh burrito has been assembled, rolled in foil, marked and dropped down one of the small vertical tubes that rise like organ pipes in restaurant kitchens throughout the city.

...

By the time they reach Cleveland the burritos are fully heated through and traveling uphill at about twice the speed of sound. A series of induction coils spaced through central Pennsylvania repeats the magnetic process in reverse, draining momentum from the burritos and turning it into electrical power (though Weehawken residents still recall the great blackout of 2002, when computers running the braking coils shut down and for four hours burritos traced graceful arcs into the East River, glowing like faint red sparks in the night).

The Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel