Paper Model Cars

So you want some paper model cars? Well, some kind soul has created just about every car in paper that you would ever desire - here's a quick run down of the brands available on this website:

Alfa Romeo, Honda, Mini, Subaru, Fiat, Porsche, Ferrari, Peugeot, Toyota, Nissan, Lotus, Volkswagen, Mazda, Mercedes, BMW, Suzuki, SAAB, Hummer, Altezza, Mitsubishi.

It is truly an impressive list of paper car papercrafts! Surely your make of car is there?

Get them here.

George Bush Papercraft

Of all the things to make a paper model out of, the people at Recortables.net have created a hilarious President of the United States papercraft - ol' chimpy McGee himself - bloodied axe and world in hand, that's not all there is to find at this great little papercraft site though, we also have a (very evil looking) Pope Benedict model, the King of Spain, the Prime Minister of Spain and of course Osama Bin Laden (which sadly doesn't seem to be available for download yet).

These are great looking models which you can grab here.

Halo Papercraft

With the launch of Halo 3 mere days away, it is perfect timing that a Halo paper model would arise from the depths of the internet, I found this via the fantastic Paperkraft site which you should visit and bookmark, they have some great papercrafts available : )

The model should keep you busy till the game arrives!

Grab it the Halo Papercraft here

Chocobo Papercraft

Sane Person's papercraft has been mentioned here before, it seems as though a nice little update has been added since I last looked at the site, this time it's a Chocobo Paper Model. Sweet! if you don't know what a Chocobo is, Wikipedia has a lot of information on the yellow birds:

A Chocobo is a fictional large, normally flightless galliforme/ratite bird capable of being ridden and is a staple of the Final Fantasyseries. While ordinary Chocobos are yellow, certain rare breeds are of different colors and have special abilities, such as crossing mountains or flight.

Grab it here, along with some over great Final Fantasy paper models.

Paper Model Treasure Chest

If you have played a Japanese Roleplaying game, you will more than likely have come across treasure chests. I always greedily rush over to open them and find the goodies inside. The thing is you never know what the damn things will contain, sometimes it's a potion or a new weapon, sometimes it's a trap chest, you open it and lo and behold it comes alive and attacks you, mocking your greediness.

This papercraft seems to understand the issues surrounding treasure chests (and my greed) and gives you the option of building it with or without the monster!

Grab it here.

Skull Paper Model

The Skull-a-day site is a pretty simple premise for a blog - a skull - a day, pretty cool idea huh? Of course at some point you know a Papercraft would work it's way into the mix and it's a nice one at that, the jaw even moves :)

Grab it here and if you want even more paper skull goodness, check this link.

NEW YORK CITY IS STILL A MELTING POT BUT IT ISN'T JUST POLES AND IRISH AND RUSSIANS AND ITALIANS: MEET THE NEW NEW YORKERS... DRIVING YOUR CABS

Guinea, not Jackson Heights

I'm in NYC this week and judging by the taxis, I really am in one of the most cosmopolitan, international city in the world. The guy who drove me from JFK to my hotel on the Upper West Side came here from Kandahar, Afghanistan. He came as an illegal immigrant, spent 3 months in jail and eventually was granted political asylum. Each of his two younger brothers came and remained here the same way. His wife and elderly parents are in Qetta in Pakistan and he's hoping to bring them here too. He works 7 days a week and sends a lot of his earnings to Qetta. The two younger brothers work in a fried chicken restaurant. They live in Queens. His American odyssey seems very much the same as the story of immigrants I've heard all my life.

We drove through Queens to the 59th Street Bridge through whole neighborhoods of Muslim immigrants, from Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, India... some from Afghanistan, Egypt and other countries.

Last night my friends Charlie and Sharon got married and I dressed up in a Zegna suit and a Fray shirt, reminiscent of my old corporate days-- not something I thought would be the right dress for the subway. I waited for one of those van-looking yellow cabs. The driver, Mohammed, was also a refugee who sought and was granted political asylum. He was the first taxi driver-- or anyone else-- I had ever met from the small West African country of Guinea. When I was a child Guinea was granted independence from France and I remember the fiery president, Sekou Touré coming to the UN and pushing a socialist agenda. He was demonized by the American media. When he died in 1984, General Lansana Conté staged a coup and became president and still is. He's more pro-American and a pretty brutal, if ineffective, dictator. In 1998, Mohammed, my driver, was elected to the city council in Fria, just north of the capital, Conakry. Unfortunately for him, his party, the UPR, won the national elections and Conté decided to kill lots of them and... change the results. Mohammed was one of the lucky ones and he escaped to the U.S.

Guinea is a desperately poor country and would like to encourage a tourist industry. Their propaganda refers to the country as the Switzerland of Africa, which is clearly absurd, although it does have mountains. The tourism industry has potential and promise but they only get about 100,000 tourists a year (few Americans). You can fly there from Paris. There aren't many hotels, though the best one in the country is a Meridien with 96 rooms and there is also a Novotel.