euretSubway and bought lunch

Zhejiang Provincial Museum

2009-07-28T20:51:00.000-07:00

We have been in Hangzhou all of this time but have never made it to the Zhejiang provincial museum which borders West Lake on the Bai Di. The museum is three floors which chronicle over 7000 years of history in this region! We saw everything from replicas of the first wood houses made with primitive tools to the military costumes from the Warring States period and a Texaco Oil Co. sign from the turn of the century. Quite a diverse collection! After a quick visit to the museum, we hopped a boat to the West Lake islands on this balmy day - gorgeous in every direction!Hydrangeas greeted us upon landing on the island, "Three Pools Mirroring the Moon". We let the boys stay up until midnight last night playing a computer game with our friend Danny, and they were grumpy today. Even though they were tired, they made me a scrumptious French Toast breakfast this morning for Father's Day. However they really wanted to stay home but we dragged them out anyway, so here I am headlocking the two grumps. Jack perked up after awhile and played with his sister on the boat. A flower shot for Sue to paint when she gets home in 2 weeks! One of the boys spied this snake swimming rapidly through the water. Yikes! Our four kids... Peter, Sophie, Jack and our newly adopted son Danny, also another teacher at Jiliang. He comes over and plays network PC games with the boys and they LOVE it! Looking across one of the pools at "Three Pools Mirroring the Moon" island. A family picture, looking back across West Lake. All of the kids, including Danny, got up in the tree for this shot... Jack was the first to find the tree and climb it - he loved it up there! This is the same scene as is on the 1 RMB bill, so it's well known all over China! The lily pads were all blooming in the three pools. Jack loves hopping around across these doorways. He's all arms and legs these days! And finally Sophie, who's favorite activity is to be outdoors running at top speed. The island is good for that as there are no cars and it wasn't too crowded today!

Lisa's 2nd ear activation.

2009-07-20T19:14:00.000-07:00

Lisa went in yesterday to have her new imlant activated. The activation went well. The second ear actually started more advanced than the first ear had started out. (And if you remember, the first ear really started out better than our expectations. )Now there is a still a lot of work to do for the new device to catch up to the same level the first one is at now... She has really come a long way to the good for her hearing.
Anyway, this bit of video you see here is her first number test with the new ear. Lisa does really well, only misses one number. But this will give you a glimpse of what it is like when they work to calibrate the hearing implant device.Thanks for praying so faithfully.Tom & Lisa

PTR patch 3.1.2 build 9889: Juggernaut, Auriya's cats nerfed

2009-07-14T21:18:00.000-07:00

Filed under: Warrior, Patches, News itemsA small new build was pushed to the patch 3.1.2 PTR today. The majority of the changes were relatively minor, but one is headline-worthy: the Arms Warrior talent Juggernaut now gives your next Slam or Mortal Strike an additional 25% chance to critically hit if used within 10 sec, down from 100% chance. Forum posters have been asking for a Juggernaut nerf quite vocally recently; they ought to be pleased with this one. Warriors also got a second small nerf: the Glyph of Rapid Charge is being changed from a 20% cooldown reduction (3 seconds) to a 7% reduction (1 second).
Other changes included some small tweaks to the Ulduar encounters Iron Council and General Vezax. Auriya's cats took a good hit from the nerf bat, with the damage from their Savage Pounce ability being cut in half. Finally, Priests' Divine Hymn, which was completely reworked in patch 3.1, had its bonus healing to affected targets nerfed from 15% to 10%; I never use the spell, so I don't much care. PTR patch 3.1.2 build 9889: Juggernaut, Auriya's cats nerfed originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 11 May 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

Fantasy-World Organizing

2009-07-13T18:54:00.001-07:00

Are you comparing your home or office to those you see in magazines or catalogs? Thanks to Cool Mom Picks, I just read the following wise words about "org porn" on Buttoned Up. The people quoted, Alicia and Sarah, are the site's founders, who are also the authors of Everything (Almost) in Its Place.“Org porn is that glossy, airbrushed fantasy world where everything is pristine, serene and perfectly in order, sort of Playboy, but with chore charts and name-plated cubbyholes,” said Sarah Welch. “It’s everywhere you look these days: in magazines, coffee table books, advertisements, and TV shows. ...“Don’t get us wrong, gazing at beautiful images of meticulously organized rooms, perfectly displayed collections, color-coordinated closets, flawless family schedules, pristine kitchens, tidy mud rooms, and picture-perfect work spaces can be titillating – even meditative. There’s a reason we call it ‘org porn,’” said Alicia Rockmore. “But when they become the primary yardstick by which you measure your own general state of organization is when it becomes unhealthy. An airbrushed land of perfect organization cannot be sustained in this messy, unpredictable world called real life.” And there's the same kind of issue in the time management realm, as Abagael MacAskill writes. She's a homeschooling mom, but similar unrealistic expectations plague many parents - and non-parents, too. I head off to the first of a day full of seminars directed at every conceivable aspect of homeschooling. At the first seminar a woman who is the mother of seven, speaks on organizing your house and your day, while simultaneously educating your children. As I walk away at the end I marvel at how she makes her own bread, volunteers at three or four charities weekly, crosses the country 6 months out of the year giving lectures on this topic, AND still manages to educate her seven children to genius status. I have two children at home and sometimes none of us make it out of our PJs by three in the afternoon and my sink is always full of dishes. ...Homeschoolers are under scrutiny by everybody - the media, the government, the school district, extended family and even sometimes the neighbors. Because of this constant judging I think as homeschoolers we tend to overcompensate and present an unreasonable picture of perfection to the world of what homeschooling is like. Then we begin to believe it ourselves. Since it is not really perfection and never will be on this side of heaven we have set ourselves up for disappointment, failure and burnout. So many of us see examples of people who seem to cope perfectly - they have time for everything, their homes are perfectly organized all the time. I don't know anyone like that in real life.Related Post: Organizing on TV: Illusion vs. Reality[Picture from The Container Store]

kileochale2

2009-07-13T01:46:00.000-07:00

shaun smith youtube shaun smith youtube shauna macdonald sherwin williams coupon shirley eaton shock sites shogun shogun assassin shoot the banker Short Love Poems short mothers day poems Short Poems about Daughters and Mothers Short Poems for Mothers Day Should America Go to War with Iraq sid james sierra Sierra Bullets Sierra Club Sierra College Sierra Leone Sierra Marine Sierra Nevada Sierra Nevada Mountains Sierra Print Artist sierra singer Sierra Trading Post significado de napoles Signs of Being Obsessed with Someone Signs of Obsession Similar to Youtube simone alberghini Simple Ways to Save Environment simpson simpson tv singer black Singer Noelia Skin Cancer skinny jeans Slo Kickboxing Academy Slo MO the Rappin Retard Slo Niacin Side Effects Slo Poke Candy Slo Tribune slutload.com Smudge Report snakehead snakehead fish snakeheads snl snl digital short snl justin timberlake snl mother lover SNL Videos snl.com Soap Kill Germs socal wildfires soccer fields of colorado social anxiety disorder social qs Socialite Paris Hilton Solutions of Global Warming songs about mom Songs about Moms songs about mother songs about mothers songs for mom songs for moms songs for mothers Songs of Musical Phantom of Opera source Source Electronics Source MAG Source Magazine southern 500 southern illinois southern illinois storm southern illinoisan southern illinoisian Souvenir Gifts Souvenir Ideas for Weddings Souvenir Shops Souvenir Spoons for Sale Souvenir Wholesale space age space age clothing space.com Spanish Dictionary spilberk castle spitzer spock Sports Cars stack and tilt golf swing stagecoach Star of Captain Blood star trek star trek 2009 star trek 2009 box office star trek auction star trek box office star trek box office mojo star trek box office results star trek cast Star Trek Characters star trek convention Star Trek Conventions star trek conventions 2009 Star Trek Enterprise star trek episodes online star trek filmaffinity star trek films star trek generations star trek izle star trek movie star trek movies star trek nemesis star trek nemesis wiki star trek nemisis star trek news star trek opening star trek opening day star trek opening night star trek opening weekend Star Trek Props star trek sequel Star Trek Ship Schematics Star Trek Ships Star Trek Sounds Star Trek Starships Star Trek the Next Generation Star Trek Voyager star trek voyager episodes Star Trek Wallpaper star trek winona ryder star troopers starship trooper starship troopers starship troopers 2 starship troopers 3 starship troopers 4 starship troopers cast starship troopers game starship troopers shower scene state of play steel magnolias Steel Magnolias Cast Steel Magnolias Movie Steel Magnolias Quotes Steel Magnolias Screenplay Steel Magnolias Script Steel Magnolias Summary steeplechase steeplechase nashville stephanie kane stephen bruton stephen strasburg Steps for Writing a Book Review Steps in Preparing Sermons steve bekel steve forbert steve nash steven bekel steven strasburg stormy daniels av Story of Manny Pacquiao Story of Phantom of the Opera Strange Animals Strange but True Strange Cosmos Strange Engineering Strange Facts Strange People Strange Sites Strange Things Strange Websites streamshare Street Lawyer Chapter Summary streets of fire stripes stripes cast stripes movie Student Nurses Prayer style holidays subaru heaven Summaries of the Sermon on the Mount Summary Meaning Jabberwocky Summary of Darwins Descent of Man Summary of Frank W Abagnale Life Summary of Living up the Street Summary of Mutiny on the Bounty Summary of the Descent of Ishtar Summary of the Descent of Man Summary of the Phantom of the Opera Summer Olympics Sunday Punch Dagupan super 14 ladder super mario wiki super slo mo surfer superhero movie supreme court Supreme Court Cases Supreme Court Decisions Supreme Court Judges Supreme Court Justices susan boyle susan oliver susan sarandon susan ward susana vieira nua suzuki ritz swine flu Swine Flu Effects Swine Flu Epidemic Swine Flu Facts Swine Flu Symptoms Swine Flu Vaccination swinglifestyle.com Swollen Glands in Neck sydney tv guide systeme d exploitation taboule tabouli tahiti map take a bow lyrics Talambuhay NI Manny Pacquiao talk celtic tammy haddad tara gerard tarrant county election results tarver tarver dawson tarver vs dawson tarver vs dawson 2 taskbar Taskbar Disappeared Taskbar Problems Taskbar Skin taste addison taste of addison taste of addison 2009 taylor dooley Taylor Dooley Bio Taylor Dooley Website taylor handley taylor lautner tbs schedule Teaching team blackout Teen Bodybuilding tehvids telecine pipoca televisadeportes tennis zvonareva terribly happy Text Cassie tezhip Thank You Mom Thank You Poem for Mom the adventures of robin hood the adventures of shark boy and lava girl the alaska experiment the andromeda strain the answer bank the avengers the big lebowski the big lebowski quotes the bounty the buddy holly story the cat in the hat the decent the decent 2 the descent the descent 2 The Descent Ending The Descent Film The Descent Movie The Descent of Inanna The Descent of Ishtar to the Underworld The Descent Spoilers The Descent Trailer the exterminators the family man the famous airport of st. marteen the forum the forum inglewood the germs The Germs Lyrics the good witch the good witch s garden the gravedancers the hulk the incredible hulk the incredible hulk 2 the incredible hulk 3 The Incredible Hulk Images The Incredible Hulk TV Show The Incredible Hulk Ultimate Destruction Cheats the jordan rules the microcopter the mighty ducks the most popular baby names of 2008 the mummy the mummy returns the night stalker the object of my affection the original night stalker the pelican brief the players the players championship the players championship 2009 the players golf tournament the pogues The Seeker Book The Seeker Lyrics The Seeker the Dark Is Rising the soloist the superficial.com the tunnel theremin Things to Do in Portland Maine Things to Do in Santa Barbara Things to Say to Mom Think of Me Lyrics to Phantom of the Opera thunderball thunderball cast tigerdroppings.com tim donaghy tim mccarver time of my life lyrics time series analysis Timeline for Abraham Lincoln Timeline of Esther Reed Timeline of Israel Timeline of Oprah Winfrey Tips for Getting Pregnant tmz rihanna tmz rihanna photo tmz.com rihanna tobey maguire tom and huck tomas kopecky tool academy tool academy wiki top 5 buzz list may 8th Top Baby Names Top Secret Recipes Top Ten Baby Names toshiro mifune town lake animal shelter tpc at sawgrass tpc golf tpc sawgrass traditional Traditional Arab Clothing train day train day 2009 Translation of Jabberwocky travel Travel Agency Travel Agents Travel Channel Travel Guides Travel Sites Travel Websites traveling wilburys traveling wilburys jeff Treatment for Hairline Fracture Wrist Treatment of Swine Flu trendylaarzen Trial of Lisa Connelly trilha sonora como se fosse a primeira vez trilha sonora do filme como se fosse a primeira vez trio sonata triple crown winners TRL VJ Vanessa troy bilt Trying to Get Pregnant Quickly tu parada .com tulip fest tulip fest albany tulip fest albany ny tulip festival tulip festival albany tulip festival albany 2009 tulip festival albany ny Turn a Friend to a Lover tv guide brisbane tv guide sydney TV Leg Shots twelve oaks

The Big influenza gamble: A look at 1918, 1976 and today’s flu scare

2009-07-05T19:06:00.000-07:00

Bill Dalton
May 07, 2009
On Sept. 27, 1918, the Andover Board of Health closed all schools, the library, and the movie theater. Church services were voluntarily discontinued. These actions were taken because of the Great Influenza Epidemic of 1918-19. The Board of Heath reported 1,503 cases of influenza in 1918 and 25 people died. The Andover Townsman reported 341 new cases in one week. In 1919, there were 274 more cases, but the Board of Health was too busy dealing with the epidemic to file a report and no deaths were stated. (The towns population was 8,000.) In Lawrence, open air hospitals were set up in tent villages. In Massachusetts, 45,000 people died.
The Great Influenza was one of the worst events in human history. Twenty million Americans were infected, 20 percent of the population. It killed 675,000 of those people, 10 times more Americans than died in World War I. Half the American troops who died in the war died of the influenza. Worldwide, between 20 million and 100 million died, with 50 million being a widely quoted number. More people died from the Great Influenza in one year than died from the Black Death (Bubonic Plague) during the Middle Ages.
The mortality rate for the annual flu is 0.1 percent. Last year, the flu killed about 34,000 worldwide. That was a normal year. The mortality rate during the Great Influenza was 2.5 to 5 percent. Not only was that influenza much more contagious than ever, it killed a high percent of the people infected. The 1918-19 Influenza came in three waves. The first wave was relatively benign; the second wave was deadly; and the third wave was benign.
Virus mutation rate calculations are for scientists, but rapid mutation is what makes viruses so dangerous. Simply stated, viruses go through countless generations and mutations during the time it takes humans to go through a single generation.
(H1N1) Influenza A, formerly called the Swine Flu is now causing concern. The 1918-19 was an H1N1 virus, but within the designation H1N1 are large numbers of variations. Some variations are harmless, some will make you sick, and some will kill you.
We had a Swine Flu scare in 1976, and it affected a presidential election. That year, a small number of soldiers at Fort Dix were diagnosed with Swine Flu. One died. Acting with the recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control and with Congressional approval, President Gerald Ford implemented a Swine Flu program that included the vaccination of 40 million Americans. Three elderly people died shortly after being vaccinated and the media assumed a connection. Public outcry stopped the vaccination program. Today we know that there was no scientific connection between those deaths and the vaccinations. However, after the vaccinations were stopped, as many as 500 people developed Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), a serious neurological disorder. Up to 25 of these people died. GBS is rare and can be caused as a response to a vaccination.
Before large scale vaccination programs are begun, experts predict the number of health issues that will be caused by the vaccine. It is a risk/reward analysis: how many people will be hurt as compared to how many will be helped by the vaccine. With flu vaccinations, it is predicted that one person in a million will get GBS. The 1976 Swine Flu Vaccine had an abnormally high 500. (That may have been a statistical anomaly, or something unique in the vaccine, or a heightened awareness of the side effects caused by media attention, or a combination of all of these.)
President Ford was criticized for overreacting to the Swine Flu. This overreaction may have played a role in his defeat by Jimmy Carter. In 1979, I was at the Kennedy School, and we studied the 1976 Swine Flu Crises. The important part of the discussion was not about whether Ford had overreacted but whether the perception that hed overreacted might cause future Presidents to underreact in similar situations.
The predictable cries that the government, the media, and we are overreacting began several days ago. Part of my full-time job involves risk management. Besides insurance (which is really shifting risk rather than managing it), risk management means that you do things that cost time and money to prevent people from getting hurt and assets from being destroyed. The trouble with risk management is that you cant always quantify whether you had the desired results. In other words, you dont know what problems you prevented.
This is a high stakes game, folks. If I were betting money, Id bet that this will all blow over, and maybe laugh about it. However, Im in favor of overreaction as opposed to underreaction when the stakes are so high.
Postscript. As the paper goes to press, it appears more than likely that the latest flu is no more dangerous than an ordinary flu. However, the government will have to make a decision as to whether it manufactures a vaccine for this new strain of influenza or whether it keeps on with its plans to manufacture a vaccine for the routine annual flu. There may not be enough capability to manufacture both, but that could change. Remembering that this H1N1 may be able to remake itself into a deadly second wave in time for the colder weather and flu season, like the H1N1 of 1918-19 remade itself, the stakes remain very high.
AndoverTownsman.com

Caitlin Sarubbi rings The Opening Bell

2009-07-02T18:32:00.001-07:00

Via NYSE.com
Brooklyn, NY’s Caitlin Sarubbi is a rising star in the adaptive ski-racing world with a goal of medaling in the 2010 Paralympics Winter Games in Vancouver. Caitie is 19 years old, and was born with Ablepharon Macrostomia that left her without eyelids and visually-impaired. Caitlin, for the past three years, has maintained excellent grades while training and competing at the national level to qualify for the U.S. Adaptive Ski Team (USAST). Caitie achieved both her scholastic and skiing goals. She is currently attending Harvard University as a pre med undergraduate, in addition to being named to the United States Adaptive Team. (Source www.CaitlinSarubbi.com)
About the Adaptive Sports Foundation (ASF)
The Adaptive Sports Foundation is a non profit organization located at Windham Mountain in Windham, New York. The ASF provides over 2800 lessons annually to individuals with cognitive or physical challenges. The ASF has 205 volunteer instructors and six full time staff members, eight of whom serve as Adaptive and Alpine educational staff members for the Professional Ski Instructors of America. The Adaptive Sports Foundation is a member ski school of the Professional Ski Instructors of America and the American Association of Snowboard Instructors, an official Red Cross Provider, a chapter of Disabled Sports USA and is recognized as the largest adaptive sport program on the east coast. The ASF is among the leading adaptive sport programs in the country. (Source: Adaptive Sports Foundation)
To learn more about the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games, please visit www.usparalympics.org
Post from: GerritsenBeach.net

Cars That I Have Owned

2009-07-01T19:03:00.000-07:00

I stole this idea from XL a long time ago. If there were any money involved I supposed I might owe him some, but since there isn't ... thpppppt!I've had a lot of cars in my lifetime. And since this is my blog and you can't stop me, I'm going to tell you all about every single one of them in annoying detail.1971 Olds 98This 20 foot long rolling living room was my very first car. It was dark metallic blue, except for one brown fender resulting from my brother intentionally smashing the car before giving it to me. The back seat was as big as a standard couch and the front was just as good. All it needed was a TV and a bathroom and I could have lived inside comfortably. It also had a 455 cubic inch engine rated at 360 horsepower and 500 ft/lbs of torque, and came with the optional posi traction rear end. It was fun learning to drive with a car that would spin both rear tires non-stop until you decided to let off the pedal, but it was hell on gas.My brother never forgave me for inheriting the car, which had been Mom's, then his, then after much abuse and drug hauls, it became mine. So after I had had the car for only a year, he convinced My Father that he 'needed' that car, in addition to the car he already had, and that I should have to get something else. Dad loved my brother, unlike the way he felt about me, so he was more than happy to yank it from me and give it back to the son who had ripped the fender off on a tree trunk just because he was so angry that he was having to give the giant land yatch to me and get something new, something which Dad paid for, and something which was much cooler than the tired old Olds.While all of this was going on, My Father had miraculously begun to notice that for 12 long years I had worked my ass off in school and done very well. He promised to buy me a car for graduation as a reward for working so hard and doing so well. He set a price range for used cars and said I could choose what I wanted as long as it was cheap. I chose a 1971 Camaro and found one for the exact price he had set as my limit. But what he bought instead was a coworker's wife's car, a car that looked like nothing I had ever seen before and which I initially thought looked like a weird, warped Chevelle.1971 Chevrolet Monte CarloIt was horseshit green, underpowered by a 2-barrel carburetor, and a complete unknown to me. I had never seen one of these cars before in my entire life, let alone ever wanted one. But it had bucket seats and a console shifter, which was pretty cool. Also, it only had 2 doors instead of 4, a step in the right direction. And it was entirely the correct color, with no primer black replacement panels or a mismatched junkyard fender like the Olds had. All-in-all it was better than I had expected from My Father, considering how little he thought of me.I drove it for 3 years before wiping out in a rainstorm and tearing up the front end pretty badly while on my way to physics lab at the university. It was going to take me quite awhile to fix it while simultaneously going to school, so I needed something else in the meantime. My Dad had bought a car that he had originaly intended for me to drive when my brother took the Olds, but I hadn't wanted it at all because it looked like raggedy rusted ass. Dad was hooked on it and bought it anyway. But he didn't really need it. When my Monte Carlo was temporarily out of service, he loaned it to me. It was yet another car I had never seen or even heard of before.1969 Buick WildcatIt had belonged to a 98 year old woman whose son had to take it away from her because she had rammed it into her own house without realizing it and then backed it down her driveway, up the neighbor's driveway, and run over their fence, all without having the slightest idea that she had done anything wrong. She was a shit driver. And it was a huge tank of a car. And also it had apparently been underwater at some point, as we later discovered.It had a 430 cubic inch high compression engine, bucket seats, and a console shifter. It only had 67,000 original miles on it. It still had the original 2-ply 70-series tires it had come off the assembly line with. It looked like hell, but it would scream like an angry bitch when you stepped on the gas. Every time I pulled up next to another driver in a Mustang GT or an IROC Camaro, they would look over at the car, which sat about 4 inches off the ground, as you can see in the picture, sneer at the scripted 'Wildcat' on the fender, and then attempt to race me when the light turned green. This was in the early '90s when an IROC Camaro or Mustang GT was the fastest thing on the road and yet still fairly anemic. I quickly learned that the smelly old Wildcat could blow the doors off any IROC without half trying. The Mustang GTs gave it a better challenge, but not much, and never beat it. In fact, I never lost a race in the Wildcat to anything.It was rusted, ragged, painted by me in my dad's garage using an air compressor and lacquer paint, and smelled like mold inside. I did everything I could for the car, switching it from the used crude oil that my father would pour into it after draining it from his other cars (I shit you not) to Mobil 1 20W-50 fully synthetic oil. The rings were shot and whenever I pushed the pedal down, along with the screaming, knocking, '60s big block roar, there would be a huge cloud of gasoline vapor spewing from the tailpipe, creating a blinding toxic haze behind me. Also, every race used exactly 1 quart of crude oil, which meant that I had to watch the oil level very carefully. Once I switched it to the good stuff the oil burning situation improved dramatically, but rings that are shot are still rings that are shot, no matter what oil you pour into the engine. The windshield leaked whenever it rained, pissing on my leg as I drove. And the ball joints were shot, too, so I went through a set of tires every three months or so.I learned to mount my own tires using a bead breaker and 2 tire irons and was pretty damn good at it before long. I discovered that Super Shops, located nearby the house, sold a lot of new tires. They didn't have any use for the old tires they pulled off the musclecars they were installing the new tires on, so they just threw them into the dumpster. A friend of mine worked there and would call me whenever they threw out a really good set of low-profile performance tires so I could go get them. The Wildcat started off with a set of shit 2-ply tires, but quickly ended up in Eagle GT 60-series performance radials, which lowered it so much that I frequently bottomed out and scraped the frame on the road whenever I crossed a bridge or train tracks.The car was a blast, but it was a mess. In the end, it was unsaveable, needing a total frame-off restoration just to deal with the rust and worn out suspension. And ultimately, it wasn't mine to keep. At least, not yet. Eventually Dad wanted it back. Meanwhile, the Monte Carlo was still under reconstruction. So I had to buy another substitute.1976 Buick SkylarkIt was sitting in a sell-it-yourself lot with a sign saying 'needs timing chain'. It was only $200. It was something I would never have bought under normal circumstances, but I was desperate and still in school. And I had already put a timing chain in the Wildcat, so I knew how much of a huge pain in the ass it was, but also that I could do it. So I bought it.It was a Nova-clone, built on the same half-frame and unibody design as the Chevy Nova. It had a 260 cubic inch V8. It made 140 horsepower. It had air shocks and was jacked up in the back. The tires were skinny and the hubcaps were wire spokes. It was maroon and gay-looking. But once I put on a new timing chain it ran ... well, it ran. The motor had a tick. It just ticked constantly. I don't know why. Nothing was broken. It just ticked.Once again, I had a car with bucket seats and a console and a funky push-button shifter. There were fishing poles in the back seat. I don't know why the previous owner left them there. I guess he didn't want to fish anymore.My friend at Super Shops called me around the time I had just gotten the car running to tell me that a pair of superwide low-profile tires had just landed in their dumpster. Once I yanked the tall, skinny tires off the back wheels and replaced them with the big-assed, superwides, the car took on a whole new look. It suddenly had an aggressive stance. It was slower than a drunken turtle, but it looked like a bad-ass motherfucker. The same drivers in the musclecars that wanted to race the Wildcat, only to get their asses handed to them along with 2 big lungfulls of smelly toxic smoke, didn't want anything to do with my Skylark. It was all show and no go, but it was enough as long as no one was willing to challenge it to a race. And most importantly, it got me to class.I had the car about a year, I guess, when a guy from Seattle turned in front of me in his big-assed Toyota luxury car. And he just stopped there, with his car blocking both lanes heading that direction, and stared at the curb in front of him. I don't know what kind of Toyota it was. It was the biggest Toyota car I had ever seen. And it was cutting me off without leaving me anywhere to go to avoid it. So I hit it. I hit it so hard that I knocked it completely out of the road and up the curb, where it landed, minus both back wheels, perfectly parked in the grass. Unfortunately, the damage it did to my Skylark was pretty extreme. And the insurance company totalled it.Once again, I needed a temporary ride. My brother called. He had a car I could get for $100 and a bag of weed. I didn't have any weed. So he settled for just the $100.1973 Mazda RX3 WagonI didn't even know there was such a thing as a Mazda RX3. In fact, I didn't know that Mazda had even existed in 1973, but apparently they did. And apparently they made an RX3, available in coupe or stationwagon, too. It had the same rotary engine that all Mazda RX models have. It also had a 4-speed manual transmission, the first car I had ever owned without a V8 engine and with a manual transmission. It had a smashed front fender. I had been doing extensive bodywork on my Monte Carlo, so I was fairly experienced by this time with hammering out dents. Much to my surprise, I was able to push the giant dent out of the Japanese fender using nothing more than the palm of my own hand. The ease with which the fender folded in my hands did nothing to inspire confidence in me, but at least the dent was gone.The 1973 RX3 had a funny quirk. It seems that it had been the subject of multiple recalls when new. There had been a problem with the rotary engine blowing up when revved too high. It wasn't Mazda's fault. It was the new car owners revving the engines to the moon, which it would easily do. Nevertheless, the exploding motors had hurt Mazda's reputation, so they had recalled the cars twice to 'detune' them. In the end, they ended up with an engine that wouldn't blow up, but backfired through the exhaust every single time it was turned off, blowing the muffler clean off the car. Mazda's solution to this backfiring problem was to recall the car a third time and run a separate pipe along the full length of the exhaust pipe just to allow the engine to backfire without exploding the muffler.I shit you not.The car was fun. Except for the night I hit a concrete barrier mysteriously installed on Interstate 565 where it served no purpose and was almost impossible to see after dark. I hit the barrier while merging onto I565 at a speed of about 65 mph. My car launched over the barrier, completely leaving the ground while in mid-turn, and landing on 2 wheels in the middle of the interstate. I had the wheel turned hard to the right in order to stay on the road. I was maintaining the 2-wheel stunt ride as I found myself looking down at the very edge of the asphalt where the road ended and the grass began. If I slipped one inch further to the left I would slide across the grass and into the oncoming interstate traffic. So for what seemed like an eternity I drove along on this tightrope, travelling at 65 mph, and still up on 2 wheels. It was probably only a few seconds, but it felt like 10 minutes. I was finally able to straighten the car out and bring it back down onto all 4 wheels again.There was a lot of traffic behind me, but no one wanted to pass. Everyone was driving along behind me with a look on their faces like a circus audience wondering "what the hell is he going to do next?"Aside from this one pants-pissing, heart attack experience, I had no problems driving the car. It was fun and useful and got about a million miles per gallon compared to most of my previous cars. It was the first Japanese car I had ever owned and was more like a go-kart to me than a real car. But it was reliable. It never broke down on me, even after the Speed Racer-like jump I had accidentally subjected it to. And sometimes, when I was in a bad mood or just feeling like a redneck, it was really funny to pull into a parking lot and turn off the car, only to have it backfire and scare the living shit out of every single person in the general area.Let me make this clear, when this car backfired it sounded like a .38 caliber handgun being fired right next to you. It was loud. Even when you knew it was coming it still made you jump.I hadn't had the car even a month when my mother came to me, telling me about how my oldest sister had gone through a divorce and needed a car and would I give the car to her for the same $100 I had paid for it? I really needed more money than that, but I knew my sister needed something to drive. So I agreed to the deal.My sister didn't have the car for any longer than I had when she told my father that the car was a huge embarrassment, which it was. It's not bad enough to be 30 and getting a divorce, having to move with your kids to your parents house to go back to college, only to be stuck driving a funky little car that sounds like it's exploding every time you turn off the ignition. So my father traded her his Cadillac and he took the Mazda.Dad LOVED the Mazda. He LOVED going to the gas station and pulling in right in the middle of all the other drivers who had stopped for gas, turning off the ignition, and watching everyone leap out of their pants when the bomb went off. He laughed his ass off every time. It was the best toy he had ever received and he made the most of it.Meanwhile, my brother had another car to sell me.1973 Toyota CorollaMy brother had pulled it from a ditch for a drunken friend. It turned out to be the same friend who had put the Mazda RX3 into a ditch, causing the crumpled fender that I had repaired using only my bare hand. It was $200 and only needed a few minor tweaks before being safe enough to drive. My brother gleefully informed me that it had Amsoil fully synthetic motor oil in it and therefore "you don't ever need to change the oil!"It was another 2-door, 4-speed manual with the big 1.6 liter engine, the largest offered that year by Toyota. It was orange-ish. Upon closer inspection it became obvious that it was painted with a brush. And housepaint. It also had a strange brown cable running out the rear passenger vent window and into the trunk. This turned out to be lamp cord which was mysteriously being used to power the taillights. Why it wasn't run under the rear seat and through the trunk was a question I never got to ask, but I always wondered.The car had 80-series tires on it and looked like it could go off-roading without any trouble. I could bark the tires shifting from 1st to 2nd, 2nd to 3rd, and on rare occasions when shifting from 3rd to 4th gear. I'll be honest, I drove the shit out of this car. I viewed it as nothing more than a toy, like a motorcycle with a roof and doors, and I treated it accordingly. The only motorcycle I had ever owned was a Suzuki dirt bike, and that's how I drove this car. One afternoon, while racing to Dynamics class at the engineering building, I jumped a grass median, sending the car flying through the air and into the middle of an intersection, in order to beat the light before it could turn red. I bounced into the intersection like the Dukes of Hazard in the General Lee, and then intentionally whipped it hard around the turn in a heavy skid, before flying across the campus lawn to the parking lot of the engineering building. And the little car had no problem with that at all. It didn't offer the slightest complaint.The longer I drove this little Toyota go-kart, and the more I jumped it and slammed the gears, and spun it around in the dirt, all without breaking a single part or being stranded a single time, the more I began to respect the shit out of the car. It was awesome!And about the time I realized what a cool little toy it was, a guy in a Nissan minitruck hit me head-on in rush hour traffic. It was his fault, but nevertheless the frame was bent and the car was totalled.I sold the car for $175, still running and still driveable, but in need of about $500 in frame and front end repairs.Again I needed a car. Again my brother appeared just in the nick of time with a mysterious bargain car he had gotten from a mysterious friend.1974 Dodge PolaraFor $50 and my Gibson SG-1 electric guitar, this Blues Brothers tank was all mine. It was a car that rednecks had banned from smash-up derby competitions along with the stationwagon version of the same car because it was totally indestructible and thus declared 'unfair' for their smash-up contests (I am dead serious.)While I was in college and driving this car, the city had been doing construction on a section of road near some government housing projects. There were big orange and white striped barrels filled with sandbags lining the road where the construction was going on. Late at night, the ghetto children liked to push those barrels out into the middle of the road, forcing people to stop and move the barrels, only to get attacked and robbed by the oppressed little future-Obama supporters.I had to work late every Friday night. I usually drove through this area of ghetto fun at 2 a.m., often finding the barrels blocking my way. I was disinclined to stop and move them while oppressed 'protected class' individuals fired guns at me, so I just rammed the barrels down and drove on. Other than leaving some orange paint on my bumper it did no damage to the car at all (thank God I didn't have fucking 'crumple zones' or air bags!) This became a weekly game for me and the ghetto Obamas, but I always won, smashing lots and lots of barrels.The car had brakes that would quite literally slam your face into the steering wheel if you weren't expecting them. You could stop this 4600 pound monster on a dime. I hadn't had the car for even a full year when my brother got stoned and spray-painted obscenities all over it, which he claimed was "to piss off his neighbors." Once he sobered up I forced him to either repaint the car or give me another one. He happened to have a Chevy belonging to a friend that was parked in his front yard that he said I could take for $50 and my Dodge. I took the deal and he took the Dodge out trail-riding with his friends. They jumped it, hit trees, even shot it. The car didn't die until he jumped it enough times that he broke a ball joint on the front suspension and had to limp home, where he oddly chose to park the damaged vehicle on his front lawn. His friends then took hammers and bats to the body and tried to smash it. All they managed to do was to break the windows. After that he says he towed it to a friend's land where they all got high, shot it, and burned it, before pushing the flaming remains over a cliff. Idiot.1974 Chevy Caprice ClassicAnother $50, my Dodge, and 2 months of damned hard work to figure out what the hell was wrong with the car, and it was my daily cruiser. I drove this thing for years, even taking it to Atlanta in rush hour traffic for a job interview in Norcross, Georgia, just on the outskirts of Atlanta. It rode better than My Mom's Cadillac, but it only had a 2-barrel carburetor and single exhaust, which made it hard for the 400-cubic-inch small block engine to breathe properly. Also, the car had been down in Florida for a number of years, giving it some salty sea air rust here and there. It was pea-green, and not a pretty deep green either, but a faded, pale pea green that was apparently popular with the same '70s people who wore pea-green suits and wide ties. I liked the car, but it had been mislabeled by GM as having a 350 and the resulting chaos of a few 350-specific parts being installed on the little 400 drove me insane. So I sold it to a friend. He pulled the engine, laughed at me for selling him an awesome potential racing motor without realizing it, and then he stuffed it with fabulous new high performance parts before sticking it into his Firebird. He junked the body. It was a waste, really, to trash such a nice car. But what can you do? Time marches on.1977 Pontiac Trans AmWhile I was in college, my father maintained an iron grip on my life, controlling as much as he possibly could for reasons that made sense only to him. I wasn't even allowed to pick my own car without his OK. Meanwhile, my brother, who could do no wrong in his eyes, had taken a car Dad had given him and traded it in for a piece of shit 1977 Trans Am. The car was jacked up in the back, had a giant snorkel-style hood scoop in place of the original shaker, and a cracked 350 engine in it. My brother wasn't very mechanical, so after rigging the cracked engine enough to drive it a bit, he convinced me to buy it from him. Yes, I was a fool to take the deal, but I had been trying to figure out a way to get something like this and without my brother helping me get around my father, there simply was no way.I cleaned it up, straightened it out, pulled the cracked 350, and installed a highly modified 400 in it. But the more I worked on the car, the more I realized that it wasn't going to work for what I wanted. There was just too much wrong. So I stumbled on another car and made a swap.1978 Pontiac Trans AmI bought a 1978 black Trans Am with a solid body and working, non-cracked 350 in it and took it home, lying to my control-freak of a father that I was getting paid by a friend to work on his car for him. I brought the white piece-of-shit Trans Am over, too, and swapped the good 400 out of the white car into the black one, and the 350 from the black car to the white one. I got both cars running fine, and then began doing other work on the black car.Around this time, my brother asked if he could buy back the white Trans Am. I was glad to sell it to him. He took the car, promising to pay me in installments. But he never did. He pulled the engine, saying he was going to install an Olds 455 he had lying around, but he was lazy and couldn't figure out how to finish the job. Eventually he dumped the now engineless car back on me without paying me a dime. We have not been friends since.In the meantime, I was hired for a job in Memphis, TN. When I arrived in Memphis, my coworkers, upon hearing that I had a 1978 black Trans Am, advised me that my shiny black musclecar would last about a week before it was stolen and never seen again. I didn't much like this idea, so I sold it back in Alabama, along with a storage unit filled with enough parts to build a 2nd one, all of which would be worth a fortune today.1981 Datsun/Nissan 200SXA lawyer owned this car. It was his first purchase upon graduating from law school. He rear-ended a pickup truck and mangled the front end a little bit. The insurance company totaled it. He had a special sentimental feeling about the car, so he wanted someone to fix it. He went looking for a poor college student (me) who would be willing to take it for free upon the condition that they fix it and drive it. I was glad to do so.For years I drove this thing to class, and after graduation, to my jobs, with a silver body and a white front clip I had purchased at a junk yard. After moving to Memphis, I drove it 400 miles with a blown out head gasket before I was able to get it to a mechanic, who expressed utter amazement that the car survived and didn't crack or warp the head.After the blown head gasket adventure, I drove the car back and forth between Memphis and Rocketown (200 miles each way) for almost 2 years before a black lady in a Ford Escort cut me off in front of the university where I had graduated years before. I couldn't stop and I t-boned her. She reacted by going berzerk, like something you'd see on Maury Povich or Oprah, throwing her hands in the air and moaning and crying. After 30 minutes of screaming and wailing, she admitted that she had just canceled her insurance because it was too expensive (high risk policy) and didn't have any insurance. While the police officer was filling out an accident report, she admitted something about there being an outstanding warrant on her for an unpaid ticket. The officer mumbled something about arresting her, but then forgot. Several months later my insurance told me that despite the extremely minor level of damage, they were totaling the car and taking it away to be crushed. Those cold blooded bastards! It had 174,000 miles on it with plenty of life left. I drove the shit out of that car and it never gave me a problem.1988 Nissan minitruckI was so impressed with my Nissan 200SX that when the insurance bastards took it away from me, I went looking for another Nissan. I knew I needed a pickup, for various reasons which included both the shitty roads in Memphis as well as my coming marriage to my then-girlfriend who would then be moving up to Memphis and have lots of crap to haul. My middle sister drove a pickup and advised me to make sure I got one with an extended cab, so I went looking for a used Nissan with the same engine and transmission my car had had, and an extended cab. It wasn't easy to find, but I finally did. I had actually been looking for a white one, having done enough body repair work to know that white doesn't show scratches and dings nearly as much as darker, shinier colors. But my choices were limited and black was all I found available. So black it was.I bought this truck with 120,000 miles on it. It had few options and wasn't exactly what you'd call luxurious. But I was driving about 100 miles a week back and forth to work, plus an additional 400 miles per week going back and forth between my apartment and my future-wife's apartment in Rocketown, Alabama, where she was attending college. I needed gas mileage, reliability, and a vehicle capable of surviving the horrifically shitty roads in Memphis, Tennessee. This was perfect.Today, the truck is sitting in my driveway with 260,000 miles on the odometer. It has hot start issues, a broken waterpump, a radiator damaged by the failure of the waterpump, has been sideswiped by a drunk in Walnut, Mississippi, t-boned by a manager at Autosuck in the AutoSuck corporate headquarters parking garage, rear-ended by a Dodge Neon on the 240 loop in Memphis, rammed a stump hidden in tall grass at Shelby Farms park, sideswiped by a full-sized Chevy van in Redneckville, Tennessee, repeatedly vandalized by a drug-dealing police informant boy I call 'Yo G', and hauled a shitload of mulch for My Wife.When fixed and running properly, this vehicle serves as our spare car. We figure it has earned the rest from daily driving after all that it has been through.1970 Chevrolet ChevelleIn high school I had very coldly and logically determined what the perfect musclecar for me would be. I had narrowed it down to a Buick GS455, Pontiac GTO with 455, Olds 442 with 455, or a Chevy Chevelle SS454. But all these cars cost a freakin' fortune, so I had ruled them all out, setting my sights instead on a 1977 or '78 Pontiac Trans Am by virtue of them coming already equipped with everything that I might have to add via aftermarket to a lesser car. At the time, the Trans Ams were far cheaper and easier to find.My Trans Ams came and went and by now I had a house with my own garage where I could lock away my prized musclecar if I needed to. Living in Memphis, of course, I very much needed to. I had long before sold my Trans Am, so the garage held my old Monte Carlo. But then a friend told me about a guy in my old hometown with a 1970 Chevelle SS454 that he might be selling. I went to take a look.The guy with the car came outside to find me and my friend looking the car over in his driveway. "What the hell are you doing?" he asked. I had assumed my friend knew him. The car didn't have a "For Sale" sign on it, so how else would my friend have known about the car or that it was for sale? As it turned out, my friend did not know the man, and no one seems to be able to recall how he knew the man was planning to sell it. But he was. "I haven't told anybody that I was going to sell it. That's the damnedest thing. See, I have this friend, he's richer than shit. He's got a dragstrip in his backyard that doubles as his landing strip for his airplanes. He has all kinds of classic musclecars. He wants me to sell this to him so he can cut it up and tub it out and make it purely into a dragster. I'd really rather not see that happen."We talked, discussed what I wanted the car for, settled on a price, and I bought it. Today it sits in my garage, leaking transmission fluid on my floor since the day I got it. But it'll roast the rear tires any time I want and at almost any speed I'm willing to throw it down and gun it. That's all I want, at this point. I don't do much with it and I should probably sell it. But for now, sitting safely tucked away in my garage, is a car I never thought I'd have.I won't say exactly what I'm driving currently, except that I like it and it gets me where I want to go. It has 4-wheel-drive and a brush guard, and it's made of steel, not plastic. It has no airbags or crumple zones, like a real man's truck. And it's a lot more comfortable to ride in than my old Nissan. I've already been sideswiped by a woman in an SUV in Cherokee, Alabama, only to discover thanks to her than no one makes the passenger-side mirror for this truck anymore and the generic replacement sucks ass. I've never owned a truck like this before, but I think I have gotten rather used to it.So, what about you? What cars have you owned in your lifetime?Welcome to Memphis - the ass of Tennessee

Stop Me Before I Cook Again

2009-06-30T20:05:00.000-07:00

Gumby Fresh Gari N. Corp, in his inimitable style, straightens out The New York Times (and, we must admit, us) as to the conclusions reached in yesterday's short article regarding the status of CitiField bonds. And, while he's at it, he does a little compare-and-contrast between the Mets' situation, and that of the Nets. There are plenty of scenarios under which the Mets bonds' underlying rating might be downgraded, particularly if the New York economy stays in the doldrums and the stadium does not generate as much revenue as it should. But let's remember this is a popular franchise in a large city with a very patient fanbase that gets plenty of excitement in September, if not in, ahem, October. Don't try and pretend that any Nets financing could get a rating like this as easily. I love the Mets, but they're a bit trashy. Compared to the Nets though, the Mets are that really classy lady in the black dress and pearls that fronts the Lexus dealers' adverts. Yes, that classy. ... Before anyone says (not that they will, this is hardly a popular blog with the pro-stadium crown, well it's hardly a popular blog at all, what with the infrequent postings and paucity of stimulating subjects, but you get my drift) that the preceding might be construed as a clean bill of health for the business of New York sports, please read the bit about the Mets' resilient brand, and note also that the Mets attracted new financing from the one standing bond insurer (Assured Guaranty) for a small amount for a pretty much complete stadium for a solid team. It won't do the same for the Nets. The New Jersey Nets are the Typhoid Mary of High Finance, and no-one wants to eat their delightful cooking. article

The Law of Leadership

2009-06-28T20:42:00.001-07:00

It's better to be first than it is to be better.Many people believe that the basic issue in marketing is convincing prospects that you have a better product or service.Not true. If you have a small market share and you have to do battle with larger, better-financed competitors, then your marketing strategy was probably faulty in the first place. You violated the first law of marketing.The basic issue in marketing is creating a category you can be first in. It's the law of leadership: It's better to be first than it is to be better. It's much easier to get into the mind first than to try to convince someone you have a better product than the one that did get there first.You can demonstrate the law of leadership by asking yourself two questions:1) What's the name of the first person to fly the Atlantic Ocean solo? Charles Lindbergh, right?2) What's the name of the second person to fly the Atlantic Ocean solo? Not so easy to answer, is it?The second person to fly the Atlantic Ocean solo was Bert Hinkler. Bert was a better pilot than Charlie-he flew faster, he consumed less fuel. Yet who has ever heard of Bert Hinkler? (He left home and Mrs. Hinkler hasn't heard from him since.)In spite of the evident superiority of the Lindbergh approach, most companies go the Bert Hinkler route. They wait until a market develops. Then they jump in with a better product, often with their corporate name attached. In today's competitive environment, a me-too product with a line extension name has little hope of becoming a big, profitable brand. The leading brand in any category is almost always the first brand into the prospect's mind. Hertz in rent-a-cars. IBM in computers. Coca-Cola in cola.After World War II, Heineken was the first imported beer to make a name for itself in America. So four decades later, what is the No. 1 imported beer? The one that tastes the best? Or Heineken? There are 425 brands of imported beer sold in America. Surely one of these brands must taste better than Heineken, but does it really matter? Today, Heineken is still the No. 1 imported beer, with 30 percent of the market.The first domestic light beer was Miller Lite. So what is the largest-selling light beer in America today? The one that tastes the best? Or the one that got into the mind first?Not every first is going to become successful, however. Timing is an issue-your first could be too late. For example, USA Today is the first national newspaper, but it is unlikely to succeed. It has already lost $800 million and has never had a profitable year. In a television era, it may be too late for a national newspaper.Some firsts are just bad ideas that will never go anywhere. Frosty Paws, the first ice cream for dogs, is unlikely to make it. The dogs love it, but the owners are the ones who buy the groceries, and they think that dogs don't need an ice cream of their own. They should be happy just to lick the plates.The law of leadership applies to any product, any brand, any category. Let's say you didn't know the name of the first college founded in America. You can always make a good guess by substituting leading for first. So what's the name of the leading college in America? Most people would probably say Harvard, which is also the name of the first college founded in America. (What's the name of the second college founded in America? The College of William and Mary, which is only slightly more famous than Bert Hinkler.)No two products are any similar than twins are. Yet twins often complain that the first of the two whom a person meets always remains their favorite, even though the person also gets to know the other one.People tend to stick with what they've got. If you meet someone a little better than your wife or husband, it's really not worth making the switch, what with attorneys' fees and dividing up the house and kids.The law of leadership also applies to magazines. Which is why Time leads Newsweek, People leads Us, and Playboy leads Penthouse. Take TV Guide, for example. Back in the early fifties the then-powerful Curtis Publishing Company tried to field a television- listings magazine to compete with the fledgling TV Guide. Even though TV Guide had only a minuscule head start, and despite the awesome strength of Curtis, the Curtis publication never really got off the ground. TV Guide had preempted the field.The law of leadership applies equally as well to hard categories like automobiles and computers as it does to soft categories like colleges and beer. Jeep was first in four-wheel-drive off-the-road vehicles. Acura was first in luxury Japanese cars. IBM was first in mainframe computers. Sun Microsystems was first in workstations. Jeep, Acura, IBM, and Sun are all leading brands.The first minivan was introduced by Chrysler. Today Chrysler has 10 percent of the car market and 50 percent of the minivan market. Is the essence of car marketing making better cars or getting into the market first?The first desktop laser printer was introduced by a computer company, Hewlett-Packard. Today the company has 5 percent of the personal computer market and 45 percent of the laser printer market.Gillette was the first safety razor. Tide was the first laundry detergent. Hayes was the first computer modem. Leaders all.One reason the first brand tends to maintain its leadership is that the name often becomes generic. Xerox, the first plain-paper copier, became the name for all plain-paper copiers. People will stand in front of a Ricoh or a Sharp or a Kodak machine and say, "How do I make a Xerox copy?" They will ask for the Kleenex when the box clearly says Scott. They will offer you a Coke when all they have is Pepsi-Cola.How many people ask for cellophane tape instead of Scotch tape? Not many. Most people use brand names when they become generic: Band-Aid, Fiberglas, Formica, Gore-Tex, Jello, Krazy Glue, Q-tips, Saran Wrap, Velcro-to name a few. Some people will go to great lengths to turn a brand name into a generic. "FedEx this package to the Coast." If you're introducing the first brand in a new category, you should always try to select a name that can work generically. (Lawyers advise the opposite, but what do they know about the laws of marketing?)Not only does the first brand usually become the leader, but also the sales order of follow-up brands often matches the order of their introductions. The best example is ibuprofen. Advil was first, Nuprin was second, Medipren was third. That's exactly the sales order they now enjoy: Advil has 51 percent of the ibuprofen market, Nuprin has 10 percent, and Medipren has 1 percent.The fourth brand that entered the market was Motrin IB. Even though it has the powerful prescription name for ibuprofen, Motrin's market share is only 15 percent. (Keep in mind that Advil was introduced with a "Same as the prescription drug Motrin" theme.) And note the generic substitution. Consumers use Advil as a generic term. Rarely do they use the word ibuprofen. Even an M.D. will tell a patient, "Take two Advil and call me in the morning."Also consider Tylenol, the first brand of acetaminophen. Tylenol is so far ahead of the No. 2 brand that it's hard to determine who is No. 2.If the secret of success is getting into the prospect's mind first, what strategy are most companies committed to? The better-product strategy. The latest and hottest subject in the business management field is benchmarking. Touted as the "ultimate competitive strategy," benchmarking is the process of comparing and evaluating your company's products against the best in the industry. It's an essential element in a process often called "total quality management."Unfortunately, benchmarking doesn't work. Regardless of reality, people perceive the first product into the mind as superior. Marketing is a battle of perceptions, not products.So what's the name of the first brand of aspirin? The first brand of acetaminophen? The first brand of ibuprofen? (Hint: Substitute leading for first and you'll have the answers to these three questions.)Charles Schwab bills itself as "America's largest discount broker." Are you surprised that the Charles Lindbergh of the discount brokerage business is Charles Schwab?Neil Armstrong was the first person to walk on the moon. Who was second?Roger Bannister was the first person to run a four-minute mile. Who was second?George Washington was the first president of the United States. Who was second?Thomas' was the first brand of English muffin. What was second?Gatorade was the first sports drink. What was second?Sponsored By: Brand Aid

How Much Abuse Can One Danish Braid Take?

2009-06-25T20:57:00.000-07:00

When I saw this month’s challenge, I was pretty excited.. not only were 2 very lovely people (Kelly of Sass & Veracity and Ben of What’s Cooking) hosting this month, but they had chosen a recipe I’d always wanted to try – DANISH. Seriously, when you get a good Danish, is there anything better? Buttery layers, soft and gooey and always filled with GOOD STUFF!So lemme tell ya’ll.. I’m sure you’ve seen quite a few Daring Baker challenge posts already today and some of you might even be a lil a-scared. Well don’t be. And I’m going to tell you why. I beat the ever-lovin’ shit out of this dough and it STILL gave me a flakey, buttery, delicious end product. Seriously. A few of us got together a few weeks ago to bake the braid.. and well, I was doing this and that and running here and there ultimately running out of time during the day to even shape, fill and proof my braid. So I had this rectangular slab of dough, chock full of fine European butter – what the hell do I do now? The gals suggested I go ahead and freeze it until I was ready to bake. And that I did.. so there’s the first injustice (INJUSTICE NO. 1!) committed against my dough.And then the same bunch got together last Sunday to bake the garlic knots, so I decided I could take on the braid at the same time. HAR! I crack myself up! Like I can even walk and chew gum at the same time.. but I’m going to take on not one but TWO yeast breads at the same time? hahahahahahaa! They don’t call me the Queen of Dorks for nothin’ yanno?INJUSTICE NO. 2 – someone who cared about her dough would have taken it out of the freezer the night before, placed it gently in the fridge and allowed it to slowly thaw out over night. Well I did care! But I’m a moron! I forgot to take it out of the freezer the night before so at 6 a.m. on Sunday morning I placed it on my counter. :PHow could ANYONE neglect that face???? *chomp* *chomp* I could eat him with a spoon! Okay so garlic knot making ensued.. and it was fun and I chit chatted and behaved myself and showed off wedding photos of myself and Becks.. *cough* and then I excused myself from the chat so that I could give some attention to my son, Nigel, as he was acting as if he never gets any loving from ANYONE.. poor lil neglected puppy (yeah right). Mmm hmm.. ‘kay well I laid down on the sofa in our office and he hopped up and we played and cuddled and told each other that we loved each other and HELLO- next thing I knew? It was 3 hours later. I had fell asleep. Gah.So my dough had sat out on the counter of my relatively warm kitchen for approximately SIX HOURS. Oops.. I believe we’ll present that as INJUSTICE NO. 3. *sigh*Well as ya’ll can imagine after my nap, I couldn’t be bothered with the task of shaping, filling, proofing and baking my braid – so I threw it back in the fridge. May it please the court – INJUSTICE NO. 4!Next morning.. I sheepishly peeked into my fridge fully expecting my dough to be bent over with cheeks spread giving me the full moon – but no.. it laid there obediently. So now I’m thinking that it’s being nice while in the fridge but when I try to roll it out, it’ll act up and be all sorts of bitchy – it’ll go all elastic on my ass.Huh. It didn’t.I cut it in half and it rolled out nicely.. it stayed in place and didn’t shrink up on me.. it laid still while I filled it and cut the fringe for the braid – and it wasn’t even its fault that it looked so NOT like a braid when I was through (I managed that all by myself, thankyouverymuch). It didn’t rise all too much.. actually it was kinda more like a quasi-braided filled pancake than anything else, but again, I blame myself on that one – I don’t think I should have rolled it so thin.And the reason I blame myself is because after I cut out a dozen squares from the 2nd half of the dough and shaped them into hilarious looking single pastries, I had this huge honkin’ blob of scraps left-over. I was just picking it up to throw it away (INJUSTICE NO. 5!) when I realized that was an awful lot of expensive European butter to be throwin’ away so I said, “fakk it” and I rolled it all out again, grabbed a couple handfuls of brown sugar and dumped it down the middle, sprinkled on some cinnamon and then took about a ¼ c. of butter and threw lil blobs of it here and there – braided it all up and allowed it to proof. I got a nice puffy lookin’ braid by the time I was ready to bake.. after it came out of the oven I whipped up a quick glaze of powdered sugar and super strong coffee and drizzled it all over the top. it was flippin’ gorgeous. I was shocked!!!Soon it was time for the first taste and I shite you not, kids! It was HEAVENLY – the best out of the 3 uses of this dough. And it was a MISTAKE! hahahahahahaa! Damn.But keep in mind, although rather flat – the first braid was buttery and flakey and tasted wonderful. The lil pastries were actually quite cute and they turned out very flakey.. and then the cinnamon braid was stupendous – after all of the bad, bad things I’d done to this dough, it still kicked some arse! So if mine turned out this well.. you have no excuse not to try it yourselves!Now think about this.. you’ll get through the whole procedure without any injustices to your dough, because ya’ll are way more talented than I am. Imagine how much more fabulous yours will turn out! Now that’s my kinda dough! :)Start clickin’ on that blogroll.. you’ll find more than enough AWESOME posts to inspire you to make your own Danish Braid before the month is over… :)xoxo

Charlotte Bobcats Team Report

2009-06-24T20:07:00.000-07:00

Despite their improved ball movement the second half of the season, the Charlotte Bobcats still finished last in scoring at 93.6 points per game. They've improved as shooters and in creating easy shots for each other, so the next step is creating more possessions. The Bobcats finished the season ranked 27th among 30 NBA teams in both rebounding and turnovers. When you keep giving the ball away and are poor at getting it back, it's challenging to create the extra possessions that raise your scoring average. Coach Larry Brown is probably more concerned with the poor rebounding than the overage of turnovers. Center Emeka Okafor (10.1 rebounds per game) was one of just six NBA players to average double-figures rebounding this season, but he doesn't get much help. Brown isn't happy with his team's turnovers (15.6 per game), but he doesn't see all turnovers the same. He's fine when Boris Diaw attempts a daring pass that could have led to a teammate's lay-up. But the careless turnovers, particularly those at mid-court, not only sacrifice possessions, they lead to easy baskets at the other end for the Bobcats' opponents. Diaw led the Bobcats in turnovers at three per game, and Raymond Felton wasn't far behind at 2.8. Rookie point guard D.J. Augustin seems a safer passer at 1.7, but he didn't do a lot of playmaking the second half of the season, after suffering an abdominal strain that essentially turned him into a spot-up jump shooter. Backup center DeSagana Diop is really the only Bobcat with much capacity to up his rebounding. Vladimir Radmanovic has height at 6-10, but he's much more an elongated small forward (think Hedo Turkoglu) than someone who can be counted on to rumble in the lane. SEASON HIGHLIGHT: For the second time in three seasons, the Bobcats swept the Los Angeles Lakers. They've now won five of six against the Western Conference's premier franchise and the last of those victories, at home March 31, extended a late-season playoff run the first time this team has played consequential games in April. TURNING POINT: The season's first four months, the Bobcats were good about minimizing losses to bad teams. But the last six weeks, with the playoffs at stake, they lost road games to the Minnesota Timberwolves, Washington Wizards and Oklahoma City Thunder. That knocked them out of the playoff hunt with four games to go.NOTES, QUOTESBobcats director of player personnel Buzz Peterson is returning to college coaching at Appalachian State, where he got his first head-coaching job. It was no secret that Peterson missed coaching greatly, so much so that coach Larry Brown considered moving Peterson to the bench to keep him on the staff. Peterson will stay with the Bobcats through the draft before returning to Boone, N.C.With the third-best record among non-playoff teams (35-47), the Bobcats have just seven chances in 1,000 of winning the No. 1 overall pick in the May 19 draft lottery. Most likely, the Bobcats would end up selecting 12th overall in the June 25 draft. They have never won a top-3 pick in the lottery process.Bobcats majority owner Bob Johnson told the Charlotte Observer he "absolutely" would never move the franchise out of Charlotte, but is receptive to selling majority control to Michael Jordan. Jordan is now one of 19 minority partners in the ownership group, and has oversight of basketball operations. Earlier, the Observer quoted sources as estimating that the Bobcats might lose roughly $35 million over the next two seasons. The Bobcats are not alone in losing millions in this economy. The question is whether an upgraded roster will raise attendance and revenue next season.QUOTE TO NOTE: "I always tease that he has an 'A' in stretching, Pilates and yoga. I'd like him to have an 'A' in basketball." Bobcats coach Larry Brown, on how he admires C Emeka Okafor's conditioning regimens, but would like him to work more in the offseason on basketball skills.ROSTER REPORT MOST VALUABLE PLAYER: Gerald Wallace's numbers weren't dramatically better than in past seasons, but he benefited greatly from Brown's coaching. He plays smarter and more precisely at both ends. He cut down on the gambles for steals that compromised teammates defensively and took fewer bad shots early in possessions. MOST DISAPPOINTING PLAYER: Everyone was relieved when Adam Morrison was dealt to the Los Angeles Lakers in early February. He melted under the pressure of being the third overall pick, and asked for a trade. Vladimir Radmanovic didn't have a great season, in exchange for Morrison, but he made as many big shots in a week as Morrison had the previous three months. FREE AGENT FOCUS: The major issue is point guard Raymond Felton's restricted status in July. D.J. Augustin was drafted as insurance against losing Felton, but he's been more effective as a shooter than as a distributor. F Sean May's contract also expires, but it seems unlikely the Bobcats would tender him a $3.6 million qualifying offer, as little as May has played this season. PLAYER NEWS:C Nazr Mohammed has made it clear that if the Bobcats don't plan to play him, he wants to be elsewhere. The problem is the remaining two seasons and approximately $13 million left on Mohammed's contract. Trading him, particularly in the current economic climate, without taking back a similarly bad contract, will be quite a challenge.G Dontell Jefferson is under contract, unguaranteed, for next season, which could be one more reason to doubt Sean Singletary's future with the Bobcats. Jefferson is 6-5 to Singletary's 6-0, and coach Larry Brown prefers his third point guard to be tall. Also, the Bobcats can avoid paying Singletary some guaranteed money if he's cut before September.F Boris Diaw will have a busy summer playing for the French national team. He'll have just a couple of weeks break between the end of his responsibilities with the national team and the start of training camp in Charlotte.C DeSagana Diop has a flawed offensive game, and coach Larry Brown has suggested Diop work some this summer with former NBA player Derrick Coleman on developing more low-post scoring skills this summer. It doesn't help that Diop shot just 27 percent from the foul line as a Bobcat.F Sean May has lost about 45 pounds since mid-summer and hopes to be back with the Bobcats. He plans to spend most of the summer in Charlotte, improving his conditioning.F Vladimir Radmanovic finished the season in a deep shooting slump. He was 12-of-40 from the field in his last six games, five of them Bobcats losses.F Juwan Howard looks like he can still be effective. Denver might regret not re-signing him, after waiving him in the early season to facilitate the trade that brought Chauncey Billups to the Nuggets. MEDICAL WATCH:G Raja Bell (calf strain) missed the last six games. Once the Bobcats were eliminated from the playoff race, there was little sense in pushing the injury in the final three games.

Nice visit with Muggs

2009-06-22T20:31:00.000-07:00

As you may know, The Muggs were first colleagues of ours in Cote D'Ivoire, then were colleagues of us in Mali. They served in such a key role as business managers for us and our other colleagues. They served also in several creative ways in evangelistic ministries, in fact our study room model was partly inspired by their success with their marche study room. Incedentally, they were on a trip from Colorado, all the way to Detroit, and stopped to have coffee with us on the way. They have a good car with a bad starter. So... where 2 or 3 missionaries are gathered, someone has to push their car!! So we pushed their car to get it started so they could get on their way... It really brought back Africa memories... :DAnd we were well familiar with how to do a push start!Anyway, pray for them as they are now in the USA, and seeking Gods' next step for them.They will be GREATLY missed in Mali... But we know God will use their open and willing hearts wherever he puts them....Btw- Countdown to Lisa's activation....Thursday & Friday this week. Be in prayer as we see what we'll have as a starting point towards her hearing journey to regain full hearing again.Thanks for sticking with us in prayer. Your visit today meant a lot to us... :DTom & Lisa

Houston Astros Team Report

2009-06-18T19:41:00.001-07:00

INSIDE PITCH Astros hitting coach Sean Berry, who had a cancerous kidney removed Friday morning at the Methodist Hospital of Houston, was released from the hospital Monday. Berry's right kidney was removed by Dr. James Goldfarb, a renowned urologist. "Thank you for all the messages of support," Berry said. "I would like to especially thank Dr. James Muntz (one of the Astros' team physicians) and Dr. James Goldfarb and everyone at The Methodist Hospital for their expertise and professionalism. "I also greatly appreciate the understanding and first-class actions by the Astros organization in helping myself and my family through this difficult time. I will be back soon." In Berry's absence, third-base coach Dave Clark is helping with the hitting coach's duties. Berry is expected to return to work with the Astros in two weeks.NOTES, QUOTESRHP Jeff Fulchino was optioned back to Class AAA Round Rock on Sunday. He had posted a 5.91 ERA over two stints with the club. With his demotion the Astros moved back to 12 pitchers and 13 position players after going to 13 pitchers and 12 position players on Wednesday.IF Jason Smith, who was 0-for-21 before he was designated for assignment on Thursday, was re-signed on Sunday to help back up in the infield. 1B Lance Berkman has been out because of a sore wrist.RHP Brandon Backe, who has been on the disabled list with a strained left intercostals muscle, threw six scoreless innings Friday in a rehab start for Class AA Corpus Christi. He threw 82 on Friday for the Hooks. "It's more or less like I'm in spring training again trying to build my arm up to 100 pitches," he said. "It's a slow process."C Humberto Quintero (strained right shoulder) went 0-for-3 in a rehab assignment for Class AAA Round Rock, and barring any setbacks, he will rejoin the team Tuesday in Colorado.BY THE NUMBERS: 1 Astros ace righthander Roy Oswalt, who was 10-2 after the All-Star Break last year, earned his first victory of the season Sunday, May 10. QUOTE OF NOTE: "Obviously I have to be worried. We're in May. We're almost on May 15 and we're still struggling. This guy (Lance Berkman) is one of the best hitters in the game. And, yeah, I am a little worried about him." Manager Cecil Cooper, after dropping Lance Berkman to fifth in the lineup.ROSTER REPORTC J.R. Towles was optioned to Class AAA Round Rock on Monday, an off day for the Astros. Towles hit .182 (2-for-11) in four games, three starts, after being recalled April 25. C Humberto Quintero, who suffered a strained right shoulder on April 24 when he was smashed by Milwaukee's Mike Cameron in a collision at the plate, will be activated off the disabled list and join the Astros in Colorado for the start of a three-game series against the Rockies on Tuesday. He was 1-for-10 during his four-game rehab assignment at Class AAA Round Rock.1B Lance Berkman, who missed the entire three-game series sweep against the Padres because of a sore left wrist, might be ready to return to the lineup Tuesday for the start of the three-game series against the Rockies at Coors Field. Berkman has not played since he was 0-for-5 with four strikeouts Thursday against the Cubs.RHP Felipe Paulino will start Tuesday against the Rockies. Paulino struggled in the bullpen after being put there after posting a 2.55 ERA over three starts. "I feel more comfortable in the starting rotation, but I was trying to do 100 percent in the bullpen, too," he said. "I'm ready to do whatever they want."C Ivan Rodriguez went 4-for-4 with a home run and a triple Sunday in the Astros' 12-5 win over the Padres. MEDICAL WATCH: 1B Lance Berkman (sprained left wrist) sat out May 8-10. He is day-to-day. RHP Roy Oswalt (bone bruise on right index finger) left the May 5 game. He expects to make his May 10 start. C Humberto Quintero (strained right shoulder) went on the 15-day disabled list April 25. He began a rehab assignment May 8 with Class AAA Round Rock, and he is expected to be activated May 12. RHP Brandon Backe (strained left side muscle) went on the 15-day disabled list March 27. He began a rehab assignment with Class AAA Round Rock on April 27, and he moved his rehab to Class AA Corpus Christi on May 3. He could return to the Astros in late May. RHP Jose Valverde (strained right calf) went on the 15-day disabled list retroactive to April 27. He had fluid drained from the calf April 30 and May 1, and he might be out until early June. RHP Doug Brocail (torn left hamstring) went on the 15-day disabled list May 4. He is out at least a month, and if he ultimately requires surgery, he would miss the rest of the season. INF Aaron Boone (open-heart surgery on March 26) went on the 15-day disabled list March 27, and he was transferred to the 60-day DL on April 10. He was uncertain whether he'd resume his career. ROTATION: RHP Roy Oswalt LHP Wandy Rodriguez LHP Mike Hampton RHP Brian Moehler RHP Felipe Paulino BULLPEN: RHP LaTroy Hawkins (closer) LHP Wesley Wright RHP Geoff Geary LHP Tim Byrdak RHP Chris Sampson RHP Jeff Fulchino RHP Alberto Arias RHP Russ Ortiz CATCHERS: Ivan Rodriguez Humberto Quintero INFIELDERS: 1B Lance Berkman 2B Kaz Matsui SS Miguel Tejada 3B Geoff Blum INF Jeff Keppinger OUTFIELDERS: LF Carlos Lee CF Michael Bourn RF Hunter Pence OF/1B Darin Erstad OF Jason Michaels

What? I'm too OLD!???

2009-06-17T19:27:00.000-07:00

I believe nearly everyone can relate to being told that they are too old for something. It happens all the time as we age. We become a certain age and then someone younger than us or perhaps more mature than us tells us that we are too old to be doing whatever we're doing. They tell us to grow up---even if some of us are already grown up...

As a kid, I always liked taking trips to the bank with my mother because the nice lady who worked the window would give out lollipops to us kids if she saw us in the back of the car. My siblings and I always made sure that the lady saw us by waving at her in the window or poking our heads out over the front seat of the car. She'd smile at us and walk away. We knew it was candy time. She'd return to the window with three lollipops. These weren't any normal lollipops. They were special bank lollipops with a ring handle and extra sugariness. It was hard to find them anywhere else. Well, about a year ago at age 18, I was making a withdraw at the drive-thru bank window. For some reason, the teller was taking longer than normal. She was new. She came to the window and told me it would just be another minute. I asked her, "You don't happen to have any lollipops do you?" She smiled and said, "Don't you think you're a bit too old? We need to save them for the kids."

What??? Since when have lollipops been just for kids!? I felt like the dopey rabbit in those 'Trix' commercials. I looked at her and said, "No, ma'am. I'm never too old for lollipops." Then, I gave her one of my fake smiles. She walked away and came back with an envelope. No lollipop and I wasn't about to ask twice, so I drove off annoyed that someone, yet again, told me I was too OLD for something. Someone once told me that I was too old to drink juicy juice out of a box. EVERYONE knows juicy juice tastes best with a sippy straw!

La grippe porcine grippe A, un danger pour l’humanité ?

2009-06-16T20:35:00.000-07:00

La marche de l’homme bloquée par un porc « Si l’histoire est effectivement, comme la définissait Walter Benjamin, non pas une longue marche de l’humanité vers le progrès mais plutôt une montagne de ruines qui monte au ciel… » — Enzo Traverso, « Rationalité et barbarie », in L’histoire déchirée. Essai sur Auschwitz et les intellectuels. Éd. du Cert, 1997. «Pour Sylvie» van der Werf, de l’Institut Pasteur (…) “c’est un virus nouveau contre lequel l’ensemble de l’humanité n’a pas d’immunité.” (…) Le virus pourrait devenir “beaucoup plus dangereux”, selon l’OMS. AFP, 27 avril 2009. Voir aussi : • Institut de veille sanitaire (France) • Center for Disease Control (USA) • Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS)

Write More, Write Less

2009-06-15T20:21:00.000-07:00

When: Thu Jan 15, 2009 6pm to 8:30pm CST Where: DePaul Universitys Rolling Meadows Campus Meadows Corporate Center East Tower 2550 W. Golf Rd., Suite 255 Rolling Meadows, IL
Event Status: confirmed
Event Description: Join STC Chicago on Thursday, January 15, at the DePaul University campus in Rolling Meadows (east of Woodfield mall), for our first chapter program meeting of 2009. Our speaker, Joe Welinske of WritersUA, will present "Write More, Write Less: Embracing the Value of Crafted Words and Images". While the word "content" is a good shorthand for words, audio, and images, it unfortunately can move us farther away from the core competency of developing good information. The theme of this presentation is that documentation teams are often spending too little time writing well -- and at the same time spending too much time writing little-used information. Research and professional observation suggest that not enough time is being put into crafting text to be exactly the right text for a particular context. And writing resources for doing "agile" user assistance would be more readily available if writers would prioritize topic writing based on user need. "Writing More" while "Writing Less" can result in better utility for users and can reduce the need and load on the overall documentation development process and content management. Technical communicators of all backgrounds will benefit from this thought-provoking presentation. About the Speaker Joe Welinske is the president of WritersUA, a company devoted to providing training and information for user assistance professionals. The WritersUA Conference for Software User Assistance draws hundreds of attendees each year from around the world to share the latest in user assistance design and implementation. The free content on the WritersUA web site attracts more than 20,000 visitors each month. Joe has been involved with software documentation development since 1984. Together with Scott Boggan and David Farkas, Joe authored two editions of the popular and pioneering book Developing Online Help for Windows. He has also taught courses on developing online help at the University of Washington, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and Bellevue (WA) Community College. Joe received a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois in 1981 and an M.S. in Adult Instructional Management from Loyola University in 1987. About the Meeting A catered buffet (with non-alcohol beverages) is included with registration. There is no bar on campus. The presentation will start at 7 p.m., with check-in at 6 p.m. Registration deadline: 8 p.m. Friday, January 9, 2009. For prepaid online registration, the rates are: $30 for STC Chicago members $40 for non-members $15 for full-time students (with confirmation from their schools) $120 for a table of 6 After the deadline, you must register at the door and must pay by cash or check only. The rates for registration at the door are: $40 for STC Chicago members $50 for non-members For more information or to register, visit www.stc-chicago.org.

One Veggie Star

2009-06-14T20:02:00.000-07:00

Snowed under. Swamped. Buried. So describes my work situation at the moment. If you will give me a “Get Out of the Kitchen Free” card, then I will give you the recipe for a very simple Moroccan salad. Moroccans are masters at concocting salads in which one solitary vegetable is the headlining act. Radishes, green peppers, and tomatoes, for example, can all get the star treatment. The recipe below features zucchini, and is one of the many dishes I learned from the cook who introduced me to Moroccan cuisine. Lemon-tart and garlic-tinged, this salad tastes even better the next day. Warm Zucchini SaladServes 4 as a salad3¼ cups / 500 grams zucchini (a.k.a. courgette, baby marrow), very thinly sliced1½ teaspoons / 7.5 milliliters ground cumin2 teaspoons / 10 milliliters sweet paprikaPinch of cayenne¼ teaspoon / 1¼ milliliters salt2 cloves of garlic, minced1 tablespoons / 15 milliliters olive oil2½ tablespoons / 37.5 milliliters fresh lemon juice2 tablespoons / 30 milliliters vegetable broth (you can use water)Handful minced fresh parsley, plus more for garnish Steam the zucchini until it is tender. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, whisk together the ground cumin, paprika, cayenne, salt, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, vegetable broth and parsley. Add the steamed zucchini and place over medium heat. Cook for five minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. Note: You can also boil your zucchini with a pinch of salt until tender, and use reserved cooking water in place of the vegetable broth. Tags: zucchini, salad, Morocco, North Africa, recipe, Field to Feast, food blog, Africa

The Times Transfer Bulletin: United accept £80m bid for Ronaldo

2009-06-13T16:37:00.000-07:00

THE NEWSManchester United have accepted a world-record £80million offer from Real Madrid for Cristiano Ronaldo. United have given Real permission to talk to the Portugal winger and the deal is expected to be completed before the end of the month. Ronaldo's contract at United runs out in 2012 and the Premier League champions decided to allow him to leave after the 24-year-old made it clear that his heart was still set on moving to Spain. Oliver Kay, our Football Correspondent, says the sale of Ronaldo leaves United with a problem: "They will have to replace him with not one but two new players: a brilliant winger and a prolific goalscorer." Who should Sir Alex Ferguson spend the money on? Have your say. Chelsea's summer transfer plans have taken a blow after they were quoted a £65m asking price by Bayern Munich for Franck Ribery. Sergio Aguero, the Atletico Madrid striker, and David Villa, the Valencia forward, are also on Chelsea's radar in the event that they fail to lure the Frenchman to Stamford Bridge. Fulham have entered the race for Stephen Hunt, the Reading midfielder. The Premier League club watched Hunt play for Ireland against Bulgaria last weekend.Fraizer Campbell has indicated to Hull that he will join them when he returns from England Under-21 duty at the European Championship. The Tigers have agreed to pay Manchester United £6m for the forward, who has been in contract talks.Amaury Bischoff could be about to leave Arsenal for Paris Saint-Germain, just one year after the midfield player joined from Werder Bremen when he was out of contract. The 22-year-old made his debut as a substitute against Wigan in the Carling Cup in November.Lyons have declared their interest in signing Patrick Vieira from Inter Milan. "This season, [coach] Claude Puel regretted not having a leader," Jean-Michel Aulas, the Lyons president, said. "Patrick has this charisma that can create the conditions for Lyons to be more ambitious."------------------------------------------------THE RIVALSDrog will snub City - The SunDidier Drogba has reneged on his plan to leave Chelsea and will reject an offer from Manchester City. A source said. "The player wants to stay."Gary Jacob's verdict: This is likely. Over the past 18 months, Drogba has repeatedly suggested he is unhappy at Stamford Bridge, but he has had a change of heart and is set to sign a new contract. His current deal has a year left on it. Rating: 8/10It could be Blues for Pirlo - Daily MirrorAndrea Pirlo, the AC Milan midfielder, has said that his proposed move to Chelsea could still happen despite the sale of Kaka to Real Madrid.Gary's verdict: Chelsea hope to rejuvenate their ageing midfield and the 30-year-old Pirlo does not fit the type of player they want. At best it would represent a short-term solution but more probable is that it is wishful thinking on Pirlo's part. 6/10Arjen scrap - The SunReal Madrid have put Arjen Robben up for sale for £7m, with Manchester United, Manchester City and Liverpool interested in the winger.Gary's verdict: A contact of mine in Madrid says Real are looking to sell Robben because he has suffered a lot of injuries though they are likely to ask for more than £7m. Liverpool and Tottenham are the most likely suitors as both are looking for a left winger. 6/10Barca rob Job - The SunRobinho has stunned Manchester City by revealing that he wants to join Barcelona. "The whole world would love to play there," he said.Gary's verdict: Robinho would certainly be interested in a transfer. He wanted to accept an offer from Chelsea in January when Luis Felipe Scolari was in charge but City refused to sell. And Barca would be interested in signing him but they won't match his exorbitant wages at City. 5/10Dunne on his way - Daily MailSunderland, Stoke and Tottenham will bid for Richard Dunne after Manchester City made him available for £5m.Gary's verdict: After an indifferent season from Dunne, the club have put him up for sale, not least because they also hope to bring in a new centre-half - possibly Matthew Upson. Tottenham showed interest in him last summer but they have since signed Vedran Corluka. Dunne will not join Stoke so Sunderland is his most likely destination of the three. 7/10Hammers hope to hijack Sturridge deal - Daily MailGianfranco Zola will make a bold attempt to persuade the Manchester City forward to join him at Upton Park rather than go to Chelsea.Gary's verdict: West Ham might try that but Sturridge's transfer to Chelsea is almost completed. As I understand, they and City are currently discussing a compensation fee for him as he is out of contract but under 23 and therefore cannot join them on a free. 6/10Rovers want spark of Zoro - Daily MirrorBlackburn will revive their interest in Marco Zoro, the Ivory Coast defender playing for Benfica.Gary's verdict: Sam Allardyce is likely to try to buy a central defender with the money from the likely sale of Roque Santa Cruz. Zoro, who was on trial at West Ham last summer, is a realistic option. 7/10------------------------------------------------GUIDE TO THE TRANSFER WINDOW Deal or no deal - silly season is here againThe window promises to leave managers, chairmen, agents and supporters in a daze, so read our basic guide to how deals are brokered Undisclosed fees, transfer payments and loan deals explained Graphic: the anatomy of a transfer from start to finishThe quintessential middleman - all your questions answered about agentsTransfer terminology: what "I'm their player until told otherwise" really means ------------------------------------------------HAVE YOUR SAY"As a life long fan of West Ham, albeit from a distance, I'm interested to know your thoughts about their future under Gianfranco Zola. Do you see them as content with mid-table finishes or wishing to improve and strive for a European place? Given their recent history I was pleased with their final position this season and feel that they would do well to finish as high next season unless they make a few good additions over the summer."PatrickGary Jacob: It has been a pleasure watching Zola's West Ham, compared with some of the sterile football of the previous two seasons. It was a difficult decision for the Icelandic owners to appoint a Chelsea great, but they took advice, including Tony Gale, and he has been excellent. Zola and Steve Clarke, his assistant, are highly ambitious. They won't settle for mid-table, but competing for a European spot could be harder next season. There are at least eight teams potentially with stronger squads: the so-called big four, Aston Villa, Everton, Tottenham and Manchester City.As much as Zola said he wanted to finish seventh to claim a European spot this season, it was a blessing in disguise that they never qualified. Injuries to a few key players towards the end of the season showed the shallow depth of a sizeable squad. It is time to trim and bring in better players. Zola and Gianluca Nani, the technical director, have their work cut out in attracting players without a large transfer budget. They will have to raise some money by selling players, so look for Luis Boa Morte, Julien Faubert, Calum Davenport, Nigel Quashie and Matthew Upson to be sold this summer. Nani has scouted several players in Italy and I expect that they will try to sign a several players on loan. They want a back-up goalkeeper, a right back, and two forwards.This week, the club was effectively repossessed by the banks that lent the Icelandic owners the money and it awaits to be seen how the asset company that now owns West Ham will run the club. The company claim that they have a three-year plan, but personally, I believe they will sell as soon as they get a decent offer. You have to remember that the asset company has creditors too, and so it may be better to sell for a certain price than risk looking for a higher price, and the club's value plummeting if they were relegated. This change in ownership will affect Zola's transfer kitty. The asset company are unlikely to want to invest much, if any money, in the club, which will be asked to balance their budget. It's comparable to a bank repossessing a house and renting it until the market improves to sell: the bank will try to put just enough money into the house to maintain it's condition."Are Sanli Tuncay and Sylvain Distin plausible signings for Liverpool? And will any club take a chance on Stewart Downing?"PhilGJ: I don't think that Tuncay is good enough for Liverpool. He would be a squad player at best at Anfield. Distin is more realistic and would be inexpensive, not least because he has one year left on his contract at Portsmouth. If Liverpool were flush for money this summer, I'd suggest that they would try to sign Upson from West Ham, but money is tight. They want to sign Glen Johnson and a winger."With Spurs being unusually quiet by their standards so far this close season and rumours being a bit flaky at best, who do you see them signing this season? With Harry Redknapp in charge activity will be inevitable, but does he need to sell first before he buys as he stated? Is Ruud van Nistelrooy a genuine target?""DanGJ: As I mentioned last week, when Redknapp says "I'm looking for one or two free transfers" as he has done, he really means "I want to shake up the squad and bring in five or six". Harry likes big squads, which gives him choices, and he likes his players. Maybe for his benefit, he will take an opportunity to criticise previous transfer strategy, albeit sometimes correctly.Tottenham's net spend in the summer window starting from 2004 is: £12.1m, £5m, £12.15m, £29.6m, £-10m. In January, they spent around £42m net and the club gave warning that they would have raise transfer money this summer by selling players. Expect the following first team players to be available for transfers: Darren Bent, Roman Pavlyuchenko, David Bentley, Kevin-Prince Boateng, Dorian Dervitte, Gilberto, Giovani dos Santos, Alan Hutton, Jermaine Jenas, Didier Zokora and Tom Huddlestone. On top of that, several youth players may leave for a nominal fee.I expect Redknapp to sign a combative midfield player, two forwards (one of whom is aggressive and one in the John Carew mould), a left winger and possibly another centre back (depending where they see Corluka playing in future. He wants to play centre back but has played right back for them).Ask Gary Jacob a question relating to transfer gossip at your club and he'll return his verdict.E-mail: sport@timesonline.co.uk

We're Number One! Yay?

2009-06-12T20:39:00.000-07:00

Forbes Magazine just released their annual list of the most expensive places to live in the United States. Guess who tops the list? Ah yes, Los Angeles. Home of the crazy.
Here's the full list:
Forbes: Top 20 America's Most Overpriced Cities
- No. 1: Los Angeles, Calif.
- No. 2: Chicago, Ill.
- No. 3: Miami, Fla.
- No. 4: New York, N.Y.
- No. 5: Providence, R.I.
- No. 6: Riverside, Calif.
- No. 7: Long Island, N.Y.
- No. 8: Cleveland, Ohio
- No. 9 (tie): Newark, N.J.
- No. 9 (tie): San Diego, Calif.
- No. 11: Philadelphia, Pa.
- No. 12: Portland, Ore.
- No. 13 (tie): Tampa, Fla.
- No. 13 (tie): Memphis, Tenn.
- No. 15: Orlando, Fla.
- No. 16: St. Louis, Mo.
- No. 17: Jacksonville, Fla.
- No. 18: San Francisco, Calif.
- No. 19 (tie): Warren, Mich.
- No. 19 (tie): Boston, Mass.
[Taken from this article, opens in a new window]
I don't know whether to feel proud or to hide beneath my desk. I think I'm just going to have some coffee and think about the orange I'm having for dessert tonight when I get home, I picked it from my tree, the very last orange of the season. I let it stay on the tree as long as possible to see how big it would get. It's huge!
One perfect California orange. Well worth the price of admission.
Have a great weekend!!

Court upholds GPS tracking by police without warrant…

2009-06-12T08:55:00.000-07:00

Wisconsin court upholds GPS tracking by police By RYAN J. FOLEY MADISON, Wis. - Wisconsin police can attach GPS to cars to secretly track anybodys movements without obtaining search warrants, an appeals court ruled Thursday. However, the District 4 Court of Appeals said it was more than a little troubled by that conclusion and asked Wisconsin lawmakers to regulate GPS use to protect against abuse by police and private individuals. As the law currently stands, the court said police can mount GPS on cars to track people without violating their constitutional rights even if the drivers arent suspects. Officers do not need to get warrants beforehand because GPS tracking does not involve a search or a seizure, Judge Paul Lundsten wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel based in Madison. That means police are seemingly free to secretly track anyones public movements with a GPS device, he wrote. One privacy advocate said the decision opened the door for greater government surveillance of citizens. Meanwhile, law enforcement officials called the decision a victory for public safety because tracking devices are an increasingly important tool in investigating criminal behavior. The ruling came in a 2003 case involving Michael Sveum, a Madison man who was under investigation for stalking. Police got a warrant to put a GPS on his car and secretly attached it while the vehicle was parked in Sveums driveway. The device recorded his cars movements for five weeks before police retrieved it and downloaded the information.

Reading About Writers -- Jay

2009-06-11T19:35:00.001-07:00

It’s been a while since the Reading Bug bit me…and I blame the public library! Until recently, I worked full-time at a library. Surrounded by more books than I could ever read, I regularly took home more books than I could ever read. I’d skim through a few pages of whichever book piqued my interest at that moment, then put it down and maybe pick up another, hardly ever finishing two chapters of any book before it was due back.Over time, I forgot how wonderful it is to get absolutely lost in a single book!Now that I’m more selective about which books I begin, I realized the other day that I’m about to finish my third book this month. (I know, some of you read three books in three days. Good for you!) And then I realized, all three of these books are non-fiction titles dealing with authors and why…or how…they write what they write.Author Unknown: tales of a literary detective by Don Foster makes it clear that “since no two people use language in precisely the same way, our identities are encoded in our own language, in a kind of literary DNA.” Mr. Foster first proved that theory with his work on a newly discovered poem by William Shakespeare…if that is who wrote it! Using the same literary forensics, he made headlines when he unmasked the anonymous writer of Primary Colors. But my favorite chapter deals with the true identity of the man who originally wrote the words ’Twas the night before Christmas… Did Clement C. Moore come up with that poem, as we’ve been told, or was it a man named Major Henry Livingston, Jr.? You absolutely must grab this book for that chapter alone. (Ever heard of Santa’s reindeer, Dunder and Blixem? Probably not. But you should’ve!)The Man Who Invented Christmas: how Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol rescued his career and revived our holiday spirits by Les Standiford is a great book to pick up for the holidays. Not only does it tell some interesting history about a classic story and the man who wrote it (and there is no doubt that Mr. Dickens wrote it!), it’s a fascinating look at the evolution of how we experience the Christmas season.Grant and Twain: the story of a friendship that changed America by Mark Perry was not one I expected to enjoy, but I’m over halfway through it and I’m trying to slow down my reading (yes, even slower than it already is!) so I can enjoy it for a few days more. It’s a book about history, literature, and the friendship of Ulysses S. Grant and Mark Twain. Twain influenced Grant to write his memoirs before he lost his fight with cancer. Those memoirs are now considered classics of American non-fiction. At the same time, Twain was trying to figure out what should happen in the last half of his book about a boy named Huck.So what do I plan to read next? Well, for Christmas I asked someone to get me The Annotated Christmas Carol so I can dig even deeper into that book. And I just bought the personal memoirs of U.S. Grant, which is over a thousand pages long…so I think I’m set for a while.- Jay

Some good things can become too much of a good thing

2009-06-10T20:34:00.000-07:00

I don't even want to calculate the amount of time I spend sitting in front of a computer. Let me just say it is far too much. I use to justify my computer time by saying I was doing my morning time with God (i.e. reading Christian blogs and online devotions, writing about living my own Christian faith, etc.) With this excuse I could explain away why I needed to jump on my computer first thing in the morning and sit there for at least an hour. But the truth is although those activities where Christian in nature, they were still pulling me away from what I should be doing and they were just extensions of a bigger problem--avoiding the tasks at hand by pursuing my own interests. So now let me get really real with you and share with you what I really use the computer for. Facebook: catch up with old friends, look at pictures, and play games (including many rounds of Scramble).Blogs: I haven't been keeping up with all my reading but I have been reading all of my nesting blogs. They give me lots of ideas of things to buy to help redecorate my home and often result in me spending time moving my furniture around to see if I can change our house by just feng shui-ing a wee bit.Celebrity Sites: I have become rehooked on People and eOnline. I stay up to date with all the Hollywood drama by repeatedly stopping by these sites for the latest new feeds.News: I do stop by MSNBC, CNN, and 2 local news channels each morning. There is never much to read there (unless I am looking at the entertainment section) but I always scan the headlines since we don't get a newspaper. Sparkpeople: Tracking my nutrition and fitness, which is a good thing but again, I become enslaved to the process and find myself running back and forth to the computer throughout the day just to see how I am doing.Movies and TV shows: we don't have cable or satellite but we do have Netflix and the Internet. Hence I am never short of something to watch. Lately I have been watching Friday Night Lights and Little People Big World. Sheepishly I will admit I've been watching these shows in the middle of the day. I also tend to watch these shows by myself, even if my husband is home. Bye-bye together time.Emails: I tend not to respond to emails but I love to read them. I will check my email at least 10 times a day. Usually there is nothing dire there. The most urgent thing I might miss is a playdate or scouting cancellation. But I guess if I actually answered my phone, then people might be able to reach me that way.Lesson Planning and Teaching: Yes, I actually do this on the computer and it is beneficial. The problem is I often get distracted by the list of things above :) Household Organization: I also use the computer to make spreadsheets, track our calendar, manage our finances, etc. These are all good uses but again, the temptation to wander results in my procrastinating to the point where things don't get done. Pictures and Scrapbooking: I haven't been doing many pictures or much scrapbooking. I'm not sure why. I guess I'm just a little burnt out and am overwhelmed from being so far behind. Still even if I was still doing this, it is a hobby and not really something I need to be doing everyday, especially not in the middle of the day when I am suppose to be working.So now that I have publicly declared what a slacker I am, I will share with you why I am sharing this with you. I think there are other moms like me who get distracted by all the entertainment options that are right at our fingertips without us ever having to leave the house. I am hoping that they will relate to some of the behaviors and will come to some of the same realizations that I have come to--and that is, I am standing in my own way of what I want. My selfishness and self-centered desires are stopping me from achieving the goals that I have for my household and my children. I don't want that. Sure I want to have fun and enjoy myself while I am staying home but at what expense? So in an effort to regain some balance, I am going to try shutting down my computer all day, every day except for the weekends. It is going to be hard but I really want to move the computer to using if for hobbies when hobbies should be done and for work when work should be done. My hope is on the other days I will find myself more active and involved with my family and my home. Maybe I'll find time to exercise and cook, and just possibly even clean.

So What You’re A Christian?

2009-06-09T19:37:00.000-07:00

Rumors of Christianity’s death in the U.S. are greatly exaggerated. But like most rumors, they are not totally baseless. According to a recent poll by the American Religious Identification Survey, the number of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 percentage points since 1990, from 86-76 percent. Lots have been made in recent years not just about the number of people in this country who are not Christian, but about the rise in the number of people who claim not to be affiliated with any religion as well as those who boast of being atheist. In fact, the numbers for the latter group jumped from 1990 to 2008 fourfold from 1 million to about 3.6 million. Despite these trends, the U.S. still remains a nation decisively shaped by Christian faith. Where there can be no denying is the fact that slowly but inexorably Christianity is losing its privileged place on the cultural landscape. Christianity and its followers can no longer assume everyone is Christian or that everyone shares the core values of Christianity. So, what are we to make of this? What does all of this mean if you’re Christian? It means a lot. Hopefully, Christians are paying attention and taking note. Probably not. After all, that’s what it means to belong to a privileged group. You’re usually the last to know that you’re a has been. You’re definitely the last to know (admit) what everyone else sees so clearly. Christians will do well to sit up and pay attention to this latest bit of news. Our declining numbers on the American landscape will impact the way we do Christianity. According to recent religious surveys, Americans can no longer assume there is a broadly based consensus about the superiority of Christian values. The New Testament may declare, “there is no other name under heaven whereby men can be saved except by the name of Jesus,” but future Christians are going to have to figure out what that statement means to a generation that prefers having a smorgasbord of religious options from which it can choose. Nor can one assume that just because one speaks of being a Christian or being born again that others will know what that means or even be impressed. We’re going to have to actually act like Christians, as in do what Jesus would do, to get peoples attention and to convince them to consider belonging to our, um, sect. (Some of the most lively discussions on this blog have been about what it means to be a Christian.) Heck, you cant even assume today theres a consensus that there is even a God. All you have to do is venture out of your little Christian enclave to find that this is already the case. Talk to a stranger. In polite circles, atheism is an intellectually respectable option. Heck, its downright sexy and fashionable to be atheist in some other circles. The upshot of all of this? American culture is gradually withdrawing the privilege, if not the respect, it once gave to Christianity in general, and to the church in particular. Which is no small thing to consider. Why should churches get special tax exampt status? So, you’re Christian minister. So what? That doesnt give you the right to expect special hospital parking stickers to get you in to visit a dying member. So what you pray before eating? Everyone else at the table will just keep on talking while you mumble under your breath. So you’re a woman in white, with your bible and church hat, standing on the bus corner waiting for the #7 bus to take you to the Baptist church down the street; why should the teens stop cursing and grabbing their crouches just because youre standing there? This isn’t all bad, right? Christians will just have to learn what it means to earn the respect of people, right? We can’t assume people will have heard of Jesus or know anything about The Ten Commandments. We’ll just have to go back and learn the core values of our faith and figure out how to communicate them to a public that finds such talk quaint and novel. Back to basics, right? That’s good, right? Remember the old Smith Barney commercial featuring the elderly actor John Houseman speaking with a blue-blood, Brahmin clip: “We make money the old fashioned way. We earn it”? That’s what we’re going to have to do as the soon to be Christian minority. Earn converts. Or, better yet, earn our right to co-exist with other religious faiths. Before the knee-jerk Progressive in me is tempted to hail all that a religiously diverse world is likely to offer, permit me a moment of grieving. After all, giving up power is not easy. The thought of Christianity diminishing before me gives me pause. Now I know better as a black woman than to ever claim that America is or has ever been a Christian nation. That’s just not true. But as a woman and an African American, which doesn’t grant you any automatic respect in this society, belonging putatively to the dominant religious group in society has had its advantages. (Grant it, the Jeremiah Wright tableaux reminded us once again that theres a world of difference between black and white Christianity.) The days are coming to an end, however, when we can claim this, but for at least the next hour its probably safe to say that there really is some faint notion in folks minds – however warped it may be –of what it means to be Christian. That you love everybody? Well, not that exactly. How about that you feel mandated to try to get along with people you otherwise hate. How about that you feel responsible as a follower of Jesus to improve the world by standing up to unjust people and doing your part to leave the world somewhat more just and loving than you found it. That said, can’t say that I relish the day when I wake up to find that I belong to a minority religious sect. Dang, can’t a sister belong to a group that’s in power? Now Im told that along with my gender and race, even my religion will one day be marginalized. It hasn’t happened yet. But the signs do point to the fact that the day is not that far away.

Some Bastards are Bastards…

2009-06-08T20:14:00.000-07:00

Now, for something completely different, the story of how, back in February, my roommates and I accidentally adopted a cat, and it really pissed me off. Not at the cat, mind you - hes the most ridiculously friendly, adorable, and likable cat Ive ever seen, as Ill get to in a moment - but at his previous owners. It was a typical day in Minnesota in mid February - a lot of snow on the ground, temperatures in the upper teens (Fahrenheit, natch) during the way, down around zero at night. Coming back from the garage, my roommate found a cat in the backyard. It was skinny as all hell, looked kind of miserable, and meowing a lot, in a really pitiful way. There are a lot of stray cats in this area, and a lot of people in the neighborhood have outdoor cats who roam around, so a cat in the backyard isnt terribly uncommon, and we dont really mind. (Theres one outdoor cat in the area that we refer to as Bob, for no particular reason, who does an excellent job at keeping the local squirrel population in check. Yay, Bob!) This one, though, was a bit different& You see, he followed my roommate to the side door of the house. And then sat outside the door, meowing at the top of his little kitty lungs, for several minutes, loud enough that it could be heard inside. I went to go see what the commotion was, thinking maybe one of the cats we already had had gotten locked outside, or something. I opened the door& and in walked what would eventually prove to be our newest cat, completely fearless. He was a little bit skittish around us at first, but let us pick him up and pet him, and certainly didnt object in the slightest when we gave him some cat food and water. He was in really sorry shape - pretty much skin and bones, and he had some strange-looking wounds on his legs and feet - and with the weather getting worse, we couldnt in good conscience kick him back outside, so we agreed to keep him overnight, have him looked at by a vet, and then see if anyone we knew wanted a cat. That was the plan, anyway. We took him to the vet, who said hes a roughly two-year-old male, already neutered, and in basically perfect health, all things considered. The wounds on his feet and legs were all too familiar to the vet; they were burns from having hopped up onto the engine of a recently-parked car to stay warm. They were a couple weeks old, and healing without any complications. Obviously, someone previously owned him (or was owned by him, depending on your point of view regarding cats.) Just as obviously, someone had gotten rid of him and left him to fend for himself in the arctic hell that is Minnesota in winter. There were no lost cat signs anywhere nearby; we checked. Heres what really gets me, though: the cat, whom weve decided to call Harold (dont ask), is, pretty seriously, the most friendly, well-behaved, people person of a cat. He loves people. Want to pick him up, pet him, scratch his belly? Want to play with him? Want him to cuddle in bed, or on the couch, or just sit on your lap while youre watching television? Hes more than happy to oblige. Once he recovered from his ordeal outside, hes become an incredibly friendly, incredibly energetic, incredibly lovable cat with no bad habits whatsoever. (Crap on the floor? Nope. Pee in the corners? Nope. Scratch furniture? Nope& you get the idea.) The sort of cat, in other words, that youd have no trouble whatsoever finding a new home for, if you wound up being foreclosed on, or evicted on short notice, or simply decided to move to a new apartment that didnt allow pets. Anybody would want him. We really didnt want another cat, but couldnt resist Harolds quite evident charms, and wound up keeping him. Everybody who meets him, loves him. (Even our other cats like him, for crying out loud, and theyre the most territorial, anti-social little monsters you ever met.) I think everybody whos ever met him, has loved him. Except, obviously, the last people who had him, who left him to fend for himself in Minnesota in winter. Its like they say - some bastards are just bastards, but some bastards are bastards

Thirsty

2009-06-07T19:26:00.000-07:00

Anderson, M.T. 1997. Thirsty. Candlewick. 237 pages.In the spring, there are vampires in the wind.Is that not a great first line? It continues,People see them scuffling along by the side of country roads. At night, they move through the empty forests. They do not wear black, of course, but things they have taken off bodies or bought on sale. The news says that they are mostly in the western part of the state, where it is lonely and rural. My father claims we have them this year because it was a mild winter, but he may be thinking of tent caterpillars.Vampires are real, and they don't sparkle. So when our hero, Chris, begins his journey towards becoming a vampire, he's not happy about it. All he wants is for his life to go back to normal. Okay, he wishes it would be a little bit better than normal. He wishes he could get the girl, Rebecca, to notice him. To like him. He wishes he didn't stammer and act stupid around her. He wishes his friends were less weird and/or jerky. But he wants to be human.The novel covers a few months. Months of torment for Chris as his body begins to change ever-so-gradually. Months of worry as he begins to fear what is to come. He has trouble sleeping. He's always thirsty. And water just isn't thick enough to satisfy. His reflection comes and goes. His fangs come and go. And he starts getting some really weird invites in the mail.Is there any hope for Chris? Is there anyone who can save him from the horror his life is becoming? What choice will Chris make? Can he determine his own fate? And what led him to this place anyway? How did he become cursed?This one is intense and exciting. It's masterfully written by an award-winning author. The style is sparse: each word counts. Except for the red-white-black cover, there is no comparison whatsoever to Twilight.© Becky Laney of Becky's Book ReviewsIf you're reading this post on another site, or another feed, the content has been stolen.If you're reading this on a site (other than Becky's Book Reviews or Becky's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission..

What’s That Envelope For?

2009-06-04T20:53:00.001-07:00

By Rabbi Pinchos LipschutzPesach is in the air. The stores are packed with shoppers buying everything from fish to shoes lekavod Yom Tov. Bochurim are home from yeshiva, giving the home, shul and street a different look.Reminders confront us from all sides about the impending Zeman Cheiruseinu. Shloshim yom kodem hachag, thirty days before the holiday, we are told, we must begin reviewing the intricate laws of the Yom Tov. We have Parshas Parah to remind us to purify ourselves in preparation for the korban. This past Shabbos, Parshas Hachodesh reminded us that Chodesh Nissan is about to arrive.Unlike the other major holidays of Sukkos and Shavuos, Pesach demands a heightened degree of preparation. The home is spotlessly cleaned, matzos must be baked, special foods have to be purchased, a whole different menu is prepared, and on and on. The hachanos are especially taxing. For weeks, the noshim tzidkaniyos work themselves to the point of exhaustion making sure that everything is perfectly in order in time for the seder.When it comes to “bringing in Pesach,” family members have to be careful to share in what can be an overwhelming task if shouldered alone. At no other time of the year is cooperation so vital.This spirit of cooperation that marks Pesach preparation has its parallel in one of the core elements of Yetzias Mitzrayim - our transformation into a cohesive nation, a family unit on a national scale.We went from being slaves scattered around Mitzrayim to becoming an organized community of bnei Avrohom, Yitzchok and Yaakov. A community is defined as a group of people with common interests joining together to contribute towards the public good. When each person cares only about himself and what is good for him, the community suffers. In a community, everyone sacrifices a bit for the common welfare.And so it is on Pesach. Perhaps this is the reason that the Rama begins Hilchos Pesach with the minhag of maos chittin, obligating all Jews to help those less fortunate who can not afford to make Yom Tov.We demonstrate to what extent we are part of the greater Jewish community by the way we respond to appeals and come to the aid of those who have difficulty meeting Yom Tov expenses.For the past several years, together with my dear friend Reb Yossel Czapnik, I have been inserting an envelope into the Yated before Pesach on behalf of Keren Hachesed. We depend upon our good readers to assist the Keren Hachesed volunteers and the people they help.Boruch Hashem, the response has always been truly magnificent and is a tribute to the righteousness of our readers who are no doubt bombarded with so many pre-Pesach appeals. Those envelopes are mailed back throughout the course of the year and Keren Hachesed counts on these donations to help repay the loans it takes out to help people before Yom Tov.Readers often wonder what exactly Keren Hachesed is and they deserve to know. It is an organization founded by bnei Torah to help kollel yungeleit, rabbeim and other hard-working people who make a living but can’t afford to make ends meet when it comes to Pesach and will not accept help from public organizations. The Keren carefully screens all potential recipients.The Keren helps the people who live next door to you in the most bakavodike and respectful way possible. The Keren helps the very people you would be helping if you only knew how to approach them and offer assistance. Contributing to the Keren is a perfect way to help a family just like yours make Yom Tov. In doing so, you are contributing to one of the greatest tzedakos in our area.If you live in a Torah community within 90 miles of New York City, chances are that you have a neighbor who is enjoying the benefits of Keren Hachesed this Yom Tov. They are good people, with nice, fine families, who dedicate their lives to doing good for the community and have everything but enough money to properly celebrate Yom Tov. Keren Hachesed helps them accomplish that in myriad ways I cannot describe, lest the recipients recognize that they are benefiting from Keren Hachesed. In fact, the recipients don’t even know that Keren Hachesed exists.Keren Hachesed, working behind the scenes, comes to the rescue in hidden ways.The volunteers are so dedicated to their cause that those who run the chesed group would rather work harder at raising the finances necessary to do their work than permit me to describe the nature of what they do. They place the dignity and self respect of the people they help above all else. Every year, I offer to write about their activities, and every year they turn me down. They aren’t looking for any attention.But this year is different. This year especially, with the world financial situation being what it is, the Keren is desperate for assistance to be able to help the nice, proud, happy families it assists every year. This year, the entire operation is in jeopardy due to the way the economic recession has hit many of the fine people who are usually able to subsidize the Keren’s expenses. The Keren still owes suppliers for provisions purchased last year, and if the volunteers are unsuccessful in their fundraising efforts, hundreds of families, of the type you would want to assist in making Yom Tov, will be crestfallen and not able to provide their families with the necessities others take for granted.Several years ago, some Keren volunteers were involved in multiple mishaps for a few years in a row. They became disturbed by the thought that a Divine message was being sent.They approached Rav Chaim Kreiswirth zt”l, the renowned rov of Antwerp and a towering talmid chochom, who was famous for his untiring efforts for tzedaka and chesed. He replied that the only one who would be able to interpret what had occurred was Rav Yaakov Yisroel Kanievsky zt”l, known to all as the Steipler Gaon.One of the people involved in the Keren traveled to Eretz Yisroel and described to the Steipler the organization’s work and the misfortunes that had been happening to the volunteers. He asked for the Steipler’s insight into the significance of these episodes.The Steipler answered him that not only was there nothing wrong in what they were doing, but the tzedaka they were performing was on such a high level that the Soton was trying to derail them from their noble work.He suggested that from that year on, all those involved in Keren Hachesed should observe Yom Kippur Kotton on Erev Rosh Chodesh Nissan, including blowing shofar. Many years later, the ehrilche yungeleit who volunteer for Keren Hachesed maintain that custom.Since that time, the only problem the Keren has had is raising sufficient funds to keep pace with the need. Every year, somehow, the volunteers are able to maintain their regular activities, but this year there is a very real danger that they will not be able to continue doing so.So as we run around loading our shopping wagons with everything that we need for Yom Tov, let us keep in mind the people who cannot afford to fill their wagons. As we try on new suits and shoes, let’s keep in mind those who have to make do with old clothing. Let us show that we care about those not as financially blessed as we are. Let us show hakoras hatov to the Ribono Shel Olam for all we have.Every dollar given to Keren Hachesed will bring a smile to Jewish faces of all ages. You will be contributing to their simchas Yom Tov as well as your own.When contributing to your local maos chittin campaign, and other good causes, including those advertised in this newspaper, please remember that Keren Hachesed envelope.This week, we will celebrate Rosh Chodesh Nissan, the month of geulah and redemption. If we are worthy, these can be our last days in exile. Let us all pray that in the merit of the mitzvah of tzedaka and the areivus that our acts of kindness demonstrate, this Shabbos, or perhaps the coming Shabbos Hagadol, should be our last Shabbos in golus.Shabbos Hagadol, literally The Great Shabbos, heralds the traditional rabbinic Pesach drasha, but its significance is broader than that. It is the day on which, 3321 years ago, our forefathers rounded up sheep for the Korban Pesach. It is the day which announces that the chag hageulah is about to descend upon us. Every Shabbos is “great,” every Shabbos is a gift from G-d, but since it comes around every week, we tend to take it for granted.Shabbos reminds us that G-d created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. Shabbos is a day which raises us up to a higher spiritual plane than we are on during the rest of the week.Yetzias Mitzrayim, when we were taken from bondage in Mitzrayim and separated as the Am Hashem, started on Shabbos with the preparations for the Korban Pesach. That seminal event is remembered every year on Shabbos Hagadol.Shabbos Hagadol is greater than every other Shabbos of the year because it announces that the days which commemorate that aliyah of the Jewish people - and have the spiritual power to renew that aliyah - are once again with us. Shabbos Hagadol heralds the arrival of the sanctified period of time that took our nation to a new and higher level for eternity. May it herald the arrival of the geulah. Amein.

What’s That Envelope For?

2009-06-04T20:53:00.000-07:00

Litchi

2009-06-03T18:16:00.000-07:00

Bloomsbury library now on line

2009-06-02T20:21:00.001-07:00

From the Bloomsbury Library site: Welcome to the Bloomsbury Library Online; a new way for the readers of today to read the best books of today. The Bloomsbury Library Online is a growing home for reading through your local library. Our online bookshelves include book group titles, children’s history books, teen fiction, international fiction, books in translation, prize winners, crime, thrillers, history, sports and Shakespeare. Readers can read the book, search the text, access author interviews, reviews and press features as well as reading group guides if applicable. Each bookshelf is available on annual subscription and will be charged according to the population served. New titles will be added to each bookshelf free-of-charge within the subscription year where appropriate. New themed bookshelves will also be created regularly. Access to the content will be through UK Public Libraries using their existing technology both within the libraries and remotely with the use of a library card on home computers and internet enabled devices. The Library is powered by Exact Editions, and in their blog they have some interesting facts about its development. There is a lot more in the blog so check it out: Bloomsburys project required us to develop our platform in ways that we had not previously considered necessary. They wanted to be able to sell books as groups, and although this was not part of the formal requirement, we suspected that the next publisher to adopt this strategy would wish to be able to sell books in groups (ie shelves) but also to sell the same books as individual titles, both to individuals and to institutional subscribers. And the next publisher would want to include the same book in multiple shelves, and then remove them from some shelves

Toronto Raptors Team Report

2009-06-01T18:34:00.000-07:00

A season that began with grandiose expectations ends with a trip to the draft lottery and a huge level of bitterness in Toronto. Even a 9-3 finish, which allowed them to finish 33-49 on the season to avoid the ignominy of a 50-loss campaign, couldn't take the sting away and, really, did little more than fuel the feelings of "what if." With Chris Bosh, Andrea Bargnani and Shawn Marion finally morphing into a solid frontcourt and the Raptors continuing to get great production from point guard Jose Calderon, the focus now has to be on addressing serious concerns at the shooting guard spot and bench depth. And that puts general manager Bryan Colangelo directly on the hot seat as he's got plenty of moves to consider in the offseason. Marion is a free agent the Raptors would like to keep him at the right price and with starting shooting guard Anthony Parker also a free agent, Colangelo will have to address the wing needs first an foremost. If he can convince Parker to return as a backup, and find an athletic, defensive-conscious youngster to replace him, there's every chance the Raptors can make a rapid return to the playoffs after sitting them out for the first time in three years. SEASON HIGHLIGHT: Andrea Bargnani, who struggled through a bad sophomore season in 2007-08, provided one of the few highlights for the underachieving Raptors. The 7-foot center has become the team's second-most potent offensive force and his development was by far the most promising sign of the season. TURNING POINT: The Raptors gambled on a rookie Roko Ukic and a European journeyman Will Solomon as backups to point guard Jose Calderon and when Calderon went down with a hamstring injury in early December, that gambled failed. More than anything else, Calderon's nagging injury he couldn't practice for more than six weeks and sat out 14 games was the point at which the season went south.NOTES, QUOTESBy beating Chicago in the season finale to finish 33-49, the Raptors avoided a 50-loss season. They haven't lost that many in a year since 2005-06 and rallied from a 27-win season that year to win 47 games and the Atlantic Division title the next year.There may be substantial change to the Raptors' roster next season and there could be very significant change in the coaching staff, too. Not only is Jay Triano an interim head coach with no guarantees for next season, the contracts of all of his assistants Alex English, Mike Evans, Gord Herbert and Eric Hughes expire as well, and it's possible that all four will be gone.QUOTE TO NOTE: "What am I going to do anyway? We've got a couple of dates that we hopefully are both in Toronto for at the same time and just talk about things and which direction we're going to go." Interim coach Jay Triano, on when he may speak with general manager Bryan Colangelo about his future employment prospects.ROSTER REPORT MOST VALUABLE PLAYER: Chris Bosh. He did go into a bit of a funk in the middle of the season mostly because he was bothered by a sore knee that eventually sent him to the sidelines for five games but he remains by far Toronto's best player. Bosh, just 25 and a four-time All-Star, came within a handful of rebounds of being one of the few players in the league to average 20 points and 10 rebounds a game and was also in the top five in free throws attempted and made per game. His contractual status he's a free agent in the coveted class of 2010 makes his future with the Raptors the subject of almost daily speculation, but it's difficult to imagine the team without him as its offensive anchor. MOST DISAPPOINTING PLAYER: Jason Kapono. What do you do with a three-point shooter who doesn't shoot three-pointers? One of the top long-distance marksmen in the league, Kapono continues to be too passive in Toronto's offense. A significant free agent signee two years ago for a deal worth the full mid-level exception and a contract with two more years to run he's never fully become acclimated to the role which best suits him, as instant offense off the bench. And his failings are a prime reason Toronto's bench has been so weak all year. FREE AGENT FOCUS: The Raptors have a handful of free agents to deal with in the summer and what they decide to do will have a huge impact on the kind of team that returns to training camp in the fall. Shawn Marion is the most interesting case. The veteran small forward's contract, which pays him an astronomical $17 million this season, will most likely have to take a serious pay cut wherever he goes next year. And the Raptors may try to retain him at some sort of bargain-basement price since there aren't a lot of teams with major dollars to throw around. Anthony Parker, coming off his statistically worst season as a Raptor, is an unrestricted free agent but it's highly doubtful he'll be given a starting role on the team next season. However, both he and general manager Bryan Colangelo are optimistic some new deal can be worked out. Of the other free agents Joey Graham, Jake Voskuhl, Pops Mensah-Bonsu and Carlos Delfino (whose restricted free agency rights the Raptors still hold since he played last season in Russia) it's likely that only one will be back with the team in October. PLAYER NEWS:G Jose Calderon made his only two free throws in the season-ending 109-98 win over the Chicago Bulls and finished 152-for-155 on the season. The 98.1 percent shooting is the best single season in NBA history.C Andrea Bargnani established the kind of statistical oddity that may never be matched again in franchise history by anyone other than him. The 7-foot center, who possesses a unique skill set to say the least, led the Raptors in both three-point field goals (119) and blocked shots (97). It's the first time in Toronto history that unique double standard has been set.C Chris Bosh had 21 points and 19 rebounds in the season-ending win over Chicago, coming within one rebound of the third 20-20 game in his career. There have only been three such games ever put up by Toronto players. Bosh has two and Popeye Jones has the other. MEDICAL WATCH:G Jose Calderon had surgery on his left ring finger to repair ligament damage. Calderon should be ready for next season.F Kris Humphries (broken fibula) has been cleared to begin working out fully.G Marcus Banks (toe) is still recovering from surgery but should be back on the practice court in mid-May.

Clouds less seen

2009-05-31T21:19:00.000-07:00

Darkmatters review - Knowing

2009-05-30T20:36:00.000-07:00

Knowing (15)Dir. Alex Proyas 'previously of The Crow, Dark City and I Robot'Reviewed by Matt Adcock“Knowing me, knowing you, ah ha!!” sorry, the wife’s just been hitting the Singstar Abba on the PS3 – whilst I got to witness Knowing and report back on its merits.What would you do if you had a list of every major disaster which had occurred for the last 50 years – and it included some that hadn’t happened yet, one of which might just be the end of the entire world? That’s the premise for Alex Proyas’ stylish apocalyptic sci-fi epic Knowing which bites off a hard to digest slice of disturbing ‘fate or determinism’ theological debate.Nicolas Cage (looking more like a startled goat with every film he makes) is an unlikely astrophysics professor whose son Caleb (rising child star Chandler ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ Canterbury) is the recipient of the disaster tracking page of numbers.Things get progressively more freaky as the predicted disasters occur in a flurry of budget trashing large scale set pieces that include a truly horrific subway train crash. Knowing keeps the audience guessing by setting up a string of key questions such as ‘What happened to the odd looking little girl who wrote the doomsday number list itself as part of a school time capsule project?’, ‘Why didn’t she fill in a National Lottery grid or two and live happily ever after?’ or ‘who are those weird, darkly clad mystery men who start following young Caleb around?’ There are lots of ideas here, mix and matching influences from numerous sci-fi classics and the result has polarised critics but for me Knowing delivered a decent slice of nail biting hokum.I freely confess to being a big fan of Alex ‘The Crow and Dark City’ Proyas, he is a visionary director whose last movie I Robot managed to turn the Asimov’s high brow robo-future nightmare into a decent action flick for Will Smith. Here, even saddled with a rank performance from Cage, there is much to appreciate - not least the impressively bleakly hopeful spiritual elements that elevate this way beyond the like of weaker end of days efforts such as The Happening.Biblical in its scope and uncompromising in the scenes of devastation Knowing isn’t really light entertainment. But, if you’re looking for something to provoke debate and make you wonder again about our human nature and future destiny you ‘know’ what to choose.Arbitrary Darkmatters final rating of: öööööööö (8 -Not Knowingly Underwhelmed)Darkmatters quick reference guide:Action 8Style 8Babes 6Comedy 6Spiritual Enlightenment 9Not convinced? check out this review of the film over at FANGORIA - best line:"And the simple fact that it has more on its mind than the usual empty megamovie spectacle is a plus, even if that mind is severely addled. KNOWING is a lot of things—too many things—but dull isn’t one of them.."

march from hamra to egyptian embassy friday 1/2/09 (photos by Nate George)

2009-05-27T17:44:00.000-07:00

Nate George is a former student and a filmmaker who is in graduate school at AUB in Beirut now. If you click on his name under the label below, you can read more about him. (Scroll down to read about his work as an undergraduate student.) If you click here and look at the 3rd entry, you can download his documentary film, The Patch, which exposes the frequency of false positive results with PharmChem “PharmChek” sweat patches. Trace amounts of cocaine found in the environment in many parts of the U.S. can land someone who hasn't used cocaine in Federal Prison. Nate made this film as an undergraduate student. I really like Nate's dad a whole lot too. He is a very sensitive and gentle person. So Nate's film Chloe From 3 to 5 am, which he also made as an undergraduate, always makes me cry. You can watch it here. But here's Nate's warning:WARNING: Contains an intense death scene. This video chronicles the last hours of the filmmaker's miniature schnauzer, Chloe. The filmmaker and his father must decide what is best for the dog- whether there is still valuable life yet to be lived or to end it before it gets much worse.The following are more recent photos Nate sent from Lebanon.

Medical groups aim to cut $2T in health care costs over 10 years

2009-05-26T18:05:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON - President Obama on Monday praised health care industry groups for coming together to try and cut $2 trillion in expenses over the next decade to slow the rising cost of medical care.At a White House news conference flanked by industry officials, Obama called the meeting of officials "who often fought with each other" a "historic day, a watershed event in the long quest for health care reform.""We can't continue down the same dangerous road we've been traveling for so many years, with costs that are out of control," Obama said.Obama called the step officials took Monday part of a "broader effort" to reform health care. The groups have pledged to cut the rate of growth of health care spending over the next 10 years.Obama said Monday it could save the typical family an average of $2,500 a year in health care costs."If these savings are truly achieved, this may be the most significant development on the path to health care reform," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, which advocates for expanded health care coverage. "It would cut health costs for families and businesses, and it would enable adequate subsidies to be offered so that everyone has access to quality affordable health care."Six medical trade groups, including the American Medical Association and America's Health Insurance Plans, which represents health insurance companies, have agreed to the cost-cutting. Health care costs would continue to rise, just not as quickly.Democratic lawmakers are developing a plan to expand coverage to more of the 46 million people the Census Bureau estimates are uninsured. A major obstacle to that effort is the rising cost of health care, which has grown to $2.2 trillion a year, according to the Congressional Research Service.Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, suggested a similar idea in congressional testimony in March."Cost savings of this magnitude could go a long way toward ensuring that every American has access to affordable, quality coverage," Ignagni said. "These savings could help finance part of the costs of providing coverage to the uninsured."

I am Jane Eyre

2009-05-25T19:07:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed writing the recent Harry Potter post so much that I decided I would make a similar list of parallels between my life and that of one of my other favorite literary characters, Jane Eyre. For anyone who is not into Victorian literature, Jane Eyre is a book by Charlotte Bronte about an orphan girl. I first read it in high school for and I fell in love with it instantly. The movie is on TV right now and I am listening to it as I type. I wonder if other foster kids have found similarities between their life and this book.An obvious connection is that both of our names start with the letter J.Both of us were without any siblings. We both also fell in love with and married a man named Edward, whom others find a bit odd, but whom we find beautiful, charming, brilliant and amazing. Both Edwards were with a woman who was out of her mind before we came along.Jane had no relatives who were ready/willing/able to take care of her, so she ended up in the care of strangers. This is true for me also. Both of us had an aunt on our mother's side of the family, who was a single parent, who had three children and tried to take care of us for a while. It did not work out in either case. Those women were the ones who sought alternate placements for each of us. While she lived with that aunt, Jane had a male cousin who constantly picked on her with no intervention from his mother. This was something I also experienced while living with my aunt.Both of these cousins also had J names.Jane and I were both girls who drew more attention for our intellect and artistic gifts than for our beauty. As a child, Jane's favorite past time was sitting somewhere quiet and looking at books. The same was true for me.Note: My new job is going very well, but making it very hard to find time to blog right now, so please bare with me if my posts are a bit sporadic.

More Tax Money for Banks?

2009-05-24T18:34:00.000-07:00

Jim Schneider began this broadcast with updates on the following stories: --National Public Radio now denies cutting sectarian programming. --Hate crimes legislation in the Senate (SB-909), although still in the Judiciary Committee at this point, remains a threat to free speech for Americans. --HR-1966, the Cyber Bullying Prevention Act, could squelch free speech on the Internet. Craig Smith is the President and CEO of Swiss America Trading Corporation, an investment firm specializing in U.S. gold and silver coins. Smith is an expert in tangible assets, as well as an author, commentator and frequent radio and television guest who gives analysis of economic trends. He also writes a weekly column for Worldnetdaily.com Stress tests were given to the top 19 banks to see which ones would be able to withstand further deterioration of assets. Craig believes these tests were "reverse engineered" in the sense that the government had a conclusion that they wished to bring to the American public so that they could say everything is ok. The conclusion? Craig feels that the banks, while in good shape overall, as a sector they aren't in good shape. Are U.S. banks too big and important to let them fail? Is there a move to nationalize our banks? With nations looking for an alternative to the U.S. dollar, does this signal the beginning of a one-world currency? Craig tackles these questions along with questions from listeners on this timely edition of Crosstalk.

Keyboard cup

2009-05-23T20:15:00.000-07:00

Let the Games Begin!

2009-05-14T21:20:00.000-07:00

As with drinking, we like to start summer early — and so, bless it, does popular music. The songs that will be boomin’ out of Jeeps, other vehicles, apartment dwellings, and cheap white headphones throughout the hot months are limbering up now, but just one will peak as the jam of our collective conscious (only, quite possibly, to become completely intolerable by August). That joint will be the Song of the Summer, 2009. With this list, we begin our pursuit of this magical and, most likely, frankly sexual few minutes of recorded sound. Once you’ve all weighed in, commenters, with your characteristic mix of incredulity and disdain, we will begin tracking the new entries and biggest gainers, and telling you a little something about the songs in the process. So please, read the list and tell us what we’re missing — or which single you’re banking on to take it all.In alphabetical order. Highlighting denotes editors’ early favorites. 1. Asher Roth, “I Love College” 2. Beyonc

5 Ways To Spot An Addict

2009-05-12T21:39:00.000-07:00

"Good" and "bad" feelings"A lot happens in one day, both negative and positive. If we do not take time to appreciate both, perhaps we will miss something that will help us grow."IP No. 8, Just For TodayMost of us seem to unconsciously judge what happens in our lives each day as good or bad, success or failure. We tend to feel happy about the "good" and angry, frustrated, or guilty about the "bad." Good and bad feelings, though, often have little to do with what's truly good or bad for us. We may learn more from our failures than our successes, especially if failure has come from taking a risk.Attaching value judgments to our emotional reactions ties us to our old ways of thinking. We can change the way we think about the incidents of everyday life, viewing them as opportunities for growth, not as good or bad. When we do this, we learn something from each day. Our daily Tenth Step is an excellent tool for evaluating the day's events and learning from both success and failure.Just for today: I am offered an opportunity to apply the principles of recovery so that I shall learn and grow. When I learn from life's events, I succeed.------------------------------------------------------Not too long ago I received an email from Clare Flynn who offered me one of her articles, 5 Ways To Spot An Addict to be published here. You can also use this tiny url, http://tinyurl.com/66lz5g just in case the one above url was wrapped. So, here goes;If you suspect a friend, colleague or loved-one is addicted, you might be afraid of approaching the person, how can you tell if someone might be addicted?Confronting someone based purely on a gut instinct could lead to a big mistake and a real mess if you are wrong, but if you care about this person you desperately want to help.What can you do?Top 5 Warning SignsHere are 5 warning signs that point to addiction:1. Social withdrawalAddicts will often withdraw from their normal social circles, becoming distant from friends, family and work colleagues.As the addiction is prioritized relationships, studies and careers suffer.Of course people can become distant for many reasons, work stress, worries, illness, but a sign might be evasiveness when approached about it.2. Personality changesAs someone becomes addicted their personality can change.Once happy and bubbly personalities can lose energy, have less get up and go, and become less outgoing.Look for signs of lethargy, and moodiness.Many addicts become depressed, especially when addicted to opiates which affect your serotonin receptors.3. Physical Withdrawal symptomsAt the outset you might spot that they are tired all the time, jumpy or just not looking healthy.Depending on the dependency, the person could suffer from sleeplessness, anxiety, or even apparent illnesses like nausea and diarrhea.Of course they could just be feeling sick, so look for other signs rather than jump to conclusions.4. Financial impactThe combination of falling behind at work and funding the addiction can cause a great deal of financial weight on top of the physical symptoms.Money that should be paying bills, food, and so on is instead going to their new priority.Are they borrowing more? Do their spending habits seem to have changed? Have they stopped doing activities they used to pay to take part in or attend?5. Trouble with the lawWhile not every addict will have a scrape with the law, trying to ease the financial burden through petty crime, and the illegal nature of the addiction or drug source could lead to an increased risk of being arrested.Also the psychological changes could mean the person gets into fights, accidents or associating with the less upstanding members of society.SummaryEach symptom in isolation could be just a coincidence but the more factors that seem to fit the more you should be thinking about seeking advice. Just make sure you tread cautiously. The earlier you can detect the signs the faster you can find help, and the less damage there will be for everyone concerned.

My take:Here is a true story. One of my client who can't read or don't want to accept the warning signs to addiction ends up marrying an addict husband who treated her like football. I really can't blame her, maybe she like it rough.But please take heed of these warning. For one, you can seek help for your loved one or at least you don't end up marrying an addict without you knowing it until it's too late. I'm an addict and I've been there and done that. I know how life can be a bloody mess living with an addict, especially with an addict who think he/she is always right and the rest are wrong!That's all for now, my friends. See you when I see you. Take care...Technorati Tags: good and bad feelings, sign of addiction, warning signs that point to addiction, ways to spot an addictI cannot undo what I have done, I can only live better today. I share my experience, strength, and hope to all who desire positive change.

suspect...

2009-05-11T18:01:00.000-07:00

...as you do, i have been out of the loop with you...far too long.yes there is a climax trying to wrap up the project,and getting a small teaser out to you...most of you have come into contact with xmadmx....i promise there is FAR more.i am onto the serious next phase:HOW CAN I SHARE THIS WHOLE HEARTEDLY WITH YOU????i am hatching a plan.it will slowly unfold.i am thankful for your patience, and perseverance.there will be some explosive chemistry exchanges in 2008.those of you here first (yes, you) will get entangled foremost.i have an experimental plan of how to make this EXCHANGE.to begin, would you please leave me your email addresses....i know this is crooked, and i don't have a "mailing list" section,but i'd like to start a log book of my visitors,so you are sure to be notified when the GAMES begin.if you can post a comment, leave your contact please.i saw my soul hero morrissey tonight.i cried twice,and freaked the guy next to me when i had to share"that was my high school yearbook quote"during "stretch out and wait"wow. thank you universe.thank you fellow humans.we have a lot to live for.i am emerging from my creative cocoon daily.on my way.stay in touch.long for more!xMAdMx

Killing for respect

2009-05-10T20:15:00.000-07:00

A puzzling ground zero in Americas struggle with crime and raceAMBULANCE, not police; I saw the look in your eyes, says Phil Tagami, a native of Oakland and a property developer in the city, as another siren wails outside his downtown office. Mr Tagami, of Japanese, German and Jewish stock, knows his sirens and loves his town, which he calls the working waterfront for the Bay Area. Many of the people who work in San Francisco and Silicon Valley (across the bridge to the west) or in Berkeley (just to the north) live here. Then he opens a folder in a big pile of crime statistics. The story that emerges is not quite what recent headlines have suggested. Oakland is trying to return to normal after a horrendous and atypical bout of black-white racial tension. It began on New Years Day, when a white officer shot and killed a young black man lying face down on a railway-station platform. Bystanders recorded the shooting on their mobile phones and riots broke out. Then, last month, two white policemen pulled over a young black man in a routine traffic check. The man, Lovelle Mixon, who was on parole from prison and suspected of rape, opened fire, killing both policemen. He ran to an apartment building where he barricaded himself in with an assault rifle and gunned down two more officers before being shot to death himself.

Fried fish

2009-05-09T18:33:00.001-07:00

in Human Embryonic Stem Cells

2009-05-09T18:13:00.000-07:00

Mol. Cell. Biol., Vol. 28, No. 20. (15 October 2008), pp. 6426-6438.Oct4 and Sox2 are transcription factors required for pluripotency during early embryogenesis and for the maintenance of embryonic stem cell (ESC) identity. Functional mechanisms contributing to pluripotency are expected to be associated with genes transcriptionally activated by these factors. Here, we show that Oct4 and Sox2 bind to a conserved promoter region of miR-302, a cluster of eight microRNAs expressed specifically in ESCs and pluripotent cells. The expression of miR-302a is dependent on Oct4/Sox2 in human ESCs (hESCs), and miR-302a is expressed at the same developmental stages and in the same tissues as Oct4 during embryogenesis. miR-302a is predicted to target many cell cycle regulators, and the expression of miR-302a in primary and transformed cell lines promotes an increase in S-phase and a decrease in G1-phase cells, reminiscent of an ESC-like cell cycle profile. Correspondingly, the inhibition of miR-302 causes hESCs to accumulate in G1 phase. Moreover, we show that miR-302a represses the productive translation of an important G1 regulator, cyclin D1, in hESCs. The transcriptional activation of miR-302 and the translational repression of its targets, such as cyclin D1, may provide a link between Oct4/Sox2 and cell cycle regulation in pluripotent cells. 10.1128/MCB.00359-08Greer, Pratibha Hebbar, Leping Li, Kevin Trotter, Yoshihiro Komatsu, Yuji Mishina, Trevor Archer

Webisodes Prime Pump

2009-04-20T23:44:00.000-07:00

When CBS unveils its serial-slasher drama Harper's Island Thursday night, the network hopes to build a following online with a set of video shorts drilling into the characters' troubled back stories. Companion site Harper's Globe follows Robin Matthews (played by Melanie Merkosky), a character who wants to create a digital archive for the local newspaper. Her video diary focuses on wedding guests gathered on a remote island near Seattle. The hook: One character gets whacked each week until there's just a single psycho standing. Robin's latest entry (embedded above) recounts a drunken bar escapade ruined by a guy who, she complains, "reminds me of every stupid frat guy I went to college with." Disrupting Robin's personal soap opera footage are expertly shot clips that depict some poor sap chained to a slab as sadists prance around wielding acetylene torches. The Harper's Globe site, produced by Eqal (Lonelygirl15), also enables visitors to communicate with the characters, solve puzzles and contribute to a wiki defining the show's twists and turns. It remains to be seen if the website triggers enough viewer bloodlust to generate big ratings for the 13-episode series, but as an experiment in web/network synergy, Harper's twisted universe will likely test the limits of not-ready-for-prime-time torture porn. The series premiere of Harper's Island airs at 10 p.m. EST Thursday on CBS. See also: Sci-Fi Sanctuary Makes Leap From Web to TV Lonelygirl15 Team Launches Sci-Fi Resistance 'Lonelygirl' Set to Star in Murder Noir Web Show Meet Michael Eisner's Prom Date Wainy Days Webisodes: Best Time Suck Ever Battlestar Galactica Webisodes Begin With a Bloody Gaeta

Guilty Pleasures of 2008

2009-04-20T22:10:00.000-07:00

Like most people I have a few pop indiscretions. And considering my age and gender it’s probably not surprising to see that most of them are Disney related. I’m pretty much on the older cusp of this whole Disney regeneration with Hannah Montana and High School Musical coming out when I was in my teens, around the same age as whatever characters they had, even if it was aimed at a younger audience. And I know a lot of my friends feel the same way. We know all the songs, all the dances, and we’re not ashamed of it. Because you can’t be cool all the time. There’s also lots of R&B that I’ve been into, mostly because of my brother, and that whole period when I had to borrow his iPod if I wanted any music at all. But because of the big bad record companies, I’m not risking linking songs, in fear of this being taken down, so there’s videos. Enjoy. I won’t tell anyone that you did.Miley Cyrus – See You AgainI admit to having seen almost every episode of Hannah Montana. I just can’t get enough of that. I also concede that the Hannah music is crap. My 5 year old sister likes it, sure. But all that pre-teen inspirational G rated fun is a little… well, it’s a little too Disney, even for me. So I was shocked when I heard See You Again. I liked her first Miley single (as opposed to Hannah singles), Start All Over, but then, I wasn’t crazy about it. See You Again was completely different; it wasn’t bubblegum pop but it was still super catchy. The rest of her debut album may not be as good, but I’ll still listen to it. And despite all the crap that’s said about her in the press, I’ll still love her. She’s just being Miley after all.Jonas Brothers – Love BugOh, I hear your collective groans. I can’t escape my love for them. Even the shiteous Camp Rock doesn’t faze it at all. I’m completely infatuated with their Rolling Stone cover, and as much as I tried to hate their music, I couldn’t. I agree that Nick’s super whiny voice is quite annoying, but somehow it redeems itself. Lovebug, also, is cute. The video as well. I mean, if an indie band sang this song, everyone would be all over it. Kind of a throwback to ballads of older times, simple but pretty, with a more surprising ending. It’s so darn sweet there should be icing sugar sprinkled on top. Maybe even a cherry. Though the JoBros don’t give away their cherries easily, I hear. Hardy har.Taylor Swift – Love StoryI was kind of brought up with country music. My dad loves it, and from listening to his CDs all the time on family holidays (and once even accompanying him to a Gary Allan concert), I’m not as adverse to it as some. Which is why I approached Taylor Swift with an open mind. I was pretty late in hearing her music, the first time I’d even heard of her was when she sung the national anthem at the start of the World Series. And again, I wanted to hate it. So badly. But this song is just pure pop genius. It’s catchy and dreamy and kind of clever for an 18 year old. You can’t help feeling her story as she sings “Romeo save me/they’re trying to tell me how to feel/this love is difficult/but it’s real.” And she doesn’t do it like another pop princess spilling out insincerities; she does it with purpose and real talent.High School Musical 3 – I Want It AllIf I were male, I would be all over Ashley Tisdale like nothing else. She is so super hot. Admittedly not the greatest singer in the world, but I’m willing to overlook that because of her epic hair. It’s also hard to choose the best song from HSM3. In terms of the music it’s leaps and bounds ahead of the first two of the franchise. So, it’s not particularly deep or important. But it’s entertainment. And that’s what I Want It All wraps up in a nice little bundle. Super catchy, great visual effects and choreography, and a well-composed song with the only two characters in Disney history who could possibly pull it off. A Night To Remember is also worth checking out. Especially at around 31-33 seconds. I had to rewind that little bit and just keep watching it. More please, Zac Efron. It’s okay. I think he’s older than me.T.I. – Whatever You LikeMost people don’t get this song. Sure, it’s easy to think it’s all about materialism and epitomises the shallowness of the rap industry. But what you don’t really get on the radio edits or the MTV videos are the crucial first lines; “Hey Jill/You know the old suga daddy /They be trippin’ when they tell they them girls/I said you could have whatever you like.” So it’s the not-so-subtle dig at this whole material items in exchange for love culture that does seem to be surrounding the genre anyway. The video is kind of funny as well. It would be a mistake to pass it off as some new rap phase that people will get over because it isn’t long lasting material, but I think it will resonate in years to come, if only for the whole social commentary aspect – a valid one that’s often hard to find in that genre.Beyonce – Single LadiesIf I Were A Boy wasn't a particularly great opener for Beyonce's new album. Most of us gave it one look over and dismissed it as more crappy Beyonce. Wondering when she would get back to her best. Well, apparently this stupid alter-ego she's dreamt up actually works, because 'Sasha Fierce' has helped her produce one of her best in a long time. Who can't help singing that refrain. Well, maybe those who aren't ladies. But I tell you, when my friends and I bust out our Beyonce moves, we're almost as good as Shane Mercado. That coreography is good, though. I'm not dismissing Beyonce yet. She might still have a few more up her sleeve.Ne-Yo – CloserIt’s easy to make a danceable, upbeat R&B song that’s pure crap. It doesn’t take a genius. But it’s probably harder to make one that’s sincere and still in the vein of ‘The Gentleman’, or whatever that image is that Ne-Yo is so desperate to purvey. Before you toss it to the side with a lot of the hip hop crap that’s out these days, take a listen to Closer. It’s not contested that Ne-Yo is a smart guy. He gets everything he can out of the music industry, writing, recording, performing, not only for himself but for others as well. You’d think after all that experience he’d be able to churn out a killer song. You’d be right.Chris Brown – Kiss KissI don’t even know if Exclusive is from this year or last, probably the latter, but Kiss Kiss has had more of an effect on 2008 for me. This kid can dance, no question about it. And his voice isn’t half bad. Even if his songs are a little generic, they stick in your head for ages, and you can’t help but admire his ability to throw out these songs that hit every corner of the pop/hip hop market. There’s the upbeat rap like Kiss Kiss, the slower R&B ballad of With You or the more dancey Forever. Which is a great song in its own right. Or even the slightly overdone but still great duet with Jordin Sparks (No Air). I think, though, Kiss Kiss is my favourite. The video is a little cheeky, but a little clever. I’d even forgive him for singing about how good he is.

Toshiba's leaked product roadmap gets us hot

2009-04-20T01:46:00.000-07:00

If the roadmap posted after the break is to be believed (and we think it is) then Toshiba is set to capture a lot of attention with its Snapdragon-based handhelds over the coming year. Techblog.gr has what it claims to be the Toshiba Device Roadmap through 2010. They've shown us a PowerPoint sample off-line that seems to support the claim. Of course, this isn't the first time Tosh has leaked an entire product cycle and the named devices align nicely with some of the prototypes Toshiba was showing-off at CES in January (see gallery below). Toshiba was already off to a good start in 2009 with its incredibly thin 4.1-inch TG01 running atop Qualcomm's snapdragon platform. It just gets better from there. First we've got the TG02 (launching in Q4) update to the TG01 that adds IPX4 water resistance without changing the specs or the dimensions. The TG03 ups the ante again with the inclusion of a 3-channel speaker for a better video experience. Also in Q4, Tosh looks ready to launch a 15-mm QWERTY slider version of the 9.9-mm TG01 with new capacitive (!) touchscreen called the K01. All other specs look unchanged including WinMo 6.5. Next is the K02 clamshell with primary 3.5-inch WVGA display and QWERTY on the inside coupled with a secondary LCD and 10-key on-screen keypad on the outside. The K02 features a resistive touchscreen, HSPA data, and same QSD8x50 chipset found in the TG01 (and all the other devices on this roadmap). Last, but by no means least, is the 7-inch L01 looking every bit the love-child of a Nokia N800 and HTC Advantage. The very same device that was shown powered by a DMFC (fuel cell) at CES in January. Interesting since Toshiba has promised a consumer device powered by a fuel cell before March of 2010. Unfortunately, it's limited to WinMo 6.5 (with a hint of a Windows Mobile 7 in 2010) and the same WVGA resolution seen on the smaller screens when it launches. Assuming the leak is true, of course.

Fergie Wears Her Sunglasses At Night

2009-04-18T20:26:00.000-07:00

We’ve caught Josh Duhamel’s dutchess sitting pretty at a ton of fashion shows here in NYC, where Fashion Week is in full swing. And while her outfits are looking quite cute and there’s not a pee stain to be found, we have to wonder, why is Fergie clad in constant eye-shade, and what is she hiding? That look is really not acceptable for any young starlet - no matter how many Olsens seem to think so. Is she trying to go incognito or are there just a couple of wrinkles gracing her face that need a cover? Maybe she’s just doing some undercover promo work for her local Sunglasses Hut. We asked Mary Alice Stephenson, America’s Most Smartest Model host and Harper’s Bazaar contributing fashion editor, to weigh in on Fergie’s latest looks - sunglasses and all. We’ve got her thoughts - and some pics of Fergie’s Stacey Ferguson’s recent fashion dos - below the jump.

Housing Association Checklist

2009-04-16T21:02:00.000-07:00

Learning and development is known across all industries as a powerful tool to boost organisational performance and housing associations are no exception. The Community Housing Group is a housing association based in Kidderminster, which offers a large range of housing related services to complement their 5,500 plus homes, shops and garages. It understands just how important learning and development is; even in a tough economic environment. Keen to promote to their employees the importance of learning and development, The Community Housing Group wanted to ensure they grabbed attention, created a buzz and passion for learning and development as well as building departmental bridges, whilst providing the platform to build on their managers’ skills. Their HR department, which includes Linda Lane, Head of Human Resources, believed that investing in a bespoke, creative management development programme for 60 of their managers, across all of their sites in the Wyre Forest District was the best way forward. The development brief demanded an innovative approach and whilst they recognised that lecturing still had its place for some organisations they believed to truly kick start excitement and passion, along with a sense of belief in future organisational plans, they needed something special. After a comprehensive tendering process, Righttrack Consultancy won the contract and produced a four module, ILM approved management programme that was delivered throughout 2007-8. The launch module was an overnight experiential event that required participants to create their own shelters, find food as well completing a number of challenging tasks; capture the baddie was just one of them. After some trepidation, all employees went for it; in all meanings of the phrase. One of the main reasons Righttrack suggested the upfront experiential event is so that participants could relate the key skills and knowledge learnt in the remaining three classroom-based modules back to a shared experience. An experiential event tends to bring out natural rather than learned behaviours as people are faced with situations out of their comfort zones. The interactivity didn’t end with the experiential event as each subsequent module consisted of group and individual work, case studies and assignments, all of which help to transfer the learning back to work. Kasmin Cooney, Righttrack’s Managing Director and The Community Housing Group Project Manager said, “The experiential event really set the tone for the rest of the project. It created a real buzz that not only lasted the duration of the programme but well after the graduation ceremony.” Linda Lane said, “Since the programme finished we have found that our employees are very pro-development. The choice of development topics are very much influenced by our employees, which are typically generated through feedback exercises, appraisals as well as through an extensive training needs analysis; we create a wish list and try our best to tick everything off. One of the key differences we have seen since the management programme that Righttrack ran for us is that people across the entire company actually care about whether they receive the training they asked for, which is exactly what we wanted - people to take their skills development seriously.” Getting a business culture to not only accept the need for learning and development but to truly embrace and believe in its importance is one of the hardest objectives for a HR department, yet The Community Housing Group has achieved just that, which is even more impressive when you consider the range of different people in their organisation. It is for this reason why they have continued to invest at the same level in 2009, with learning and development programmes being commissioned for many different subjects such as project management, creative facilitation, report writing, finance for non-financial managers and planning skills to name a few. This positive behaviour and belief in learning and development proves that many UK organisations are still looking to the future and as the G20 summit in London has created a rescue plan of $1 trillion to save the world’s economy, looking forward seems to be the best thing any organisation and HR department can do. -End- Notes: Company logos are available to download from: www.righttrackconsultancy.co.uk/news-media-blog/media/ About Righttrack Consultancy: Right Track Consultancy Ltd was formed in 1988, and has its head office in Worcestershire. Righttrack is the leading learning and development consultancy that design and deliver innovative and engaging training solutions to organisations all over the world. The range of services that Righttrack provide covers a broad spectrum and includes bespoke and ready-to-run training, sales solutions, ILM qualifications and development programmes, ICAEW programmes, organisational development and coaching. Righttrack work with clients of all sizes across all industry sectors, including Mercedes Benz, Gucci, Somerfield, BAE Systems, The Forestry Commission and The North East Ambulance Service.

I’ll probably blog about the different pieces as well

2009-04-16T10:31:00.000-07:00

Six years ago, before I moved to Barcelona, my digital music collection was well-organized and simple. I had my CD’s. And I had a copy of all of them, in Ogg, on my Dave/Dina box. I had very few downloaded tracks, and I didn’t really listen to those much. All my music on Dave/Dina was tracked in DAD, a project I did with my former housemate Kristof. Life was great. Every new CD was ripped directly in Dave/Dina, imported in DAD, and from there it could be rated. So each track was immediately available for the dynamic playlists DAD generated. Those playlists were then played directly on the Dave/Dina box attached to the living room stereo, my desktop, or the kitchen or bathroom computers (small Compaq IA1 machines from the Golden Bubble days). Today, it’s all a mess. I have music (ripped, bought online, downloaded, or copied) on the following devices: My elisa machine (which holds all the old Dave/Dina content) My home desktop My laptop My work desktop My Nokia N800 My Cowon A3 media player Kristien’s iPod I haven’t ripped a single CD in the last 4 years since I stopped working on Dave/Dina, so these days I also listen to CD’s on either our small portable stereo or the PS3. I have 200+ CD’s still waiting to be ripped. So my music listening has become erratic, listening to either the old ‘good’ playlist from Dave/Dina that hasn’t changed for the last 6 years, and, while good, is getting stale; or whatever I recently ended up downloading, for a specific album, but random play is terrible when going through those directories, and of course each album is on some different machine or device. The last two years, I’ve grown more and more annoyed at this situation. So one of my goals for 2009 was to finally *do* something about it. I realize that music is one of the things I love most in life, and my life would be better with the music I buy and find in it as soon as I have it. So what little hacking time I have left before real life begins (you know, kids and stuff) is going to go in code that is going to make my music experience better. Having goals is a good way to direct your hacking. I’ve come up with five major projects I need to work on to get my music where I want it to be. All of these are projects I’ve had thoughts on in the past, but never really gotten to. Over the last few years a lot of new ideas and technologies have arrived that would help a lot now however. Re-rip all my CD’s in a lossless format, with perfect quality, according to a certain website’s standard Find a replacement for DAD, or make one. It should be able to track rips, tracks, different encodings of the same recording, different versions of tracks, parts of tracks (hidden tracks for example), and different collections across devices that it should be able to synchronize. Think ‘put 10 GB of the best songs on my N800′, and each time I’d connect my N800 it would automatically add new ones and remove old ones. Improve on the rating system DAD used to have, reusing ideas from a project at the radio stations all those years ago. Have a bunch of fuzzy parameters on each track which would allow much richer controls for song selection. Possibly turn it into a collaborative website if it makes sense. This hinges on uniquely identifying each track, for which acoustic fingerprinting would be a good solution. Basically, I want to use the power of the web and the music lovers to improve song selection. last.fm and pandora are going in the right direction, but don’t really satisfy me. Write a player that does the automatic mixing the way Dave/Dina used to, or better. Make a LEGO Mindstorms robot to automatically rip all my CD’s again I’ve been tackling each of these separately, which turned out to actually be a good thing. Each time I’m stuck on one of them, I can work on any of the others. For example, I’ve been stuck on (4) for a long time, waiting for Edward to fix some bugs in gnonlin, so I switched to (1), writing code to parse .CUE files, implement CDDB disc id calculation, and AccurateRip verification of ripped images. I also waited on a friend who I worked with at said radio station to confirm that he doesn’t have any backups either of the database for (3). Since this is what I’ll be hacking on in my spare time in the forseeable future, I’ll probably blog about the different pieces as well. I’ll start with some more technical information on (1), the ripping part, which I’ve been working on the last month, in a separate post. But man, I look forward to ripping my CD’s from the last four years and actually listening to those songs regularly, rather than once in a while. Isn’t it amazing how our parents actually had to get up from their desk, go over to the turntable, and actually flip an LP over if they wanted to hear something else for 20 minutes ?