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[UPDATE: For a Beta 2 version of this control, click here]
We're going to create this control:
It's called the ExpandoHeaderControl, and it does two basic things. First, it has an area for a header, and a collapsible content area, with a ToggleButton to manage when the content is visible or not (e.g. collapsed).
For this tutorial, I'm trying to simplify concepts as much as possible. For more sophisticated, industrial-strength concepts, check out the full control source available for the Source Code for Silverlight 2 Beta 1 Controls.
I'm continually amazed by how much power Silveright 2 provides. This control will require about 100 lines of code to write. Really! Let's get started.
Step 1: Defining your control's template parts.
What are the parts of your control that the logic has to interact with? These should be the the defined "parts" of your control. There are two types of objects that your control cares about. First, it's the elements that are going to drive the UI or layout. And, second, are the transition Storyboard animations that will cause your control's UI to move from one state to the next. Let's focus on the UI parts right now.
We want to make sure that we give designers the most flexibility possible. So our code should be as general as possible. If you look at the code in the Silverlight 2 Beta 1 Controls package, you'll see great examples of this. The code running the control is very agnostic about what the UI is actually doing.
So for our control, we'll define a few parts:
- The RootElement, which is the container for all of the UI. This is important because it's also where we'll stick the resources that have our Transitions.
- The HeaderElement, which is the element that contains the header content.
- The ContentElement, which is the element that will parent the main content in the collapsible area.
- The ButtonElement, which is the ToggleButton that will control the collapsed state.
Usually, when we start writing our control, the first step is to add these attributes to our control class:
[TemplatePart(Name=ExpandoHeaderControl.RootElement, Type=typeof(FrameworkElement))]
[TemplatePart(Name=ExpandoHeaderControl.HeaderElement, Type=typeof(ContentControl))]
[TemplatePart(Name=ExpandoHeaderControl.ContentElement, Type=typeof(ContentControl))]
[TemplatePart(Name=ExpandoHeaderControl.ButtonElement, Type=typeof(ToggleButton))]
public class ExpandoHeaderControl : ContentControl
private const string RootElement = "RootElement";
private const string HeaderElement = "HeaderElement";
private const string ContentElement = "ContentElement";
private const string ButtonElement = "ButtonElement";
Note that we do two small, but important, things here. First, we use static strings for the element names. This is good practice because we'll use them again later. Second, we specify what type of element the Template Part needs to be. This should be the most general type that you need for a given element. If you use specific types here (for example Grid instead of FrameworkElement for the root), it will be much more difficult to template your control. In the case of the ButtonElement, we chose ToggleButton rather than Button so we can ensure that it has a specific state. If we used just Button (or ButtonBase), we'd need to track this ourselves.
Step 2: Define your control's transition animations
What are the animations that your control will need to transition from one state to the next? Defining transitions is just the same as defining the parts - use the TemplatePart attribute. The main difference here is that the type will always be Storyboard.
Let's add in the animation declarations:
[TemplatePart(Name=ExpandoHeaderControl.RootElement, Type=typeof(FrameworkElement))]
[TemplatePart(Name=ExpandoHeaderControl.HeaderElement, Type=typeof(ContentControl))]
[TemplatePart(Name=ExpandoHeaderControl.ContentElement, Type=typeof(ContentControl))]
[TemplatePart(Name=ExpandoHeaderControl.ButtonElement, Type=typeof(ToggleButton))]
[TemplatePart(Name = ExpandoHeaderControl.OpenAnimation, Type = typeof(Storyboard))]
[TemplatePart(Name = ExpandoHeaderControl.CloseAnimation, Type = typeof(Storyboard))]
public class ExpandoHeaderControl : ContentControl
private const string RootElement = "RootElement";
private const string HeaderElement = "HeaderElement";
private const string ContentElement = "ContentElement";
private const string ButtonElement = "ButtonElement";
private const string OpenAnimation = "OpenAnimation";
private const string CloseAnimation = "CloseAnimation";
Step 3: Write your OnApplyTemplate logic
After a control is loaded, its UI is populated from it's template. To do this, the override of OnApplyTemplate is called by the framework. For the most part, this code always looks about the same.
For each of your parts, you're likely to want to have a member variable to access the element later, if you'll need to manipulate it:
private FrameworkElement _rootElement;
private ToggleButton _buttonElement;
private Storyboard _openAnimation, _closeAnimation;
protected override void OnApplyTemplate()
// Fish out all of the template children and wire them up.
_rootElement = GetTemplateChild(ExpandoHeaderControl.RootElement) as FrameworkElement;
if (_rootElement != null)
_buttonElement = GetTemplateChild(ExpandoHeaderControl.ButtonElement) as ToggleButton;
_openAnimation = _rootElement.Resources[ExpandoHeaderControl.OpenAnimation] as Storyboard;
_closeAnimation = _rootElement.Resources[ExpandoHeaderControl.CloseAnimation] as Storyboard;
One thing to note is that we access parts and transitions differently. Note how we access the transitions out of the root element's Resources collection.
Step 4: Create any properties you'll want to bind to in your template
Silverlight and WPF have a feature called Template Binding. Template Binding allows you to "pass through" settings from a control to the UI defined in the Template. For example, imagine your control has a TextBlock in it. You'd like to be able to set the font properties of that TextBlock in a way that doesn't force the user to understand how the template is put together. Template Binding allows you to reference properties on the object being templated and set those values into the template, similar to data binding.
Our control has two content areas: the header, and the content itself. Since our control derives from ContentControl, it already has a property called "Content" that we can use for the main content area. But we want another one called HeaderContent to specify that, so we'll create one. For a property to be bindable, it has to be defined as a DependancyProperty. Visual Studio 2008 has a built in snippet for defining these. It's meant for WPF, but it's close enough. Just type "propdp".
When you do this, fill in the various fields. In this case, the property's type should be object, and it's called HeaderContent:
// Content property for the header
public static readonly DependencyProperty HeaderContentProperty =
DependencyProperty.Register("HeaderContent", typeof(object), typeof(ExpandoHeaderControl), null);
public object HeaderContent
get { return (object)GetValue(HeaderContentProperty); }
set { SetValue(HeaderContentProperty, value); }
The snippet also creates the CLR property with accessors as well!
Step 5: Create a simple Template for Testing
Okay, now it's time to throw some UI in there. We'll create a very simple template that does everything we need.
<Grid x:Name="RootElement">
<Storyboard x:Key="OpenAnimation">
<DoubleAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetName="ContentElement" Storyboard.TargetProperty="(UIElement.Opacity)">
<SplineDoubleKeyFrame KeyTime="00:00:00.1000000" Value="1.0"/>
<Storyboard x:Key="CloseAnimation">
<DoubleAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetName="ContentElement" Storyboard.TargetProperty="(UIElement.Opacity)">
<SplineDoubleKeyFrame KeyTime="00:00:00.1000000" Value="0"/>
<RowDefinition Height="50"/>
<RowDefinition Height="auto"/>
<ColumnDefinition Width="*"/>
<ColumnDefinition Width="30" />
<ContentControl HorizontalAlignment="Left" Background="Red" Content="{TemplateBinding HeaderContent}"/>
<ToggleButton Grid.Column="1" HorizontalAlignment="Right" x:Name="ButtonElement" Content="X"/>
<ContentControl Grid.ColumnSpan="2" Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="0" x:Name="ContentElement"
Content="{TemplateBinding Content}" Background="Blue"/>
Okay, there's our template. When instantiated, it looks like this:
Told ya it was simple. Let's take a look at what parts we have in the template and how they match up with the control.
In the template, we define the animations at the top as resources off of the RootElement.
Notice we reference them by Key, not by Name.
For this control, we've defined a 2 row, 2 column Grid for our layout. In the top row, we have the HeaderElement and the ButtonElement. In the second row, we have the ContentElement, with a RowSpan of 2 so it fills up the bottom. The red area and the words "header" and "Content Area" come from the control's usage, not the control itself or the template (see below). In the Template above, you'll see two instances of "TemplateBinding" like "{TemplateBinding HeaderContent}". When the control is templated, it will substitute the value of the controls "HeaderContent" property in that position.
In our main XAML page, we've declared this control like this:
<my:ExpandoHeaderControl Width="200" x:Name="Header" Style="{StaticResource SimpleTemplate}" HeaderContent="header">
<Rectangle Fill="Red" Stretch="Fill"/>
<TextBlock Text="Content Area" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center"/>
You may be wondering where to put that template.
In most cases, the Template will either be inline with the control's declaration (as it's Template property value, example in Step 8 below) in the XAML. This is good for one-off templates but doesn't let you share a template across controls. The more common way is as a resource defined in App.XAML (as we've done here). then it's hooked us as a StaticResource into the controls style property, as you see above.
Step 6: Managing State Changes
Now we've got the UI working, but the button doesn't know what to do when we push it. Let's go back to our code and fix that.
The way this is usually done is to create properties to represent the state of your control. In our case, the main piece of state is whether-or-not the control is collapsed. So we'll add a property "IsOpened" to manage that.
// Property that determines if the expando is opened.
public static readonly DependencyProperty IsOpenedProperty =
DependencyProperty.Register("IsOpened", typeof(bool), typeof(ExpandoHeaderControl), new PropertyChangedCallback(NotifyIsOpenedChanged));
private static void NotifyIsOpenedChanged(DependencyObject dpObj, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs change)
bool isOpened = (bool)change.NewValue;
((ExpandoHeaderControl)dpObj).IsOpened = isOpened;
public bool IsOpened
if (_buttonElement != null)
return _buttonElement.IsChecked ?? false;
return (bool)GetValue(IsOpenedProperty);
if (_buttonElement != null)
_buttonElement.IsChecked = value;
SetValue(IsOpenedProperty, value);
This looks a bit complicated. We want to be able to bind to this property, so we've declared it as a DependancyProperty. And we want to make sure it mirrors the actual state of the button, so if we have one of those, we'll just use its checked state. But if we don't have one from the template, we'll just fall back to our own value.
One other note - we're hooking the changed value here. If someone changes this value, we want to know about it so that we can update our state. When the DP changes, our static handler will be called. From that, we figure out which control fired the change, and update the state as appropriate.
Now that we've added the property, we can add some code in OnApplyTemplate to hook up to the Button's Click event:
bool opened = IsOpened;
_buttonElement = GetTemplateChild(ExpandoHeaderControl.ButtonElement) as ToggleButton;
if (_buttonElement != null)
// setup the buttons initial state.
_buttonElement.IsChecked = opened;
_buttonElement.Click += new RoutedEventHandler(ToggleButtonElement_Click);
Finally, we want a unified place to manage the state animations. For that we've created a method called ChangeVisualState which plays the right animations for each state change.
This code may look funny, but to make sure we handle the case of an interrupted transition, we should start the "to" state StoryBoard before stopping the "From" one.
void ToggleButtonElement_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
// just update our state.
private void ChangeVisualState()
// manage the animations base on the current state.
Storyboard toState = IsOpened ? _openAnimation : _closeAnimation;
Storyboard fromState = !IsOpened ? _openAnimation : _closeAnimation;
if (toState != null)
if (!_templateLoaded)
if (fromState != null)
We now have a working control!
Step 7: Specifying your default template
You'll notice that all of the SL 2 Beta1 controls have a nice default look and feel to them. How is this accomplished? Well, it takes a small amount of trickery.
The way you do this is by defining a XAML file called "generic.xaml" in your project and specifying it as a resource:
The Silveright Runtime will look for this resource and hook up templates for each specified type. Your generic.xaml should look like this:
<Style TargetType="local:ExpandoHeaderControl">
<Setter Property="Template">
<ControlTemplate TargetType="local:ExpandoHeaderControl">
<!-- template xml -->
Step 8: Making it look nice!
I've been slowly going through Blend Kindergarten over the last few weeks. I finally managed to get the hang of making nice glassy looking UI and was able to create a template to match. If you'd like to learn this stuff, I highly recommend the tutorials over at the Liquid Boy blog. They're simple and quickly taught me enough to be dangerous to myself and others.
I spent quite a bit of time mocking up the UI you see at the top of this post, and I think it looks pretty good. Notice that I also templated the ToggleButton (as a nested template inside of the ExpandoHeaderControl Template in generic.xaml.
<ToggleButton Margin="4" Grid.Column="1" x:Name="ButtonElement" IsChecked="true">
<ControlTemplate TargetType="ToggleButton">
<!-- glassy round Toggle Button Template XAML -->
After I got the hang of this, it became a lot of fun. The glassy look on the toggle button, and the funny little arrow didn't take too long to put together really. For someone who doesn't have an ounce of design sense, I'm quite proud of myself.
Finally, here's how the control is declared on the page:
<my:ExpandoHeaderControl x:Name="sample" HeaderContent="Choose Color">
<ListBox x:Name="lb" Height="100">
<Grid Margin="2" Width="180">
<Rectangle Stretch="Fill" Fill="{Binding}"/>
<ContentPresenter Content="{Binding}"/>
Note the "{Binding}" syntax in the data template. Usually you specify a property in there like {Binding Name}, but in this case we're just using the item value itself, as in this case we're binding to an array of strings.
Again, here's the final, working product (if you're on IE/FF on Windows at least, not sure about Safari on Mac - shoehorning this into the blog has issues :))
Attached is the full project. Enjoy!


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Rated M for MatureHold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss MeRated M for Mature - RSS 2.0
I remember playing Planescape: Torment, the cult classic roleplaying game from Black Isle, a few years back. The game matches you with a handful of companions, including a woman with crazy hair, a Scottish accent and a gigantic flesh-toned tail. Partway through the game, she started flirting with me in an edgy, uncommitted way: She would start a conversation and then confront and light into me, and I knew if I responded poorly, she'd laugh in my face. I got sucked into roleplaying against her, and it wasn't my imagination or the one-and-a-half-inch tall image of the character on the screen that drew me in so much as the knowledge that I had to make the right decision to see where this could go, and the wrong decision would derail whatever was happening between us. It was fascinating to have a game put me back on my heels, not with a blow-out combat scene, but just with a conversation.
Romance drives many game stories, but often it feels like windowdressing over a simple, goal-oriented experience. Dating games end when you get a date, as surely as a shooter ends with a boss fight; hentai games are the same, but more explicit. And sex games often settle into a linear bump and grind, as a status bar measures your progress toward climax. Take away the context and you may as well be running a race or filling your gas tank.
But a number of single-player roleplaying games - specifically, the last five years' worth of titles from BioWare, Interplay and Black Isle - put an intriguing spin on romance: They invite the player to flirt. As a gameplay mechanic, flirting is more complicated, more engaging and far more suspenseful than an outright "save the princess" romance - and some players fall deeply under its sway.
The process is simple. All of the NPCs who follow you through the game engage you in conversation to further the plot, or discuss tactics, or simply to swap backstories with you. But once in a while, you'll find a character - mostly, but not always, of the opposite gender - who starts flirting with you, whether it's Silk Fox, the bristly mystery woman in Jade Empire or Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic's Carth, who treats female characters to his awkward advances. You know something's up when it starts, but you have no idea how far the game will take it; your partner alludes to an entanglement without promising it'll happen, or even admitting that he or she's inviting it.
If you play your cards right, the object of your affections will join you in an open confession of love and sometimes, off-screen nookie. Jealousies and romantic triangles crop up if more than one NPC has an eye on you, but if you keep missing your chances or behaving offensively, the relationship fizzles.
The flirting technique still has several shortcomings. Your partner's lines are scripted, which means they end where the writer did - and after you hit the end of the romantic story, you may never hear about it again, no matter how many times you try to strike up a conversation with your new girlfriend or boyfriend. Also, the gender balance is off: Men get far more suitors than women. And for better or worse, flirting and romance rarely impact the main game. I was so caught up in the give and take with Annah in Planescape, I didn't notice the payoff for winning her affections was a slight boost to her ability scores. Technically, that makes the Annah romance a "sidequest," but improving an NPC's stats hardly seems like the point. You do it to enjoy the experience.
BioWare's Baldur's Gate II set the bar for RPG flirting, with four complete romances spanning dozens of hours of gameplay. But in its early days, the technique was controversial, as lead designer Kevin Martens and senior writer Luke Kristjanson recalled in a recent e-mail interview. "When we first proposed player/NPC romances as a feature for Baldur's Gate II, there was a great deal of distrust on our forums toward the idea," recalls Kristjanson. "Players imagined everything from forced soap opera cut-scenes to NPCs simply throwing themselves at you.

subset: commoncrawl


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Human Monoclonal MYF6 Primary Antibody for ELISA, WB - ABIN969544
Kosek, Kim, Petrella, Cross, Bamman: Efficacy of 3 days/wk resistance training on myofiber hypertrophy and myogenic mechanisms in young vs. older adults. in Journal of applied physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985) 2006
Show all 2 Pubmed References
Human Polyclonal MYF6 Primary Antibody for ELISA, WB - ABIN4233984
Roy, de la Serna, Imbalzano: The myogenic basic helix-loop-helix family of transcription factors shows similar requirements for SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling enzymes during muscle differentiation in culture. in The Journal of biological chemistry 2002
Mrf4 (myf6) is dynamically expressed in differentiated zebrafish skeletal muscle
Data suggest that the transcript Mrf4_tv2 is involved in alignment of muscle fibers, and Mrf4_tv1 might have cooperative function with Mrf4_tv2 in muscle fiber alignment, without affecting the muscle-nerve connection.
mrf4 but not myog can fully rescue myogenesis in the myod/myf5 double morphant via a selective and robust activation of myod. Rescue does not happen spontaneously, because the gene is expressed only at the onset of muscle differentiation
findings identified miR-374b directly targets Myf6 and negatively regulates myogenesis
Mrf4 has a role in priming embryonic founder cells to become adult muscle stem cells
Intrinsic muscle factor MRF4 plays an important role in maintenance of neuromuscular junctions.
Data demonstrated that Myf6 is Tceal7 upstream transactivators using transcriptional assays.
MRF4 targets the proximal region of M-cadherin promoter and bind the E4-box.
Hox genes produce global patterns in the axial skeleton; Myf5 and Myf6 have roles in rib formation
Mrf4 expression precedes or is contemporaneous with that of Myf5, suggesting that this transcription factor plays a hitherto unsuspected role in myogenesis
an enhancer element directs MRF4 gene expression primarily in fast muscle fibers
elements within a 7.5-kb promoter fragment of the MRF4 gene are sufficient to drive the embryonic wave of expression very similar to the endogenous gene in somites of mouse embryos
skeletal muscle is present in the new Myf5:Myod double-null mice only when Mrf4 expression is not compromised
Expression of the Na(V) 1.4 Na+ channel was substantially reduced in MRF4-null mice, both in the surface membrane and at neuromuscular junctions. Thus, MRF4 appears to play a novel and selective role in adult muscle.
Taken together, these results indicate that MRF4 and MyoD play competitive roles in myogenesis by stimulating cell proliferation and differentiation, respectively.
A conserved myf6 promoter drives transgenic expression in Xenopus embryonic somites and adult muscle.
XMRF4 protein does not require innervation during muscle regeneration
XMRF4 protein accumulated in somite nuclei slightly after XMRF4 transcripts
The myogenic basic helix-loop-helix family of transcription factors, MyoD, Myf5, myogenin, and MRF4, can each activate the muscle differentiation program.
Myogenin and myogenic differentiation factor D (MyoD) mRNAs increased (P < 0.05) in young and old, whereas myogenic factor (myf)-5 mRNA increased in young only (P < 0.05). Myf-6 protein increased (P < 0.05) in both young and old.
Pietrain pigs exhibited significant higher expression of MYF6 and hypermethylated E2F1 binding element within MYF6 5'-regulatory region as compared with Duroc pigs.
The expression level of Myf6 gene does not indicate significant differences between muscles, ages and breeds.
The porcine MYF6 gene was amplified and sequenced and compared with MYF6 gene sequences of other species. The amino acid sequence was deduced and an interspecies homology analysis was performed.
Associations between the genotype at the MYF6 locus and carcass quality traits appeared to be breed-dependent.
MRF4 and H-FABP genes are associated with growth traits in Qinchuan cattle and related hybrids [MRF4]
The protein encoded by this gene is a probable basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) DNA binding protein involved in muscle differentiation. The encoded protein likely acts as a heterodimer with another bHLH protein. Defects in this gene are a cause of autosomal dominant centronuclear myopathy (ADCNM).
myogenic factor 6
, myogenic factor 6 (herculin)
, muscle-specific regulatory factor 4
, myf-6
, Myogenic factor 6 (herculin)
, myogenic factor 6 b
, class C basic helix-loop-helix protein 4
, myogenic factor 6, transcription activator
, MRF4a
, myogenic factor 6 a
, skeletal muscle-specific DNA-binding protein


text:
What Is Four Color Process Printing
Rules of Four Color Processing
Tips for Four Color Processing
Drawbacks of Four Color Processing
This website was developed by Geno Jezek,
owner of the online magnet store, www.Custom-Magnets.com. Custom-Magnets has been supplying
magnetic material and custom fridge magnets since 1999.
The rules of four color process printing are really simple. Talk to any professional printer and they will all say the same thing. To get really great prints one needs to pay attention to proper artwork, separations, mesh, frames, tension and inks amongst other things.
Here are some rules to follow to ensure great four color process printing.
Rule 1: A GREAT piece of artwork is a must
With four color process printing the artwork needs to be absolutely flawless because it will loose quality in printing. If you start off with poor quality to begin with, you really cannot expect it to get any better.
Rule 2: Always use the right SEPARATOR and avoid separations provided by the customer
Using a local separator may give you good results but if you want great results there are three possible ways to go about it. Do the separations yourself, get industry approved software to do the separations or have the separations done outside which can cost anywhere between $300 to $500. Industry specified software like Fastfilm when used with Adobe Photoshop gives the best results by far.
Rule 3: Use a perfect printing PLATE
In order to reproduce the halftones exactly as they are you will need to use retensionable frames with the correct mesh and tension. You simply cannot print correctly with hand stretched screens at low tension.
Rule 4: Use a dual care or pure photopolymer direct emulsion
Using thin coats allows you to hold finer detail. The photopolymers will provide excellent edge definition. It is absolutely vital that the screen is not over-exposed.
Rule 5: Use a good printing press
Your printing press needs to be able to hold registration. While automatic presses produce more consistent printing, you can get great results with manual presses too.
Rule 6: Set up with care and patience
It is important to keep the off contact very low. The screens need to be kept parallel to the pallets. Any out-of-register will result in the prints looking soft and out of focus.
Rule 7: Ink selection
The four color printing process is designed around the four process colors: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (CMYK). It does not allow for the use of standard colors out of the can. However, with recent developments in industry standards, you can now almost use inks straight out of the can. On some jobs you may still have to make some adjustments but by and large gone are the days of hours adjusting inks.
Rule 8: Using a squeegee
Hand printing requires good technique and strokes. The strokes need to be consistent. In the case of automatic printing, monitor the squeegee pressure and use a triple durometer 70/90/70 for good results.
Rule 9: Use a good printing surface
Having set up a great press, you need to ensure that the printing surface is prepared and ready for printing. Some surfaces like paper print better than others like cloth.
Rule 10: Know the limitations
It is always better to know the limitations of the process and make your client aware of them as well. A job with reference colors requires extra care so ensure that the print is approved before the production run.
Armed with these rules, if you apply them correctly, you can get absolutely perfect results from four color process printing.
Other Cool Sites:
What is Litho Printing
© 2006-2015 Geno Jezek - All Rights Reserved. This site is copyrighted and cannot be reproduced in any form without written consent.
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text:
3007 Stovall Place II ,
Ballast Point Map
This home used to be owed by John Solomon Smith, a Department Store Manager, and his wife Margaret Jane Andreu. Except for the cupola, the facade of this beautiful house has changed very little in the last 86 years. What appears to be a sandy beach at he bottom of the historic photo has been replaced by townhomes. Below is another view of this home.
Show Comments (15)
15 Responses
Wow, what a spectacular house! Amazing that it's still around. Fantastic effort, Bryan.
This is our friend Dr Daryl's Home today. It a beautiful home.
The home was actually picked up and moved. It was on Bayshore Blvd. where the Monte Carlo Condominium is today.
I owned this home in 1990-1994-I had wood flooring upstairs and down refinished, It was a wonderful old home with the most wonderful woods they are like artwork…
We owned the home about two years (1984 -1986) and did significant improvements. The house was not moved, only turned 90 degrees to face Stovall. The original owner owned all the land down to Bayshore and from Mason St. to Grovewood Ave.
That owner's widow, Annie Richardson did not want "to face that awful trolley that ran down Bayshore", so the house was turned on its axis. She died and gave the house to her caretaker who had "wormed his way into her heart" per the abstract on our title. He promptly subdivided the land but was wiped out in the crash of 1926.
This house was owned by my great-grandparents, Jennie (Margaret Jane) and John Solomon Smith. My grandparents, Gurth and Leona Clarkson also lived there. I lived there as a young child from 1942 to 1949 when my parents bought a house after the war. My grandparents sold the house in the 1950's. I have fond memories of that wonderful house as well as photos of me and my grandparents sitting on the front porch.
Such a beautiful house.It must of been really cool with no surrounding housing blocking your views.
I have lived around the corner from this house for 18 years in a townhouse on Grovewood. Mason, Stovall & Grovewood comprise a great enclave in which to live with the shops & restaurants of Palma Ceia in walking distance to the west and only steps to Bayshore on the east. I have heard many people talk about this house having been moved. Last night I had dinner with my neighbors whose 91 year old mother was there and she grew up in the area and ssys the house has always been where it is now. She did not say anything about the home being turned 90 degrees but this would seem plausible since that would have made for an impressive site turning off Bayshore, onto Stovall with the house straight ahead with the road splitting to go around each side of the estate. I know that Mary would not know first hand if that were the case but as the great-granddaughter of the original owner I would like to ask if she knew enough about the house from family that she could confirm the house had been turned so as not to face Bayshore?
I also lived in this house. My parents bought the house when I was in 1st grade. I lived there until a couple years after I graduated from high school. That would be from approximately 1970 until 1983. My mother sold the house to our neighbors (Rodger and Joan) who mentioned earlier in this post that they owned if for 2 years and refurbished a lot of it. The house had fallen into quite a state of disrepair while we lived there. I suppose we couldn't really afford the upkeep that it required. I am so grateful that the house was restored to its present day glory instead of being torn down and replaced with a newer building. I still go by and see this house whenever I make it down to Tampa for a visit.
were is this house now its looks like a house that sits in tampa heights on plam ave going to north blvd theirs a two story house I pass every day to go to tgh


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Miley Cyrus vs Nicki Minaj vs Taylor Swift! We have seen these ladies trying to settle the beef, but it looks like they also have a common enemy in Azealia Banks! In a series of NSFW tweets Wednesday morning, the 212 rapper let her fans know exactly what she thinks …Read More »
Home / Tag Archives: miley cyrus
MTV Video Music Awards 2015
Besides VMAs being the roller coaster of one after another antic of various celebrities let's not forget the winners of this night! Taylor Swift, whose 1989 was the best-selling album of 2014, earned nine nominations for the MTV Video Music Awards to be handed out on Aug 30. Ed Sheeran garnered …Read More »
Miley Cyrus slams Taylor Swift – More Bad Blood
There might be some bad blood brewing between Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift! While it may seem unheard of for anyone to dislike Taylor's "Bad Blood" music video starring her famous female power-squad, Miley blasted Taylor for the "violent" video not setting a good example. Miley, who looked gorgeous on …Read More »


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A small, but familiar name will be leaving the American auto industry as American Suzuki Motor Corporation citing unprofitability in the competitive market and filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Operations in Canada and Mexico will be unaffected.
"We hate to see any automobile business go under," said Tony Carter of Northwest Honda dealership in Bellingham. "We've all seen some hard times and we believe competition in the market leads to better options for the consumer. While it's unfortunate for Suzuki fans, we want everyone to know that Honda dealerships can service any Japanese car and they can come to us if they need it."
According to this article, "Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing was done to allow a smooth transition for setting up service networks for existing Suzuki vehicles. Suzuki is assuring owners of their products that warranties will remained honored. However, the ability to find parts for Suzuki vehicles could be difficult heading into the future. Another long-term effect likely to plague Suzuki automobiles in the United States will be resale value."
American Suzuki has been selling vehicles in the US for 27 years, but has accrued $346 million in debt. In addition to the tough market, Suzuki also cited the high Japanese Yen as a reason for discontinuing automobile sales in the US. "The company was also concerned about the rigors for complying to safety and fuel regulations in the United States as reasons that make developing future products."
Suzuki vehicles can be taken to Northwest Honda, Apple Valley Honda and Sims Honda dealerships for service and repair.
See entire article here.


text:
Collage Art Portfolio
Click on an image or text to open a specific gallery.
Over the past 40 years, I have been creating collage; the good, the bad and the ugly.
Each image represents a series of collage work during a specific time and place. Other work includes a range of mixed-medium collage. In addition, the project, Phobic Pattern, is a work in progress.


text:
Local inventor Ron Pontiff will appear on QVC Friday at 1 p.m. to launch his latest product � the Safe-T-Stool.
Local inventor Ron Pontiff will appear on QVC Friday at 1 p.m. to launch his latest product � the Safe-T-Stool.
�I�m not nervous about the QVC appearance because I passionately believe in the Safe-T-Stool,� he stated. �I am proud to showcase this quality, made in America product because I know for a fact that I�m providing a safer option for everyone.
�With all other stools, weight distribution is a major factor in whether a stool will tip. Our stool is unique because no matter where you stand on the Safe-T-Stool, you will have peace of mind that it will not flip over.�
The creation of the Safe-T-Stool began in 2003, when Pontiff saw the 2-year-old daughter of a family friend slip on a stool and hit her face while brushing her teeth. The child had to be rushed to the emergency room. Pontiff immediately thought there had to be a way to make a stool that can�t flip over.
The Safe-T-Stool is made from a durable Polypropylene plastic set at 20-degree angles with a non-slip textured rubber top and a rubber-slip resistant bottom. The stool is legless, always maintaining 100 percent contact with the floor, and can be stood on at any area and not tip over.
�Children don�t have the awareness to stand in the middle of the stool,� Pontiff said. �This design takes that out of the equation. (This product) is engineered for safety.�
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, falls are the leading cause of non-fatal injuries for all children ages 0 to 19. Every day, approximately 8,000 children are treated in U.S. emergency rooms for fall-related injuries � almost 2.8 million children each year. And the elderly are just as susceptible to fall-related injuries. The CDC reports that among older adults falls are the leading cause of both fatal and nonfatal injuries, with 2.3 million cases of older adults being treated in the emergency room in 2010.
Although the Safe-T-Stool was inspired by child safety, it is a versatile tool that can be used by anyone in any circumstance, Pontiff explained. The stool has a load capacity of 500 pounds and comes in seven different colors, including bright green and yellow, grey, pink, red, black and blue.
The stool is equipped with carrying handles and a hollow underside, which makes it a lightweight carrying container with no sharp corners.
When a broker presented eight new product ideas to QVC, only the Safe-T-Stool was picked up, according to Pontiff, a New Bern native. The network is expecting the product to sell out and has already increased the initial order by 50 percent.
The Safe-T-Stool is not Pontiff�s first patented invention, nor will it be his last. He is already working on follow-on products, including a step ladder that is slated to be released in 2014. He holds 11 patents from his 20-year inventing career, including the Attic Assist and Lucky Charm Golf Accessories.
The Safe-T-Stool is available for $39.95 at http://www.safetstool.com.


text:
A gaudy, unwieldy, grotesquely large post to fulfill my obligations to the mixmaniacs. So, without further ado:
Go to these other places to figure out who sent your mix (if you don't see yours here):
Now, for my silly mixes:
For the Guilty Pleasures disk - I don't feel like I owe an explanation because these are, after all, crappy songs that I shouldn't like but nonetheless get jammed up in my head and won't quit annoying me. Sending a disk of these songs to someone feels like igniting a bag of dog crap on someone's doorstep and knocking hard; elaborating the list feels like allowing that person to walk across your living room to use your phone.
A3 - Got Myself a Gun
Yeah, we've all waited too long for a very - a very - dismal season of the Sopranos; which should explain the rest of this horse hockey. It's not a bad song, really, it's more the association with something other than music. I used to love Blondie's "One Way or Another" until it was put into a Swiffer commercial...;
Sweet - Action
I dunno, when I was into the Sex Pistols, I was also into this pop crap. Anyone who watches football knows Sweet's bigger and better song but for whatever reason, this thing resonates like the sound of someone hurling violently in the next stall;
Alice Cooper - Billion Dollar Babies
At the risk of aging of me, the second concert I saw was Alice Cooper - on this tour - (I'd saved up all my money from delivering papers; my first concert was Deep Purple, uh hmmmm) and I've never shaken this song from mind, dammit, especially from Alice tossing armless dolls into audience to watch the crowd tear each other's arms off in order to grab cheap rubber toys;
Judas Priest - Breaking the Law
From my surfing-a-lot-and-drinking-heavily period, so you can just draw your own conclusions. A Beavis & Butthead standard;
Spacehog - In the Meantime
Oh, WHAT TOTAL CRAP - and yet, I'll still do the the "woooo ooooh" thing whenever I hear this earwig on the local college station;
Pilot - Magic
No one seemed to like this song in the 70's but me, which makes me wonder how it ever got recorded, except it somehow has some convoluted connection to 10cc (and 10cc has places on this disk I didn't include);
Five Man Electric Band - Signs
The worst kind of 60's self-righteousness expressed in 1973 yet, when I thought about it when I was 12, it seemed profound. It strangely pulls at me now, reminding me of an innocence that was far too brief yet naively expressed in this ditty;
Camper Van Beethoven - When I Win the Lottery
This is all "I'm too cool too stand next to you" alt-rock kind of snobbery but if you know the kind of snobs I know, you'd know why this is a guilty pleasure;
Doobie Brothers - Black Water
This should require no explanation why this made this on the disk, unless you have a mullet and resemble the protagonist of the previous song;
Erasure - Who Needs Love Like That
The bigger question should be, "Who makes crap like that?" The answer seems apparent and you know what? I danced like a monkey on meth to crap like that back in the 80's (sans mullet);
Brittany Spears - Oops, I Did It Again
Oh my, PERFECT POP - if you haven't heard Richard Thompson's versions of this, you need to see if you can download it. From the the same Swedish production team that produced the last song on this disk, a decades long tradition of such travesty;
Everything But the Girl - Missing (Todd Terry Mix)
I know - now you know how suck-y my tastes can get;
Digital Undergound - Humpty Dance
Yeah, I'm a freak (as if that's news) and this is, as far as I can tell, the only song to let freaks like me to get out on the floor and get spazzed out;
69 Boyz - Tootsie Roll
To the left... to the right... slide, slide, dip baby...what else can a freak do?
Eminem - My Name Is
First of all, I've never understood the critic's being enamored by this white-trash hero... then again, I can't ignore a cast-off line like "God sent me to piss the world off";
Ginuwine - Pony
OMG, such wannabe R&B, phony, but it hits it, my pony...
Gwen McCrae - Rockin' Chair
This is, by some estimates, the FIRST disco song, hardly a classic except for its historical significance. Still, I remember hearing this on AM radio in the early 70's and thinking, "This is AWESOME!" and not being able to walk very far without wanting to hear it again;
Hall & Oates - Sarah Smile
Say what you will about supposed blue-eyed soul but sometimes ya' gotta' get yer' R&B wherever it arises. The sound of having gotten to second base and driving home with a burning urge driving the accelerator;
The Carpenters - Close to You
I always wondered why all the girls in town would want to follow some guy all around and want to be close to him. I still wonder, though I'm a little wiser: they were following him around because they were pissed at him killing all those birds. I'm surprised all the guys in town weren't following him around to beat the crap out of him for all the stardust in his hair.
Herb Albert - Theme from Casino Royale
Yeah, it's silly - fuck you, "God sent me to piss the world off";
ABBA - Waterloo
If there's any cut on this CD that's really a "guilty pleasure", this is it, I can't explain it but I've always loved it.
I hope you've enjoyed my explanation of the aural equivalent to Catatonic Psychosis. Honestly, I could have made 10 disks of that dreck. However, it was easy (because, frankly, who cares?) and a reflection of bad taste is much easier to illustrate than what is supposed to be our defining music. All the emails I got from bloggers wanting to participate this round stated that the Guilty Pleasures would be a skate, that the Island Disk would bust balls. Indeed it did, Id vs Superego. So, I submit the Superego:
John Coltrane - My Favorite Things
Heh, for anyone who took my last list seriously - gosh, isn't this a nifty first cut? For everybody else, yeah, there's a thousand other cuts by Coltrane that I could have chosen from but this was my "Island Mix" (AND mixmania), right? Kind of narrows thing down, doesn't it? Shaddup, then;
Talking Heads - Swamp
Whoa, if you're going to send a psycho off to an island (like me, I swear, I'm not dangerous but fergodsake DON'T DO IT) with one disk, you'd better give that whacked-out motherfucker this album (the most danceable ever made) and this song:
Click click- see ya later
Beta beta- no time to rest
Pika pika- risky business
All that blood, will never cover that mess.
If you can figure out what Byrne is saying, please tell me. I don't think it means anything but whatever it is, it ain't good;
Funkadelic - One Nation Over a Groove
If that island is going to be my little dictatorship, this will be the first item in its Constitution, its Bill of Rights, its "You Gotta Do This Or We're Sending You Elsewhere" rule. "Here's a chance to dance our way out of our constrictions," should be the rule of law for every nation;
Toots & the Maytalls - Time Tough
I've lived on an island (Oahu) and felt isolated and this man - this album - has taken me out of that, time and time again. The first song from a reggae masterwork that puts the needle into the grooves for the rest;
Desmond Dekker & the Aces - Israelites
"When I was a little boy, I could feel, feel, feel it (see the last song)" - this song haunts me from my childhood, I can't remember when I first hear it but it's shanked hard in my bones, I gotta' have it. Unfortunately, the Leslie Kong collection I had on vinyl is long out of print and unavailable;
White Stipes - Blue Orchid
If I'm going to take some White Stripes with me to that island (and I bygod will), it's going to be the most danceable - this is the best;
Sex Pistols - Anarchy in the UK
Well, hell, as long as we're dancing, thrashing, this is the best of the second best punk band ever... and a reminder of how shitty my little island could become if I decide to become a dictator;
Television - I See No Evil
Despite my Dead creds, I haven't included any Grateful Dead here (and I have them and I won't). If there's a guitarist comparable to Jerry Garcia, Tom Verlaine is it and this cut is all the Jerry Groove I need;
The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again
Do I need to justify this song? I do? Jeez, I'm sorry... Before I got into punk in the late 70's, The Who was, for me, The Greatest Rock n' Roll Band in the World (sorry, Stones).
Mission of Burma - That's When I Reach For My Revolver
I recall the exact moment I heard this song and the moment of transcendance it created. I have no doubt it will continue to give me that, no matter where I reside;
Radiohead - Electioneering
"Transcendant" will be pretty much overused in this post but I can't think of another adjective to describe this song or the album it's from, transcendental in it's gloom;
The Doors - Back Door Man
I have a love/hate thing with The Doors and obviously, this is where they sneak in and win me over. Ersatz blues, sure, but rock in its finest form;
Muddy Waters - Mannish Boy
I must have been 7 or 8 when I became enthralled with the Chess version of this song, the hardest thing I'd ever heard up to that point in my young life. This is a later version (recorded with and produced by Johnny Winter) and it rocks harder than any version cut, even The Yardbird's version. If I wake up and crank this song, watch out - it's going to be a wicked day for me if my soundtrack begins with me playing this at a volume that shakes the pictures off the walls;
The Clash - The Right Profile
If I had a choice of 10 CDs, London Calling would one of the ones I'd bring with me, without a second thought but this is the song I include on this mix. Not that I'm a huge fan of Montgomery Clift - I just love how this songs sounds;
XTC - Knuckle Down
Knuckle down,
Love his skin,
It doesn't matter what colour skin he's locked in,
Knuckle down,
Knuckle down and love that skin.
Knuckle down,
Love his race,
It doesn't matter if you win or lose a little face,
Knuckle down and love that race.
One bright morning the world might end with a big bang,
And you'll never get yourself another chance.
Put aside the hoodoo and some of the voodoo,
About people being different,
TheyÂ're not so different.
Take them by the arm and run to the street,
Take a little drum to supply the beat,
Soon the whole world will be up on it's feet and dancing.
This song makes me cry because, really, it is really THIS FUCKING SIMPLE. Shiites and Sunnis, Israelis and Palestinians, Us and Them, STOP IT PLEASE, let's just dance, love, there's pretty much not enough to go around any more anyway so we need to learn how to share. I know George Bush and his diminishing followers don't believe any of this but they're about to be post-dated and pushed aside; they got theirs and they'll realize how little it is in the long run, so let's allow their karma to take hold and we can move along. Really. It's that easy, it really is that easy. For God's sake, put your knuckes down, PLEASE.
Van Morrison - Jackie Wilson Said
Given the the lack of what was quoted above, I'll take YOU smiling - the journey of ten thousand steps...
A blessed "Gracias" to my angel Mamacita for helping me out with this round of mixmania! - the grandest angel of them all, my dearest is.
Tomorrow I'll give details of the next mixmania! so please tune in. Mahalo.


text:
By Pete Devries
surfing trick tips from one of Canada's top competitive surfers
Basic manauvers, such as front side floaters, are often overlooked in modern
surfing, but they can be very useful for a variety of situations. Floaters
can be used to make sections, or to finish off a wave, and they are always a
good way of generating speed for your next manauver.
There are three
important things to notice when learning to successfully complete a floater:
getting on to the lip, riding the lip, and re-entering back into the wave.
The first thing you need is speed so stay high in the wave, and generate as
much speed as you can.
Next, look for a section that is just about to
break, and start your bottom turn from the middle of the wave face. Bottom
turn at 20 or 30 degrees, and carry your speed up and along the wave. You
don�t want to go straight up (90 degrees) because then you won�t go anywhere
when you get on to the lip. At this point you want to watch the lip
carefully. Place your board on the curling lip while staying low with your
centre of gravity over your back foot. Once on the lip shift your weight
from your toe edge to your heel edge. This allows you to stay on top of the
lip without getting left behind the moving wave. Shift your weight to your
front foot in order to get as much distance out of the floater as you can.
Your eyes should be focused on the lip line ahead of you as you move along
the top of the wave.
When you feel yourself slowing down, or the wave is
about to close out, turn your head over your shoulder to spot the landing.
When you are coming off of the lip you can either ride off with the falling
lip, or you can ollie off to the bottom of the wave. An ollie should be
used when the lip is heavy, or when the wave is sizeable. Coming off the
lip will cause your body to extend so try to keep your style together as
much as possible, and brace yourself for the landing. Place your board flat
on the wave face, bend your knees to absorb the shock of landing, and use
the speed you have gained for your next bottom turn.
When you first learn
this manouver start on small crumbly waves, preferably a beach break. Once
you get it down move up to bigger heavier waves, adding your own style and
tweaks. Have fun!
Suggest the next trick or send me some feedback. firstname.lastname@example.com
an Interview with Peter Devries
TrickTips01.WMVideo 3.5 megs ±
video & frame grabs by Jason Picton
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text:
The End of a Year
On my birthday in 2011, I got an idea in my head – to write fiction every day for 365 days. It was based on the many 365 projects that I had seen around the web. Some people documented their meals or took pictures of their feet or whatever. I decided to use this idea to get back into something that I really knew I was good at and that I enjoyed doing – writing stories.
For a while, that worked out brilliantly. I think I got all the way to February of 2012 before everything collapsed, but more on that in a bit. During the year, I created worlds – hundreds of people, companies, small towns. I made new histories, societies, and hinted at things that even I wasn't sure about. I saw the beginnings of new societies and the last throes of the universe, and it was really good fun.
Every night I would come home and start writing. The Boyfriend didn't really get what I was trying to do – I would try to explain what I was writing, and usually after a few sentences he'd had enough and just wished me Good Luck. Sometimes he suggested I take a day off, or maybe even a weekend. I said no – if I took a day off then I'd take another, and then another. I didn't want that to happen. In retrospect, all I can say is that I hate when I prove myself right.
I posted everything I came up with, even the ones that imploded halfway through. A few of them were long, multi-day epics and others were flashes of barely half a thousand words. I wrote things for #fridayflash and for the fine people at Worth1000 (who must think I've died or something). I blasted my way through NaNoWriMo, something I hadn't even attempted since 2004 or so. All in all, I probably wrote about 250 entries over the course of the year.
And then the end of the school year approached, with the finely-tuned mental and organizational chaos that only comes in that time and that place. And I was dumb enough to start playing Skyrim, even though I knew – I knew – what it would do to my attention span. February 12th pretty much marks the last regular day of posting. 263 days. A few interruptions due to vacation or illness, but still.
263 days of fiction.
So in the end, how do I judge this experiment? Did I succeed or did I fail?
Well… Yes.
Believe me, when I started, I didn't think I would last nearly as long as I did. I figured a few weeks, at best, before I either got distracted or disheartened. Making it as long as I did is a feat unto itself. It helped that kept meticulous records of my progress, filling up several spreadsheets with data. There was one that kept track of the dates and titles and word counts, another for the characters, and a third for world-building. I used mind-mapping software to see how my stories fit together, and even tried drawing some of the characters.
I showed that I could not only build a world, but I could build those connections within the world. I could make a place varied and interesting enough that characters could not only have their own stories, but they could have new and interesting stories with each other. I could examine their backstories and motivations and work out some sense of a future for these people and places. I wrote in a variety of genres and made conscious attempts to write outside my boundaries, both in terms of style, genre, and character.
I did more writing during this year than I have at any time in my life. So in that way, it was a success.
On the other hand, I didn't make my goal of a full 365 days. The title of the blog proved to be highly inaccurate, and I let my weaknesses overcome me. I know that one of the biggest requirements of a writer is that doing this needs to be the most important thing in his or her life, and I dropped the ball there. I let life get in the way of writing, and even though I'm sure any writer will tell me that these things happen, I still feel a bit bad about it. I made a plan and I failed to follow through with it. That sucks no matter how it happens.
In addition, I gained a small following of readers, people who subscribed to the blog and left very kind comments and feedback, and I feel like I let them down. Not on a George R.R. Martin level of let-down, mind you, but still – I made a promise to these readers, and I did not fulfill it. For that, I sincerely apologize.
On balance, though, I'll call this a success. I proved that I can dedicate myself to a goal, as long as I am realistic about both its limits and mine. I found where my strengths and weaknesses are as a writer, and worked to improve them. And, most importantly, I built up a body of work that will serve as a foundation for future writing. I think there's a lot more gold in there than I ever planned on finding, and I'll mine it as best I can.
If you've stuck with me through this year, you have my deepest appreciation. I'll keep this blog here, and as I pick myself up and dust myself off [1] I'll use it as a place to try out new stories and new ideas.
The project isn't over. It has only changed.
And as any writer will tell you, without change there is no story.
Thanks, all.
– Chris
[1] Perhaps after I've removed Skyrim from my computer. With a crowbar if necessary.
Day Three Hundred and One: The Sweetest Sauce
Iris had never understood why first dates were dreaded the way they were. Her friends talked about them like they were some kind of combat ritual, some horror show that had to be endured so that they might enter the realms of the mighty who had boyfriends and girlfriends. They traded stories about they guys who were too clingy, the ones who were too rough, the girls who were too shy or too loud, and each and every one of them just reinforced their ideas that the world was full of miserable, deranged sociopaths who wanted nothing more than to destroy a lovely evening out.
All she knew at this point was that she wouldn't be able to tell stories about this date to her friends. "Yeah, he was really nice and we had a good time" would fall flat.
It was the truth, though. She'd met Lloyd at the post office, of all places, waiting in line behind an old woman who apparently wanted to send birthday cards to all of her grandchildren at once and with excruciating care. He and Iris had gotten to chatting about how this was such a first-world problem, and she told him about the time she had to wait a whole extra half hour at the DMV and he lamented about the cable company never coming when they promised, and they really hit it off. By the time they picked up their respective packages, he had her number, and called a couple of days later for a date.
They met at Javaville, because coffee shops were considered neutral ground, and talked about themselves over drinks. A few people waved at him when he came in, which was good. She got her coffee black, his was a soy milk latte, and she took a chance with some routine she'd heard from a comedian on TV a few years ago.
"You know that's not soy milk, right?" she said.
He lifted an eyebrow. It looked good on him.
"Milk," she went on, "has to come from a mammal, right? And last time I looked, soybeans didn't lactate."
He thought about this and nodded. "I suppose you're right," he said. "But then we'd have to call it 'soy juice,' and no one in their right mind would drink soy juice." He winked and sipped at his latte. Iris suspected he had seen the same comedian, because that was pretty much the punchline to the joke. If he had, though, he didn't call her on it.
They walked through the Hortus, the vast park in the center of the city. It was a lovely spring day and the water lilies were in bloom, making it almost tailor-made for a romantic first date. He walked close to her, but not too close, and talked about himself without seeming self-obsessed. In turn, Iris told stories about what she had done and where she had been, and didn't try to crib from comedians anymore.
It wasn't a date she could gripe about with her friends, but that was okay. She'd take this.
They ended the day at dinner, at a restaurant he promised was the best in the city. She stood in front of the chalkboard for a good minute and a half trying to work out the name of the place. Lloyd let her try it out a few times before he grinned and said, "It's 'Yggdrasillusions.'" He shrugged. "The owner has a thing for Norse mythology. Most of us just call it 'Iggy's' to keep things simple." He walked over and opened the door. "Ladies first?"
The restaurant was green. Really green. There were plants everywhere – hanging from the ceiling, growing in window boxes, and even vines crawling up the rough-hewn wooden walls. The restaurant smelled of heavy spices and loam, and light jazzy music piped in through speakers overhead. Young, pretty waitresses weaved through tables where couples and threesomes and foursomes were eating and chatting and laughing. Lloyd waved to a few people and patted some shoulders as they went to their table. Everyone seemed to know him, and they smiled when they saw him, all of which struck Iris as a good sign. Not how she was usually greeted when she walked into a place, but she'd take it.
The waitress was at their table as soon as they sat down. "Hi," she said. "I'm Emili, and our specials tonight are a raw Mediterranean pesto torta, portabello burgers, and the chef's special kale and spinach lasagna." She beamed. "It's really good, I had some for lunch today."
"Thanks, Emili," Lloyd said. "Give us a minute?"
Emili nodded and handed them menus before gliding off to help someone else. As Iris leafed through the menu, she felt her stomach grow cold. A sneaking suspicion was winding its way though her mind, and each dish she read off the menu seemed to confirm it. After a few minutes she looked up at Lloyd. "Is this a vegan restaurant?" she asked.
Lloyd smiled. "Best in the city," he said. His smile wavered. "Is… that is okay, isn't it?"
She wanted to tell him that it wasn't okay. It wasn't remotely okay. She wanted to tell him that an otherwise lovely first date had suddenly turned into the inevitable horrible endurance trial her friends talked about, where she could see if she could get through the next hour and a half without being sick. Or going mad.
But she didn't. "No," she said. "No, it's fine." She smiled back at him, but she suspected Lloyd knew something was wrong.
They started off with a mountain vegetable tempura, accompanied by two different dipping sauces – one a spicy chili and the other a sweet plum sauce. Lloyd raved about them and told her about the time he tried to get the recipe off the chef, and how that had led him to a whole weird series of bets and bargains. To Iris, they tasted like chalk. Bland, flavorless bits that vanished from her memory as soon as she swallowed them.
The main course was a spicy chana masala, one of several Indian dishes that were on the menu. Emili told them about how the restaurant owner had gotten that recipe from a man he met while backpacking in India and how they were the only restaurant in the city to serve it. Lloyd clearly loved it, barely stopping to talk as he ate. Emili brought over some lychee-soy milk drinks and said they were on the house.
Iris picked at her food until she realized she was picking at it. She didn't want to be That Date, the one he told stories about to his friends – Yeah, I brought her to my favorite place and she just nibbled at the food – so she scooped up spoonfuls and tried her best to look like she was enjoying herself. It went down like the flavorless pap they gave to babies and old people. There was no substance to it, no energy, and she wasn't even sure it reached her stomach. The only thing even remotely good was the wine, but she suspected it was made from organic grapes by the thinness and emptiness of its flavor.
After a dessert of non-dairy ice cream and some coffee, Lloyd sat back, looking full and happy. "This really is a great place," he said. "I'd come here every night if I could."
Iris forced herself to smile and hoped her stomach wouldn't growl. "Thanks for sharing it with me," she said. There was a moment of awkward silence. "I do need to know, though – do you come here because the food is good, or because you're vegan?"
He shrugged. "Any reason it can't be both?" he asked. "The food's great, and no animals died to get it to us. Win-win." He sipped at his coffee. "Thanks for having an open mind about this, by the way," he said. "I think you'll find that vegan food is better than anything else you've eaten, and you'll have a clean conscience in the end to boot."
Iris nodded, and knew that there would be no second date.
He paid for dinner, although she tried to go in for half. He walked with her to the subway station and took her hand as they waited for his train. He'd had a really good time, and he'd definitely call her again. Soon. He promised. Iris tried not to let the mask slip and just said, "That would be nice."
He waved to her as the subway pulled out. She waved back, once.
When the train was out of sight, she went back up aboveground and headed to the nearest SmackyBurger just a few blocks away.
The kid at the counter welcomed her to SmackyBurger, but she cut him off.
"Gimme a super-double burger with bacon." She took a twenty out of her wallet. "Throw a couple of extra patties on there and this is yours." The young man didn't even hesitate to take the money.
Three minutes and forty-five seconds later, Iris was sitting in a booth and took a great, jaw-cracking bite of her burger.
The cows that had been slaughtered to make this burger had lived short and uneventful lives. Memories of packed bodies and chemical-laden feed flooded over her tongue and almost made her moan. The darkness of the slaughterhouse, the smell of blood and that last moment of realization before oblivion all washed over her, and within moments, she was licking her fingers. She went back up and ordered a chicken filet sandwich. This one was better than the first. The birds had been raised in a battery farm, kept in cages only slightly bigger than they were. They knew only suffering until the last moment of their lives, and that suffering, that knowledge of horror was what filled Iris' stomach. The energy of fear and hopelessness and pain rushed through her. The world became vivid, alive.
No block of tofu had ever watched a farmer come at it with an axe. No carrot had ever smelled the blood of its brothers on the killing floor and been unable to run. No bean sprout had ever struggled for life, caged in with hundreds of competitors who wanted it dead.
Iris needed that suffering, that pain. She didn't know why, but she knew what she liked. And she was pretty sure Lloyd wouldn't understand.
She finished the chicken sandwich, wiped her hands on a napkin, and left the restaurant. She wasn't sure how she would spin this into a first date horror story, but she was sure it would be better than the truth.
I used to be a writer like you, but then I got Skyrim in my brain
Seriously, don't start playing this game.
I feel like it's just planted itself in my brain and taken over. Don't get me wrong – it's a lot of fun, and definitely a lot of game for your money. There's a ton of stuff to do and see, and no two games will be alike. I've made two characters so far – a high-elf battle-mage and a Khajiit sneak-thief/assassin/werewolf – and I've had a lot of fun playing. Sitting in the shadows and picking people off with a blazing arrows will NEVER get old, especially when they step over the bodies of their friends and say, "Huh. I guess it was my imagination."
But it will take you over. I was so happy today when a story idea unfolded in my head that was good enough that I actually wanted to write it more than I wanted to go back to Skyrim and kill dragons. So it looks like I may be close to burning myself out on that game.
Thank. God.
I'm not sure exactly what it is the game is tapping into, other than the dopamine reward system of the brain. That is, of course, an intensely powerful neurochemical system – the same one responsible for many serious addictions as well as everyday feelings of accomplishment and self-worth. Where Skyrim wins out over, say, writing a short story is that Skyrim never ends. So you're always expecting that next level-up, or a new dungeon to crawl through, or to see how many Forsworn you can hit in the head with arrows before one of those damned Briarhearts realizes you're there. That anticipation is powerful, and it's hard to ignore.
Fortunately, I've played through most of the major quest lines by now, which means there isn't a lot more to do other than random side quests and fetch-quests. Soon, I hope to be able to let the game go for a long while before whipping up a new character and doing it again.
But you never know…
Anyway, thanks for not sending me death threats.
A Very Quick Update…
In case you were wondering – no, I'm not dead. Nor have I been abducted by circus hoboes, aliens, or a highly secretive government agency that has threatened to destroy everything I love if I tell you exactly where they are in Northern Virginia and how much I would appreciate an A-Team intervention right now.
The truth is that the end of the school year is fast approaching, and we're all scrambling to get done the things we need to do to make sure the students are ready for finals and to move on up to the next grad – or, Gods forbid, graduate. This involves a prolonged stripping of mental gears, which leaves me with about enough energy when I come home to eat dinner, play with my cat and kill zombies, not necessarily in that order.
So, I'll put up new things when I can find the extra nugget of mental energy, and I expect things will go back to normal after we're done with finals in the beginning of March.
Thanks for hanging in there…
– Chris
Day Two Hundred and Sixty-three: An Easy Mark
Ennelrion had been circling this little adventurer for a while now. The poor thing – tracking through the mountains, dragging gods know what in that sack behind it and looking for… what was it these two-legged monkey things wanted. Adventure? Gold? The brief ecstasy of notoriety? It's like they don't even know, the dragon thought to itself.
Two huge black wolves leaped from behind a boulder to ravage the adventurer, and Ennelrion was sure that he would end up a bloody stain on the snow. But much to its surprise, the bundled-up creature extended a hand and a great bolt of lightning blossomed forth, striking one of the wolves dead instantly. The other got in a good bite, and then it too was killed. The wind whipped at the mountainside, but Ennelrion was fairly sure it could smell burnt wolf hair even up as high as it was.
So. The two-legged mayfly knew a trick. Probably more than one, given how these things worked. The dragon twitched the tips of its wings and started the long circle down to the snow. At least it would be an entertaining way to pass a few minutes. Sooner or later, someone would have to give him a fight, and it wasn't impossible that this little guy could do it.
Then again, Ennelrion had thought the same about the other dozen or some adventurers it had devoured over the years.
As it dove, it screamed, a harsh, wordless howl that pushed the snow out in front of it along an expanding shockwave. The adventurer looked up, and suddenly had a sword in its hand, one that dripped a fine mist from its edge. Ennelrion lifted its wings and dropped to the snow right in front of the two-legs. It thought about introducing itself, but really – why bother? It would no sooner introduce itself to any other brief and crunchy snack it was about to devour.
Instead, Ennelrion coughed forth a great gout of flame at the adventurer, who held up its arms as if the heavy armor it was wearing would do more than just cook it from the inside. The wave of fire rolled over the figure and then continued down the hillside, flashing snow into steam instantly and charring the winter grass beneath it. Odds are, there would be nothing left.
When the flame died down, the figure was still standing. Now the hand that had called forth lightning was glowing a pale white-blue, like the sword. The figure – Ennelrion was pretty sure it was male, unless females had started growing fur on their faces for some reason – looked up at the dragon, lifted a hand and shouted.
Oh, hell, the dragon thought as it felt the ice crackle on its wings and the cold seep into its bones. One of those.
A hero.
Ennelrion raked at the hero with its claws and then launched itself up into the sky. A bolt of incredible cold flew by the dragon's head, missing thanks only to quick reflexes. This is insane, the dragon thought. There's plenty of other humans to eat, to terrify – I should just leave this one alone. It looked down, and the human was digging through the pack it had been carrying on its back. Somehow, it managed to pull a staff that was nearly as tall as it was out of a backpack. The hell? the dragon thought. Another blast of searing cold flew by it, worse than the first.
Ennelrion started making for the great double peak where it rested, but then thought again. Was it really going to let an insect like that drive it away? A creature that needed to arm itself with magic and metal, cover itself in fur and leather because it was too weak to survive on its own? Was Ennelrion the great, the immortal, the terrifying, going to fly away from one little "hero" with some tricks?
Like hell it was.
The dragon circled around again, blasting fire as it did. Snow was blasted away, and the hero staggered, but held firm. The dragon thumped to the ground right in front of him and snapped at him with his teeth, somehow managing not to bite him in half completely.
Ennelrion reared back and felt the complex chemical reactions build up in its stomach for a gout of fire that would melt steel, when the hero held up a hand and said, "WAIT! Wait!"
The dragon, somehow, waited. It held back the fire with some effort, and didn't really know why, but it waited.
"Thanks," the hero said. He was smiling. Smiling!
The little ape-thing turned its back on Ennelrion and started digging through the sack again, pulling tiny red bottles out one at a time. Once he had about ten of them, he uncorked one and chugged it down. "Whoo!" he said to the dragon. "You got me close there!" He tossed the bottle over his shoulder and popped open the second. "How're you holding up?" he said.
The dragon could feel the fire churning in its belly, and wanted nothing more than to reduce this creature to a stain on the hillside. But it… it couldn't. Ennelrion opened its mouth and said, "I've been better."
The human nodded. "Yeah, I can tell." He was on bottle number four now, and the burns and cuts were fading from his skin. "Let me say, I'm glad to see you."
"Really?" Ennelrion started drumming its claws against the frozen ground. "You'd be surprised how few people say that to me."
"I can imagine," the human said. It had two more bottles to go. "But they aren't tricked out the way I am. And they don't need you as much as I do."
Of all the odd things that were going on at this very moment, that one got Ennelrion's attention. "Need me?" it asked. "Need me for what?"
The human finished off another bottle and dropped it to the snow. "Your soul," he said. "I got that, and I'll be able to charge myself right up." He uncorked the last little red bottle and winked.
"And if I kill you instead?" the dragon said. It wasn't going to eat this one. Oh no. Ennelrion envisioned strewn body parts all over the hillside.
The human shrugged. "I'll try again." He lifted the bottle and drained it. When he threw this one away, all traces of injury were gone. It was like Ennelrion hadn't done anything at all. "Sooner or later, I'll get you."
The human was clearly insane. The flames inside Ennelrion's belly were aching to escape, but it couldn't bring itself to do it. The adventurer ran a crystal along the edge of his blade, and the sword was a deeper, colder blue. He pulled a small medallion from his pocket and put that on, then a new steel helmet to replace the iron one he had been wearing. The human shook out his limbs, hefted the sword a couple of times, and looked up at the dragon. "We ready?" he said.
Flames were already beginning to curl out from Ennelrion's mouth. It cracked its jaws to respond, but a searing bar of flame erupted first. It enveloped the adventurer in a great cloud of fire and steam. The rocks below his feet were already glowing red and softening, and trees nearby burst into flame.
When the dragon closed its mouth again, the adventurer was still there. He held up a hand and that long staff, and Ennelrion felt a shock of cold run through its body, from nose to tail. The cold kept coming and kept coming, and no matter how the dragon tried to get up and fly away, it couldn't. The ice was on its wings, cracking through its scales, eating its way through to the warm, infernal core of its being.
Ennelrion collapsed to the ground, trying to inhale with frozen lungs.
It was over. The dragon felt the fire within go out, and knew that there was no victory to be had here.
No victory for the dragon, anyway.
The cold stopped, and the adventurer took a few steps away.
"Human," Ennelrion whispered. The cold was being replaced by a burning – not in its belly, but everywhere.
"Elf, actually," the adventurer said. He took down his hood, revealing pale green skin and pointed ears.
The dragon wanted to sneer, but that would be wasting time. "There are more of us. Stronger. More terrible. More ruthless." It tried to move, but its skin was sloughing off in great burning sheets. "We will hunt you to the end of your days."
In the darkening tunnel of its vision, the dragon saw the adventurer smile.
Through the white noise of its own body burning and charring around it, the dragon heard the adventurer say, "I'm counting on it."
Day Two Hundred and Sixty-two: Mutual Understanding
"Go ahead," the genie said to Jack. "Put on the ring and complete the circuit. And when you do, you and April will know everything about each other." The genie took a long drag off his cigarette, and smiled when he exhaled smoke that was pink and shimmered slightly in the light from the kitchen lamp.
Jack turned the ring over in his hand. It was small, made of silver, with a pale blue gem set into it. His wife had the other one, identical except that her gem was pale pink. She had already put it on, and was staring at him while he hemmed and hawed. He could feel her urging him on. The genie just watched.
It had been a simple wish, though Jack hadn't really been expecting it when he came home. After a long day trying to develop new things that could be done with processed food, he came hope in the hopes of having something to eat with his wife, maybe a beer while he went through his web-surfing, and then bed.
Instead, he found this strange man standing in the living room, next to his wife. The man was dressed in an immaculate white suit, with a few gold rings and a bracelet that gleamed against his olive skin. He had longish hair, so black that it was almost blue, and just the right amount of stubble on his face to bring him over from "too lazy to shave" to "incredibly sexy."
At first, he thought his wife was admitting to an affair. If that had been true, it would have been a relief. Though Jack had never had any real reason to suspect she would sleep with someone else, he couldn't think of a good reason why she wouldn't. If the opportunity arose.
He didn't understand her, and that was the real problem, wasn't it? They'd been to couples counseling, but hadn't had much luck with it. Neither of them was the type to pour out their innermost wants and needs to anyone, so they got along with each other and set up a life together that worked reasonably well. Or at least, well enough.
But there were times when he looked over at her, and he couldn't even begin to imagine what was going on in her head. He was pretty sure she felt the same.
So when he came home and saw the strange, very handsome man, he thought, Well, here it is at last. One of us has done something, so I suppose the hard work is done.
No such luck. "Honey!" she yelled when he came in. She ran up to him and hugged him for a lot longer than usual. His hug was safe. Non-committal. Three pats and a squeeze. He never took his eyes off the man.
When April pulled away, her face was practically glowing. "You won't believe what happened," she said. "I was out shopping and I went over to the thrift store." Jack bit his tongue. Their house was already cluttered from her thrift store adventures. "And there was this oil lamp," she went on. "So I thought it might look nice on the mantle."
"Is there room?"
She laughed and slapped his arm. "Of course there is – I was going to move the ducks to the bedroom. Anyway." She walked over to the strange man and grasped his arm. "I was polishing it, and this man – no, not a man. This genie just appeared out of nowhere!"
The genie tipped his hat. It took Jack a moment to realize that the genie hadn't been wearing a hat before.
Or had he?
"A genie, huh?" Jack said. He sighed and took off his jacket. "Honey, I'm really too tired for this. If this is your new boyfriend or something, I wish you would just -"
April's gasp was enough to stop him cold. "Boyfriend?" she whispered. She stood there, hand to her heart, just blinking at him for a moment. "Jack, what on Earth would make you think I want a boyfriend?"
There was no good answer to that question. Of that much, Jack was sure. "Sorry," he said. "It was a joke, honey." He leaned over to kiss her, but she pulled back.
The man – the genie – stepped between them. "I understand your confusion, Mister Logan," he said. He extended a hand and gave a bright smile. Jack noticed that the man's eyes were a strange blue-green. "I am Nawfal," the genie said. He took Jack's hand and give it a single squeeze.
A wave of warmth rushed through Jack's body, and he gasped and shuddered. He nearly fell to the floor, but Nawfal caught him. When Jack stood again, he knew something had changed. He wasn't sure what, but something… April was staring at him with wide eyes. Jack looked from one to the other. "What?" he said, running a hand through his hair.
His hair.
Whatever was on his head, it wasn't the thinning crop of hair that he tried every morning to make as inconspicuous as possible. He hurried into the bathroom and flicked on the light.
Not only did he now have a full head of thick, auburn hair – hair he hadn't had since high school, for god's sake – but he had the body that he always imagined he should have. His waist was narrow, his shoulders broad, and his back was straight and strong. No twinge at the base of his spine, no dull ache in his hip that was a signal of things to come. The man in the mirror wasn't young again, but he was the man he would have been if he'd taken care of himself.
Nawfal came up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Not bad, eh?" he said. "That one's for free. Just to cut short the 'You cannot possibly be a genie' conversation." He lit another cigarette, and the smoke smelled of freshly-baking cookies. "I hate that conversation."
He guided Jack out of the bathroom with some effort. "Your wife has a wish," the genie said. "And it involves you." He parked Jack in front of April, who kept looking him over. He was tempted to tell her that his face was up here, but it seemed in poor taste.
The genie nudged April. "Your wish?" he said.
She started. "Oh," she said. "Right. Well." She laid a hand on Jack's chest and nearly lost her train of thought again. "I… I thought a lot about what to wish for," she said. "I know we still have a lot of money on the house to pay off and there's the credit cards, but…"
Jack's stomach dropped. Those would have been really good wishes. The house was never going to get paid off, and the credit cards would probably go right before they died of extreme old age. Wishing for permanent financial security was probably a really good idea. "But what I wanted was…" She took a deep breath, and Jack waited for the shoe to drop.
"What I wanted was for us to understand each other, honey," she said. "I know sometimes we have trouble communicating. I don't know what you want, you don't know what I want." She gestured towards the genie. "But he said he could help. He could change that."
"And I can," the genie said. "But you have to choose to do it." He held out a hand, and then opened it. There were two silver rings on his palm. One with a pink stone, one with blue. Nawfal told them that the rings would link them together permanently, and that they would perfectly understand each other from now on.
April had put the ring on right away.
Jack wasn't so sure.
Which was weird, because he wanted to. He really did. He and April had been together for a long while, and he'd thought that they would know each other inside and out by now. That's what everyone else seemed to do, anyway. Finish each other's sentences, know where everything was, remember all their commitments and problems and hang-ups. And every time he had to drop hints about a Christmas present, or forgot what kind of flowers her mother liked, or what book she was reading, he felt like a failure. This would almost certainly fix all that. She would be happy, he wouldn't have to scramble to avoid making an ass of himself. Everyone wins.
And yet…
"I don't think I can do this," he said.
April's face fell and then pulled itself back together. "What?" she said. "Why not?"
He shook his head and held the ring out for the genie to take. "I don't think it'll end well," he said. "I mean, there are parts of me…" He stepped forward and took her hands. "There are parts of me that I'm not proud of," he said. "Parts that I wish I didn't have. And while I love you and I think you're a wonderful woman, I'm pretty sure you have things like that too."
"What," she said. "You think I'm keeping secrets from you?" Her anger, usually very slow to come out, was showing all over her face.
"No, no," he said. "Nothing like that. Just… things." He tried to get close to the idea without giving it away. "Thoughts, maybe. Thoughts you wish you didn't have. Things you want that you know you shouldn't. Things you did that you wish you hadn't." He reached out to hug her, and at first she was stiff and still. "I want you to think the best of me," he said. "And I don't think you would anymore."
It took a moment, but April relaxed into his embrace, putting her arms around him as well. "I understand," she said. Her voice sounded thick, but she laughed. "Guess it's back to couples counseling?"
Jack looked over at Nawfal, who was busy flipping through something on a cell phone. "They'd never believe us," he said.
The genie looked up when April handed him the ring. "You sure?" he asked.
They nodded together. "We're sure," April said.
The genie shrugged. "Suit yourselves," he said. He squeezed his hand into a fist, and when he opened it the rings were gone. "You still have a wish, though."
After the genie and his lamp were gone, vanished in a shimmering veil of light, Jack and April were on their computers, checking their bank balances and booking spots on a cruise. Jack input the numbers that April read from a small card that seemed to be made of solid silver, and they both grinned like children as they made their plans.
Day Two Hundred and Sixty-one: Seduction
When Bethany Higgins opened the door, her first thought was, Wow. Looks like someone knows how to use Photoshop.
The man in front of her didn't have as much hair as he did in his picture. His jawline was a little softer, he looked puffier, and the benefits of taking a profile photo from above were clear. He was thicker around the middle than she'd thought he was. All told, they were tiny changes that added up to a big difference. He looked like his picture, only not quite so much.
Oh well, she thought. Beggars, choosers, all that. She had already put her wedding band into her pocket, so she was halfway committed already. She hoped that she hadn't let her disappointment show, so she smiled broadly. "Hey there," she said. "You must be Matt."
He grinned back, and pulled a small bouquet of flowers from behind his back. "And you're Beth, of course." He handed the flowers over. They were a little scraggly, but nice in their own way. "Gosh, your picture didn't half do you justice."
"You, sir, are a flatterer." Beth felt the blush rise. "And that means you get to come in." She stepped aside and let him into the apartment.
It wasn't a terribly big place, and she wished she'd done a better job of cleaning up. There were still dishes in the sink from breakfast, and she noticed too late that there was a pair of her fuzzy socks hanging over the back of the sofa. She put her arm around his waist and maneuvered him into the dining room. "You make yourself comfortable," she said. "I'll make us some coffee." She winked, and his grin grew broader.
"So you manage a bookstore?" she called out from the kitchen.
"I do," he said. "And I have to say, you have a nice collection in the living room out there." Beth winced, but the damage was done. At this point, fuzzy socks probably weren't going to be a deal-breaker.
"Glad you approve," she said. "I love to read whenever I have free time." She turned on the coffeemaker and stood in the doorway to the dining room. It was a good place to stand – arms up, hip cocked just so… she could practically see his mouth go dry. Beth had no illusions about her body – she'd never make it as a model or a cover girl, but she knew how to use what she had. And what she had seemed to be what Matt wanted, because it took him a few moments to speak.
"Um. Yeah," he said. She counted to four before his eyes jumped up to meet hers, and he blushed a little. "Wow," he said. "You really are something."
"Why thank you," she said with a smile. "You know just what to say, don't you?" She could smell the coffee already. "Managing a bookstore must keep you busy," she said. "Cataloging and shelving and all that."
"Well," he said, "that's why I have employees. They do the heavy lifting, and I make sure we all get paid at the end of the week." He glanced over at her bookshelves again. "You know, we have the new Paula Grant in. Maybe I can -"
He stopped when he turned around, because Beth had taken the opportunity to get in closer to him. Much closer. He was wearing a light cologne she hadn't noticed before, and it did smell nice. Kind of a leather and citrus blend that reminded her of… school, for some reason. Matt found his face nearly buried in her chest, and had to back up a little to look her in the eye again. "Um," he started.
"Matt," she said. "I really hope you didn't come here just to scope out my book collection."
"Because if you did, then I may have to… correct you." She ran a nail down the side of his face, from temple to jaw, and he shuddered almost imperceptibly. Beth wanted to glance down, but she was pretty sure she knew what was happening down there.
He squeaked slightly. "I don't… I don't think I need the coffee all that much," he said.
"Me neither," Beth said. She stepped back, and he started to stand. "Just one thing, Matt," she said. He looked worried all of a sudden, and she tried to smile sweetly. "I did tell you that I'm married, right?"
Matt seemed to take those words into his mind and chew them around for a moment. The look of hunger on his face changed, almost perfectly reflecting the horrible argument that was going on between his sense of right and his need to get laid. Finally, he said, "Yeah. Yeah, you might have."
"Good," she said. "I'd hate for you to be surprised. My husband would be…" She grabbed his belt and pulled him close. "Awfully angry if he knew." Their lips were just a breath apart.
"You're right. I would." They both looked over towards the living room. The man standing there was tall and heavy, and his dark face was set in a scowl. He wore what looked like medical scrubs under a winter topcoat, and it looked like there was a spot of blood on the front.
Matt backed away from Beth so fast that he fell over, repeating curses over and over again. Beth was able to call out, "Tim!" before he was on top of the other man. Tim yanked a stun gun out of his pocket and jammed it into Matt's side. The other man yelled and jerked on the floor. Tim hit him again and again, until the man lay passed out on the floor, the whites of his eyes showing under half-closed lids.
Tim looked up at his wife, and then stood, pocketing the stun gun. "Bethany," he said. His fingers were flexing into and out of a fist, and the scowl seemed to deepen as they stared at each other.
They stood there, staring at one another for a long time. Bethany was the first to break, with a long sigh that was halfway to being a laugh. "I didn't think you were going to wait that long," she said.
"I didn't think you were going to play the part that well," he muttered. He looked down at the unconscious man. "Whatever. We've got someone I can use, finally." Beth went into the kitchen, which smelled of coffee, and took a capped hypodermic needle from the refrigerator. She handed it to Tim, who used it on Matt. "That ought to keep him out until I can get him to the lab."
Beth grinned. "I love that. 'The lab.' It sounds so official."
Tim shrugged and handed the needle back to her. "Would you rather I called it the rental box? Besides, I do experiments there." He looked at Matt again. "Therefore it's a lab."
She pulled him close and kissed Tim hard on the lips. He wrapped his arms around her and relaxed for the first time since they'd put this plan together. "It'll work," she said when they pulled apart. "This time it'll work." She looked over at Matt and shook her head. "Pity," she said. "He seemed like a nice guy."


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Taxes for Expatriates, Non-US Residents, and Dual-Status Aliens
Our firm is uniquely positioned to provide international tax planning services to dual-nationals.
Our International Tax Professionals use their technical knowledge to solve international tax issues related to:
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- Form 8804, Withholding on Partnership Allocations to Foreign Partners
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Litter Announcement - Hank and Amelia
Litter Announcement – ENTIRE LITTER IS SOLD
Sire: TGK Top Gun Impressive Sir Henry
Dam: TGK Top Gun Princes Amelia MH
Date Whelped: 03/24/2018
Due to the size of this litter we will offer 5 males and 3 females available to interest.
Hank is our direct son of Hall of Fame "DC AFC Shill Rest's Impressive CDX MH". We are very impressed with the natural abilities and willingness to please this young male has and know that we have a great future with Hank in our kennel program.
Amy is from our litter we produced with our foundation female "Top Gun Higgins' Lil Princess Di MH" as a line breeding to continue these traits in our program. Amy shares those same abilities with a strong desire as a versatile hunting companion. She comes in a very athletic package and has earned her AKC Master Hunt Test Title at a very young age.
With this 3-generation pedigree having several "Hall of Fame" recognitions and our most proven genetics, we are expecting them to continue breed progress and make many positive memories.


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Project Literacy Launches a Community of Practice
Working together on big challenges
Pearson launched Project Literacy in early 2015, and in the course of just three years, we established a community of 120 partners. These partners have worked with us to run campaigns about literacy, increase the reach and effectiveness of literacy interventions, take risks to pilot new ideas, and to amplify impact by supporting non-profits and enterprises to help them grow to help more people learn to read and write.
In 2017, we wanted to understand the needs of our community of partners to understand how to better serve and grow the literacy sector. We learned, thanks to Results for Development, that partners were hungry for increased engagement. And so, we came back to Results for Development's Center for Education Innovations to help us design and launch a Community of Practice – a space where Project Literacy and CEI partners could dig deep into a few topics to collaborate with one another more closely and ultimately, move the literacy field forward.
Last month, we kicked off the Community of Practice through 5 working groups developed by partners:
- Technology and literacy
- Measuring the impact of literacy programs
- Teacher training for improved literacy
- Parent engagement in literacy
- Communications for literacy
These groups are made up of a diverse pool of 129 people from 25 countries and group participants are already identifying opportunities to strengthen these areas and succinct projects which will be completed by the end of 2018.
We are pleased to work with leaders from around the world to tackle these challenges. We'll share updates later this year and watch for the outputs of the groups in early 2019!


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Just found out that one of the most popular games on the iPhone is now available for PCs and it is totally free. In case you haven't guessed by now, I am referring to the Angry Birds game which you can now play on your PC.
You can also download it as an app for the Google Chrome browser and play offline.
However, be warned. The game is really addictive.
Thanks to my friend Zaman Kadir for the link.