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Saturday was hell. The Tokyo Game Show convention halls overflowed with 86,000 people. Not everyone was there to game. Many had something else in mind: Taking pictures of cosplayers.
Tokyo Game Show's cosplay alley is a walkway between convention centre halls. Cosplayers agree that the lighting and even the stone structure and frosted glass backgrounds is ideal. The weather and the crowds were less so.
"Cosplayers this year are having a tough time," said cosplayer Zaki, who was dressed as Lunatic from Tiger & Bunny. "It's just too hot." It was still morning when I spoke with Zaki, who towered over me, her waist seemingly overtaking my shoulders. She and her friend, Kikyou, were sitting at a white table next at the grimy ramen restaurant next to the convention centre.
"If only the Tokyo Game Show organisers would move the show back to October," Zaki continued. "Cosplayers are usually wearing clothes that are sometimes heavy or that do not breathe, or are wearing make-up." Why not offer a cosplaying space — with air con — Zaki wondered.
That cosplay alley became packed as Saturday wore on. The unmistakable stench of sweaty humans permeated. People scurrying to take photos would push up to you, leaving a slug trail on your arm. Cosplayers and their impeccable make-up became runny and sweaty.
This year, more than any previous year, there seemed to be more looky-loos who were not soaking up the cosplay as part of TGS, but overdosing on it. Their day would be spent stalking up and down cosplay alley, snapping pics.
"Cosplayers this year are having a tough time. It's just too hot."
There wasn't a steady flow of people in and out. There were people who were coming and weren't going. They were lingering. Many of the cosplayers weren't making it any better, with some telling those who wanted to take photos to form a line, others shouting.
"Don't take my photo, go line up over there!" a guy dressed as Ryu screamed. Lines wrapped around, clogging up the alley.
The snafu ended up being that when these armchair photographers spend 30 minutes waiting in line, taking one or two photos doesn't suffice, leading to incredibly awkward (and public) photo sessions that last way longer than they should. The Mai Shiranui butt photo session was an extreme example of this, but so many of these amateur photographers thought they were in their private cosplay studio, while others just wanted to get a snap and move on.
The images of people waiting to take photos in cosplay alley wasn't simply Japanese politeness. Comiket (Comic Market), which has a far bigger cosplay area, doesn't have any of this "you must line up" business. The notion is that if someone is wearing a costume that they are fair game for pictures. That's why they are there. That's why you are there. It does have this whiff of being on a nature reserve, taking photos of exotic creatures in their native habitat. Everyone, though, is on the same page. There isn't the fuss or the tension, made worse by cosplayers trying to bring order to where there is chaos.
Conversely, whenever young women in revealing clothing appeared, a mob of men would swoop. The press of sweat and hormones got scary, and you'd end up wishing that there was some one to either rope off the cosplayers or tell everyone to chill out.
"There are rules about what you can wear and what you cannot," Kikyou told me. She was dressed as Blue Rose from the Tiger & Bunny anime. Her outfit was blue and white with a dash of cleavage, but she quickly explained that, for example, she was wearing pantyhose to conform to new cosplay regs.
Tokyo Game Show cosplay is a draw. The space cosplay alley occupies doesn't cut it anymore. Nobody wants to wait in line for 40 minutes to snap three pictures. And nobody wants to be crushed to death by a sweaty gang of camera clutching dudes. It's about time TGS gave cosplay the space it deserves, because it's already getting the attention it does.


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Printed Full Colour Bandannas | B0072
Check out our new range of Printed Full Colour Bandannas. These bandannas are square and measure around 500mm x 500mm approximately. Get some amazing effects with full color printed edge to edge. Minimum order is as low as 50 units. These bandannas are made with 80% polyester and 20% cotton. Product size is around 480mm x 500mm. Great for humans or pets.

subset: commoncrawl


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Z-SERVER cabinet scope of delivery:
- cabinet frame with the selected overall dimensions,
- single-leaf front door with perforation, selected rear door type, without side panels,
- two pairs of 19" mounting profiles, top plate of the cabinet,
- cabinet painted in the selected colour.
Information on the available types of side panels and accessories can be found further in the folder.
Page ID: z-server


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- 12 pre-cut wooden flags for £4.30
- 5m of twine for £1.79
- 3 tester pots of Cuprinol paint for £3.00
Friday, 12 July 2013
How To Make Outdoor Wooden Bunting
Those of you who read my blog regularly will know that I'm due to give birth to my first baby in just over 5 weeks time. My husband and I are very organised, and have pretty much all the baby-related stuff organised and ready for our little bundle. I like it this way - organisation is my safety-net - it makes me feel calm and in-control, and it helps keep my mind (and house) uncluttered.
Because we are an organised pair, I don't feel too worried about the prospect of the baby coming early as I know we are ready for him. Being organised means that I can stay at work until the end of term (7 working days left until I start maternity leave -woo!) without stressing that I have everything to sort out when I finish, and should mean I can get other smaller jobs done before baby arrives.
One of the jobs I wanted sorted before our little Mr makes his appearance was some titivating in our garden. With this lush weather we've been having hubby and I have been spending loads more time in our lovely garden, and the more time I spend out there the more ideas I have about how we can improve it. I am by no means at all a gardener of any shape or form; I tend to kill everything except weeds, and although I love flowers my fingers are definitely not naturally green.So for us its about having a hassle free, low maintenance garden for enjoying, rather than a garden to work in.
We have a lovely brick-built shed in our garden which is hubby's domain - full of all that 'man stuff' they love to keep. For a while now I've been wondering how to decorate the outside of the shed so it becomes a feature of the garden. Then I came across some wooden bunting online and thought "wouldn't that look lovely across my shed" - but alas it said only for occasional use outside :-( ... and most of the strings I found cost at least £15-£25... not an amount I'm prepared to pay when I'd only be able to put it up outside occasionally. I wanted something robust that I could leave out in my garden all-year-round.
So I got my thinking cap on and I did some searching online and soon enough I found some pre-cut wooden bunting flags on eBay, some hardy garden string/twine and found that Cuprinol have an amazing array of brightly coloured garden shed paints which you can order in tester pot size - score!
So I got ordering on eBay:
And we got to work - it was such a fun task, and very quick - the bunting flags dried over night in this awesome heat, and hubby had it strung up the very next evening.
Garden shed before shot - plain and boring with an empty window box.
Cuprinol shades we chose: IRIS, COASTAL MIST and SUNNY LIME
Painting our flags
Leave to dry overnight
T'ah d'ah!! All strung up with some nice new (fake!) outdoor Lavender plants (I cannot possibly kill these, right?)
Our homemade outdoor bunting & lavender window box.
The titivated garden shed - very pleased!
the after shot - all tarted up and ready for summer!
I'll definitely be making some more outdoor bunting, perhaps to go along my garden fence, and maybe some for gifts, and for inside the house...the variety of wooden flags you can find on eBay is immense - hearts, rubber ducks, trains, fairy princess castles, letters - you name it! So Cuprinol can be expecting lots more tester pot orders from me in the future!
Pin this for later ^^
Are any of you in the middle of little DIY projects?
I wonder how many jobs like this I'll be able to fit in before baby arrives?
Mrs B
5 comments:
I am copying this idea immediately! I made mini fabric bunting to go under the eaves of Evie's playhouse, but some lovely wooden bunting would look great on the outside. Off to ebay now!!ReplyDelete
Your bunting looks great! Loving the colours! Thank you for linking to my blog.ReplyDelete
Wishing you a wonderful day in the sun!
Best Wishes
Anwyn - so glad you're copying - its a fab make! I'm planning on making lots more & some for gifts too :-)ReplyDelete
Torie - Thank you for sharing the idea....love your blog! xxx
We have sell some products of different custom boxes.it is very useful and very low price please visits this site thanks and please share this post with your friends. thesurvivallife.comReplyDelete
This post is very informational. Thank for sharing!ReplyDelete
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Securing Payroll Management in UAE and Other SystemsMenaItech
The security of your organization's intangible assets, such as the data related to payroll management in UAE, is important to ensure confidentiality of stakeholders and to protect yourself from cyber criminals.
It's much easier said than done because it's almost as if we are living in the digital version of the Wild West, where hacked and stolen devices are becoming common by the minute. For this reason, it's important that you protect your organization's data with a little planning and strategy to avoid exposing yourself to security threats, especially when it comes to payroll management in UAE.
Stolen and Compromised Passwords
Cyber crime is on the rise, usually involving a hacker who broke into an apparently impregnable database and successfully gained access to thousands of user passwords. Onthe surface, thismay not sound like a big deal, but an alarming number of people use the same password for all their accounts.
People who are part of the online world absolutely fail at creating passwords, and thus, it's easy for hackers to be able to guess or crack weak passwords. For instance, if you have an application for payroll management in UAE, you will be required to create accounts for different users within your organization. Even if one password gets leaked, your entire system is in jeopardy. The solution is to advise your staff to use super-strong passwords and never use the same one for all their accounts.
Smartphone Malware
Now that our world revolves around our smartphone and we literally can't imagine life without it, hackers consider it as billion-dollar industry. Mobile malware is increasingly affecting smartphones and tablets and it attacks your device through malicious apps. This fact is alarming because you could be remotely accessing an application that you use as a business solution for your company, such as a payroll management application. A malware can easily transfer data from your phone to thehacker, making you vulnerable to security threats.
To protect yourself from mobile malware, never download apps from third-party app stores and only stick to legitimate app stores, such as Google Play. Secondly, make sure your device is updated with the latest version. Lastly, whenever you happen to install a new application, make a note of what type of personal and private information the application is asking for. If the app is trying to hook a lot of your data, then it's best to not install it.
Workplace Worries
Most of your employees are probably using their own devices for work purposes, which is perfectly fine. The only problem is these devices cannot be controlled under the office-powered security system you have in place. As soon as any virus-infected device connects to your server, you immediately become vulnerable to security threats. To prevent this issue, make sure you invest in secure software, especially for payroll management, that protects your server from alien devices.


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There is a move away from using 2D drawings to communicate designs for manufacturing in many supply chains. 3D CAD models, with 3D annotations for product manufacturing information, are often used as the sole authority for manufacturing parts. This activity, referred to as model-based definition (MBD), hopes to eliminate errors that can result from misinterpretation or undocumented revision of part drawings. These 3D models are routinely translated from the format of the original design software into specialized design and manufacturing software programs that perform a specific function within the manufacturing process, such as fixture design, CNC operations, data translation, and inspection.
Download this guide and review Benefits of Using 3D Translation Validation Software in Manufacturing, sponsored by Kubotek who makes your entire process run smoother.


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Beginners Photography Course | 1 day
Canberra, Canberra | 7 hours | Beginner's Level
- The best 'all rounder' introductory course to digital photography
- 'Hands on' camera handling including smart phones
- Fundamental techniques of photography
- Portraits, cityscapes, reflections, nature, motion, lighting, composition and lots more
- Small groups, 'repeat for free' guarantee anywhere in Australia
- Detailed notes, critique of your images
Cost: $290 | by request
The Focus 10 Digital 1 photography course is our most popular and ideal for those wishing to understand how to get the best out of their DLSR, mirror-less or compact camera with manual controls. It teaches the fundamentals of digital imaging, of handling light and the art of composition. 'Hands on' workshops throughout the course are intuitive, easy to understand and tutored by a professional photographer. Detailed notes and a complimentary critique of your images ensures your newly learned skills are retained. We focus on practical 'hands on' shooting with an emphasis on camera handling.
What you'll learn
There are creative sessions on lighting and composition along with everything from exposure control to white balance, from ISO settings to focus modes and options. The course is about practical workshop demonstrations to train your eye to paint light onto a subject, how to achieve the right lens perspective, the use of aperture and shutter speed to control the learning process.
Why us?
Professional, personable instructors ensure the course is educational, enlightening and fun. Different topics and a variety of situations in a small groups enhances the learning experience. This course is suited to anyone. Whether you are a beginner or photo enthusiast and coupled with our 'Repeat for free' guarantee* makes this one of the best 'all rounder' beginners to intermediate photography course in Canberra.
- Course Dates / BOOK HERE
- Learn about
- Requirements
- Time & Location
- Terms & Conditons
- Gallery
- More Info
course dates & course bookings
learn about
Learn how to use your digital camera properly
All your camera's buttons, functions, menus & set up
Composition, light, viewpoint, angles, lens perspective
Aperture, shutter speed, depth of field, file sizes RAW and JPEG
ISO setting, white balance, exposure compensation, metering
Portraiture, landscapes, macro, reportage, still life, action, motion, cityscapes, architecture, nature, flowers
Use of flash, panning, star-burst, creative modes, filters, accessories
Free camera shopping service & ongoing technical support
course requirements
No prior photographic knowledge required
A digital DLSR, mirror-less or compact camera with manual controls
For DLSR and mirror-less camera users, at least one multi range lens
Memory Card(s) - at least a 2GB card, instruction manual
Charged camera battery, spare and/or a charger
DLSR Nikon & Canon cameras for hire ($50), 8GB cards for sale ($19)
time & location
10am to 5pm
King Edward Terrace, Parkes, Parkes
Meeting Point:
(Questacon (at front door))
terms & conditions
Paying for your course in full upon booking will confirm your attendance. Places are limited on all courses.
We reserve the right to cancel and reschedule any course, due to inadequate enrolment bad weather, instructor illness, or an 'act of God'. We also reserve the right to cancel any course if there is insufficient demand, especially if it means that our costs would be higher than our income. Please therefore do not leave it until the last few weeks if you are interested in a particular date, as you may find that it has been cancelled. As our costs for each training event remain the same no matter how many delegates attend, like any pre-booked tickets for the theatre, concert, flights etc, we are unable to give a full refund in the event of non-attendance, regardless of the circumstances. If withdrawal occurs within the 14 days before the course starts we will try to put you on an alternative date if places are available. Please note that we cannot be liable for any other costs incurred by yourself, so please check with us before booking any non-refundable accommodation or transport.
Course & Workshop Photography:
We reserve the right to take photographic, (both still and video) records of any of our workshops/courses which may be used for promotional purposes, submissions, advertising and records. We grant permission for participants to use any images captured by them during this workshop for self-promotion only. Participants may not make any financial gain from any images captured during this workshop/course.
More info


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Staying in for Halloween this year? Gonna camp out in front of the television/computer with popcorn and pray you're not disturbed by trick-or-treaters? Not sure which movie you should watch? Never fear, we've got you covered – and with recommendations from six different sub-genres, there's something for all tastes in this list.
With special thanks to our guest contributor & full-time horror enthusiast Georgia, who can be found on twitter at @GeorgiaMaeSixx.
Psychological Horror Films
GEORGIA'S PICK: 1408 (2007, dir. Mikael Håfström)
1408 (2007) © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc
It's very hard to keep an audience captivated when the majority of your film is one actor in a single room, but John Cusack sells it. An unconventional story about a haunted hotel room with one of the most solid twists in recent memory, this film is definitely unsettling. Mike Enslin, a skeptic who writes about the 'haunted' locations he has stays in, decides to visit the eponymous room 1408 in The Dolphin hotel, and the fun ensues. The director successfully adapted the Stephen King short story whilst putting his own twist on it. The film does not rely on the grisly details or gore and instead goes for imagery that truly disturbs. Samuel L. Jackson also stars as the owner of the hotel and also delivers a strong and unnerving performance. The film also features three endings including the theatrical release so make sure to watch all three as they offer very different resolutions to the film.
Continue reading "12 Horror Movies You Should Definitely Check Out This Halloween"


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Today at Albertsons I got two surprise catalinas for a 12 pack of FREE soda (up to $3)! I'm not sure what triggered it. I purchased 4 Totino's pizza rolls and 6 Original Chex Mix. I think it was the Check mix since I got more Totino's rolls on another order. Has anyone else received this Catalina?
This post may contain affiliate links. See the disclosure policy for more information.


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Explore the Classic AWS Services by understanding VPCs, Instances, Networking, and Containers
About This Video
Dive into the internals of your VPCs and see how to create a self-healing infrastructure while keeping the costs down
Explore the finest features of AWS and use them to your advantage
Optimize your containers' capabilities and discover new solutions for databases and caches
In Detail
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a secure cloud services platform that offers compute power, database storage, content delivery, and other functionalities to help businesses scale and grow. AWS cloud products and solutions are used to build sophisticated applications with increased flexibility, scalability, and reliability.
The "classic" AWS services are the focus of this course. You'll start by getting to know about VPC and its components such as private and public subnets, gateway, service endpoints, peering, DX, VPN, and so on. Next, you'll learn how to merge your infrastructure and code with an application code balancer.
Moving on, we'll cover further storage logging, events, replication, lifecycle, and advanced features of S3. Next, we look at data backup with AWS Glacier and migrating data with storage gateways and Snowball. You'll then explore RDS and look at the problems faced in the real world and services such as ElastiCache and DynamoDB.
Last, we'll explore a new hype of containers and how to run, manage, and deploy those using AWS.


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Bit late to this one, again from Twitter Bitch Fight favourite, Louise Mensch, treating us to a classic Friday evening spat.
Taking exception to James Delingpole's defence of her former parliamentary colleague Michael Fabricant that morning on Breitbart London, the Stateside social media favourite, once a vocal supporter of the up-and-coming website, trained her fire on its Managing Editor, former pal Raheem Kassam.
Seconds out.
Play nicely…


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w/ Nikki & Ethan White
& Guest Master teacher Ikolo Griffin
PETER PAN – GIRLS & BOYS 4-8 yrs old (and Parents of any age :) - Welcome to the land of lost boys, mermaids, pirates and fairies! We are casting boys and girls 4-8 years old, as well as any parents that want to be involved. This is a golden opportunity to participate in an incredible bonding experience with your child!
The first Saturday will be an audition for anyone that wants to be in the show, everyone will get a part. Rehearsals will always take place between 9:45-10:30am but the roles that are rehearsed will vary each week and the schedule will be emailed mid-week before each Saturday.
The performance will take place on an outdoor amphitheater stage at a real life"Neverland"location!
CREATIVE MOVEMENT GIRLS & BOYS 4-5 yrs old – Classes will be taught by both Nikki & Ethan White. This class focuses awareness, stretching, musicality, jumps, turns, vocabulary, choreography, and expression and mutual respect for themselves and others (chivalry).
BALLET TRAINING – GIRLS & BOYS 6-8 yrs old – Taught by Nikki OR Ethan White, this class is for dancers who want to build a strong foundation in technical movement. It will focus on awareness, stretching, gross motor coordination, beginning barre work, jumps, and turns.
9-9:45am – Creative Movement 9:45-10:30am – Peter Pan 10:30-11:15am – Ballet Training
January 27 – Classes & Peter Pan Audition
February 3, 10 (no 17), 24 March 3, 10, 17, (no 24, 31- Spring Break)
April 7, 14, 21 - Classes & Peter Pan Rehearsals
April 28th- Dress Rehearsal - Peter Pan only!
May 5th- SHOW - Peter Pan only!
10 Class package + Peter Pan rehearsals & show - $300
5 Class package + Peter Pan rehearsals & show - $250
Peter Pan rehearsals & show (no classes) - $200
CREATIVE MOVEMENT OR BALLET TRAINING CLASSES ONLY (no Peter Pan)
10 Class package - $180 5 Class package - $110 Drop In - $25
LOCATION - Classes & Peter Pan Audition/Rehearsals - Dance Star 3939 Cross Creek Rd
Peter Pan Dress Rehearsal & Show – Location TBA


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Cydia Replacement Sileo's First Beta Released For iOS 11 Jailbreak
We have recently covered that Saurik has decided to officially pull Cydia's plug. We also mentioned that a new Cydia replacement is in the works and it looks like the time has come. That's right, first Sileo beta has been released for iOS 11 jailbreak. The platform has been in the works and more than five months after the initial tease, Electra has decided to release the first beta for iOS 11 jailbreak. Let's dive in to see some more details on the matter.
First Beta of Sileo Released For iOS 11 Jailbreak
As we have mentioned earlier, Electra has decided to release the first beta of the package manager which is aimed at taking Cydia's place. The beta is not bound to perfect as of now. Even after months of testing, there are several bugs and stability issues which will be fixed over time.
Related Cydia Store For Jailbroken Devices Is Officially Shutting Down – Here's What You Should Know
At this point in time, Sileo only supports the most recent version of Electra. In addition to this only Unc0ver jailbreak is not supported at this point in time. Despite the scenario, some users have reported that it is working fine for them. If you have used Electra jailbreak on iPhone or iPad, you can download Sileo from the Electra repo.
Some important information:
* This is a beta preview. Some functionality is not finalised and bugs are to be expected.
* For now, the preview only supports the latest version of Electra.
* The source code will be published at a later date.
— Sileo (@GetSileo) December 25, 2018
Furthermore, do take note that only Dynastic repo supports payments, while Chariz repo will add payment support soon as well. Users are experiencing a boatload of bugs on the platform while installing or uninstalling new tweaks, so be sure to take that into account as well. If you prefer a stable jailbreak experience, it would be wise to wait.
Sileo will be updated in the future addressing the bugs and stability in the future. There will be more to the story, so be sure to stay tuned in for more details. This is all for now, folks. What are your thoughts on the Sileo's first beta for iOS 11 jailbreak? Share your views with us in the comments.


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Published at Thursday, August 15th, 2019 - 20:05:57 PM. Table Lamps. By Orquidia Quintana.
Wood lamps look very nice and can be customized to match your home decor, be it rustic, modern, minimalist or simply laid back and homey. This material adds warmth and elegance, it's easy to work with and pretty cheap to acquire. You can use new wood, recycle old wood elements from cabinets, wool spools, or you could even give driftwood a try. Yes, you read that right, driftwood makes beautiful lamp bases. Here's what Jan Dickers, driftwood lamp designer, had to say about finding the right wood for her lamps.
Overhead lighting isn't the greatest office lighting source–and it surely shouldn't be the sole source–but it can help fill in places that other sources of light seem to miss. Take the opportunity to switch out your boring overhead lighting for something fun and unique.
Fresh Posts
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Any content, trademark's, or other material that might be found on the sonadei website that is not sonadei's property remains the copyright of its respective owner/s. In no way does sonadei claim ownership or responsibility for such items, and you should seek legal consent for any use of such materials from its owner.


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Anna Kalmi will attend the partnering meeting in Barcelona, Spain.
BIO-Europe Spring® is the premier springtime partnering conference which annually attracts an international "who's who" from biotech, pharma and finance for three days of high caliber networking.
More information about the event at: www.ebdgroup.com/bes/
Please contact anna.kalmi(at)innomedica.fi to make an appointment or for more information.
Copyright 2016 All Rights Reserved Terms and conditionsBack to Top


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It's time of the year again, the Johnnie Walker Circuit Lounge PARTY is back and this time it will be held at Terminal 2, Skypark Subang Airport this Saturday ( 23 March 2013 )
JW parties has always been one of my favourites, I was partying in Penang last year July and KL in March :)
Pictures from last year March in KL
I seriously cant wait for this year's money-cant-buy race experience with the World's No.1 Scotch whisky and Malaysia's flagship Motorsport race :D
Are you ready to step inside the circuit and experience the elite motorsports lifestyle?
I know I am.
This year JWCL takes a glamour and sophistication of the iconic race party series to the next level, sealing it's status as the premier race party of the year!
Drawing inspiration from across the JOHNNIE WALKER range of big flavour prestigious whiskies, from the iconic and rich BLACK LABEL to the intense smokiness of DOUBLE BLACK and the creamy smoothness of the celebratory of GOLD LABEL RESERCE, the BLACK CIRCUIT evolves into the CIRCUIT LOUNGE to fully reflect the progression of one of KL's most anticipated parties !
Do expect an exclusive gathering of A-list celebrities, leaders of commerce and privileged competition winners to celebrate the race this weekend!
It was said that JWCL intend to elevate STEP INSIDE THE CIRCUIT by fully immersing their fans in a more luxurious and exclusive VIP party experience that is CIRCUIT LOUNGE. The launch of the new CIRCUIT LOUNGE signature race party series is complemented with the most audacious prize offerings that will give our consumers an unforgettable motorsport lifestyle experience that money cannot buy.
There will be a facebook contest going on and the grand prize winner gets a high flying priceless lifestyle experience, with a private helicopter to the Sepang International Circuit for a personally hosted VIP race weekend experience and a chance to meet the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Team. There will also be SIX VIP party passes for the Grand Prize winner when they arrive in style on the BLACK CARPET event, a night stay at a 5 star Hotel Suite in KL and you may also get chance to meet JENSON BUTTON! I saw him at the last year party, he is so cute!
I WANT TO WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ive never been ride on helicopter before.
So, come and be entertained by the awesome DJ Ivan Gough, DJ Vogue Williams and IMMA*BLEEP*YOUUP! and most important, come enjoy JW Whisky :)
So, what are you waiting for? Go to https://www.facebook.com/JohnnieWalkerMalaysia and enter the CIRCUIT LOUNGE Facebook contest.


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Photo by Ruth Cincotta
The coconut palms are getting their annual summer cut to prepare for what we hope is not our annual hurricane.
Arborist Jim Weir of Zimmerman Tree Service trims 90 to 100 trees a day from one of the 10 bucket trucks covering the island. For two days they cut all
Photo by Ruth Cincotta
coconuts, seapods and the lower fronds (anything below the horizontal plane of the tree) from about 2,400 trees. Glancing at a fallen nut, Weir exclaimed, "You don't want one to fall on you, that's for sure."
The streets are filled with the resulting debris, which is quickly picked up by town employees. If you do slow down to avoid the mess, you may notice tee-like plugs at the base of the trees.
The same tree service injects the palms with oxytetracycline three times a year to resist lethal yellowing.


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The green transition: Who will be the geopolitical winners – and losers?3 Dec 2019This is the main question behind a new index developed by an international research team led by NUPI's Indra Øverland.
New project examines root causes of migration in Africa and the Middle East27 Sep 2019What is the relationship between migration and development?
PODCAST: Why populism? Why here? Why now?26 Sep 2019Are we living through a populist moment, or is the term just a journalistic cliché?


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Verity and Scott got married on the 7th September, at the Band Stand in the Pavilion Gardens, Buxton
Can't believe this weather, another sunny day in Buxton. Verity and Scott have a daughter, Ava, who played an important part in the day, it's always fun photographing young children!
The men seemed to enjoy holding the flowers just as much as the women! Great being able to photograph ceremonies outside the lighting is so much better.


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It's hard to imagine anyone more connected with Marquette University than Damon Niquet.
"I really like the feel of the school," said Niquet (pronounced "nuh-KWETT"), who is ranked 95th in the Class of 2013 by tennisrecruiting.net but was in the top 15 of his class from 2009-11. "I like the campus a lot. It's a lot smaller than most of the schools I was considering."
Niquet said he originally listed about 10 potential college destinations, including Georgetown. But when he went east last January, he didn't just go to the nation's capital - he also went to its colonial capital.
Then-Tribe assistant coach J.P. Ritchie, who since has moved on to Illinois State, emailed Niquet a form letter about W&M.
"I was already out there, so I scheduled a visit (to W&M)," Niquet said. "I got to see a couple of matches - Iowa and Dartmouth were there when I was there."
The Tribe beat Iowa and George Washington but lost to Dartmouth that weekend. Niquet soon returned for a second visit, when he met Peter Daub - a three-time Colonial Athletic Association Coach of the Year who has guided the Tribe since the mid-1990s - and many W&M players.
"It seemed like a really good group of kids," Niquet said. Regarding Daub, "he's really experienced, with about 20 years with the program. I think he does a really good job of developing players."
Full Listings: Boys' Commits & Girls' Commits


text: Depression can kill you. It can also be a spiritually enriching experience. It's really an important part of my theology now and my spirituality that life is not perfect, and I grew up wanting it to be and thinking that if it wasn't, I could make it that way, and I had to acknowledge that I had all kinds of flaws and sadnesses and problems.


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1: The Club
CRASHING a sex lounge required a certain amount of planning.
Isaac would probably arrive earlier than he should, but he'd never been to a full-on flesh pot. His eczema had flared up, and his acne, and he wanted to be forty pounds lighter, but tonight was his. Instead of watching from the sidelines, he was sailing the uncharted waters of debauchery. Protocol be damned. Besides, this evening was a celebration.
Tonight was his twenty-second birthday, and after ten years of coloring inside the lines, this excursion was going to be his first real party, even if none of the loungers inside knew. He just wanted to watch.
He clutched the stiff card hard enough to cut his pudgy hand; the invitation was translucent plastic with a crimson pitchfork over the words "Pitt Street." No address, no number. Hope, a coworker at the Division Street Library, had won it at a charity raffle and was too married and too staid to set foot in a "sex lounge."
His feet led him downtown from the library, and the July streets were hot and empty at midnight under the waning moon. He turned down Ridge Street and crossed to Pitt.
Old shops and synagogues peppered the Lower East Side from a time when immigrants had lived eight to a room in muggy tenements. Now the neighborhood was a lively, expensive jumble of trendy boutiques and cool bars; all those pokey warehouses had gone co-op and the speakeasies and Masonic halls had become four-star restaurants and private clubs.
If Isaac hadn't been looking, he would have missed the entry in a small dogleg alley. The only hint was the card's red pitchfork painted on a waxy sphere glowing high over a gated chain-link fence. Lifting the rusty hasp, he wedged through. The clothes on his bulky frame were dark enough that no soot or rust would show. Another marked lamp lit the corner of the alley where it bent toward Delancey, but instead of turning that way, he headed right, parallel to Pitt, approaching a pale door.
Since it occupied an old Jewish slum, the lounge sported a biblical name for Satan's basement: Gehenna. Technically it meant the Abyss, but as a naughty moniker for a hip place off Pitt, it worked fine. Hope hadn't given the card to him exactly, but at the coffeepot, she'd announced she didn't want it. All day, he'd sat imagining what he might miss and what he might see if he visited a club as decadent as Gehenna.
He'd worked late tonight, and as he left the building alone, the card's unused, unwanted pitchfork had practically prodded him from across the room. Feeling a little guilty, he'd lifted it off her pile of book requests without telling her. Isaac knew the invite would have gone to waste, and as he'd pointed out to himself when he'd hesitated: today was his birthday. He'd confess the theft tomorrow, when he could apologize with a few salacious details of his adventures in this kinky Xanadu.
She wouldn't mind. If anything, she'd feel embarrassed that the other librarians had forgotten his birthday completely and pretend she'd meant to give it to him. Maybe she had. As the young homo on staff, Isaac tended to land all of these items: souvenir masks and kinky bridal shower presents. The ladies in the restoration department would titter and tease him about all his catting around as a young bachelor.
Isaac saw another scarlet pitchfork on the lamp over the door, but no other sign to mark it. He wiped his hands on his thighs, feeling ridiculous and hoping he wasn't underdressed or overdressed in the blazer and cords he'd worn to work. What did a first-timer wear to a sex lounge? Looking back over his shoulder, Isaac considered the alley snaking back, heaps of trash and a car coasting in the direction of Ridge Street forty yards off at the alley's other opening. The entrance to the club was mottled ivory, dim under the little globe. Gehenna hid back here like a scorpion.
He raised his hand to knock, but the door groaned open so that his knuckles almost rapped a large bosom. "Sorry." He stepped back, putting a couple of extra feet between him and the threshold. He hated being touched.
"We see you." A curvy woman in a plain plum dress winked and pointed her manicure up at the camera over the door. Her mouth soured a little as she got a load of his bulk and bad skin. She held out her hand, took the plastic card. "Come to dream a little?"
He stepped inside. A narrow hall led back about twenty feet to a hum of voices and an entryway. A quote in gold leaf stretched the length of the left wall in letters three yards high: flesh is weak, and on the right spirit is willing.
Gehenna had been a speakeasy back in the 1920s, then a bordello until the publicity of a horrible triple murder had shut it down in the 1960s. In the cocainey eighties, it reopened as a swanky restaurant that wasn't listed in the phonebook: three hundred dollars a plate and booked six months in advance. Now, a sex lounge. Not a club, mind you. The place was well lit. It showed up in Around Town pieces in Vogue and People because Gaga loved their martinis and Michael Fassbender often swung by to waggle his big unit.
Forty or fifty trendy young things didn't even look up when Isaac entered the wide room. In its 21st century incarnation, the lounge featured low mod furniture in dark purples under a curved ceiling. No sexual congress out here in the public area. Pretty tame for a pleasure dome, it seemed. The magazines hinted at darker doings downstairs… maybe a bordello holdover.
Isaac gave a wide berth to the clusters of chatting hipsters. The idea of strangers brushing against him, even by accident, made him want to heave and leave, but he knew he had to start somewhere. He decided to grab a drink to give his twitchy hands something to hold. Again, he wished he had a flat stomach and clear complexion to face all these slickos.
At the bar, a gargantuan bodybuilder in a pair of loose silk overalls wiped his hands on a towel. His greased exaggerated muscles made him resemble an Atlas built out of baked hams. A short word had been written across his chest in fat magic marker, but Isaac couldn't read it at this angle. He wore a ring through his nose and was completely shaved from his scalp, his eyebrows, his gargantuan torso, right down to his nearly exposed pubic bone. The trousers hung on the root of his cock, which seemed likely to appear at some point.
Isaac licked his lips and bellied his way up to the bar.
He raised his eyes to order and saw the word on the tan chest was "HOLE." A name? Insult? Invitation? He wished he didn't feel so hopeless in here and hoped the hooch would help.
The brawny bartender waited impassively. One pec twitched under the O. His lashes were lined with black pencil and his mouth tattooed with horizontal crisscrossed ribbons to seem laced shut unless he spoke.
Isaac decided not to risk it. "Gimlet, please." He tried to name a pricey gin, but all he could think of was swill from subway posters. "Uhh, Gordon's."
Hole squinted as though Isaac had done something strange and nodded. "Sir." He shrugged and turned. His ass was so huge that the meaty shelf of it didn't vanish when he bent for ice. The silk traced the crack deeply and was thin enough to show the flex and bunch of muscle.
An ass made for eating, that was for damn sure. Poor guy, probably got treated like a cumrag in this place, though considering the caption on his chest, maybe that's why he tended this particular bar.
Isaac fished out a couple of bucks for a tip, and when his drink appeared, he nudged them forward so he wouldn't touch the bartender by accident.
Again, Hole looked at him oddly. The bodybuilder flicked his gaze across the domed space to look at something and then back at Isaac. He shook his head, quickly and tightly. "No, sir." He looked down at the bills. A vein pulsed at his temple.
Oops. Lesson learned. No money in here. "Sorry. First timer."
Hole licked his lips and peered across the lounge again.
On a small dais, an older man stood watching over the assembly like a grizzled hawk: handsome but stern as a preacher, forties or fifties and improbably dressed in a jacket and collar old enough to look like a pilgrim costume. His face bristled with old-fashioned muttonchops and a mustache like Captain Ahab. Maybe the manager? Definitely in charge, the way the staff kept whipping their eyes over like they felt his.
Isaac grimaced in apology. "Sorry. I don't know the rules."
Hole wiped the counter between them and muttered, "No one does."
Had he made a mistake coming here? Isaac took a swallow of the gimlet. Expensive gin and fresh lime. The taste was resinous and smooth. Usually, he got too queasy to drink much or often, but the moment this liquor hit his stomach, he felt stupid for ordering a bottom shelf liquor in an upscale venue. He toasted himself and took another swallow. "Happy birthday."
Time to open my present.
He scanned the room with greedy eyes. A few guys caught his attention and nodded blankly, but again, several glanced back at the dour scarecrow on the platform. Isaac had expected more nudity, maybe a little fetish, drills and spills… more of a circus, less of an expensive hotel bar. For a sex club, it seemed restrained. Granted, a couple of women were bare-breasted. A hairless twink in a booth masturbated halfheartedly, his thin cock appearing and disappearing to the shock of absolutely no one. Odd. And oddly unsexy.
Some birthday voyeurism had sounded fun at the library. He wanted to be able to tell Hope about the sordid adventure his present had turned out to be. Inside for five minutes and he was back in seventh grade playing the role of "fat friendless faggot" in a hallway full of pert majorettes and lacrosse gods torturing him for being Jewish. Every one of his blemishes felt magnified. Now he wished he'd never taken the little card or followed the pitchfork lamps to this place.
At the back, a staircase led down into a dim orange gap. Promising.
Isaac picked his way back through the tables and bodies. He could imagine the place as an old cathouse. Remembering the building's red-light history, he had a brief moment of double vision, seeing as a phantom haunting the past. The old-timey johns had waited in the parlor while rented vamps turned tricks in the rooms below.
No. Something felt wrong in here. The bartender's worry. That grim puritan glowering at the crowd like a cheated pimp. The sleek patrons didn't seem to notice, but Isaac did. So much for vicarious depravity.
His eyes itched for a rude and spectacular memory to take home. A borrowed fantasy of the rich and shameless. He decided to give it another fifteen, just to get enough details that he could make up a story for his library ladies, and then he'd go home for a perfectly adequate nightcap of Häagen-Dazs and masturbation.
Isaac glanced back at Hole leaning over his bar, massive triceps bulging. The bartender was staring at the old goat on the dais again, telegraphing something.
The light hairs on Isaac's neck lifted and his fingers twitched. Creepy. Maybe he should go before his kidneys got harvested or worse. He'd try downstairs first… just a peek at the forbidden fruit.
Lumpy and homely as he was, he was able to cut his way through the pockets of yattering people without even touching anyone. He didn't have a phobia, exactly. But if he could avoid strangers pressing against him, he did. Which meant for meeting men, bars were out, clubs too. He'd liked the idea of a sex lounge because it sounded spacious.
Gehenna was palatial, in its way, and happily no one touched him at all. If anything, the crowd ignored him. Isaac suspected they all knew each other and sensed he was an impostor. I am. A pretty woman curtsied drunkenly and said hello as he passed. A trio of dapper executives in corporate drag laughed and joked at something in Portuguese and nodded at Isaac. Great. He pretended to ignore them.
He reached the unlit stairs that descended twenty or thirty feet into a sullen orange dimness. Was the basement annexed to the sewers? Each step dipped in the center, worn by the passage of a million feet. How old was this building?
The hum of conversation faded the farther he went, echoing strangely in the dark stairwell. He took each uneven tread slowly, certain he'd stumble into someone else's NC-17 craziness. At the very least, he hoped for a celebrity erection he could report to the other librarians, praying it wouldn't be attached to Newt Gingrich.
At the bottom, more pitchfork globes lit a low-ceilinged hallway paneled with steel, tiled in granite, and so silent his ears rang.
This must be under Pitt Street. "Duh." Isaac nodded. Right: Gehenna. Bottomless pit. He took another sour swallow of gimlet, wondering where he'd put the glass when he'd drained it.
Six double-width doors punctuated the corridor at twelve-foot intervals, and then one small entry at the far end, unlit and narrow as a utility closet. Well, in a sex lounge someone had to mop up the jizz, right?
A muffled cry. "Oh. Aggggh-oh!" The terrified male moan came from the middle door on the left. Could have been pleasure or anguish. "Augghhh. I'm gonna go. Gonna— Ohhhhhh." Pleasure? The vowel ended in a gasp, a gurgle, and then an uncanny silence that lifted the hair on his arms. None of the other doors offered even muffled smut. So much for voyeurism.
Without warning, the moaning middle door throbbed for a moment, and the metal walls vibrated in tandem. Subway. Old speakeasy, the tunnels must share a wall. Even so, he couldn't shake the feeling of wrongness as he stood watching the doorframes judder and fall still. Too nervous to try the handles, he stood in the passage under the smoldering owl-light.
Isaac waited on unsteady feet, his options murky. The subterranean quiet made his skin hum. The cubes rattled as he finished his drink, but there was nothing to look at and, already, he'd heard a little and seen more than enough.
He turned and went back to the base of the stairs, where the lounge chatter above hummed like a wasp nest. Happy birthday, dipshit.
At the moment he put his foot on the lowest step, he realized no subway ran underground here. He shivered. Not subway. He grasped the rail to make for the exit.
"Kholem." The hissed word filled the metal hall, amplified. Isaac flinched and squeezed his glass tighter than he should have. At first he misheard the word as "Hole," but then he heard it again, echoing around him. "Kholem."
He knew the word from his bar mitzvah reading on Joseph the seer: "Dreamer." Hearing the word made him feel anxious and homesick. Isaac had suffered through Hebrew school for a couple of years and worked in a rare manuscript room, but hearing it aloud erased nine years of his life so that he was thirteen and miserable on the day he figured out why he liked to wrestle his best friend so much. Dreamer.
His feet wouldn't move. Goose bumps swept his arms. He took a step into the passage and then back.
Hebrew in a sex lounge. Maybe some kind of bizarre Israeli role play? Hasidic sex games? Kinky kabbalah? Isaac had visions of doddering rabbis being spanked while strict blondes forced them to eat sausage. Ick. No thanks.
A low, dry cough and the guttural scratch of the opening syllable. "Khol—"
The pitchfork globes flickered for a moment. The cinnamon light wavered and returned.
Hair standing on end, Isaac pivoted. He leaned close to the nearest door. Silent. The next three were the same. Silent as a meat locker and nearly as cold. So much for his whorehouse reverie.
The voice deepened. "Kholem." A man's rough, plaintive cry called to him from the little closet at the hallway's end.
Each step a sticky squeak, Isaac passed under the pitchfork sconces to the dark end and the narrow door. He pressed his palm against the dull metal. Even in mid-July the steel felt frigid… so bitter arctic cold that the surface felt weirdly dry in the humidity of a New York summer, freezing the air. The doorknob burned his hand and wasn't locked when he turned it.
"Hello?" He stooped to enter a bare brick room the size of a restaurant freezer.
Isaac dropped his glass and forgot to flinch. He heard and felt the burst of shards from far away.
In one corner, glaring like a leopard, a naked angel shivered.
He had a warrior's body worn by a prince, all buttery bronze. Light down gilded his pectorals and belly. His gunmetal gaze was sloe-eyed and wide with relief. The tawny brows swept over his eyes like wings, and his hair was a loose tousle the color of burnt sugar. Even his powerful hands seemed carved by Michelangelo… thick, gentle fingers to bless a sinner or pull a baby into the world.
Isaac shook. He covered his mouth and, when he touched his face, realized he was crying.
No one should be in this terrible frozen cage. Every inch of Isaac rang with the wrongness of it. He had trespassed on something inhuman. A protective rage licked his bones at the thought of rescuing someone this helpless. His righteous certainty drove him another step closer to the anguished body.
Isaac's hair just missed scraping the ceiling. The entire concrete chamber looked like a perfect six-foot cube. Was this poor creature a prostitute or a junkie? What was this frigid box? Who had built it and why?
"Dreamer." The angel turned fully to him, the proud profile of a Persian king becoming a terrible, tender gaze. He struggled to straighten, then wiped his swollen lip. "You came." He slurred the words, as though someone had drugged him, his accent lightly Arabic.
Isaac opened his mouth, then shut it. "I heard you," he panted, his entire body slicked with sweat even in this icebox. The delicate musk of the radiant flesh crowded the tiny room, stunning him into servitude. Nothing seemed adequate. He wanted to kneel. He wanted to shout or beg.
"I called you and you came." A radiant calm stole across the angel's face. Again he tried to stand, wobbly as a newborn colt. His half-hard cock rolled, succulent, against his inner thigh, and the petal-thin foreskin slid back. His corded legs strained to bear the weight of standing; the brawny shoulders bunched with sinew. His shivers pained Isaac, and yet his golden skin was pinked with impossible health. "Without the Horn Gate."
Horn Gate?
There was something else strange about the crouched nude figure, but Isaac was too stunned to puzzle it out. Another scuff closer.
Isaac started as the door swung shut behind him, blocking out the orange glow from the passage so that the only light shone from the strong body shivering in the corner.
"I am in your debt, Dreamer…." He smiled.
Under the weight of the tender bend, Isaac forgot to breathe. Musky sweetness flooded his senses. His swollen cock jogged sideways in his briefs.
The angel lifted eyes impish as a fairytale bandit's. "And I thank you for hearing me." The hungry gaze raked over Isaac's spotty face and saggy form.
Isaac smiled back, his idiot's grin an ugly echo of the impossible curve shining at him, for him, with him. "Thank you for calling me."
The angel tipped his head to the side and closed his lids. He breathed raggedly, filling his powerful torso with effort. "Few hear."
Then again, maybe he meant "Few here" since the long corridor was still empty and the music upstairs a low hum like the tide.
"A true dreamer." The muscular throat swallowed. "Yet you brought with you so much…" The blissful smile again and a sigh of relief. "Pain and fear."
"No! Really. I'm fine." Isaac stared, his mouth agape. "I just wanted to watch. It's my birthday and—" He fell silent. Every word tasted stupid in his mouth. "This place was my… present."
The shaking angel tried to stand again, his perfect shaft hardening and his nipples pebbling as if he could smell Isaac's lust, as though answering it. Kholem.
Isaac tried to ignore the plump erection that rose from the crisp nest of curls. His own balls drew up against the root of his boner, and the stiffness jerked with his pulse. Even the friction of his boxers against his knob felt amplified. He panted and licked his lips, trying to restrain himself. Again, something about the impossible torso struck him as odd, but he couldn't focus long enough to make sense of it.
The angel's tongue swept the firm bow of his upper lip. "Help me." His taut nipples were carved from the same honey stone as his pectorals.
Isaac extended a hand in the hope he could control himself. His fingers twitched and shook. His nutsack knotted and throbbed. He had never wanted to touch another person, and suddenly the thirty-six inches of air between them burned and tickled like head-to-toe poison ivy.
"The Horn Gate." The angelic flesh radiated scalding warmth, flushed and feverish, even while he shook with cold. The wall behind him buckled, no longer cinder blocks but woven out of branches, forked and spiraling. The boughs gaped where the angel touched them, giving the impression that his glowing skin loosened and bent them. The braided limbs strained to open to slithering shadows.
No, not branches….
Saliva pooled in Isaac's mouth and his breath nearly stilled. Black orchids bloomed behind his eyelids as if he was about to faint. His pulse slammed in his skull, his rod painfully rigid since he touched the wintry door. His frantic arousal wrapped itself around him from his fundament to the top of his head like a fiery snake.
The angel slid his back up the wall to brace himself, the hypnotic flex and flux of his Michelangelo muscles were the Adriatic sun on the ocean at night and then, and then, and then…
"I am called Scratch."
There was no navel on the flawless abdomen.
He wasn't born.
The angel took his hand.
With a strangled yelp, Isaac's body arched and ejaculated, scorching his stomach with semen; lightning chased his limbs and cold blackness blossomed behind his lids like ink in water.
The weaving walls gaped and a spiky portal of interlocking horns and antlers seemed to orbit Isaac for a moment. Scratch's pewter eyes were the last thing he saw before he hit the floor, unconscious.
He saw them for a long while after.


text:
Well today marks the beginning of the final week of my third graduate term. This means that at the conclusion of the week, I will have reached the halfway point. Fortunately, the work load is not too heavy, as both my courses required finals to be turned in by midnight last night. So, as they say, it's all done but the crying–not really, I'm anticipating eighteen graduate hours under my belt this time next week.
The last week held more than just finals. Not only have I added to the list of submissions I have made for potential publication, I have also taken those first steps toward pursuing my English teaching career. While the journey is far from over, just taking those first baby steps has been a significant achievement and one I am very thankful for–thankful for the Lord giving me the opportunity and my fantastic support circle led by my wife and children who have not failed to encourage each step I have taken.
Finally, I am thankful for the handful that have gotten on board to follow my journey from its inception. I hope you stick around as each new chapter unfolds. Hopefully, we'll pick up somemore riders along the way.
Always remember, chaos is not necessarily a bad thing.


text:
In indic-mashup we had a good discussion on sorting orders and issues of sorting of indic languages. All language experts posted thers expected data on
I have recenlty completed work for mr_IN and it is upstreamed also and now you can check sorting of mr_IN in next glibc releases
just blogging this here since it will be useful for many linguist to test sorting order for there languages and it will be nice if we can test and correct sorting order of all languages. :)
so first step to do this is test sorting and file bugs for wrong sorting order ;) as i am working on collation from some time i will surely help in fixing that
step 1: create text file for ex: barakhadi_test
step 2: write sorting data into such that each sorting syllable on one line
so content of your test file will be like this
step 3: use following command in terminal
syntax : LC_ALL="locale name".utf8 sort "path/test file name"
for marathi case it will be
LC_ALL=mr_IN.utf8 sort test.sort
it will give you output as sorted data each syllable per line in terminal
if you want to write sorted data in some file just add following line instead of above
syntax : LC_ALL="locale name".utf8 sort "path/test file name" > output_file
LC_ALL=mr_IN.utf8 sort barakhadi_test > barakhadi_sorted
there are also some other way to test but i have mentioned here method i am using to test
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Steps to test glibc sorting order of any locale
2 comments:
- Dieta said...
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You have to express more your opinion to attract more readers, because just a video or plain text without any personal approach is not that valuable. But it is just form my point of view
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text:
Dana's Bakery Does Delectable Macarons American Style
We don't claim to know a lot about many things but when it comes to macarons, we are experts. And ice cream; we're pretty good at working out what makes a great ice cream. Anyhoo, the New York City macaron trend is still going strong since it took off a few years back, and no bakery is killing it quite like Dana's Bakery. Founder Dana Loia got the macaron thing down, yo. At the Citizens of Humanity press preview a while back we tried the champagne flavor. The shell doesn't actually taste like champagne, it just has that color with a glamorous gold dusting, but the filling… holy shit the filling. They infuse buttercream with champagne and it's divine. Di-vine. The whole M.O. of Dana's Bakery is to create macarons with an American twist so there's red velvet, peanut butter and jelly, s'mores, thin mint and even cookie dough. We know what you're thinking, are they any good though? Yes, they are perfection. You will literally freak out. There's a macaron of the month club that you can subscribe to, too. A three-month subscription costs $90 and you receive a box of macarons on the first day of every month. We speak for everyone when we say this would make an excellent gift.


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Sweet potato salad
Photo by Michael Craig
This is my take on a classic potato salad, which uses kumara instead of potato. It's so simple and so delicious. Sumac, if you're not familiar with it, is a spice used in Middle Eastern cooking which has a tangy flavour. It goes well with the mayonnaise here. This salad is a great addition to any barbecue.
|½ cup
|Mayonnaise, use a good-quality variety
|1 Tbsp
|Sumac powder
- Preheat oven to 190C. Place kumara in a roasting tray and drizzle over the oil. Add salt, pepper, sumac and smoked paprika. Roast for about 40 minutes until golden and crispy.
- Mix together the mayonnaise and the sumac. While the kumara is cooking, cook the bacon, and toast the walnuts in a frying pan with no oil. Be careful not to burn them. Slice the spring onions.
- Allow the kumara to cool slightly before putting in a bowl, and adding all other ingredients. Mix gently and serve warm.


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City Lot For Sale in Mount Vernon Ohio
Purchase a city lot in Mount Vernon to build your new home within the Mount Vernon City School District (Pleasant Street Elementary). This 0.1102 acre lot measures 40' x 120' and is within walking distance to Pleasant Street Elementary. Live conveniently down the road from major grocery stores, shopping, restaurants, and more. Zoned R-1 Residential, this beautiful lot is priced to sell fast at $4,000.
Click here for more information on this 12 McKinley Street land for sale in Mount Vernon, Ohio 43050.


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Start /
Languages / English / Engelska / Culture, Sports and Leisure
The Knivsta Triathlon – 350 m. swimming, 16 km cycling and 3.5 km running – is arranged in August every year.
The library is a meeting place for all ages. Here, booklovers will find a wide range of fiction and non-fiction. The library also arranges children's programmes with theatre and film shows, provides bookable computers for Internet use, and has a great deal more to offer.
There are many associations and clubs in Knivsta devoted to all kinds of cultural activities: choir-singing, chamber music, art, theatre, dancing and the like. Please get in touch with us if you are interested.
The Concert Carousel is a touring concert project in the county. It usually embraces lively programmes of world music, jazz and classical music.
Welcome to the Middle Ages! To jousting, medieval processions, priests and nuns, the king and the queen, martial contests, a market, folk music and a 15th-century Mass in Husby-Långhundra Church. The market is held early in June every year.
The municipal keep-fit centre, provides all kinds of fitness facilities for training and gymnastics. It has a 25-metre swimming pool for training and games and a large gym equipped with new machines. The group training rooms have classes in aerobics, spinning, step-up, yoga etc. The Health Centre is in Forsbyvägen in central Knivsta.
Phone +46 (0)18 34 77 30
The illuminated track has several different trails. The 1.5, 2.5 and 3.5 km trails are illuminated. Parallel with the 2.5 km illuminated skiing trail is a Mountain-bike track. In the winter there are trails for cross-country skiing, both classical style and skate-skiing. There are parking places and ski-waxing huts on the site. The entrances to the parking place are from Gredelbyleden and Boängsvägen.
Situated half way between two major cities, the rural municipality of Knivsta has clear lakes, meadows filled with wild flowers, deep forests, a beautifully located nature reserve and recreational areas with nature trails and skiing tracks.
Lake Valloxen is the special open-air paradise for people living in Knivsta. It is surrounded by beautiful manor-house estates and has fine bathing places. In winter the lake is a paradise for skaters.
The beautiful Kungshamn-Morga nature reserve, along the shore of Lake Mälaren, comprises pastures, shore meadows and forests.
Lunsen Forest is a glorious wild forest crossed by many nature trails.
The Uppland Trail is a 400 km-long trail from the river Dalälven in the north to Lake Mälaren in the south. From Knivsta you can either trek north through Lunsen Forest to Uppsala or south to Sigtuna. You can join the trail at Knivsta railway station.
018-34 70 00
Kontakta kommunen
Postal address:
Knivsta kommun, 741 75 Knivsta
Street address:
Centralvägen 18, Knivsta
Phone: +46 (0)18 34 70 00
E-mail: email@example.com
Opening hours:
Monday-Friday 8-16.30


text:
The verdict of national public opinion about what was universally represented as an attempt by Arizona's legislature to authorize discrimination against gays was overwhelming. Though support for gay marriage is not yet unanimous, Americans don't like prejudice and think laws that might legitimate bias are, by definition, wrongheaded. By vetoing Arizona's SB1062 bill, Governor Jan Brewer was simply practicing political common sense and saving both her state (which stood to lose conventions and even an upcoming Super Bowl over the controversy) and the national Republican Party a great deal of grief over what was claimed to be a new version of Jim Crow. The "anti-gay bill" stood to become this year's version of Todd Akin's infamous comments about rape and abortion and could have been a millstone around the necks of all conservatives even in a year in which the GOP stands to gain ground across the country.
Fresh off this almost uncontested victory, liberals like The New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin are hoping to follow up on their triumph by pivoting from this controversy to ratcheting up anger at the prospect that the Supreme Court will allow religious business owners to claim religious exemptions from the federal government's demands that they pay for insurance coverage of acts that violate their religious beliefs. What has that got to do with an "anti-gay bill?" And how can liberals hope to mobilize Americans on this issue the way they did on the Arizona bill given the significant public sympathy for the religious freedom protest of companies like the Hobby Lobby chain as well as antipathy for the ObamaCare mandates?
In order to answer that question you would have had to have actually read the Arizona bill, something that few media figures, let alone the general public actually did before lambasting it. As National Review editor Rich Lowry, pointed out in an insightful Politico op-ed published last week, even a cursory glance at the bill yielded nothing to justify the universal condemnation that rained down on it from the mainstream media. But at the heart of that dustup and the one on the ObamaCare Mandate is the same question of religious liberty that got steamrollered in Arizona and is again being attacked in the Hobby Lobby case. The principle being defended here isn't Jim Crow or any other form of prejudice but the constitutionally protected right to religious freedom.
As Lowry pointed out:
It was jarring to read the coverage of the new "anti-gay bill" passed by the Arizona Legislature and then look up the text of the instantly notorious SB 1062. The bill was roughly 998 pages shorter than much of legislation that passes in Washington, so reading it didn't take much of a commitment. Clocking in at barely two pages, it was easy to scan for disparaging references to homosexuality, for veiled references to homosexuality, for any references to homosexuality at all.
They weren't there. A headline from The Week declared, "There is nothing Christian about Arizona's anti-gay bill." It would be more accurate to say that there was nothing anti-gay about Arizona's anti-gay bill.
The legislation consisted of minor clarifications of the state's Religious Freedom Restoration Act [RFRA], which has been on the books for 15 years and is modeled on the federal act that passed with big bipartisan majorities in the 1990s and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
If you'll excuse a brief, boring break from the hysteria to dwell on the text of the doomed bill, it stipulated that the word "person" in the law applies to businesses and that the protections of the law apply whether or not the government is directly a party to a proceeding (e.g., a lawsuit brought on anti-discrimination grounds).
The reason that the law was so fiercely denounced was because it opened up the possibility that a business such as florist or a baker could use the state's version of the federal FRFA in order to back up a refusal to take part in activity that might violate their religious beliefs such as a gay wedding. The legal distinction here is a fine one. No one disputes (or at least no one should) that businesses that are a public accommodation have no right to turn away customers on the basis of their race, religion, beliefs or, their sexual orientation. But commissioning someone to create a floral arrangement or display to celebrate something they oppose is not quite the same thing as merely showing up and asking to buy flowers or bread or to sit at a lunch counter. Where exactly the law comes down on such situations is a matter of debate. You might well argue that such vendors should just accept the business or lose it to competitors. But arguing that their personal beliefs should be ignored when someone demands they participate in events that, however sympathetic, violate their beliefs, is rightly considered a bridge too far for many civil libertarians.
What happened in Arizona was that the growing support for gay marriage was used to delegitimize anyone who sought to carve out some legal space for those disagreed on religious grounds and the affair snowballed into a national furor that drowned out opposing arguments. What Toobin and other liberals would like to see is the same process apply to Hobby Lobby and other religious believers who see the ObamaCare mandate as violating their liberty by painting them as opponents of women's rights.
The conceit of the liberal argument is to brand as intolerant those who oppose forcing religious institutions or business owners to pay for abortion drugs or contraception for their employees under the mandate. According to Toobin and the administration, those who oppose the Mandate are seeking to impose their religious views on employees and to deny them necessary services. But this is false. No one is preventing anyone from obtaining access to birth control or even an abortion drug. What the owners of Hobby Lobby and the many other plaintiffs in these cases are seeking is to not be involved in the purchase of products and services they oppose. It is the government and its liberal cheerleaders who are seeking to impose their beliefs on religious believers, not the other way around. And, unless the U.S. Supreme Court stops them by ruling in favoring of Hobby Lobby, that is exactly what they will do. One doesn't have to oppose abortion or contraception to understand that if the government can have its way in this case, no one's rights are safe.
The problem liberals face in seeking to demonize persons of faith who oppose the ObamaCare Mandate is that, unlike Arizona's SB1062, the public is already well aware of its intrusive nature and the assault on individual rights it represents. Opponents of RFRA were able to buy the Arizona bill under a mountain of obfuscation, innuendo and disinformation. Liberals should forget about being able to play the same game in defense of a position that seeks to restrict religious freedom for the sake of a vast expansion of government power that a majority of Americans already oppose.


text:
Sometimes you will never know the true value of a moment until it becomes a memory.
Dr. Seuss
Midori wants to provide for you a journal that reflects the value of your memories.
The Midori journal is both luxurious and practical. The natural texture of the leather is simple and elegant, and it takes on its own personality through the years. The wear and the scratches that you imprint onto the leather make it more beautiful and more precious to you, as precious as the parts of your life contained in the journal.
Midori understands that a journal must invite you to share your innermost thoughts, your happiest (and saddest) moments, the insights that flash through your mind. For that, it must be comfortable to use so that you look forward to the private moments that you spend with your journal.
The paper is an integral part of the comfort, and Midori is the most famous stationer in Japan because of the quality of its paper
Paper-making is more than a manufacturing process in Japan; it is more than a craft; it is an art. Midori takes the art to an extraordinary level, creating a paper protects your writings with its durability.
The Japanese did not invent paper, but they perfected it.
Human has long wanted to record their lives. The Egyptians used papyrus 5000 years ago. Ancient Greece and Rome used parchment made from sheepskin or calfskin. The Chinese used processed bamboo, too heavy and awkward to carry around, and silk, lightweight, but too expensive. In the second century CE, the Chinese invented paper as we know it today. China jealously guarded the process, but it made its way to Korea. From there, a Buddhist monk took the process to Japan in 610. By 800, Japanese paper was superior to all others. Still today, it is unique in its supple strength and beauty.
Midori paper is part of this great tradition, fashioning paper of great texture and character. Machines are part of the paper-making process, but it is the eyes, hands, and minds of the people who make Midori paper that give the paper its unequaled quality.
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Inspectors examine the paper for thickness, weight, and color—repeatedly, to ensure the quality is up to Midori standards. There is never a compromise on quality.
Next is the writing properties test—the most time-consuming inspection of all. Writing implements of all varieties are used to write letters or draw lines on the paper to check how long it takes the ink to dry, if it smears, and if it bleeds through. It also confirms the feel of the pen on the paper and how the texture feels to the touch.
Only the paper that passes this stringent test becomes Midori paper. The paper and the leather cover amount to the ultimate writing experience for you.
There is a thrill to a new journal. The blank page waits to be filled with events that have not yet happened, ideas not yet imagined, lessons not yet learned. Those moments of inspiration, the celebrations, the memories that will be cherished are the reason that Midori is dedicated to your journal experience.