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Paloma is the creative mind behind La Dolce Vita, a blog that focuses on 'the sweet life' of interior design, fashion, travel, food and inspiring people.
On any given day you might find musings on bold home decor, fall boot trends or an elegant table setting. I'm excited to be hosting an interview about her beautiful blog today and I know you'll enjoy the 'sweet' read!
A bit of Paloma's favorite inspiration
Founded in the summer of 2007, Paloma began writing as a respite for summer boredom while working as a high school Spanish teacher. In addition to the growing blog, she's a contributing editor on Circa Lighting's blog and is the Houston contributor for PinkMemo – an online fashion and style magazine. Finally – Paloma is launching her very own online magazine this coming January, you can read more about High Gloss here!
Paloma has 'virtually' sat down with PDB to share her favorite styles, the motivation behind her work and her favorite design suggestions. Follow the jump for the full interview!
{PDB Interview with Paloma of La Dolce Vita}
What inspires your design style?
I find inspiration through my travels as well as through blogs, and old movies like Auntie Mame. More than anything, I am inspired by colors and patterns. I am not one for decorating with all white or beige!
What do you love most about what you do?
Creating High Gloss, my new online style magazine has been a dream come true. Styling on photo shoots, coming up with the creative direction of High Gloss along with story ideas and the overall tone of the magazine thrills me. I am so lucky to have the most amazing team working with me at High Gloss. I am just in awe of these women. Each one is so incredibly talented in their own right. I think we're creating something very special, but I may be a little biased! I can't answer this question without making reference to my blog, La Dolce Vita. Writing it has been one of the most incredible and enriching experiences of my life. It has taught me so much, has taken me to places I never expected to go, and has helped me meet people I never thought I would. If it weren't for my blog, I'm not sure that I would have ever had the courage to start High Gloss.
What are your favorite design trends?
I don't consider it trendy, so much as classic, but I absolutely love Greek key! I am obsessed with that motif. I have also loved peacock blue for over a year now. It started getting really popular in late 2009 and I have not been able to shake my love of it. It's such a beautiful, rich color.
What are three design suggestions that you would like to offer our readers?
{1.} Stay true to your style. Don't worry about people deeming something trendy or passé. You're the one who has to live with it!
{2.} Accessorize! Just like an outfit, each room needs accessories, which act as layers and give spaces character. Whether you're using some fabulous pillows, adding a beautiful lamp, or a bold rug, these little touches make a big impact.
{3.} Add personal touches. Your home should not look like a photo from a sterile catalog. It should have life and speak of you and your interests. If you like to travel, add a framed map.
If you loved this interview, check out more great spotlights {and tips & tricks!} from fantastic bloggers!


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Holt is a free agent after rejecting a new contract last season but Hearts are due compensation as the midfielder came through the youth ranks at Tynecastle.
The 22-year-old, who spent the second half of last term on loan at Sheffield United, has been training with Rangers for several weeks and is now able to finalise a deal.
A statement from the Championship winners on Tuesday read: "Heart of Midlothian Football Club can tonight confirm that a development fee has been agreed with Rangers for Jason Holt.
"The Scotland U21 cap will now hold signing talks with the Ibrox side.
"Jason made 71 competitive appearances in a maroon shirt and scored seven goals, after making his first-team debut in 2011.
"The club thanks Jason for his time at Hearts and wishes him well in the future."
Holt started the Ibrox side's 1-0 friendly defeat against Burnley on Tuesday night and could make his competitive debut against Hibernian in the Petrofac Training Cup first round on Saturday at Easter Road.
The 22-year will become Mark Warburton's seventh signing since taking charge of the Ibrox outfit.

subset: commoncrawl


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Maple Valley, Part 4
series: Jerry Yarnell School Of Fine Art
air date: 2/18/13 11:30 AM
Jerry begins highlighting the hillside, forming the bare trees with colorful foliage. Emphasis on detailing the old farm house.
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When you talk to scouts, coaches, and executives from teams who have or will play the Patriots, the conversation inevitably will include something along the lines of:
"Well, at the end of the day, the Patriots have Tom Brady."
The Texans are probably saying that as well after the Patriots' 42-14 Monday night beatdown.
The Patriots certainly have more than their share of talented players on each side of the ball, but this game perfectly illustrated where all but a few teams fail to measure up against the Patriots: quarterback.
Texans quarterback Matt Schaub entered the game without a signature victory. It was his time to state to the rest of the league that he had arrived.
The Texans probably left privately questioning whether Schaub is ever going to be more than a good game manager.
We were able to get a fairly equal comparison between Brady and Schaub because both of the defenses brought nearly relentless pressure to gain an edge.
The Texans sent more than four rushers at Brady on 44.2 percent of his dropbacks. That's the second-highest rate on the season and the most since the 51.2 percent the Rams threw at Brady in London (not coincidentally, a 45-7 Patriots win).
The Patriots were even more aggressive, bringing extra pressure against Schaub on 52.5 percent of his throws. That's the most since at least the start of the 2010 season.
Cornerback Aqib Talib's man-to-man coverage ability doesn't seem to have much of an impact on the Patriots' pressures. The Patriots blitzed on 38 percent of the throws before cornerback Aqib Talib left with a hip injury and 68 percent after he departed — despite a 21-0 advantage.
This was clearly a game plan choice by the Patriots, similar to the approach taken against the Bruce Arians-coordinated Colts (this season) and Steelers (the previous two). Both the Texans and Arians rely on play- action and deep drops by the quarterback to threaten the defense vertically.
The difference between the Texans and Patriots in this game was how the quarterbacks and offensive lines fared against the pressure.
The Texans' offensive line allowed 2 sacks, 5 hurries, and 9 knockdowns (16 total quarterback pressures) for a 40 percent pressure rate.
Schaub was 10 of 18 for 96 yards with a sack and interception (47.5 passer rating) against the Patriots' pressure. By the tail end of the first half, Schaub was playing with wildly happy feet in the pocket and didn't see some wide-open receivers as he rushed to get the ball off.
The Patriots' line allowed just 1 sack, 2 hurries, and 7 knockdowns (10 total quarterback pressures; three before it was 21-0) for a pressure rate of 23.3 percent.
Of course, a lot of it had to do with Brady and his ability to interpret the look from the defense and know where to go with the ball. He released the ball in a season-low 2.25 seconds on average, which was more than a quarter of a second faster than Schaub (2.54). It might not seem like much, but it is against NFL defenses.
And Brady was 13 of 16 for 159 yards and three touchdowns against the Texans' blitzes (147.7 rating).
The difference seems clear to us.
Here are the positional ratings for the Patriots against the Texans:
Quarterback (4.5 out of 5)
This was one of those games in which Brady's statistics (outside of the four touchdown passes) didn't tell the whole story because of all the different pressures he had to deal with. There were certainly some throws he would like to have back, and Brady probably would have liked to change a few runs into bad fronts, but that's the perfectionist in him. Nobody finds matchups for his receivers better than Brady. Great job by Brady and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels — who is really in a groove now that he's comfortable with the personnel — getting the linebacker on Aaron Hernandez out of the backfield on the first touchdown. The Patriots will take that every time. How good was Brady's play fake on a 13-yard pass to Hernandez on the second drive? Blitzing linebacker Tim Dobbins tackled Stevan Ridley while Brady still had the ball. It was the same play (different personnel and alignment) in which the Patriots scored on the very next play with Brandon Lloyd. Looks like McDaniels has been doing a lot of work with Ryan Mallett on his mechanics because his one pass — dropped by Visanthe Shiancoe for an interception — showed an improved and quicker release of the ball. We'd like to see more.
Running backs (2.5 out of 5)
This rating is strictly for Ridley and Danny Woodhead fumbling once each because, even though the Patriots recovered both, those are the types of mistakes that will quickly end a season. Some really good inside running from Ridley and Shane Vereen, who has greatly improved in this area from the start of the season. Really nice 9-yard run by Vereen on the opening drive of the second half. Despite Hernandez getting blown up on his wham block by Connor Barwin — Hernandez did get in the way, so still a "good" block — Vereen smartly read the cutback lane and then undressed safety Quinton Demps for another 5 yards.
Receivers (3.5 out of 5)
Three more drops out of this group, with two from Wes Welker (a team-leading 12). Debated giving him two more, but the passes were in tough spots. If he catches them, they're plus catches. So, while technically not drops, they were passes Welker usually handles. That said, Welker again got his left ankle rolled up on. He's gutting it out and it has to be affecting his consistency. Hernandez is nearly back to full strength in the pass game, but he's not showing much interest in blocking, probably because he's afraid to get rolled up on again. Lloyd had a very nice bounceback game when his vertical prowess was needed in the game plan. Dobbins is probably having nightmares about having to cover Hernandez and Woodhead.
Offensive line (4.5 out of 5)
Considering the 44.2 percent blitzes, exceptional end J.J. Watt (five knockdowns, two hurries, despite extra attention on 43 percent of his rushes), and that the Patriots allowed just 13.3 percent of the rush attempts to be stuffed for 1 yard or less outside of short yardage (second-lowest to 3.6 vs. Denver), this performance was right there with the Rams game for best overall effort. Center Ryan Wendell (no impact plays allowed) and left guard Logan Mankins (knockdown) were exceptional, and left tackle Nate Solder (knockdown, half stuffed run) wasn't far behind. Sebastian Vollmer (sack, knockdown, penalty, shared stuffed run) and Dan Connolly (two knockdowns, hurry, two half stuffed runs, penalty) had a tougher chore on the right side. One thing to watch: Solder was favoring the left side of his rib cage for much of the game.
Defensive line (5 out of 5)
When Vince Wilfork and Brandon Deaderick weren't blowing up the zone blocking scheme themselves with penetration or sheer brute strength, they were maneuvering blockers so the linebackers could clean it up. Wilfork is on a tear and keeps topping himself. On second and 14 with 7:21 left in the first quarter, great job by Rob Ninkovich shedding standout left tackle Duane Brown at the point, and then just a phenomenal athletic play by Wilfork to not only fight around a double team but to help make a tackle on a play that was run 6 yards away from him. Then, on second and 10 with 5:54 left in the first half, the Texans tried to run a wham tackle trap play against Wilfork but the only whamming was done by Wilfork against Brown on his way to a big 2-yard loss. Both were All-Pro plays. Right before Devin McCourty's interception, Deaderick completely blew up the inside zone run that only went for 2 yards and was impressively cleaned up by Wilfork, who hurdled a cut block. There was no letup in the second half. On the first play, Ninkovich shed the tight end on a 3-yard run. On the next play, Ninkovich made Brown look bad while Deaderick dusted an excellent center in Chris Myers on a 2-yard loss. Chandler Jones looked decent but definitely rusty and a little unsure of himself in his return. He had 1.5 hurries, but his pad level was too high on the Texans' first touchdown and he got steamrolled (and tackled by Brown). Jones started to look more like his old self with 13:12 left in the fourth quarter when he penetrated and held the edge while Ninkovich and Kyle Love cleaned up a 1-yard gain on second and 2. Justin Francis (two knockdowns) needs to settle down with the friendly fire on Kyle Arrington.
Linebackers (3.5 out of 5)
There were some coverage errors but luckily Schaub was too gun-shy to find the open guys. Jerod Mayo had a slew of impact plays (three knockdowns, three stuffed runs, half hurry), and two missed tackles and contributed to a plus-20 pass play. On McCourty's interception, it looked like Mayo got lucky on a blitz — like the play on which he sacked Ryan Tannehill of the Dolphins — because Arian Foster leaked out of the backfield completely uncovered. Great play by Mayo to attack downhill on the second-and-10 run with 2:38 left in the first half and to avoid the block of tackle Ryan Harris to take Foster down for no gain. Dont'a Hightower (two knockdowns, hurry, 1.5 stuffs) was in the same boat with a couple of miscues. Both players are joining an obviously injured Brandon Spikes (ankle) — he was invisible and slow — in attacking linebackers. Good to see the coaches turn this group loose.
Secondary (4 out of 5)
Breaking up six passes and taking points off the board with a goal-line interception is a good day's work for a group that obviously has benefited from a small but difference-making uptick in pressure generated in the past four games (31.1 percent of dropbacks; 24 percent in previous seven). Really nice play by Talib, whose size is a deterrent (where have you gone Ras-I Dowling?) to quarterbacks more than anything, on the pass breakup before leaving with an injury. He's much more consistent when given a target to focus on. Arrington was again a standout with everyone else but Steve Gregory (three missed tackles, plus-20 play) extremely solid. The group's improvement is identical to last year's but with more (inconsistent) talent.
Special teams (4.5 out of 5)
Great 31-yard punt return by Welker — thanks to standout blocks from Talib, Marquis Cole, and Matthew Slater (another Pro Bowl coverage game) — to get things started. Zoltan Mesko was very good outside his shanked second punt (3.59 seconds of hang time). The Patriots' linebackers had a huge edge on the Texans' on special teams. Stephen Gostkowski has 10 touchbacks on 13 kickoffs in the past two games.
Situation: The Texans had driven 59 yards in eight plays as they were seeking an answer to the Patriots' opening touchdown when they faced second and 8 at the New England 21-yard line.
What happened: Patriots showed blitz with a single high safety in Devin McCourty (32) as the Texans used a trips formation to the right, and receiver Andre Johnson (80) by himself to the left against cornerback Aqib Talib (31). At the snap, linebackers Brandon Spikes (55) and Dont'a Hightower (54) doubled tight end Owen Daniels, though it could have been a mistake. Linebacker Jerod Mayo (51) came on a blitz, leaving no one within 15 yards of running back Arian Foster (23). Didn't matter. Quarterback Matt Schaub (8) stared to the right the entire way, which allowed McCourty to easily read his eyes and jump in front of the skinny post to receiver Kevin Walter (83). A good quarterback would have pump faked to Johnson to draw the safety out just enough to leave room for the pass.
Vince Wilfork, defensive tackle
Running out of words to describe how dominating he's been of late, so we'll just go with his best stat line of the season: sack, hurry, knockdown, two pass breakups, three double teams demolished, and three shared stuffed runs.
Visanthe Shiancoe, tight end
Finally gets a pass thrown his way, drops it, it's intercepted and turned into a touchdown. The Patriots, who used their only spot on injured reserve in which a player can return, on him, have seen enough.Greg A. Bedard can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @gregabedard.


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Dr. Tim Roberts Leads NEH Program on Civil War at WIU
Apr 5, 2012
MACOMB, IL -- Under the leadership of Dr. Tim Roberts, the WIU Department of History partnered with the WIU Libraries and the Western Illinois Museum in bringing the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) program, "Let's Talk About It: Making Sense of the Civil War" (LTAI) to Western Illinois University. In commemoration of the Civil War Sesquicentennial, this NEH-funded reading and discussion series, supported also by the American Library Association (ALA) was held at WIU's Malpass Library in 2011-12.
Prof. Roberts served as the Project Scholar for the Department of History, and Marketing and Outreach Librarian Tammy Sayles served as the Project Director for the WIU Libraries. According to Lainie Castle, Project Director from the public programs office at ALA, the LTAI project "was a highly competitive grant application process, with more than 175 proposals received." In her award letter to Sayles, she noted, "We are very excited about your library's unique programming plans to stimulate exploration and discussion." Ms. Sayles noted that her work with Dr. Roberts on this project stemmed from a collaborative project they implemented last year at the Leslie F. Malpass Library on the Macomb campus.
"Tim approached me and asked if I would be interested in partnering with him to apply for the LTAI grant," Ms. Sayles said. "We worked together on the 'Abraham Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War,' a traveling exhibition for libraries, organized by the National Constitution Center and the ALA Public Program Office and made possible through a grant by National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The ALA and NEH indicated they liked our programming for that project, which we implemented last fall. For the LTAI grant application, we put a lot of thought into the discussion topics. The materials for the grant are exciting because they not only explore Civil War history, but also its legacy in America and include both historical and fictional readings," she added.
Dr. Roberts noted the programs made possible by the grant funding included a series of public conversations held on the WIU-Macomb campus in late 2011 and early 2012.
The grant provided WIU with 25 copies each of March and Crossroads to Freedom: Antietam and 50 copies of the anthology America's War: Talking About the Civil War and Emancipation on their 150th Anniversaries, which were read and discussed during the year-long program.
Adapted from: Teresa Koltzenburg, University Relations
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Coming off a dramatic victory over perennial power Plainfield North on Monday and set to take on one of the state's top ranked teams in Ottawa on Wednesday, a Tuesday matchup with the Plano Reapers shaped up to be a potential letdown game for the Morris Runnin' Redskins. However, despite not coming through with one of their strongest performances, the 'Skins were able to hold off Plano and improve to 6-1 on the season with a 12-8 win.
The Reapers gave Morris starting pitcher Preston Miracle some problems in the early going, tagging him for five straight one-out singles in the top of the first. However, Morris was able to strand a trio of runners and hold Plano to just one run in their half of the inning.
In the second inning, Morris erased the deficit and then some. The Redskins tied the game at one when junior Matt Bernickus tallied the first of his three RBI on the day with a flipshot single into right field that scored courtesy runner Kyle Hill.
All told the Redskins were able to push six runs across in the inning on four hits and ended the second with a commanding 6-1 lead. Senior Grant Davis, Bernickus and junior Trevor Lines, Morris' No. 7, 8 and 9 hitters, respectively, would go on to play a huge part in the Redskins success at the plate, combining to go 7-for-9 with seven runs scored and four RBI.
"I'm feeling good at the plate right now," Lines said following a 3-for-3 day at the plate. "I'm seeing the ball well and concentrating on taking the ball the other way and trying to drive it.
"(The bottom of the order) was able to take some pressure off the top of the order today and let them focus on driving us in once we were on base."
Meanwhile, Miracle continued to battle through a feisty Plano lineup and was able to exit the game with an 11-2 lead having thrown 70 pitches through four innings. He'd go on to notch the win, giving up six hits and just one earned run while striking out four during his four innings of work.
However, in the fifth inning with Miracle out in favor of fellow senior Kade Bashor, the Reapers were able to cut into the Redskins lead. Plano's Cody Dryden started the inning off with a double and the Reapers pushed across three runs on the inning to reduce the lead to 11-5.
Dryden would finish the day 4-for-5 with a pair of doubles, three runs scored and an RBI.
"As a coach, you're always on guard for a letdown after a big dramatic win and our goal today was to come out and be sharp," Morris head coach Todd Kein said. "Today I felt like we were a little lackluster, but Plano is a team that puts the ball in play hard."
In the sixth inning with junior right-hander Brock Kukman on the mound, Plano tacked on a couple more runs and threatened to make a game out of it with one out and runners at first and third, but Kukman was able to induce a pair of groundouts to preserve an 11-7 lead for Morris heading into their half of the inning. The Redskins were then able to tack on another insurance run with a sac fly by Bernickus.
In the seventh, big Bubba Henry was able to finish off the game, giving up just one run to make the final tally 12-8. It was a welcomed victory for the Redskins, but thoughts immediately turned to playing sharper baseball tomorrow in Ottawa.
"The bottom line is that we cannot play the way we played today tomorrow. The bigger issue is that we cannot be a team that is inconsistent regardless of who we're playing," Kein said.


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Richard M. Daley, Former Mayor Of Chicago
series: Overheard With Evan Smith
air date: 10/15/13 5:00 AM
Richard M. Daley is the longest-serving mayor in the history of Chicago, following his father. Daley served in the Illinois State Senate and as the Cook County State's Attorney. He left office in 2011.
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The McDonald's empire was built on simplicity and consistency: Your cheeseburger comes out exactly like the one the next guy gets. But thanks in part to lackluster sales, the fast-food giant is increasingly letting customers customize their meals.
On Monday, McDonald's MCD, +0.42% reported a 0.3% drop in sales at restaurants open longer than 13 months around the globe; U.S. same-restaurant sales fell 1.4%. Though the company is still the world's largest restaurant chain by revenue and worldwide sales, the trend is troubling, executives say, but one that can be reversed. "Looking ahead, we believe that we are taking the right actions to more clearly align with our customers' needs and build momentum to drive long-term profitable growth," says CFO Pete Benson.
One way is through customization. While their famous ad described the Big Mac as "two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun"--the world's largest restaurant chain is experimenting with changing that. Last year, the company began testing a "build-your-own-burger" concept in Laguna Niguel, Calif., which lets you pick what you want on your burger using a tablet computer, rather than just having to say something like "no onions" to a cashier. During a speech to investors at the time, Kevin Newell, the chief brand and strategy officer for the U.S., said, "customization represents another important opportunity for our business." And a few weeks ago, the company announced it will expand the build-your-own-burger concept to more stores, likely in Southern California. Newell told the Associated Press that this concept has been a driver of sales and was helping McDonald's attract a different clientele and more of a dinner crowd.
The move toward customization is becoming more common in the fast-food industry, analysts say. "It's one of the biggest trends," says Andy Brennan, an analyst with IBISWorld. Or as Darren Tristano, the executive vice president of food industry research and consultancy Technomic puts it, "consumers have been looking for greater variety and customization…this is something that many fast-food restaurants have figured out but McDonald's is just starting."
The industry, says Brennan, may be taking a page from the likes of Chipotle CMG, +0.42% and Five Guys, which offer more customization than other fast-food spots; at Chipotle consumers point to what ingredients they want on their meal and watch as the staff makes it, while at Five Guys you can list everything you want on your burger. Indeed, in terms of system-wide sales, which includes sales for company-owned restaurants and franchised restaurants, both Chipotle and Five Guys grew more than 100% from 2009 to 2013, while McDonald's grew just 16%, says Brennan. "McDonald's' [revenue] growth rate pales in comparison," says Brennan.
Another thing that's contributing to Chipotle's success—and something that's likely to be mimicked by fast food chains—is the addition of high-quality, natural ingredients, says Tristano. "Customers really respond to this," he says. We're already seeing some of that as McDonald's added apple slices to the Happy Meal menu in 2011 and this year is offering consumers the option to get a salad, fruit or vegetable instead of french fries as a side for their value meals. Tristano adds that McDonald's in Canada along with their supplier partner Cargill just produced a YouTube Video that shows the process their supplier uses for making chicken McNuggets. "They are taking a page out of Chipotle's book where they recently produced a video called the Scarecrow that promoted natural farm to fork process," he says.
Analysts also say we can expect more healthy options and possibly the addition of more natural foods in the coming years. Tristano says that he expects McDonald's to focus on cage free eggs, sustainable fish and more options for fruits and vegetables.


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For Queen Ifrica, who is known for her homophobic lyrics and public hate speech, this is not the first concert that has been cancelled due to protests from the LGBT community. She was also removed from the line-up of the Rastafesta International Reggae Concert in Canada last August after harsh criticism from a Canadian gay rights group.
The protest in Jamaica, Queens, was made up of members of the Caribbean Alliance for Equality (CAFE) and the Jamaica Anti-Homophobia Stand (JAHS), as well as Councilman Daniel Dromm and a representative from Councilman Rory Lancman's office.
Antonio Brown, a 26-year-old gay man from Jamaica, recently came to the U.S. to escape the violence of his home country.
"My own brother came to kill me in 2006. My own brother. Because of me being gay," he said. "I've witnessed several deaths of close friends because of their sexual orientation."
He explained at the protest that Queen Ifrica's lyrics were used against him when he was growing up.
"I don't want her here. Period," Brown said. "She has a song I remember growing up and having problems, because when I was younger, I used to wear my mother's heels and skirts and these things. One of her songs, my mother used to sing that song to me to help show me, 'Listen, what you're doing is wrong.'"
The song Brown is referring to is called "Keep it to Yourself," in which Queen Ifrica says, "Mi nuh want si mi brother dress up inna no skirt."
Michael Forbes, chief operations officer of JAHS and organizer of the protest, explained that giving Queen Ifrica a voice and stage presence in America would contribute to the murders of members of the LGBT community in Jamaica.
"We're giving them the opportunity to continue to do their hate music," Forbes said. "Promoters here in the United States are giving them the opportunity to kill more gays. Everyone who contributes to a performance of an artist who does hate music, they are contributing to one less life of a Jamaican."
In Jamaica, Forbes was mobbed by over 40 people, including his family members, when his landlord kicked him out because he discovered Forbes is gay.
Dromm stood with the activists as they discussed the possibility of canceling the concert with the manager of Amazura.
"We can't allow people to promote hate speech, no matter where it is," Dromm said. "We have to speak out against it.
"It's disgusting that in this day and age, 2014, we still have to do this. It's amazing," he added. "I mean, we have two openly gay elected officials in the borough and they're still going to promote this stuff. I just don't get it."
As the small group stood outside of Amazura with posters and flags, venue manager John Rios approached to find out what was going on.
"I didn't know she was a red flag," Rios said after listening to the protestors' message and calls to remove Queen Ifrica from the concert lineup. Rios said he had not listened to Queen Ifrica's music before signing the agreement with her promoters.
Rios then called the promoters and opened up the discussion about removing her from the lineup. It was eventually decided she would not perform.
Queen Ifrica's management team released a statement regarding the cancelled show.
"Queen Ifrica expresses that, while she remains grounded in her morals which espouses heterosexuality, she wants to make it abundantly and emphatically clear that she does not condone nor has ever supported or advocated violence against any group or community, whether implicitly or explicitly," the statement read.
Rios said that he did not want to support discrimination at his venue.
"We're not prejudiced against anyone," he said. "I welcome the gay community and we get along with everybody."


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The Chinese government is the obvious and most likely culprit. But since the chip has military and industrial uses, an arm of the US or some other government (putting the backdoor in during design rather than manufacture) is a possibility. Or it could have been put in by the original designer for debugging purposes.
Hate those articles with things like "undisclosed" chip.
The actual paper is located here:
https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sps32/sec_news.html [cam.ac.uk] enjoy
The chip in question is Actel/Microsemi ProASIC3 FGPA
ah... I really need to RTFA once in a while
If you need the chip to program it? It isn't as though it has a WIMAX antenna sticking out of it.
Militant 1: "Oh crap, the US have just fired a missile at us."
Militant 2: "It's OK, when it gets here we can reprogram it."
The next person to mention spaghetti stacks to me is going to have his head knocked off. -- Bill Conrad


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If you've ever searched in vain for someone to take your money or known more about the products being sold than the beauty expert sales assistant, then you've been shopping at one of the big two department stores. Both of them are the same, with David Jones ahead with indoctrinated politeness once someone does get behind the till - it's the only place I'm ever called ''Mrs Hughes'' - and Myer ahead for super-reductions that make the wait sometimes worthwhile.
Many a time I go to DJs or Myer and see a frustrated shopper. One who has flung her goods on the unmanned counter or challenged the sales assistant - especially the ones who say ''Sorry, I can't help you, I don't work here''. Why are you working there then? Actually, we don't care. We just want to hand over money for this thing which we had to find ourselves without assistance or advice or attention. I've been reduced to opening a counter cupboard to hunt for a specific product. That's one way to get attention.
It's little wonder we love shopping online for makeup.
David Jones and Myer have been battling overseas websites for years and it's in the beauty category that the battle is being fought most fiercely. We love our OS beauty websites far more the super-shiny, ear-banging beauty halls.
Cosmetics entrepreneur Napoleon Perdis has urged the department stores to put some money into hiring more sales assistants and training them properly. Perdis, on a visit from LA last week, said Australian staff were in desperate need of an education program that extended beyond how to use a cash register.
''Department stores are going to have to bite the bullet further with increasing staffing levels so that customers have reason to go into them,'' Perdis told Fairfax's Business Day this week. He knows what he's talking about. His cosmetics and makeup lines have penetrated middle America and last month he signed a deal with the luxury department stores Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman - the first such deal for an Australian brand.
Said Perdis: ''At the end of the day there has to be a major incentive for a woman to go to a department store and feel beautiful.''
We're very happy to buy our favourite moisturiser and lipstick online, thank you very much. Recent figures from the Commonwealth Bank show cosmetics and beauty have the second-highest penetration by overseas websites compared with other retail segments in Australia. Foreign sites take 88 per cent of market share.
What would it take for you to buy your beauty products at the bricks-and-mortar cosmetics counters? Despite the staffing problems, I love them. I like being able to see and feel the products and chat about their merits. I like the transformative makeup makeover that sends me on my merry shopping way.
How do you find the department store service and advice? When was the last time you shopped for makeup at Myer or DJs? What keeps you shopping online? What would make you change?
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Is that you're programming in Ruby on Rails...
If you do pair-programming with you best bud it is brogramming.
Take a break, and you're nogramming.
Where do I send my significant other's resume? I can use a vacation.
Can I just send my significant other? I need a vacation.
The idea here is that you go with your significant other, and while s/he's toiling away at this stupid company and working for free all day, you're sitting in the nice beachfront condo they put you up in, relaxing and enjoying the beach, and maybe even getting some nice meals and drinks on the company's dime. Heck, while he's busy programming (assuming it's a he), you can find a short-term boyfriend and have him over at the condo during the day....
Just apply and hope for an interview. You don't need to actually do any work. At the end of the week just say "I was goofing off the whole time like it was a real job", then go home well rested.
The longest for me is 5 hours but this is ridiculous. The only people that would be able to apply are people who are unemployed. As someone who has interviewed people for programming jobs, it really doesn't take more than 2 hours to figure out if someone is a good fit.
The only people that would be able to apply are people who are unemployed.
"I can't believe I wasted 10% of my annual vacation days on this stinking interview" Been there done that.
50 days paid annual leave? Florida is not France...
If you got 2 weeks... a single day off for an interview would be 10%.
Exactly. WRT to AC dropping "five whole hours" on an interview... I interviewed at a rather dilbertian F50 megacorp and it was about 8 hours aka 10% of my annual vacation. Ugh. Never should have wasted my time. They did take me out to lunch at a family dining establishment (Applebees level), which was nice of them.
Then again I usually take the whole day off for an interview even when its only about 5 minutes. I remember getting bait and switched about 20 years ago at a Major Cellphone Network Provider where I applied to be a RF cellsite engineer or whatever the exact terminology and somehow got shuffled around into call center monkey at about 1/4 my pay at the time. Basically HR worded the want ad to make me think they wanted someone to design, maybe project manage cell tower site installation/upgrades, which was more or less beneath my ability at the time, but what they actually wanted was a call center monkey to stick pins into a cork board map when angry customers were transferred to my extension complaining of dropped calls and then theoretically I'd "do something" with areas having lots of pins on the map, well, actually I'd just take calls but maybe I could work my way up to hand generating TPS reports or whatever. It was a call center job but the "engineering" dept job title meant unpaid overtime for them, what a great deal! Two hours of drive time round trip for 5 minutes of WTF, see ya.
Another WTF am I here for, was I had just completed a COBOL class at school (ahh, the 90s) and I had some experience setting up SDLC mainframe links over frame relay, I knew how to pull and terminate fiber, I had more or less worked as a network admin at a financial mainframe operation, etc. So there's an ad in the paper for what looks kinda like a sysprog or maybe devprog or maybe like an onsite local IBM CE except employed by the client. I get there and it turns out they have outsourced the computer operator positions but they need a local monkey to take care of physical paper handling at the line printers and would I like to work there for about $7/hr? WTF are you kidding me? bye bye.
I've learned over the years that before you go onsite if the nice HR lady can't explain the job duties that means there is no point in showing up for the interview.
"Worlds most F'd up interviews" would make an entertaining
The only people that would be able to apply are people who are unemployed.
Uh, good?
Not if you want the best candidates it is not. Often those types already have jobs.
If you want what is best for society as a whole, everyone needs a job. Unemployed people should get priority in hiring unless you can demonstrate that you cannot find qualified people who are between jobs.
I agree with the former, I disagree with the latter.
By hiring an employed person, that frees up another position the unemployed person can fill.
Most likely one that is valuable.
I see no reason to give priority to possibly worse candidates.
I've been through (and passed) a 2-day assessment centre before, when applying for my first "proper" job. That included exercises designed to simulate the work I'd be doing on appointment - but there's always going to be a degree of artificiality around exercises like that.
It's hugely important to get recruitment right, as a wrong call can have consequences that last months or years. We've all seen cases of the alleged saviour of the universe who gets recruited, only to turn out to be a mediocre employee who trundles along just above the point at which it's worth getting rid of him. Set against that, a week long scrutiny process like this has some merits.
The obvious downside is that by definition, it's pretty much limiting the pool of applicants to those not already in employment. People already working full time will likely struggle to vanish for a full week, particularly if they have family committments that place demands on their vacation time.
Violation of labor laws. This is illegal. They have people doing full time work for less than minimum wage. The fact that they call it an "interview" is hardly a reasonable distinction. I hope the idiots involved suck a nice 6 or 7 digit fine for this.
They probably just call it an "internship."
Captcha: Pretend.
This happens in restaurants every day. Cooks work a few shifts for free prior to being hired. The French term is stagiare. The difference is cooks work for free to get minimum wage jobs.
1 week beachfront condo rental is compensation. As long as that is over minimum wage (~$300/wk at $7.35/hr), then it's probably legal.
Especially if its 1080 comped (food cable ect) so you don't have any expenses during that week. Still its slimy for them to do it this way.
Do they get script to spend at the company store too?
If this is how they treat you during the interview expect to be treated even worse once you get hired.
I read that as, Always keep several projects in a state of incompetence; I sure got that nailed down
Well obviously you would build a back door into the project that you can use to shut it down remotely if they don't hire you, right?
Putting someone up and buying them food doesn't also pay their mortgage, etc, so it sounds like a pretty crappy deal to me. I could totally see the desire to watch someone work and see how they do, but that's what contractors are for. You hire them, work them for a week or two, and if you don't like them, you make a phone call and they magically disappear. If you do like them, then you eventually hire them.
This just sounds shady to me.
If you think about it. If you are currently at a job, you can get vacation pay, for that week, you get to see if the company is really a good fir for you. Also the company sees if you are a good fit for it.
Now if the company just doesn't hire people. Then there is a problem. Because they just found a way to get free labor. However I don't see that the case because it is really hard to do a lot of real work the first week.
Yeah just what I want to use my vacation pay for. Screw that.
I can imagine a case where I would do this if the work was obviously contrived as a test. I'd have to be pretty desperate (Just to consider working on Ruby would require me to be very desperate, as long is it didn't involve mySQL it would still be better then starving.)
If they wanted me to do real coding on their real projects I would just take the weeks free rent/airfare/zero cost vacation and not do a lick of work. I wouldn't consider the interview done until the hiring manager threw a tantrum.
So I go into my boss' office and say "So I need a week off next week to go down to Florida and do the world's most insane interview. Do you mind?" I mean, it's not like this is the sort of thing you can plan for months in advance and come up with a reasonable reason that you need the week off. If I ask my boss for a week off next month without any details, he might go for it without questions, but next week? He'll want to know who died. This is ignoring the fact that I like to use my vacation time for... ya know... vacation?
Quite possible. xaoslaad didn't say that your friend had a fucked-up personality, just that it might not be a fit. If the company is full of assholes, and he's not an asshole, then he wouldn't be a good fit. There's a lot of companies like that. As the old saying goes, "birds of a feather flock together", and you frequently see this dynamic in workplaces. You go to one company and everyone's really friendly and great, and you go to another company and everyone has serious personality problems or is an asshole. The assholes don't stick around company #1 because they get fired, not hired in the first place, or don't like that their behavior isn't well-tolerated when they get called out on it. The decent people don't stick around company #2 because they don't like being around assholes and look for a new job ASAP, or they don't get hired because "they're not a team player".
I think Hashrocket invited him so he could solve a particularly nasty problem for them for free.
How do you know that they wanted to hire him in the first place? They probably just wanted some free workforce.
This does seem to be one of he best ways to vet potential employees out there. The best way to see whether someone is a good fit for your company is to see what they can do; see how they can work, rather than ask them questions that don't really have anything to do with what the company is doing.
I'm guessing that most companies aren't going to want to spend the time and money to vet employees this thoroughly, though. But for a small company, it can be well worth it.
Unless the company pays way above market rates, why would I go through this? I can understand if you're fresh out of college trying to prove yourself, but otherwise, I would skip it.
It's not like it's a prestigious company.
Of COURSE this process is good for the company. They get an entire week of work for the cost of a beachfront condo they probably usually let executives use for free.
For the applicant, it's a really lousy deal, especially if they are not currently unemployed.
37signals does something similar, just without the beachfront condo part. However, I believe they pay you as a contractor while they audition you.
It wasn't enough that the position I was interviewing for was for someone who got promoted out of it. And I knew him (but not that I was interviewing for his job, until I got there) we of course hit it off, but his boss was the one that needed convincing. I get showed around, described the job, I take some tests, where I ace them, save for the questions that were either asked poorly or the answers wrong (2 out of 20) and we all agreed I was an exact match, and even slightly over-qualified. We got this feeling early on, but they continued to grill me through the full battery of people and tests. After 6 hours (We get a1/2hr for lunch)
We finish up, call the recruiter it looks good... They elect not to make an offer because I would be too good for the job. never mind the pay was better, the location was better, the industry was better and it was a topic I was very interested in.
>> They elect not to make an offer because I would be too good for the job.
Amazing that they could say that with a straight face. More amazing is that you actually believed them.
Care to explain your comment more?
Some places don't like to hire overqualified people as they are afraid of them leaving or being demanding.
It is possible that someone along the way didn't like him as much as they say they did.
What other possibilities are you thinking of?
House MD season 4 was mostly an extended "interview" with a crowd of medical folks.
I would have thought that this was FICTIONAL. (and at least DR House was decent enough to PAY them (until they got hit with ROW D YOUR FIRED!)).
I had an interview for an out of city employer. It resulted in me being given a PAID two week contract to see if I'm worth hiring. I forget what it was I made, but I was paid $2000.
that $2000 was part of my moving expenses if I was hired, and if I was not, I still got $2000, because I signed a contract stating if I finished the work on time, I get $2000.
This seemed like a good way to do things and benefits both the company and myself. I get money, company gets proof I can not only code, but be professional (meetings on time, meeting deadlines, etc).
I did this with a local startup. I gave them a discounted rate hourly on a small (40-60) hour project they needed done in the hope that they might offer me full time employment when they could. Ultimately they did because they saw that my work was good and I was responsive to their needs and creative enough to suggest solutions to design problems. It worked out pretty well for me.
...perpetual "working" interviews.
Never hire anyone, of course, so you never pay for salaries, FICA, health care, vacation, paycheck distribution...
Next step: require that the interviewee simply telecommute in with their own computer. Now you don't even have to worry about covering transportation costs, desk space, office supplies...
Genius, I tell ya. Evil genius, of course. But still.
A week is nothing. When I went for the Marines, it turned out that the interview process was 3 months!!
Remember that most of your stuff was cobbled together in a week by code monkeys of unknown skills and quality then passed on to the next code monkeys who never saw any of that stuff before.
Vitamin C deficiency is apauling.


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HOWELL, Mich. - - A man suspected in a shooting spree that targeted motorists along the Interstate 96 corridor in four southeast Michigan counties is facing fresh charges, including terrorism.
Forty-three-year-old Raulie Casteel, of Wixom, appeared on a video link during a brief arraignment hearing Thursday afternoon in Livingston County's 53rd District Court in Howell.
Casteel waived his right to a hearing within 14 days on whether there's enough evidence to try him. Authorities are awaiting the results of a mental competency examination.
The charges filed last week came after Attorney General Bill Schuette took over the cases at local prosecutors' request. Casteel still faces separate charges in Oakland County.
Defense attorney Charles Groh says the fresh charges are nothing new and are based on allegations already made by authorities in Livingston County.


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Bulls star Derrick Rose says he believes the organization is trying to win a championship.
Rose, who's recovering from a torn ACL in his left knee, says in a statement that management's goals "have been the same as mine and that is to bring another championship to this city."
His comment comes after older brother Reggie ripped the Bulls, telling ESPNChicago.com they don't have the talent to compete for a championship and that their decision to stand pat before Thursday's trade deadline could be a "big factor" in whether Derrick returns this season from a knee injury.
Reggie Rose, who insisted he was speaking for himself, wondered why the Bulls made no moves when "all roads to the championship lead through Miami."


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No exceptions to Gothenburg's fireworks rule
City council denies request for neighborhood display
Each summer, a group of neighbors gather for a block party.
This year, the group requested special permission for a fireworks display during their annual party on Saturday, July 6—two days after the Independence Day holiday.
At the June 18 meeting of the Gothenburg City Council, Don Graham approached the council and said the neighbors would like to shoot off fireworks for about an hour after dark.
Several neighbors, in the Avenue G area generally between 17th and 20th St., attended the meeting to support Graham.
Police chief Randy Olson said the council couldn't take action on the request because city ordinance forbids the discharge of fireworks after 11:59 a.m. on July 4.
Fireworks can be ignited beginning June 25, from 10 a.m.-11 p.m., until just before midnight on July 4.
Asked why fireworks are discharged after the Firemen's Ball in early June, Olson said he discusses the violation with fire chief Mark Ballmer every year.
"It's illegal and no one can do it," Olson said.
City ordinance states that anyone violating the law can be charged with a misdemeanor and, if guilty, could be fined not less than $35 or more than $500.
Rita Thomalla asked if fireworks could be discharged outside city limits after July 4.
Olson said he didn't know the law in Dawson County concerning fireworks.
On another matter, the council granted permission for the annual Farmer's Market to move from downtown to the east side of Ehmen Park.
Vendor Jody Carlson said the area for the market now, on 10th Street between Lake Avenue and Avenue F, is often hot between 4:30 and 6:30 p.m. when produce, baked goods and other items are sold.
"There are tall brick buildings and pavement that bake," Carlson said, noting that wind also tunnels through the area.
She said several older customers don't attend the market because of the heat, noting that the park with its trees and grass is cooler.
"This idea originated from customers," Carlson said.
In Ehmen Park, vendors would park their vehicles along Avenue F and set up tables on the grass between the sidewalk and curb.
Carlson's daughter, Jailyn Strasburg, who sells baked goods and other items with her mother, said the ambience of the park is inviting.
"For people in my age group, it's more stroller friendly and has a playground and rest rooms and better parking," Strasburg said.
The market is July 11 through Sept. 26.
Students return to class in August and the market would be along the school route, said council member Tim Strauser.
Gothenburg Chamber of Commerce director Anne Anderson said other things could be planned in the park during the market like kids' games.
Initially, Anderson said the Farmer's Market was a retail committee project to bring people downtown but noted that many businesses close at 5 p.m.
"Our request is to try and see how it works and if it doesn't, we'll address it," she said.
As long as Avenue F isn't closed for the market and vendors and customers stay out of the street, Olson said he and Ballmer have no objections.
However Olson did note that Avenue F is a high traffic area where vehicles often travel faster than they should.
Another concern was blockage of Avenue F intersections by vendor vehicles and campers.
Anderson said the manager in charge of the market would tell vendors where to park.
Pedestrian crosswalk signs, asking motorists to yield, will be provided by the city.
In other action, the council gave Gary Mroczek the go-ahead to place a temporary building on city right of way across the street north of Pony Express Chevrolet.
The 24 x 60-foot building will be placed on Fifth Street next to China Red restaurant and will serve as office space.
Mroczek, who owns the business with wife Deb Mroczek, requested placement of the building while the car dealership is remodeled.
City ordinance allows temporary structures incidental to construction work but only for the period of work which Mroczek estimated would be six months.
If Mroczek receives permission to cut down a tree from China Red owners, the building will be placed closer to a power pole to the west and farther from Lake Avenue.
Otherwise, Mroczek said he'll place concrete barricades around the structure that would jut halfway into the street.
Because Fifth Street is not heavily traveled, Olson said he has no problem with the request, adding that half of the street by the building could be closed if needed.
Mroczek said he hopes construction can begin around July 1.
The council also passed an ordinance on first reading dealing with contiguous lot agreements.
The proposal states that all or part of adjoining lots or parcels owned together cannot be split to be sold.
Cty clerk Connie Dalrymple said Monday that if someone wants to build onto their house, without violating city setback requirements, they can buy an adjoining lot and do it but both lots then become one parcel and must be sold that way.
"It's for aesthetics and fire protection," she said.
At the meeting, Dalrymple said she'd add the notation to building permits.
Building permits are also on county records and would include the ordinance.
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This paper provides a solid overview of value-added taxes (VAT) and how they differ from traditional sales taxes. It provides valuable details on which countries offer VAT refunds for expenditures and travel expenses- and discusses the often-confusing VAT refund process (which varies by country). Without the international tax code and refund process knowledge (which varies by country), it can be very frustrating and laborious for businesses to attempt to pursue their VAT refunds. To avoid forfeiting their refunds, more and more businesses are looking to VAT refund services firms to greatly simplify what is normally a very complex, tedious and time consuming process. But selecting the right VAT refund recovery service firm is an important decision. To assist in your decision, this paper provides an important checklist that can be used to help select a VAT refund services firm to help you retrieve your VAT refunds-reducing your operational costs and increasing your bottom line.
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MONTREAL - Read the book, see the movie, although probably not in that order. Then go to the opera of Dead Man Walking, as presented at Place des Arts by the Opéra de Montréal.
The dynamic is far from unprecedented. Madama Butterfly was a sentimental novella by John Luther Long and Broadway play by David Belasco before Puccini immortalized it. And yes, there was a movie, in 1915, silent and starring Mary Pickford.
Only two years passed between the staging in Paris in 1784 of Pierre Beaumarchais's La Folle Journée, ou Le Mariage de Figaro and the première in Vienna of the first collaboration between Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte, Le Nozze di Figaro. The Beaumarchais has retained its place in the repertoire: Witness the 2009 production by Théâtre du Nouveau Monde.
Dead Man Walking, with music by Jake Heggie and words by Terrence McNally, was preceded by a memoir of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean, and a 1995 movie written and directed by Tim Robbins. The opera was commissioned by the San Francisco Opera and first performed in 2000. Then the title hit for the cycle, becoming a play, mostly for didactic school use, in 2002.
Contemporary operas can be one-time-only phenoms. Dead Man has got around. The performance Saturday at PdA is not even the Canadian première: the Calgary Opera gave it in 2006 in a new production. This company is distinctly Heggie-friendly, having presented his adaptation of Moby Dick last season, with Ben Heppner as Captain Ahab.
But back to Dead Man. The 2006 Calgary production is essentially the one to be seen in Montreal, via its current proprietor, the Fort Worth Opera Festival. Rather unusually, this company makes rental fees and other logistical information accessible on its website. Four performances: $18,000. Number and size of vans: two 53-foot trucks (including props and costumes). Estimated loading costs: $1,500.
Entirely new will be the surtitles in French. Opera philologists will doubtless watch the screen with interest as McNally's occasional F-bombs ignite, notably in Scene 5, called The Walk Through Death Row. "Woman on the tier," cry the inmates as Sister Helen (Allyson McHardy) arrives to meet the convicted rapist and murderer Joseph De Rocher (Etienne Dupuis). "Hey, pretty lady, got a kiss for me?" asks one. "Show some respect — she's an effin' nun," says another.
I know this not because I have a copy of the McNally libretto, but thanks to a Virgin Classics recording based on a live performance at the Houston Grand Opera. The two-disc set also reveals Heggie's idiom to be post-Bernstein tonal and bar-by-bar dramatic, with several interventions of the Southern musical vernacular. Act 1 (following the rape and murder, which is consigned to the Prologue) opens with a solo rendition by Sister Helen of the hymn He Will Gather Us Around. Spoiler rules forbid further information on the use of this leitmotif, original to Heggie despite its strong resemblance to other hymn tunes and spirituals.
The recording has a star, the mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, as Sister Helen. One of the supporting roles, Sister Rose, is taken by Measha Brueggergosman. Quite by coincidence, the Canadian soprano is in town this weekend to sing Berlioz's Les Nuits d'été Sunday afternoon with the OSM under Bramwell Tovey. Sister Rose for the OdM is Chantale Nurse, while Kimberly Barber plays Mrs. Patrick De Rocher, mother of the title character. Alain Coulombe is George Benton, the warden, and John Mac Master is Father Grenville.
Dead Man Walking plays Saturday, Tuesday, Thursday and March 16 at 7:30 p.m. at Salle Wilfrid Pelletier of Place des Arts. For more information, visit www.operademontreal.com; to reserve, call 514-842-2112 or visit pda.qc.ca.
- - -
There is another vocal show in English with some Christian content coming: Theodora, Handel's penultimate oratorio and possibly the one with his favourite chorus. Les Violons du Roy will perform this at the Maison symphonique on May 25 under Bernard Labadie.
Labadie and his Quebec City ensemble have just announced their 2013-2014 season. They will give us more Handel on Oct. 12 with the assistance of the American mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, recently heard as Fricka in Wagner's Ring at the Metropolitan Opera. Haydn is the subject on Nov. 16 as La Chapelle de Québec and a strong quartet of soloists deal with a program including the Theresienmesse.
Back to Handel on March 22, 2014 and what the orchestra reasonably calls "the dynamite duo of Marie-Nicole Lemieux and Karina Gauvin" in the oratorio Solomon. Lemieux takes the title role — wisely, we hope — and Gauvin plays the Queen of Sheba.
These performances are at the Maison symphonique, as is a non-series presentation on Dec. 20 and 21 featuring the French name-brand soprano Natalie Dessay singing the music of Michel Legrand. There are also smaller-scale concerts in Bourgie Hall.
For more information, visit www.violonsduroy.com.


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I didn't see much chatter on it, so forgive if it's in another thread... But!:
We take the best closer in baseball, lights out stuff, huge streaks of 0.00 WHIP let alone ERA, can come in for an inning maybe a tad more multiple days in a row and really let her loose 100+ mph. A role he really got comfortable with, and played huge dividends for this team.
Now we ask him to move into the rotation - where by the way we are already pretty darn solid, were it not for a doubleheader, we never had to use a 6th starter all year, had 5 guys not miss a start, really found themselves, especially Homer Bailey - where he will have to change his routine, adjust to going every fifth day, will undoubtedly have to cut back on his mph, add another pitch or two, and have to watch his innings as he transitions, already having fatigue last year. Some on here won't call anyone an "Ace" until he can get to 200+ IP, so expectations will be extremely high, and at the first hint of struggles, fan(atical)s will be voicing their opinions - luckily the mass majority if which don't speak Spanish, but "booo!" is universal.
One could argue we are considerably downgrading one very important aspect of our team - a proven lights out closer/bullpen - for a prospective chance at a possible upgrade to our SP, which last time l checked was already very very good. The downside to taking him out of the bullpen is known; the upside to SP is not, and wrought with obstacles.
Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2


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There are two parts to every conversation: talking and listening. With social media, the former gets most of the attention, while the latter is really the secret to success.
Social listening is the process of monitoring social streams for content and comments relative to a specific topic of interest. It is essential to engagement with the right people, as opposed to random conversation with whoever happens by.
For B2B brands, social listening is a powerful tool to understand markets, trends and competitive issues – all factors that inform decisions about positioning and brand strategy. This is also a tool that is drastically underutilized, with recent research by Satmetrix showing that 67% of businesses have no social listening system in place.
Continue Reading ...


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Heroes & Hearts Lunch sets record
Published 8:32 pm, Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Big bucks and beating hearts were center stage on Valentine's Day at the World Series champs' ballpark where the 8th Heroes & Hearts Lunch hit a record $1.6 million homer in support of the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation.
Welcoming 1,000 supporters, who, since the inaugural event, have raised a total of $10 mil, SFGH Foundation Director Stephanie Bray simply stated the importance of the city's only Level 1 Trauma hospital and research campus: "From day-to-day care to traumatic injuries, the General saves lives."
Among the sweethearts: Giants President Larry Baer; SFGH trauma surgeon Dr. Andre Campbell; Ellen Magnin Newman and her son, John Newman; Mayor Ed Lee; SFFD Chief Joanne Hayes-White; SFPD Chief Greg Suhr; SFGH CEO Sue Currin; SFGHF board president Matthew Carbone and board members including Priscilla Geeslin, Patrick Smith, Philip Schlein and Dr. Geoff Manley, SFGH chief of neurosurgery; Rich Guggenhime; City Attorney Dennis Herrera; Giants Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda; HOPE Director Bevan Dufty; Protocol Chief Charlotte Shultz; Lisa Goldman; Janet and Peter Osborne; Dr. Jennifer Brokaw; OJ Shansby; Lucinda Crocker; Julie Newhall; Cynthia Woods; Paul Pelosi; Gina Moscone and Jennifer Newsom.
The program also paid loving tribute to the late Walter Newman, a foundation board member whose vision guided the hospital.
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- Hijo de Jenni Rivera estalla ante ataque homofóbicos People en Español
Organized by co-chairs Lisa Hauswirth and Marc Baluda, this heartfelt effort was conceived by Ellen Newman and Nancy Bechtle and held at AT&T Park. They then passed the baton to foundation board members Pam Baer and Judy Guggenhime, who established the luncheon, long held at Union Square Park.
A long list of sponsors (including Wells Fargo, Chevron, Union Bank) have loyally supported the fundraiser for this city's safety-net, which serves 1,500 patients daily.
"When Pam Baer asks you to help, you just don't say, 'No,' " joked VISA exec Nathan Nayman. "Larry, she's much tougher than you!"
The event features an auction of fantastical heart-shaped sculptures and honors the lifesaving work of local heroes.
S.F. General oncology social workers Carol Lam and Rachel Orkand were lauded for their crucial, and tender, care of cancer patients and their families. SFPD Officers John Cathey and David Sands, members of the Mission Station's Gang Enforcement Task Force, were recognized for the outreach program they founded to assist young men break the cycle of violence by securing jobs.
And Dr. Rochelle Dicker, an S.F. General trauma surgeon, shared her praise for founding the hospital's trauma center Wraparound Project, which seeks to close the revolving door of recurrence for victims of violent injuries.
So her case manager colleagues, Javier Antezana, Ruben Marquez and Michael Texada, joined her onstage because with their assistance, and knowledge of urban violence, she hopes that her job of treating victims of violent crimes might one day be obsolete.
However, obsolescence is not part of the General's future plans.
Lee could barely contain his enthusiasm for the hospital's Potrero Hill rebuild, an $887 mil, nine-story, 453,000-square-foot, 284-bed acute-care center with expanded services such as a 60-bed emergency department and 14 operating rooms.
"The General's rebuild has provided 3,000 jobs, 30 percent of which went to San Franciscans. When it opens in 2015, the new General will be on time and on budget," he enthused. "Nobody's got it better than us in San Francisco."
Recognizing the day's significance, Orkand urged guests to open their hearts.
"It's an amazing thing for us in the oncology department because we touch the life of someone every day," she said. "And I encourage everyone to be thankful for their health and the joy in their lives."
Catherine Bigelow is The San Francisco Chronicle's society correspondent. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


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Iconic singer/songwriter Neil Young has announced that he will follow up his four-show stand at Carnegie Hall early next year with four more aimed at clamping down on oil pipelines and production in his native Canada.
Dubbed the "Honor The Treaties" concerts, Young says that the shows slated for Toronto (Jan. 12), Winnipeg (Jan. 16), Regina (Jan. 17) and Calgary (Jan. 19) will help to raise legal defense funds for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) in upholding Treaty 8—the last and largest land agreement between First Nations and the government of Canada aimed at protecting the people of the land from oil companies and others "obstructing their traditional lands and rights."
Tix are onsale now at livenation.com and limited to four per person.
Shamu you: In other news, even the most casual observers of the SeaWorld Orlando website (http://seaworldparks.com/en/seaworld-orlando) may have noticed something decidedly fishy going on with the park's planned Bands, Brews and BBQ series. It started with the snowballing losses of what would appear to be the most important "B" in the equation—bands cancelling one after another. It culminated with all dates and acts for said series summarily yanked from the website entirely.
While SeaWorld initially claimed that Willie Nelson's performance was nixed due to "scheduling conflicts," the 80-year-old crooner went on CNN the following day to set the record straight.
"I don't agree with the way they treat their animals," he explained, referring to the fact that—like many since its July, 2013 release—he had viewed some of the grisly footage in the controversial documentary Blackfish. "It wasn't a hard deal for me."
Canadian rockers Barenaked Ladies followed suit in a much more direct fashion.
"We watch movies too, ya know!" the band declared in a joint statement. "This is a complicated issue, and we don't claim to understand all of it, but we don't feel comfortable proceeding with the gig at this time."
Next up, "Barracuda" creators Heart pulled the plug on their SeaWorld show, explaining to fans via their website, "The SeaWorld show was planned long ago. Had we known, we would have said 'No' then. We said No today. Love you all."
And although Joan Jett was never even on the "Brew" bill as a performer, the veteran rocker has also now chimed in after learning that her anthemic "I Love Rock And Roll" is the official entrance song for the Shamu show.
"I'm among the millions who saw Blackfish and am sickened that my music was blasted without my permission at sound-sensitive marine mammals," Jett wrote in a letter to SeaWorld President Jim Atchinson. "These intelligent and feeling creatures communicate by sonar and are driven crazy in the tiny tanks in which they are confined."
Closer to home, singer/six-stringer Bill Kirchen rides into town Friday, Dec. 19 with his Honky Tonk Holiday Show—and new CD, Seeds and Stems—in tow. Best known for his work with Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen, Kirchen says his latest sonic labor of love could have just as easily been dubbed "Why I Love This Job," as he got to "write and co-write most of the songs, sing 'em, play a whole mess of guitar and record with some of [his] favorite musicians on the planet."
Tix are $15 in advance, $18 at the door for this 7 p.m. Iron Horse show. Rocky Roberts & Friends get the opening nod.
The following evening, Dec. 20, Signature Sounds and The River 93.9 present Joan Holliday's Holiday Hootenanny, featuring the Sweetback Sisters, at Northampton's Academy of Music. For tix, times and more info, kindly point your browser to academyofmusictheatre.com.
Send correspondence to Nightcrawler, P.O. Box 427, Somers, CT 06071; fax to (860) 394-4262 or email email@example.com.


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Quad Arenacross [01:32]
This is me whoopin ass in spring creek at the horse palace, i am racing a 1988 honda 250r and my components are all 450r's 2006 and newer. tell me what all you think.
Tags: win, first, place, race, horse, palace, troy, barker, honda, 250r, trx, jump, crash, banshee, 450, yfz, best, pwned, owned, wheelie, tabletop, double, smoked, ATV, quad, yfzr, arena, cross, arenacross, elko, spring, creek, nevada, nv, 450r, can, canam, am


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Dr. Nathalie Prime (Professor, Marketing Area, ESCP Europe)
Managerial Context
Marketing abroad involves expanding corporate activities in a complex multicultural environment. More specifically, international marketers must manage two different sources of cultural diversity:
External diversity: marketing managers are faced with numerous obvious and less obvious effects of cultural determinants on buying and consumption processes (who buys? what? where? how? why?), as well as with the cultural traits characteristic of doing business with foreign partners (negotiation and relationship management with suppliers, distributors, and others) in a variety of entry strategy contexts (greenfield, mergers-acquisitions, international joint-ventures…);
Internal diversity: marketing managers working in the different subsidiaries of multinational companies have to cooperate with teams operating in different countries on key issues ranging from strategic marketing decision making to the implementation and execution of specific marketing programs. Departments are increasingly multicultural, especially in Europe, but also more generally in world companies located in the Triad economies and more and more in Emerging economies. Organizational issues are numerous (management styles, corporate identity, information systems, HRM…) and are reinforced by market forces concentration in most sectors, in most countries.
Within this managerial context, knowledge of cultural variations in management can make international managers more effective when dealing with customers, suppliers, subordinates, colleagues and negotiation partners in foreign countries. It may also help decision makers react better to any ethical, political, social or economic issues that arise in the international operations of their companies.
The basic assumption of this course is that globalization does not mean standardization. Most of us will keep their homebase, their origins and roots, that is, we will keep our local identity while belonging to the global community. Besides, diversity and differences in the global villages are key assets for companies as well as for consumers. Cultural diversity increases the range of alternatives available to us in order to deal with complex problems.
Therefore, International Marketing and Comparative Management should not focus on making the world of companies and consumers increasingly similar and standardized. Instead, understanding and making the most out of international diversity in consumer behaviour and in business and management practices becomes the core issue for international marketers to succeed on foreign markets in a globalizing world. Thus the following objectives:
- To emphasize the key influence of culture when making and implementing decisions for expanding on international markets
- To enhance intercultural competences in the understanding of diversity in world markets and in local consumer knowledge and marketing practices:
intercultural sensitivity
intercultural communication
- To illustrate intercultural marketing approaches in a variety of business settings (international marketing decision, country, industry)
- To sensitize to the specifics of intercultural marketing to the context of Bottom of Pyramid (BOP) markets
Learning Methods
This is essentially a case discussion based course. Participants are expected to read all the cases to develop deeper appreciation of issues given in the case before they come to the class with their analyses, and decisions.
In addition, they will be asked to prepare the oral presentation of ONE case study (work to be done in group).
Evaluation and Grading
Evaluation of the participants will be based on the following components and the weights assigned for each component as indicated.
- Class Participation and Contribution to class learning: 50%
- Case study Oral Presentation: 50% (A copy of the slides including comments will be handed out to the instructor before the presentation)
Each group is asked to make an oral presentation for 30 minutes, delivering a solution to the case questions for the case it's been
assigned to.
There will be five groups, each assigned to one case study:
1 - Unilever in Brazil
2 - Bollywood in the West
3 - Fast Food, Halal or Haram?
4 - AIDS: Global Ethics and the Pricing of AIDS Drugs?
5 - The Virtual Beehive
To be read before the seminar:
N. Prime (2002), « Cultural Unity within Diversity: Universal Dimensions of Value Orientations and their Application to Cross-Cultural Marketing", in Cross-Cultural Marketing, S. Nwankwo & R. Rugimbana (eds.), Thomson, pp. 3-24.
A selection of focused articles relating to specific Intercultural Marketing Management issues will be distributed to consolidate participants' learning after the seminar.
Related Textbooks
J-C. Usunier and J. Lee (2008), Marketing Across Cultures (5th Edition), Prentice Hall.
S. Nwankwo and R. Rugimbana (eds.) (2002), Cross-Cultural Marketing, Thomson.
In French:
N. Prime et J-C. Usunier (2004), Marketing international: Développement des marchés et management multiculturel, (2ème édition), Editions Vuibert.
Profile of the instructor
Dr. Nathalie Prime, Professor of International Business and Cross-Cultural Management, ESCP-EAP (European School of Management)
Born in Gabon and benefiting from a multicultural family background, Nathalie Prime is Associate Professor at ESCP-EAP (European School of Management). She holds a Doctorate in Business Administration (International Marketing major) from the University of Grenoble and the French qualification for Ph.D supervision (HDR).
Her teaching and research is focused in four main areas: managing and working across cultures, intercultural business negotiation, international marketing and strategies for business internationalization. Her industry work notably concerns the automotive and the retailing and distribution sectors. Her geographical and cultural areas of interests are the fast growing economies, especially in South Asia, Africa and the Middle-East. Her current research projects deal with psycho-cultural distance in export performance, with the modernization of retailing in emerging markets and with the customers'/managers' acculturation processes in a globalizing world.
Her publications include several articles and international academic communications. A book in collaboration with Jean-Claude Usunier, «Marketing International, Développement des Marchés et Management Multiculturel » (2nd edition, Editions Vuibert, Paris), was granted with the prize from the Académie des sciences commerciales 2004.
Professor Prime has taught in India, Algeria, Morroco, Vietnam, South Africa, Senegal, Madagascar, Lebanon, Italy, Russia, Slovenia and Barhain. She was also in charge of managing several international programs at ESCP-EAP and abroad, among which the Joint Management Development Program in South Africa, and the Specialized Master in International Project Management at ESCP-EAP during 11 years.
She is currently the co-academic advisor of the Specialization courses in International Business and Project Development at ESCP-EAP. Over the last 10 years, she has developed extensive teaching and research links with the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA), in India.


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Penn Gillette, the talkative member of the illusionist duo Penn & Teller, has been working the interview circuit since the publication of his book, "Every Day Is an Atheist's Holiday!"
Penn Gillette, the talkative member of the illusionist duo Penn & Teller, has been working the interview circuit since the publication of his book, "Every Day Is an Atheist's Holiday!" Mr. Gillette is well known for ridiculing certain aspects of the Christian faith, but when it comes to religious holidays, he gets serious. He says, "I would love to take the Christ out of Christmas. I mean, I would love that."
He is not the only celebrity who would like to take religion — Christianity, in particular — out of the holidays. When asked about Christmas in a Today Show segment, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, chief medical editor for NBC News, told her colleagues, "I don't like the religion part. I think religion is what mucks the whole thing up."
I think I understand what Dr. Snyderman and Mr. Gillette are saying. They like Christmastime. It is a beautiful season. It's a time when people are happier and more generous than usual, when even military hawks talk wistfully about peace on earth. They like Christmas, and they don't want to feel excluded from its festivities because they are non-Christians.
I can sympathize with Mr. Gillette's reaction to the rhetoric of Bill O'Reilly and others about the war on Christmas (or on Christians) but, rhetoric aside, it seems to me that he misstates the case. He implies that Christians are doing something wrong - that they are intentionally excluding him and others from the holidays - by greeting them with a "Merry Christmas!"
But the truth is that, however one phrases it, Christmas is a Christian holiday — a holy day for the Church and not just a holiday for the nation. The birth of Jesus was celebrated long before the United States formed a better and more perfect union, before Columbus discovered America or Leif Erickson ever sailed west.
It is understandably difficult for Christians to be asked by their employers to refrain from saying, "Merry Christmas." Would you ask a Jew to replace "Happy Hanukah" with "Season's Greetings" or a Muslim to say, "Happy Holidays" rather than "Blessed Eid"?
One might argue, though, that the Christian holidays - Christmas, Easter, Halloween (the eve of All Saints Day) and even Saint Patrick's Day - have become national holidays. But is that a reason to forget their long history or wrest them from their religious context?
More than that, one should ask why these particular holidays became so popular in the first place. The cynic will answer that Madison Avenue had a hand in it, and he would be right. But long before Madison Avenue, people were celebrating these holidays. They were happier and more generous than usual on Christmas Day. They sincerely hoped for, and occasionally acted in the spirit of, peace on earth. Christmas and Easter and Halloween are special not in spite of their religious associations, but because of them.
If atheists want to celebrate a non-religious holiday at the same time as Christmas or Easter, what's stopping them? If Mr. Gillette wants to encourage people to celebrate Christopher Hitchens Day (Hitchens is the recently deceased atheist writer who had such an impact on him), more power to him. I'll wish him a Happy Christopher Hitchens' Day, with all good will.
But imagine how Mr. Gillette would respond if Christians started a drive to say "God bless you" to all the people one meets on Christopher Hitchens Day? Imagine further they petitioned Wal-Mart, Walgreens and other retailers to instruct their associates to greet people with a "God bless you" on Christopher Hitchens Day, so that Christians wouldn't feel excluded.
To do so would be to misrepresent Christopher Hitchens and to dishonor his memory, and I'm pretty sure that Mr. Gillette would object — as he should. Similarly, I would never insist that Mr. Gillette wish me a "Merry Christmas." If "Happy Holidays" is the best he can do, I'll accept it with gratitude. But if I say, "Merry Christmas," I hope he'll accept it in the same spirit.


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Arts & Culture at SUNY Plattsburgh
SUNY Plattsburgh serves as a cultural center for the creative and performing arts in northern New York and the Champlain Valley region.
Fine Arts
The Plattsburgh Art Museum is comprised of over 5,000 historic and contemporary works of art, representing a variety of western and non-western cultures from antique to contemporary.
The collections are displayed within our main galleries, a developing sculpture park and exhibition areas throughout campus in our Museum Without Walls Program, many contributed by students on our art program.
The Art Museum is complemented by a strong print library and film and video collection.
The music scene in Plattsburgh is diverse and varied. Students can choose from a wide range of courses that include jazz, world music, and Western classical traditions.
Additionally, More than 30 annual performances feature student ensembles, guest artists, and student/faculty recitals.
Students in interested in our music program - as well as non-music major that love music - are encouraged to participate in on-campus programs such as Cardinal Singers, College Chorale, Jazz Ensemble, Sinfonia and Symphonic Band.
Plattsburgh State is home to a thriving theatre community.
Students interested in the performing arts can explore opportunities in acting, production, technical production and many other aspects of Theatre.
Students are provided opportunities to acquire hands-on experience through the many student-run productions that are hosted on campus and under the direction of the Theatre Department.
Regional Arts and Cultural Activities
In addition to the opportunities that exist on campus, members of the campus community take advantage of our proximity to Burlington, Lake Placid, and Montreal which are less than an hour away from campus. Our central location provides easy access to many regional highlights.
Also, be sure and check out our student run online magazine All Points North - it explores life and the Arts in the North Country


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Want to record your mobile calls? Get bored with pressing the buildin record button every time you want to record on your mobile? WM Sound Recorderl is an easy-to-use application which could auto record sound and phone calls in Windows Mobile Pocket PC. And it also can play the record file so that you can check if the record fits you. In addition, you may distribute your recorded files easily with it. Recording and playing audio on phone has never been so easy with WM Sound Recorder!
Free download here:freedownload
The following is a step-by-step tutorial for operation.
Step 1: Download WM Sound Recorder here, unzip the file you downloaded and copy the installation file (sound_recorder_for_wm6.CAB) to your mobile device.
Note that the software is working on the platform Window Mobile 5 and 6+.
Step 2: On your device, navigate to the location of the installation file using File Explorer, and click the file to start installation. You can install it either on your device or on the storage card.
Step 3: Click Start and select Programs after installation, you will find the WM Sound Recorder is already in your phone.
Learn to record calls and customize your recording
The following is the main window of WM Sound Recorder interface.
Step 4 : Click the "record" button (red) to record. As the "record" button turns blue, it starts recording. To stop recording, you can click the "record" button.
Step 5 :To listen to the recording file, you can click the "play" button, and to stop playing, you can click the "stop" button.
The above is the common functions of the software. Yet there are some important features of WM Screen Recorder to be explored.
Step 6: Click the Action at the bottom.
You can click files to make operations to the recorded files.
You can click options to set the Input format of the file as MP3 or WAV and their quality; or you can set the directory of your recording files. Besides, You can choose to record calls of next, todays and all calls.
Note that the default setting is Do not record any call. ONLY you change the setting to other options (eg. Record next call) can your mobile phone automatically record your mobile phones.
Free Downloador go to WM Sound Recorder Homepageto know more.


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The ORIGINAL gathering place for a merry band of Three Percenters. (As denounced by Bill Clinton on CNN!)
Thursday, January 12, 2012
4 comments:
Resistance to Tyranny, Dr. Joseph P. Martino, Chapter 3, Pg 57, paragraph 3, "...government may deliberately fail to supress crime, letting it fester instead, the use the crime level as justification for placing restrictions on ownership of weapons, disarming honest citizens, and requiring extensive controls on movement and travel. Beware when the government starts claiming the need for addtional powers to "fight crime." (Emphasis added.)
Kinda makes ya think the ole Doc's book is right on the money.....don't it?
- January 12, 2012 at 2:49 PM
This ought not come as a surprise. Considering the Federal presence w/ TSA on the ground and VIPR Teams involved in local "checkpoints."
- January 12, 2012 at 10:07 PM
- MamaLiberty said...
The first problem, obviously, was the surrender of INDIVIDUAL sovereignty to the "local" politicians. Nothing good will happen until individuals take back ownership and responsibility for their own lives.
Any real difference between city, county, state and federal government is vanishingly small.
- January 13, 2012 at 1:41 PM
Our "federal" govt is trying hard to become a full-blown, no-limits national govt.
It needs to be crammed back into its Constitutional prison and then kneecapped so it can't get too far next time it escapes.
- January 13, 2012 at 10:50 PM


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NORMAN, Okla. -- The Oklahoma men's basketball team claimed a 88-76 victory against Oklahoma Christian in its final preseason exhibition game of the season Monday night at historic McCasland Field House.
Buddy Hield led the way for the Sooners, finishing with 29 points -- 19 coming in the second half -- on 10-of-13 shooting. The sophomore went 5-of-7 from 3-point range and added five assists.
Also scoring in double digits for OU were freshman Jordan Woodard, sophomore Je'lon Hornbeak and sophomore Ryan Spangler. Woodard finished with 17 points (with the help of 3-for-5 3-point shooting), six assists, five rebounds and two blocks while committing just one turnover in 33 minutes. Hornbeak contributed 12 points, four assists and four steals, while Spangler scored 11 points and grabbed a game-high seven rebounds.
OU made 11 of its 25 (44.0 percent) 3-point attempts in the game and shot 50.0 percent overall (31-for-62). The Sooners also went 15-for-20 from the free throw line (75.0 percent).
Trailing 41-38 at halftime after a back-and-forth first half, OU outscored the Eagles 19-8 over the first 4:16 of the second half to go on top, 57-49. Another 10-0 run put the Sooners ahead 75-56 with 10:19 remaining and they cruised to the 12-point win.
OU started the second half 7-for-7 from the field, with four of the baskets coming from 3-point range.
"It was a really good game for us," said OU head coach Lon Kruger. "Obviously, the first half Oklahoma Christian did a terrific job. Dan Hays is a great coach and has won a lot of ball games in his life. They controlled the pace and tempo and did a fantastic job and we didn't affect that very much.
"We came out with much better energy and much more activity in the second half. We dictated it a lot more on both ends of the floor. It was really good. That's why you play these games -- to get some game experience and to get some things you don't see in practice every day. I thought our guys responded really well to it and made good plays for each other in the second half."
Senior Tyler Neal added nine points for OU, while senior Cameron Clark totaled six points and five boards.
"We just need to pick it up early," said Hield of OU's slow start. "We can't wait until the second half to jump on teams. We started off sluggish but we got our team ready and we got our mojo back together and we kept going afterwards."
Guard Willie Harper was 9-for-17 from the field and scored a team-high 24 points for the Eagles, while backcourt mate Nick Tate added 18 before fouling out. Senior point guard Kendre Talley finished with 16 points and six assists.
The game was part of the Field House Series, which saw two games played in the building last season. McCasland served as home to the Sooners from 1928 through 1975.
The Sooners will start the regular season Friday at 4 p.m. as they travel to Dallas, Texas, to face Alabama inside American Airlines Center as part of the Boots and Buckets Showcase.


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Numbers may not lie, but they don't always tell the whole story, either.
When former City Commissioner Charlie Hales finished first in May's mayoral primary, he seemed to be sitting in a strong position.
He finished with 37 percent of the vote, ahead of his closest competitor, state Rep. Jefferson Smith (D-East Portland), who finished with just shy of 33 percent.
But WW's analysis of the primary vote shows Hales' first-place finish leaves him without any meaningful electoral advantage for his fall runoff with Smith.
And it all has to do with those who didn't bother to vote in May but who will probably find a stamp for their ballot by November.
The precincts Hales won had higher-than-average turnouts. Smith's strongest precincts had lower turnouts—but tend to vote more heavily in fall elections.
The analysis suggests Smith will have a hard time continuing to credibly play the underdog—a role that seems to have served him well so far.
The primary electoral terrain shows a clear divide. Hales won every precinct west of the Willamette River, and the higher-income neighborhoods of Laurelhurst, Irvington and Alameda. Smith won a large swath of his eastside turf.
"If you look at the upper-income areas, Hales carried those," says Portland pollster Tim Hibbitts, a partner in DHM Research. "It had something more to do with socioeconomic status and less to do with east-west."
Hibbitts says upper-income voters tend to turn out more reliably in primaries. That would explain the higher turnout in precincts Hales won (45 percent on average) compared to Smith's (38 percent). Citywide, turnout was 40 percent.
But WW's analysis shows that Smith's precincts will come close to matching the turnout of precincts Hales won in the fall, if 2004 and 2008 are any guide.
Precincts Hales won have 10,000 fewer total potential votes than those won by Smith, whose support came from areas with more young, middle- and lower-income voters.
The 135,000 ballots cast in the mayoral primary—if recent history is reliable—will double in the general election, with a bigger proportion of new votes coming from precincts where Smith's performance was strongest.
All of which means, Hibbitts says, "If everything holds equally—yes, it will be a benefit to Smith."
WW's analysis doesn't dare predict the outcome. A lot of things can and will happen between now and Nov. 6: unflattering news coverage, flip-flops on issues, more staff shake-ups or even natural disasters.
At a bare minimum, though, WW's analysis shows that Smith's chances of winning increase along with overall turnout. The analysis shows Smith strongest when looking at 2008 as a model, compared to 2004.
Four years ago, Barack Obama's candidacy drew an unprecedented number of young voters and drove Multnomah County turnout to 86 percent. Hibbitts predicts 80 percent for 2012—more typical for a presidential election.
"I want to at least win one precinct on the west side, but not to aim at a particular place," Smith says. "The objective we set for our campaign is to build...the strongest grassroots campaign in the history of the city."
Both Hales' and Smith's campaigns hit the streets in the primary, but there is evidence Smith's ground game made a meaningful difference.
On primary election night, the early returns showed Smith 9 percentage points behind Hales. As the night wore on, the gap narrowed to less than 5 points. These later ballots are ones that came in during the campaign's final days—suggesting Smith's last-minute efforts to get out the vote had an impact.
For his part, Hales says he doesn't know why the vote appears to have broken between precincts with higher household incomes and those with lower.
"I won precincts in every part of the city," Hales says. "It happens that I won all of them on the west side—including in [Smith's] legislative district."
One question remains: Where will voters who supported Eileen Brady go in the general election?
Brady, who finished a distant third, won about 29,000 votes in the primary, or about 21 percent. If, as WW's analysis assumes, those voters divide proportionally between Smith and Hales, the effect could be a wash.
"I don't anticipate any candidate getting that block vote," Hibbitts says. "Even if Brady endorses, I donât think theyâre going to go en masse.â
FACT: In May, Smith won his home precinct in Hazelwood with 39 percent. He finished behind Brady in Eastmoreland, Hales' turf, where Hales won with 52 percent.