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Members of the Bluffton and Hilton Head Island communities participated last month in the area's third annual diaper drive.
Bluffton Self Help and the Deep Well Project of Hilton Head Island collected or purchased more than 17,000 diapers, wipes and other diapering supplies. The items will have an immediate impact on local low-income families.
"Deep Well is so very grateful for the thousands of diapers collected for our clients," Betsy Doughtie, executive director of the Deep Well Project, said in a news release. "We send our deep thanks and appreciation to this incredible group of mothers who saw the need and took action to provide the basic need of diapers to the youngest residents of the Lowcountry."


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Leaders begin immigration dance
LAS VEGAS — The immigration reform plan President Barack Obama outlined Tuesday sounds a lot like the new bipartisan proposal from the Senate — and on the broad points, it is.
But the differences are in the details. And those details, with the liberal stamp Obama put on his approach here, could be the difference between a deal and another failed effort on an issue that Washington has struggled with for years.
Story Continued Below
( PHOTOS: Pols react on immigration)
Obama's speech launched a campaign for legislation built on several overarching principles: provide a path to citizenship for the country's approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants, streamline legal immigration, crack down on employers who hire undocumented workers and strengthen border security.
That's all in the blueprint offered Monday by a group of eight senators, led by Republican John McCain and Democrat Chuck Schumer.
That's where things get tricky.
( Also on POLITICO: Pitfalls that could stop immigration deal)
Senior administration officials said the contrasts and omissions aren't red lines for the president. But they do foreshadow the points of tension in the upcoming legislative negotiations.
Perhaps the biggest hurdle is a trigger for citizenship that Republicans such as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio describe as a must-have.
Obama wouldn't make citizenship for undocumented immigrants contingent upon a declaration that the U.S.-Mexico border has been secured. And he highlighted that difference with the Senate plan in his speech Tuesday, saying "it must be clear from the outset that there is a pathway to citizenship."
The president didn't explicitly endorse the need for a temporary worker program, as he did in his 2011 immigration blueprint. The Senate proposal would set up a process for American companies to hire low-skilled labor under certain circumstances — a concept that's divided labor and business — but the White House doesn't view such a program as essential, given the current economic conditions.
Obama also didn't embrace a proposal from the Senate group that would set up an expedited citizenship process for agricultural workers who commit to working in the industry.
And although he didn't mention it in his speech, his plan explicitly includes protections for gay couples. Unlike the Senate blueprint, Obama's plan "treats same-sex families as families by giving U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents the ability to seek a visa on the basis of a permanent relationship with a same-sex partner."

subset: commoncrawl


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Saturday was an absolute gorgeous day at our lake this weekend. Blue skies and water like glass. We were tied near the end of a creek enjoying the day with friends when 3 fools in a speedboat came by and purposely tried to rock us. On the way back, the driver steered toward us for maximum effect but threw one of his passengers overboard when he cut the wheel too hard. Boat went about 100 yards before he realized. The passenger was shaken up but not injured, which is good because nobody was wearing a life jacket.
So even though there were less boaters on the lake, the level of stupid was still high.


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Often we find ourselves discussing how small business owners and entrepreneurs can be more productive. Does this mean we are trying to imply that these professionals have difficulty with time management?
No way!
We just understand that time is a limited resource, and that a few productivity hacks are appreciated when trying to tackle a busy day.
Today we thought we would focus on one of the most time-consuming facets of a business: content curation. To have an impactful content market strategy, you must be up to date on all of the latest news in your industry. This way, when updating your small business blog or posting timely content to social media, you are providing engaging, share-worthy content to your consumers.


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Prospect of the Week: December 3, 2012
This week we continue our Prospect of the Week award, an honor (virtually) given to one Tampa Bay Lightning prospect for their recent contributions on and off the ice.
This week's winner made people remove their chapeaus and toss them onto a sheet of frozen water to delay a sporting match.
The Prospect of the Week for December 3 is … Cedric Paquette, center, Blainville-Boisbriand (QMJHL – Canada)
Paquette started the year off on the wrong foot when he would frequently retaliate to opposing players' efforts to get under his skin. The final straw for the coaching staff was when the 6-1, 200-pound center took a bad penalty away from the play in the closing minutes of a tie game, resulting in an Armada loss. The team suspended Paquette for one game and removed his alternate captain's letter from his jersey.
Since that game, Paquette has been a different player – a more composed player. He recently told the press he is putting the team first and not taking selfish penalties, specifically retaliatory ones.
His renewed focus is also resulting in more points – especially assists.
Last year Paquette was a scorer, denting the twine 31 times in 63 games. This year, he's just below the 30-goal pace with 13 in 27 games, but his assist totals have skyrocketed. He has 22 assists in 27 games. He had 17 all of last season. His plus-13 rating is well above his career high of plus-1, also.
In 12 games since his suspension, Paquette has 17 points and he's currently working on a 4-game scoring streak in which he has eight points.
Last week, Paquette had two assists and was plus-2 in a win against Baie-Comeau, then followed that up with a hat trick on Sunday versus Drummondville – hence the hat throwing.
Paquette is one point behind 2013 Draft-eligible forward Chris Clapperton for the team lead in points.
Next year Paquette will likely be playing professional hockey as a 20-year-old, though he is eligible to return to the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League as an overage player should the Lightning not sign him.
The Lightning's 2012 fourth round pick projects as a gritty third or fourth line player at the NHL level who can chip in offensively and win important battles in the corners. The key to reaching his potential and eventually making the Lightning is to put his team above himself, and he's already learned an important lesson to that end.
Honorable Mention: Nikita Nesterov, D, Chelyabinsk (KHL – Russia). The young defensive prospect played more than 21 minutes in both games in which he played last week in arguably the best active league in the world.
Previous 2012-2013 Prospect of the Week winners:
November 25, Tyler Johnson, C, Syracuse, AHL-USA
November 20, Richard Panik, W, Syracuse, AHL-USA
November 12, Alex Hutchings, W, Florida, ECHL-USA
November 5, Nikita Kucherov, W, Quebec, QMJHL-Canada
October 30, Slater Koekkoek, D, Peterborough, OHL-Canada
October 23, Dustin Tokarski, G, Syracuse, AHL-USA
October 15, Cory Conacher, W, Syracuse, AHL-USA
October 9, Cedric Paquette, C, Blainville-Boisbriand, QMJHL-Canada
October 2, Andrei Vasilevskiy, G, Ufa Jr, MHL-Russia
September 25, Andrei Vasilevskiy, G, Ufa Jr, MHL-Russia
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Israel, celebrating its 60th birthday last week, has proved to be an expensive ally for the United States.
Since its birth, Israel has received at least $114 billion from the US in direct foreign economic and military aid, says Shirl McArthur, a retired US diplomat who periodically updates his Israel cost estimates for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WREMA), a magazine often critical of US policy toward Israel.
That estimate, Mr. McArthur notes, is conservative. For instance, he has not factored inflation into that $114 billion cumulative sum. The late Washington economist Thomas Stauffer did that calculation several years ago. He found total official aid to Israel, up to 2002, came to $247 billion. He added other costs of US support of Israel (interest on debt, higher oil prices, etc.) to reach a highly controversial total of $1.6 trillion.
For comparison, the cost to the US of the Iraq war is running about $144 billion a year.
In March, a Memorandum of Understanding from the White House to Congress urged an additional $30 billion in military aid to Israel, a sum spread at about $3 billion a year through fiscal year 2018. Currently, Israel ranks as the top recipient of American foreign aid ($2.4 billion in 2007 by an official calculation) if reconstruction money for Iraq is excluded. Next are Egypt ($1.8 billion) and Afghanistan ($1 billion).
Up to now, the presidential candidates have largely ducked the question of what they would do to further peace between Israelis and the Palestinians.
"It's quite remarkable it has not been raised," says Stephen Walt, coauthor of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," a controversial book published last year. "They have gotten a free pass on details for a peace process."
The Harvard University political science professor further criticizes the press for not questioning the candidates about what they would do to push forward a two-state solution to the decades-old struggle with its sizable cost to American taxpayers. Presumably a lever the US has in the dispute is to withhold the aid it gives to Israel and the far smaller amount ($73.5 million requested for fiscal 2008) given to the Palestinians.
"The presidential candidates make it a point never to talk about Middle East foreign aid," says McArthur.
Why the silence?
"Fear," says Paul Findley, a frequent critic of US foreign policy to Israel. He blames the Israeli lobby for contributing to his defeat in 1982 when running for reelection as a Republican congressional representative from Illinois.
None of the three remaining presidential candidates have uttered "even a syllable" of complaint about US policy toward Israel, rather a "paean of praise," Mr. Findley says. "This is a phenomenon without precedent in American history."
To Findley, the "most powerful instrument of intimidation" used by pro-Israel groups is the charge of "anti-Semitism." The meaning of that term has been expanded. It used to be applied to those hostile to a race or faith, that is, against Jews or Judaism. Now it's often applied to critics of Israel or US-Israel policy, says Findley.
Considering the horrific history of the holocaust, politicians "run like rabbits" to avoid the charge of anti-Semitism, Findley adds.
Another fear of politicians involves the campaign contributions of pro-Israel political action committees (PACs). Last week WREMA reported that more than 20 of these PACs have contributed $1.1 million to Washington politicians in the 2007-08 election cycle. That amount is dwarfed by what the three presidential candidates have raised for their campaigns.
Since Israel now has a relatively prosperous per capita national income comparable to Cyprus or Slovenia, direct US economic aid to Israel has been replaced gradually by military aid. Since money is fungible, that would make little real economic difference to Israel as its government pays its high military bills. In fact, Congress allows Israel to use 26 percent of the aid it receives to buy arms outside the US, thereby helping build up its own weapons industry. "We are thus shooting ourselves [the US weapons industry] in the foot," charges Janet McMahon, managing editor of WREMA.
Professor Walt maintains he's pro-Israel. The US refusal to put pressure on Israel to settle with the Palestinians on a two-state solution, he argues, is not helpful.
"Giving any country unconditional backing encourages irresponsible behavior," he says. It could lead to an apartheid state, or as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert put it, Israel facing "a South African-style struggle."


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Bay Area Swap Meet?
Post general kiteboarding discussion topics here!
Moderator: BayAreaKite
So 3/13 at noon? Here is my questions though. I have a 2001 (i think) old not new but still perfectly usable Wipika Free Air 9.6m kite and and picklefolk slingshot board (147 cm) I want to sell, but as you all know, these are pretty old and I do not intend to sell it as to get back my money to buy my new gear or whatever. I just don't have much storage available and I can only own what I need. What would you do just sell it really cheap or store them forever? Or does anyone want to rent it from me??? (No liability please.) or some professional repair kiter can use it as to fix someone's kite?
Sell them cheap. $150 each. Someone will buy it. I've seen guys on new 2000 kites at Rio last year after they took some lessons. We think it's crap, but a newbe will love it. I did tell the guys that their instructor screwed them. $400 - 500 for 4 year old kites?? For $150 is a different story.
We have gathered a number of old gear in the past and donate it to local kids at the hot riding locations, such as Cabarete, Baja, and recently Maldives. Brings Karma points and clears out storage space.
I know of others in this list who have done similar donations.
Evan - Live2KITE
That's a great idea. I'm sure there are some people here who have all kinds of old gear that they don't know what to do with and might be too old to bother trying to sell for much locally. Maybe as part of the (hopefully) upcoming swap meet, people can donate any old stuff like that and we can forward it to you for donation abroad.
Each one of us, everytime we travel to other parts of the world (mostly these rainy/windless times of the year) we can get some extra old gear and donate to the locals. It brings tons of joy to the local kids who most of the times can only look at us kite all day!
Just make sure that proper instructions are provided also. Usually the local schools can help with the donation effort etc.
I'd be happy to help - hope to be around during 3/13 so I can also participate. I have collected so much gear through the years (and stocked tons of 2004 goodies) that I will need a truck to move things over.
Have we decided on the location yet?
Cheers to all for the effort.
Evan - Live2KITE
Long time no see. Can you please bring back the wind??? I think it's really a great idea donating it. I also have little spare parts that someone can utilize them. I'll talk to you at the swap meet, wherever that's happening.
Hopefully I'll have more info as soon as tomorrow on a suitable spot. Alameda is out due to special permit and insurance requirements. It's amazing that they'll let dozens and dozens of people kiteboard there, but can't have a swap meet without tons of red tape. Oh well, no worries, we'll come up with something.
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India.Arie (Feat. Musiq Soulchild) - Chocolate High
Video for India.Arie "Chocolate High" featuring Musiq Soulchild off of Testimony: Vol. 2 Love & Politics dropping February 10th!
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Entertainment The Hottest Men Over 40
983.5k votes 30.1k voters 499.4k views 194 items
List Rules Handsome gentlemen over the age of 40. No young bucks here.
The hottest men in Hollywood? Turns out, the older they get, the more we like them! Like fine wines, tweens, and your favorite pair of jeans, some things just get better with age. The sexiest celebs over 40 are definitive proof that not all guys peak in their 20s.
Wasn't it just yesterday that we were lovingly scribbling "I <3 Ryan Phillipe" in our notebooks? Now, he and a bunch of other surprising actors (like Josh Duhamel, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, and Leonardo DiCaprio) are marching directly over the hill. But we still think these hot older guys are some of the sexiest men in Hollywood. Give us a fine-as-hell Daniel Craig or Idris Elba over Justin Bieber any day.Who are the hottest male celebs over 40? You decide.
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Are you planning to go out for brunch this weekend? You may want to stay home and cook instead. Here's why: Espresso-Maple Pulled Pork and Egg Breakfast Burritos. Yes, they're as good as they sound. Actually, better. The dark, roast-y espresso flavor contrasts deliciously with the sweetness of the maple syrup of the saltiness of the pork.
I suggest serving these pulled pork breakfast burritos with a mug a strong cowboy coffee or a colorful tequila sunrise. Whatever makes you happy. Cause isn't that what Sundays are all about?
Get the recipe here!


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Usher > Scary Spice?
This is Mel B last night leaving Mr Chow. Mel was also photographed on Friday leaving Foxtail, narrowly avoiding a run-in with Tracey Edmonds. Am told she was probably in LA through the weekend. Which would mean Mel was in LA on Sunday. Sunday night…the Beckham birthday party in Santa Monica.
Tom and Katie were there, Will and Jada were there, Gwen and Gavin were there, Kate Beckinsale was there, Diddy was there, Elton was there, hell even Usher was there!
But did you see Mel B? I didn't see Mel B. If you saw Mel B please let me know. If you know what Posh"s excuse is, please let me know. Or maybe Mel B is too chav to mix with Mrs Beckham's new Hollywood friends?
Chav banning chav… love, love, love.
Photos from Wenn.com


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Liverpool slip from summit in Europa League Group A after defeat to Anzhi Makhachkala
Liverpool were usurped at the top of their Europa League group by Anzhi Makhachkala after a 1-0 defeat in Moscow.
Last Updated: 28/11/12 9:08am
Lacina Traore's fine individual goal in first-half stoppage-time was enough to send Guus Hiddink's oligarch-backed side to the top of Group A and leave the visitors' hopes of reaching the knockout stage in the balance.
Brendan Rodgers left the likes of Steven Gerrard and Luis Suarez at home with one eye on Sunday's trip to Chelsea but though his inexperienced side toiled keenly, they too rarely threatened Anzhi's goal.
In near-freezing temperatures and in front of a palty crowd - the match played 1,000 miles from Makhachkala for security reasons - it hardly promised to be a classic and there were scant early thrills to reward anyone's journey.
Rasim Tagirbekov found space down the left, only to watch Brad Jones easily claim his weak shot, while 6-foot-8 Traore lingered with intent and almost muscled his way onto a clever through-ball.
A stodgy midfield battle ensued on the patchy turf before Jonjo Shelvey inspired some Liverpool rhythm but promising build-up play fizzled out, John Flanagan dragging a shot well wide, before Jordan Henderson opted for a cut-back that went to waste when the shot was on.
Samuel Eto'o soon had a better chance, his rising strike headed for the top corner until Jones pushed it behind, but Anzhi looked there for the taking until Traore's flash of brilliance.
Mbark Boussoufa's clip forward carried danger but this was about two touches of real quality: a flick over the top of Sebastian Coates and a sidefoot lob over the outrushing Jones.
Rodgers soon sent on the fresh legs of Suso and Dani Pacheco, though departing teenagers Adam Morgan and Conor Coady displayed plenty of endeavour, but Anzhi began to press higher up the pitch and Liverpool struggled to craft real openings.
Traore prowled at the other end but lashed horriby wide of an upright and then headed into Jones' hands from eight yards as Hiddink glowered in the dugout.
Suso had added impetus and forced Vlad Gabulov to parry late on but Joe Cole - disappointing again - saw his shot from an angle blocked and the chance of parity probably undeserved had gone.


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Today's Buddha's Enlightenment Day (Rohatsu) and we're having our monthly one-day retreat. No time to write.
Here's a song of mine I just dug up called Examples of Innocent Anemia. This one's about ten years old, I think. I don't really remember much about it. But it sounds like a recording from Japan and not Ohio. Hummable.
Gotta scoot!


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J. Money (Feat. Rick Ross) - I'm Ballin
J Money I'm Ballin video, the official music video for J Money's single "I'm Ballin'" featuring Rick Ross, from his solo debut My Life: Check Me Out set to hit stores nationwide April 28th. Shout outto KeepItTrill
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Dynatrac ProRock 80 - Here's The BeefPosted in How To on August 15, 2013
Big tires? Heavy? Low-geared T-case? Lots of gear? If any of this sounds like your Jeep, you might need a ProRock 80. While Dynatrac has been building Dana 80s for years, the ProRock 80 is relatively new. What's the difference you ask? The Trail Series 80 which Dynatrac is calling a Pro 80 for short is like a Dana 80 but with more ribbing and strength designed right in by Dynatrac. Now a Pro 80 is not to be confused with a ProRock 80. A Pro 80 has a more "normal" profile without the high-clearance design of the ProRock 80. A ProRock 80 uses Dana 80-sized gears, but the centersection is a completely different animal with more strength, better oiling, and much better ground clearance. The Pro 80 was designed for the guy with a big truck that carries a ton of weight and fries regular Dana 60s or Dana 70s. The ProRock 80 was designed with the big JK guy in mind. It isn't unheard of for a four-door JK to top the scales somewhere north of 3 tons. Add some armor, a pair of heavy-duty bumpers, and some big tires, not to mention all the stuff you can cram inside a JK, and the weight adds up fast. In the case of our RESQ1 project with the 800-plus-pound Miller Trailblazer 302 Air Pak, 400-600-ish-pound tire machine, tools, extra spares, and so forth, we knew that even a ProRock 60 rear might not be enough axle for us. So, we contacted Dynatrac for the only axle short of a Rockwell that would be sure to survive under the Jeep: a ProRock 80. Check out just what makes this beast of an axle the strongest, most realistic option for the street-driven trail slayer.


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For over 20 years, JNS Flooring and Supplies Inc. has provided quality products and service to the floor covering industry through out the United States. Floorz -N- More is a wholesale distributor specializing in floor solutions, installation tools, adhesives, floor prep materials, self-leveling cements, underlayments, rubber & vinyl wall base & mouldings metal transitions, stair treads and rubber tile, sound control, vinyl composition tile, thinsets, grouts and much, much more! We inventory more than 500 tools and accessories for the installation of carpet, wood, ceramic tile, VCT, sheet vinyl and rubber flooring. JNS Flooring and Supplies Inc. has a professional and knowledgeable staff available to assist you with your every need..
At JNS Flooring and Supplies, we encourage communication with our customers. We respond to all messages within 1 business day. Please feel free to inquire about our product selection, special orders, bulk discounts or any other question or comment you may have. Call our office at 727-807-9516 Anytime between the hours of 7:30 - 5:00 EST. Or you may fill out the form and click the Submit button.
Here are the steps you need to follow to place an online order. If you have any problems when following these steps, please contact us. 1. Find the Items You Want 2. Add the Items to Your Shopping Cart 3. Proceed to Checkout 4. Sign In / Create a New Account / Purchase without Account 5. Enter a Shipping Address 6. Choose a Shipping Method 7. Provide Payment Information 8. Review and Submit Your Order 9 .Receive Email Order Confirmation and Shipping Details.
Secure Shopping Your information is collected using secure web page technology (SSL). When asked for your payment information, a closed padlock will appear in the Top status bar of your web browser to ensure your safety. You can also call our office any time Monday-Friday, 8:30am-5:00pm, toll free. Our number is 727-807-9516. Our customer service department will be glad to answer any of your questions or take your order by phone. You may also contact us by email.
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Monday, May 24, 2010
DDO: deep or obtuse?
Unfortunately, the descriptions rarely give you much of an idea of how useful something will be in game. For example, it's hard to know whether "jump" is a good investment of skill points until you know how often you really would want it (I've found exactly one instance so far that lack of jump skill screwed me in, out of dozens), or whether there might be some spell or dead common potion that can boost your jump skill when you do need it (yes and yes).
On top of that, as a friend of mine pointed out last night, the in game feedback often isn't too helpful. He tried to equip spells on a Paladin that had 8 Wisdom. The only feedback he got was "Stat isn't high enough." Umm, what stat exactly? How high does it need to be? An error message along the lines of "Must have at least 12 wisdom to cast level one spells" likely would have been a lot more helpful.
The situation we are left with is that you either have to follow a "flavor-of-the-month" build step by step on the forums, or you guinea-pig several builds until you find one that does what you want it to. There are character planners that can help somewhat, but no character planner can tell you whether an ability or spell is any good for your play-style. You have to take it for a spin.
Added to all of this, the fact that you can mix and match levels of different classes at will means that (A) you can design a character to do almost anything you can think of and (B) your opportunities for gimping yourself are nearly unlimited. I like the depth on the balance. It's a refreshing change of pace from most level based MMOs, where the majority of characters of a given class are nearly identical until at least the mid-levels. However, I have to admit it's not a real pleasure to get some random build up to level 3 and find out I screwed up and have to re-roll . . .for the second time.
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This is the primary reason why I've not been able to sit down and commit to playing much DDO. I don't like using FOTM builds, I don't want to spend days planning out a character before I even take a step into the virtual world, and most of all I don't want to find out that I gimped myself after I put a few days into a character and have to reroll.ReplyDelete
I'm sure eventually, I'll get motivated to give it a shot, but it's strange to have such a high initial hurdle to starting out. Of course, I might be easier for me if I'd played D&D more recently than 1992.
Heck of an analysis, Yeebo. I think there are two reason Duneons & Dragons (the pen-and-paper version) does not translate well to DDO.ReplyDelete
1) You get lots of feedback in the live game as to how your character is performing. If you know what kind of game your DM is running, you can start to tailor your character to match that. In DDO, the only place to get that info is from third party resources.
2) As well, your dungeon master can design challenges around the types of characters in the game. DDO's fixed challenges can't be tweaked to take into account characters that are not perfectly built. And at the high end, they are probably designed to challenge perfect character builds because that's what people play.
None of that make DDO a bad game, but it shows why PnP RPGs make such rough translations to videogame systems.
The thing that really irks me about DDO character building is how often your long-term best-interest conflicts with short-term playability. Cookie cutter builds routinely advise you to do unpleasant things like dump stat your primary spellcasting attribute or leave yourself needing a tome to qualify for crucial feats because an endgame character will get the stuff they need to overcome these handicaps.ReplyDelete
"Regret this decision now or later" is not a fun choice to have to make.
What gets me is that no matter which "build" you use, whichever class is primary will always determine your "best" feats that you have to take or else wind up gimped.ReplyDelete
Any melee class will take:
Two Weapon Fighting
Improved Two Weapon Fighting
Greater Two Weapon Fighting
Only exception is if they take 2-handed fighting instead, but the general consensus is that TWF is better than THF.
Now when you consider that 8 of the 11 classes only get 7 feats to use and 4 of those feats are already taken, and the other 3 feats are generally the same for a given class as well. . . . What you end up with is a big menu of things that distract you away from the "useful" feats.
Then there are the stupid skills that are put as cross-class when they really should be class. Paladins don't get Intimidate? Seriously?
And most classes only get 2 points per level, which is also crap. Sure, it makes you "make choices" except that. . . you guessed it, each class has optimum skills to go along with them, even if they're cross-class, and thus those are the only skills taken.
What this means to me is that the "big menu" gives the illusion of depth, when in reality all it does is make gimped out characters possible.
I actually do like that most damage is done by most characters simply using auto-attack. casters are the exception, of course, as well as paladins and monks needing a lot of clicking/hotkey using, but heck, even my wizard is still meleeing more than spellslinging. Something about low spellpoint pools needing to be saved for the big nasty bosses. . . . . .
Hm. This sounds like a big complaint/rant, and yet I love the game and it's my "main one" right now. Guess it's true that you complain the most about the one you love, no?
Good blog and comments. I found some of this information helpful for a new player to get perspective.ReplyDelete
I don't mind a deep character development system with lots of opportunity for bad choices. (If I want easy I'll go play Farmville).
My gripe is the vague generic error message. I find this to be a problem a lot of software that I use. Being a software developer, I understand how much work it is to develop good user interfaces with good diagnostic feedback.
You nailed it with your example. If I am unable to accomplish something, I want to know exactly why I can't and to have an inkling of what to do to remedy the problem. Without this, the playability suffers greatly. There is a point with any player (customer) where "challenging" starts to become "onerous". I have to think the bottom line is affected when too many people find it to be the latter.
Wow, looks like I struck a nerve ;-)ReplyDelete
@Blue Kae: one option is to use the pre-made builds. The problem there is that eventually you will want a custom build, and you don't really learn much about the character development system when all your choices are made for you.
@Anjin: DDO is the closest translation of a set of PnP mechanics I've seen in an MMO. And you are right, giving players such an immense amount of freedom doesn't work as well in an MMO (or any CRPG for that matter) for just the reasons you lay out.
DDO does a fairly impressive job of letting you attack instances from different angles, but it's still nothing like having a live DM cater adventures on the fly to challenges your party should be able to handle.
@Green Armadillo: Amen. So far I have yet to make it past ten, so I'm doing builds that are fun to play at low levels. I hope the fact that I have no intention of raiding means that I will be able to hit the cap and not worry about whether I could have squeaked out 5% extra DPS by having a painful early game.
Regardless, if the low levels aren't fun enough for me to want to play through them I'm not going to make it to the upper levels anyway.
@Magson: that's a good point, and I'd say a big part of the learning curve when you start is figuring out those four traits you pretty much "have to have" on your class of choice.
In addition to that, you need to figure out what (if any) specialization you plan on and make sure you have have the pre-reqs ready to go by level six or so when they first open up. That's usually all but one or two trait choices.
Between the two, it's certainly where I tend to screw up. For example, last night I realized I can't qualify for Tempest on my newbie ranger until level nine because I "foolishly" chose toughness instead of some obscure trait I've never paid much attention too at character creation. I guess arcane archer isn't a bad second choice. . . .
@Jomar: What irks me personally the most is that the suggestions you are given on the character creation screen actually aren't all that great in many cases. You might be advised to pick things like diplomacy that are very rarely going to be useful for most characters. It's as if the advice there was written with game design elements that never really materialized in mind.
Yeah, it's a deep system and all. But if Turbine really wants new players to stick around past the first four levels, they need to figure out how to make the whole process a bit less arcane. They have to be losing some potential customers.
In any case, all that said, I'm with Magson. I'm having a blast in DDO despite the ease with which you can screw up your builds. I think the post and comments here have come off a bit ranty, but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend taking DDO out for a spin. It's a fairly unique MMO experience.


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T.I. Preaches To The Kids: Says No To Parties & Yes To School!
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Hi Aimee -
There is a tennis clinic at Fort Durussy Tues., Weds. & Thurs and Sat. from 8:30 - 10 a.m.. Also, Round Robin from 5 - 6:30 pm on Tues.& Thurs. You can get more info. from "The Point" at Hale Koa Hotel. Great way to meet new people.
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Aboard the Queen Mary 2: Part 2by Ted Scull | January 20, 2004
Following three nights and two days at sea out of Southampton, we called at three successive ports -- Funchal on Madeira, Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas de Grand Canaria. Each one offered its own special welcome with a fleet of fireboats, an eruption of whistles from other ships in port, and in Las Palmas, the release of 100 white doves that soared in circles over the ship, then vanished.
The departures were even more festive, with fireworks displays (from no less than five barges in Las Palmas) and huge crowds clapping and cheering as -- somewhat incongruously arrogant – 'Rule Britannia' and 'Anchors Away' boomed out from the ship.
Life then settled down to a longer and most welcome second stretch at sea, this time five nights and four days en route to Barbados. The warming temperatures brought out the uncrated stock of new green cushions designed for what must be the longest row of promenade deck chairs on the high seas. Passengers took to them in large numbers to read and doze under the overhanging lifeboats.
While I am dining in the Britannia Restaurant, our group has also sampled the Todd English restaurant on Deck 8 aft. Reservations for the later times are hard to come by, but we managed to secure one for 6 p.m. at a table for 10 in a semi-private section overlooking the aft pool. We were seated as the sun went down, allowing the shades to be raised.
The menu could not have been more intriguing, and the results pleased everyone. For a starter, I ordered a dish called Potato and Truffle Loverletters, then continued with Crispy Duck with Ginger Scallion Glaze with Sweet and Sour Cabbage and Root Vegetable Medley, and rounded the meal off with Mandarin Orange Creme Brulee with Berry Salad and Citrus Short Bread. The timing of the courses and the professional service were all perfection, and the staff is obviously quite proud of this high-end culinary establishment. At present there is no extra charge to dine here.
Then last night we sampled the portion of the King's Court that gets attractively transformed into Lotus, an oriental restaurant, also requiring reservations but carrying no surcharge. The sampling menu included Seared Salmon and Jumbo Shrimp, Lobster Wontons, Oriental Spiced Crab Cake, Steamed Skin Roasted Sea Bass, Red Braised Pork Belly, Crispy Duck Spring Roll, and Stir Fried King Prawn and Chicken. We washed the delicious meal down with Singha (Thai) beer.
With a full ship, the popular before dinner venues get very crowded, and in some cases, they cannot handle all who would like to come in for a drink. The Chart Room, a spacious, high-ceiling room, evokes a pre-war ocean liner smoking room but without the lingering stench of cigarettes. The room's musical trio is a big draw, and it is not uncommon to see passengers standing two or three deep at the bar, and additional groups clustered quite happily in conversation at the edge of the dance floor next to the large windows.
The cozier Commodore Club, an observation piano bar on Deck 9, also attracts a big crowd, and often turns away latecomers in the evening. But its forward facing position requires that the shades be drawn after dark at sea to avoid light interfering with the bridge navigation.
The evening entertainment highlight of this voyage was the appearance of Dame Shirley Bassey, who sang her favorite numbers accompanied by a 12-piece orchestra and her musical director. A standing-room-only crowd packed the Royal Court Theater and gave her several standing ovations. I have never experienced a more wildly enthusiastic audience in my many years at sea.
Lecturer and author John Maxtone-Graham, who has been giving ocean liner history talks for more than three decades, has also drawn full houses for his 'The Only Way to Cross' lecture series, and another on some lesser known aspects of the Titanic disaster. With his theater background, they are more like performances combining a story line with humorous anecdotes and drama.
The first planetarium show -- about the creation of the universe -- was a big hit, and I am now about to take in the second, Stars Above the Atlantic, this afternoon at 5 p.m. The seats in the Illuminations Theater recline to allow a fine look upward into the sky dome.
Cunard touts its 165-year history on the Queen Mary 2 with a much different presentation than that executed on the Queen Elizabeth 2. Here on the QM2, there are several score of historical wall panels using text, drawings, paintings and illustrations. I find it best to allow extra time to get where I am going, to permit a few minutes' pause for a gander. Original paintings, and photos of original paintings, grace the stair towers and companionways. In contrast to the QE2, historical artifacts are few, but in April the Britannia Cup, presented to the line by the city of Boston in the 1840s, and the most valuable of all Cunard memorabilia, will be transferred to the new ship.
The immense size of this ship is a big factor in planning one's roaming. Vertical movements are enhanced by six efficient sets of elevators, including one external pair aft of the bridge. But horizontal trips need some advance planning. On one night, I had a function at the very aft end, a second near the bow, then had to return to the first, making for a half-mile round trip.
Considering this is her maiden voyage, the ship is operating quite well, and the veteran Cunard passengers are much more forgiving of the service hiccups than are those who came more for the status of making the first voyage on the largest ocean liner in history.
For me, the Queen Mary 2 is providing a distinctive new way to cross the Atlantic, and I find that I am making fewer comparisons with her fleetmate QE2 with each passing day. In my mind, the QM2 is rapidly making her own way in capturing my heart and hopefully my loyal patronage.
To be continued…


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Did Brazil's Finance Minister Mean What He Said About the Real?
By Charles Roth
Did Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega want to prompt a strengthening in the real currency in the wake dismal inflation data? If he did, he succeeded by giving traders a specific level to shoot for, a tactic that central bankers customarily eschew.
Another possibility is that the market, befuddled by a constant barrage of intervention in the foreign exchange market, over-interpreted an exclamatory headline. This is what the minister said, in an interview with Reuters (in Portuguese):
"Ideally we wouldn't have any intervention, but that's a dream. Now, if there were another speculative trend, if people get excited and say: 'let's take the rate to 1.85,' then we'll be intervening again."


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Men of the Year: Give This Man a Pulitzer
With Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall—along with his obsessive band of political reporters—is building the prototype of what an Internetbased newsgathering organization might one day look like. Don't believe us Just ask Alberto Gonzales.
The resignation of Alberto Gonzales was one of the brighter moments of the past seven years, a fleeting reprieve for the rule of law and democracy and all that. Still, there was a downside. "As you can imagine, we're in something of a state of mourning here at TPM," Josh Marshall deadpanned in a short video produced by TPM Media, the company he started seven years ago in his D.C. apartment and that now employs nine people headquartered in a cramped New York City walk-up above a flower shop. "We've grown used to a steady diet of lies and bamboozlement and ridiculousness from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. And we're not gonna have that anymore." Fortunately, there's a record for posterity, a library of statements and testimony preserved on digital video. "So in honor of the day," Marshall went on, "and in honor of Al, we've put together the ten best moments of Alberto Gonzales in the period of time over which all these different scandals engulfed him and he eventually had to throw in the towel and get out of town."
What followed was five minutes and forty-six seconds of the chief law-enforcement officer of the United States lying, bamboozling, and being generally ridiculous.
No journalists in America have a better institutional knowledge of the former AG's pathologies than Marshall and his staff. Their published work on the firing of nine United States Attorneys alone—a scandal virtually unmentioned by other journalists for months after TPM started covering it—could fill a book. Indeed, when Gonzales finally got around to quitting in September, TPM's dominance in chronicling him had long been both an accepted fact—its work was repeatedly cited by newspapers—and a journalistic curiosity in itself. The thing is, Josh Marshall is a blogger. The reporters and editors who work for TPM are also bloggers, a term that deserves italics because it is now so broad as to be meaningless. It is, however, inherently diminutive, even when it's being used kindly, which it usually is in relation to TPM.
For instance: When the rest of the press was catching up to what a weasel Gonzales was, the Minneapolis Star Tribune called Marshall THE BLOGGER WHO MIGHT BRING DOWN GONZALES, and the Los Angeles Times punned, in regard to TPM and Gonzales, BLOGS CAN TOP THE PRESSES, as if they'd discovered a new and exotic form of reporter in the digital wilderness. Columbia Journalism Review weighed in with a slightly more sober HOW TALKING POINTS MEMO BEAT THE BIG BOYS ON THE U.S. ATTORNEY STORY.
None of those headlines are untrue (though the Star Tribune's is endearingly generous). On Gonzales and the United States Attorney debacle, TPM did beat the big boys, assuming "big boys" means all the newspapers, magazines, and television networks that ignored an enormously important story about the rule of law being systematically hijacked by political thugs. TPM dogged it for two months before the national press piled on in March. At that point, TPM was perhaps most valuable as an archive for all the other journalists getting up to speed.
It is not surprising, then, that the day after Gonzales resigned, Marshall's in-box was overflowing with praise. "There were a lot of messages saying, you know, congratulations," he says. "Which I really found kind of—" he's looking for the right word here—"uncomfortable."
That is not surprising, either. Marshall, 38, is a modest man with the thoughtful manner of an academic (he has a doctorate in history from Brown). He does not see himself as David standing alone against Goliath. He is not a zealot wielding the Righteous Flaming Sword of the Netroots. He is a journalist. He runs a journalism company that employs other journalists who produce very good journalism that is read by approximately 700,000 people who tend to be well educated (84 percent have college degrees), well paid (60 percent make more than $75,000 a year), and politically active (90 percent give to a cause or candidate). If TPM were a paper-and-ink medium, Marshall would be in the upper tier of American media: The Boston Globe, one the nation's best papers, has a daily circulation of barely more than half of TPM's readership.
The difference is that he happens to publish in the blogosphere, another term that deserves italics because it, too, is pointlessly broad, encompassing tens of millions of people with modems who send into the digital ether billions of words, of which very few are read by anyone other than their author. Even among its most intelligent and widely read practitioners—say, Atrios or Andrew Sullivan or Glenn Greenwald—blogging is typically a platform for opining and critiquing and excoriating, for commenting on what is already known. Marshall, though, has optimized the medium as a journalistic enterprise: Working in digital bits, TPM can report emerging stories in real time, updating at will, linking to other sources (including my GQ piece on Ralph Reed, in August 2006), weaving compelling narratives out of disparate threads. On a good day during the United States Attorney scandal, TPM posted more than a dozen updates.
"TPM is something new under the sun—it's in part an opinion blog, but it's also an investigative-reporting shop," says New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. "And it's having a big influence. Josh and crew did more than anyone to break the U. S. attorneys story, they've played a big role in uncovering the Blackwater scandal, and more. At this point, it's hard to see how we ever lived without something like TPM. I rely on them a lot."
"You're making a mistake if you're not checking in," says Time Washington bureau chief Jay Carney. "That's not ideological at all: They're good at what they do. They're the best of a breed."
Which is exactly the kind of praise Marshall wants—and deserves. "It sounds sort of clichéd," he says, "but we just want to do good reporting. People can read what we do and make their own judgment."
On december 5, 2002, some 500 guests, including more than a dozen reporters, gathered to celebrate the one hundredth birthday of Senator Strom Thurmond, who ran for president in 1948 on a platform of maintaining legal segregation. Mississippi's Trent Lott, the then majority leader–elect of the Senate, offered one of the tributes. "I want to say this about my state," Lott said. "When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."
Now, one of the most powerful men in America waxing nostalgic about whites-only swimming pools is probably one of those things about which the general citizenry should be informed. Yet Lott's remarks went unnoticed the next day by any newspaper reporter or broadcaster.
So it fell to Marshall, who posted the full quote on Talking Points Memo the next afternoon.
At the time, Marshall was making his living in print journalism, writing mostly for center-left magazines and insider political journals—The American Prospect, Washington Monthly, The Hill—and, for a while, doing a column in the New York Post. He'd also been writing Talking Points Memo for two years, a sideline gig for stuff he couldn't fit into print pieces. "To me, it was kind of a loss leader for my freelancing," he says. "And I think the honest answer is, I just liked doing it."
Marshall treated Lott's comments the way a journalist should. When the senator offered a half-assed apology, mumbling about his remarks being taken out of context, Marshall dug up the wider context: the old speeches and interviews and, most damning, an amicus brief Lott filed in 1981 supporting Bob Jones University's right to racially discriminate. The noise from Talking Points Memo and a few other sites vibrated into the dailies and the networks, and on December 20, Lott resigned as Republican leader. (The Washington Post, alone among traditional news operations, ran a story on page A6 two days after the party.)
A nascent Web star was born. THE INTERNET'S FIRST SCALP, conservative pundit John Podhoretz announced in the New York Post. Krugman claimed that Marshall was "more than anyone else…responsible for making Trent Lott's offensive remarks the issue they deserve to be."
Marshall, though, wasn't gloating. Scalp a senator All he did was practice basic journalism—a feat that only appeared remarkable because so many other reporters didn't. Six days after Lott resigned, in fact, Marshall was demurring. As he told media critic Mark Jurkowitz, "I really don't like this blog triumphalism."
"When i was writing for the [American] Prospect," Marshall says now, "the idea that someone was reading my stuff was purely notional. If someone came to me and said, 'Hey, no one ever read that piece,' there'd be no facts to contradict it."
Amen, brother. A billion pulp trees fall in the forest and they barely raise a rustle. Print is a solitary medium, writers pecking at keyboards so their words can be inked onto paper where they probably will be read, but there is rarely confirmation of that fact. Print is less a dialogue between writer and reader than a lecture. Writing on the Internet, on the other hand, is a communal ercise. Marshall knows people read TPM's sites because they tell him—in hundreds of e-mails and comments every day. "Intimate maybe overstates it," he says, "but you do have a relationship with these people."
Actually, intimate doesn't overstate it by much. TPM's readers do more than just read; they contribute two indispensable commodities: money and information.
Let's start with money. The first incarnation of Talking Points Memo, like a lot of blogs, had a link for the reader to toss a few bucks into the operational kitty, if he felt like it. But in fall 2003, Marshall went further: He asked his readers to pay for a reporting trip to New Hampshire to cover the 2004 presidential primaries. He could've gotten a magazine to pick up the tab, but he would have had to save his best stuff for his benefactor. He preferred to write online, in real time. So on October 26, 2003, he mentioned in a post that he was considering asking for travel funds. Less than twenty-four hours later, he'd collected $4,864. "I never thought I'd say this," he wrote, "but: No More Contributions!" He ended his fund-raiser before it had officially begun.
He went back to the well in the spring of 2005 to fund a new project called TPMCafé, an electronic salon with guest writers and roundtables and the like. Six months later, he put the hat out again. Freshly indicted money-laundering suspect Tom DeLay had just resigned as House majority leader; Jack Abramoff's bribery ring was falling apart; Randy "Duke" Cunningham was setting a new record for corruption by a sitting congressman; Ney and Burns and Reed and Safavian were all imploding. "It just occurred to me that if I could come up with the money to hire two people to do this full-time, there was just so much stuff to dig into," Marshall says. A brief fund-raiser later, TPMmuckraker—which does exactly what the name says: rake muck—was online.
That kind of reader support has multiple benefits. For one, it feeds upon itself: The cash allowed Marshall to put more of his professional efforts into Talking Points Memo, which made the site better, which drew more readers, which drew advertisers, who by the middle of 2004 were providing Marshall's livelihood and who now cover all the operational costs. Two, Marshall has never had to serf himself out to a financial overlord. No one's counting beans or scrutinizing posts or suggesting he add Britney to the mix to bring in the kids.
Perhaps more important than money, though, is information, the stream of which flows both ways between TPM and its readers. It's endemic to the medium, of course, with comment threads and e-mail. But what Marshall has done so well is to deputize his readers as researchers, which both deepens TPM's content and expands its reportorial reach by a factor of thousands. It would have been brilliant if he'd planned it. "Input from readers has always been key to how we do it," he says. "But I'd never really given it much thought in terms of a new kind of journalism."
TPM has among its audience countless experts in law and government and broadcasting and history and pretty much everything else, a considerable number of whom will offer that expertise where appropriate. (One routine example: When Marshall wondered aloud whether Senator Larry Craig could legally withdraw his guilty plea to cruising an airport bathroom, three criminal-defense attorneys promptly offered detailed, if conflicting, answers.)
In addition to the contextual nuance readers offer up is their willingness to gather facts and act upon them. They—TPM and its audience—were perhaps at their finest in 2005, when Bush was flogging his plan to privatize Social Security. Marshall and his staff set out to put everyone on the record: They scrutinized statements issued by congressional offices, and readers passed on clippings from hometown papers, tracking which rep was taking which side. Those politicians who didn't take a public stand started getting phone calls from their constituents, who also happened to be TPM readers.
Newspapers don't have that advantage. No reporter has the time to call every senator and representative, and most editors wouldn't care if they did (a Massachusetts newsroom typically isn't concerned with how a California rep might vote on a bill that might never be filed). But with a national audience of die-hard readers willing to make phone calls to their local reps, TPM eventually compiled an extensive database of who was for (the Fainthearted Faction) and against (the Conscience Caucus) dismantling one of the most successful federal programs in our nation's history. In the end, Bush's plan died a quiet death, and it might have anyway, considering how unpopular it was with the public. In any case, Marshall isn't claiming credit. But the fact is, TPM kept a few hundred thousand people focused on killing it, and those people pressured their senators and representatives. Surely, that had an effect.
Which brings us back to Alberto Gonzales. On December 16, 2006, David Kurtz, TPM's editor-at-large, linked to a story in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette about the chief federal prosecutor in Little Rock, Bud Cummins, getting fired and replaced by J. Timothy Griffin, whose primary qualification seems to have been that he was an aide to Karl Rove specializing in opposition research. Not quite a month later, Marshall linked to a piece in the San Diego Union-Tribune about United States Attorney Carol Lam being asked to quit, supposedly because she hadn't prosecuted enough drug smugglers and gun dealers. Not at all coincidentally, Lam had also convicted corrupt Republican congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, and she was close to indicting a number of other GOP stalwarts, including Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the number three man at the CIA—scandals TPM had covered extensively.
"Carol Lam was a big fat tell," Marshall says. "She should have been untouchable." The appearance of propriety, to say nothing of respect for the rule of law, would have prevented any other president from canning a prosecutor he'd appointed when she was sniffing around his party's operatives.
Marshall and two others, deputy editor Paul Kiel and reporter Justin Rood (now at ABC News), started working their sources that afternoon. Four days later, on January 16, Marshall posted a short, prescient note: "You've probably already seen some of the news about the Bush White House engaging in a seemingly unprecedented spree of firings of U. S. attorneys across the country. Conveniently, they're being replaced without Senate approval under a provision of the Patriot Act. We're digging into it now and we're finding a bunch. More soon."
Reams more.
By that afternoon, TPM had compiled a list of seven United States Attorneys, all appointed by Bush, who'd either been fired or pressured to resign. Eventually, two more would be added to the list. Every day, TPM had another piece of the scandal, another detail, another bit of context and background. For weeks, TPM kept the emerging scandal "on a low boil," as National Public Radio put it—until late March, when the rest of the press began piling on.
Which is when the headlines about TPM "beating the big boys" and a blogger "topping the presses" appeared. Which is also the part, like the congratulatory messages when Gonzales resigned, that makes Marshall uncomfortable. Grateful and proud, sure, but still, a little uneasy.
That goes back to his modesty—"What I like about Josh," says Time's Carney, "is his temperament. He's not hysterical"—and frankly, to his realistic perspective on the media and TPM's niche in it. Marshall knows he wasn't the only person to smell the stink of a political purge: The New York Times editorialized about the Griffin appointment on January 15 (POLITICIZING PROSECUTORS), Senator Dianne Feinstein hinted at a wider scandal the next morning on the Senate floor, and Paul Krugman wrote about it on January 19 (and prominently noted that TPM "has done yeoman investigative reporting on this story"). TPM had the collective instincts to stick with the story—but it also works in a medium that allowed it to do that in a way that print outlets simply can't.
"A key thing for us is people sending us articles in small publications that contain facts that have larger implications when seen in the framework of larger stories," Marshall says. "So you end up with lots of chapters or vignettes of a story out there, but no one's integrating them. Part of our niche is, we don't have the slightest problem saying, 'Hey, McClatchy's got this great new scoop.' And you take that scoop and see it in context of what the L.A. Times wrote last week and what the Arkansas Gazette wrote the week before and the original reporting we've been doing, and it all comes together. And that aggregation function, that pulling together of narratives, is a big part of what we do."
Newspapers can't do that, either; they have a finite amount of space, for which every story has to compete. "A reporter in San Diego could write a one-day story—Carol Lam got fired, yeah, it looks funny—but from an editor's point of view, that reporter can't come back the next day without a news peg," Marshall says. "And we don't need a news peg." Web space, of course, is unlimited.
"It's inherently difficult to judge the impact of your own reporting," Marshall says. "But you know, I feel confident that we helped build a narrative and maybe brought the story to the fore sooner than it might have been."
Undoubtedly true. And so maybe TPM won't have Alberto Gonzales to kick around anymore. But there's always Senator Ted Stevens in Alaska and Blackwater guards in Iraq and another whole year of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and…
Sean Flynn is a GQ correspondent.


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JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (Feb. 6, 2009) - The Atlantic Sun's top two teams square off Saturday afternoon when the ETSU Lady Buccaneers host Florida Gulf Coast at 1:30 p.m. inside Memorial Center.
ETSU, who won its 13th straight home conference win Thursday night versus Stetson, hold a half-game lead for first place over the Eagles in the A-Sun standings.
The Lady Buccaneers bounced back in a big way against Stetson, as ETSU rolled past the Hatters, 92-63, inside
Saturday marks the first time the Eagles visit
Something has to give on Saturday, as FGCU leads the A-Sun in 3-point field goal shooting (38.0), but the Lady Bucs have the top 3-point field goal defense (27.5). The Eagles, who nailed 12 3-pointers on Thursday, have hit 205 treys this season (9.3 per game).
Reserved seat tickets for Lady Buccaneer Basketball games are $5 for adults and $3 for children 17 and under. ETSU students are admitted to games free of charge with a valid ETSU ID.
Tickets are available on game days at the center gate on the upper concourse, and can be purchased in advance by calling the ETSU Ticket Office at 423-439-3878 or online at ETSUBucs.com. Tickets can also be picked up in person at the ETSU Ticket Office in the
Fans unable to make the trip to
For more information on Lady Buccaneer basketball, visit www.ETSUBucs.com.


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Cheap NFL Jerseys In starting against Minnesota on FridayMarrone also says backup receiver Kevin Elliott will miss the season after tearing a ligament in his left knee.
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ORCHARD PARK,cheap nfl jerseys sale, N.Y. (AP) — The Bills quarterback competition — and their expectations in getting off to a fresh start — are suddenly on indefinite hold with rookie quarterback EJ Manuel to miss the rest of the preseason after hurting his left knee.
It's unclear when or how Manuel was hurt. And there had been no indication the rookie first-round draft pick had been bothered by an injury following the game.
In starting against Minnesota on Friday, Kolb got off to a slow start. He finished 13 of 21 for 111 yards passing and an interception. Washington State rookie Jeff Tuel is the third-string quarterback.
The injury is a potentially significant setback for a player regarded the future of the franchise, and the only quarterback selected in the first round in April. He was chosen 16th overall out of Florida State.
In a statement released by the team Saturday, coach Doug Marrone said the first-round draft pick would have a "minor knee procedure."
Kolb had just returned to practice last week after missing eight days with a twisted left knee, he hurt while slipping on a wet rubber mat during practice on Aug. 3.
The announcement came during the team's day off,Cheap Jerseys Online, and following a 20-16 victory over Minnesota.
He took over to start the second half and opened with a 14-play, 80-yard drive capped by a 4-yard touchdown pass to Brad Smith. He finished 10 of 12 for 92 yards in three series.
Manuel is regarded the center-piece of an offseason offensive overhaul under Marrone,China NFL Jerseys. The rookie head coach has been in the process of introducing an up-tempo offense with an emphasis on speed.
Kolb signed with the Bills in the offseason after starting 21 of 32 career games played in a six-year career with Philadelphia and Arizona. He's thrown for 28 touchdowns and 25 interceptions while being sacked 77 times in a career that started as a 2nd round draft pick of the Eagles in 2007.
At 6-foot-4 and 240 pounds, Manuel is a strong-armed quarterback, who has also has mobility.
"EJ Manuel had some swelling in his left knee this morning and was examined by our medical staff,Cheap Jerseys From China," Marrone said. "An MRI revealed that he will need to have a minor knee procedure and that has been scheduled. He will miss the remainder of the preseason and then be re-evaluated at that time."
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Let's talk about style. First of all, what is style?
Style is the way in which something is said, done or expressed. It's everything. Fashion. Art. Architecture. It's the way you say it, the way you do it, the way you live it. There is only one you - original, remarkable and beyond compare.
Not imitated, not copied. Okay, but you're thinking: "Easy to say. But I need help choosing the right sofa."
You are not alone. We're here to say that choosing a sofa is not that much different than choosing a winter coat. It's all about who you are and what you like at a gut level.
But the thing is, the key to buying the right sofa depends on identifying your style.
And discovering your decorating groove depends on what feels right. If this sounds "woo woo," don't worry. We have a few simple steps to help tap into the look you desire. Here's what to do.
Don't compare; be inspired. It's easy to be influenced by your best friend's new living room or the allure of countless home and garden TV shows. Personal style takes time, courage, and homework. Let's get started!
Start by looking and feeling. Style is like a muscle - it needs to be used. Don't over-think or second guess yourself. Where do you feel most at home? At a café in Paris or a coffee shop in Nelson? Walking in the forest or shopping at Holt Renfrew?
Knowing where you are comfortable and what makes your heart sing is an indication of your style.
Next, wander through your home, pay attention to what you love and make a list.
Are there treasures you bought on your honeymoon, or a Picasso-like fingerpainting from your five-year-old that you would never part with?
It might be the Noguchi Akari lamp from Inform that you saved for all year. Afterwards, gather magazine tear-outs, post-cards, seashore rocks, fabric samples, Pinterest pages, and Google images. (Our personal favourite is elledecor.com, check out the Look Book page.)
Choose anything you love and place into a box. It's your toy box for style. Choose from the heart, what works is what feels right.
Now the fun begins. Hunt through your style box and look for common threads.
You will begin to see pat-terns emerge. Perhaps every room in every image is white or each fabric swatch is rich and luxurious.
Maybe you're drawn to comfortable, timeless, enduring pieces; consider traditional. Or you're into stark, clean, open spaces - think modern. You go for eccentric, unconventional, hip, creations, then you're most likely Bohemian.
What you are drawn to is right there, your style is shouting out at you. No buts: you either love it or hate it.
When you start to get an idea of a theme, tour your house again. Finally, edit. Let go of things. Be ruthless, purge! Go through your closet, every room, and get rid of anything cramping your style.
Remember, it must feel good. Don't let loyalty and sentiment keep you from tossing out your grandmother's walnut dining room set you secretly hate. Don't be afraid to let it go because an empty space invites something new that you truly love.
Whether you're painting a wall or a doing a full-blown renovation, knowing your style helps you make empowered decisions - from your haircut to your home. When your style is connected to who you are, you save time, money and you don't have sleepless nights.
So before you hire a decorator, before a decorator puts his or her stamp on your home, know who you are instead of being told who you are.
Carrie McCarthy and Tanja Hinder are the principals behind McCarthy Hinder Interior Design. Visit www.mccarthyhinder.com


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I have been lucky in life and now I am looking to be lucky in love. I am a fun loving lady who loves to have a good time, and fully believe that laughter truly is the best medicine.
An undeniably awesome couple with amazing chemistry. Let's make the world jealous!
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This week, BikeRadar have been scouring the halls of the Eurobike 2013 trade show to find the lightest bikes and components on display.
We've selected our pick of the bunch, so for a full rundown of the kit fetching the lowest numbers on the scales, look no further than our image gallery.
This Haero Carbon bar weighs just 125g despite being 740mm wide


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Dallas Cowboys Balloon - Football
17in x 12in Foil Balloon
Product Details
Are you ready for some football? Support your favorite team with a Football Dallas Cowboys Balloon. Featuring the Cowboys logo in the center, this football balloon is silver with blue and white detailing. Use it alone or mix and match with latex balloons to create a balloon bouquet for your tailgate party or football party.
Football Dallas Cowboys Balloon product details:
- 17in wide x 12in tall
- Foil
- Self-sealing
- Reusable
Officially licensed ©NFL product.
Inflation Info
Balloons arrive uninflated. Helium inflation available at Party City stores. No additional cost. Show of receipt required. No maximum quantity. Always dispose of balloons properly. Do not release balloons into air.
California residents will be required to purchase a balloon weight with any foil balloon inflation at Party City stores if they do not already have one.
Frequently Bought Together


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ftcap necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 46 diseños de 11 diseñadores freelance.
We need a logo to use on our website, business cards, and letterhead. We are a private investment firm. The brand name "Flag Tree Capital" should appear in the image. A flag tree is a very strong tree that has been shaped by strong, consistent winds. The logo should evoke feelings of strength, persistence, resilience, and endurance. Clean, simple, traditional. Colors are flexible, but should not be more than a few.
Flag Tree Capital
We arelooking for a stylized picture of a tree that has grown lopsided from heavywinds. It looks solitary, strong, and should convey a sense of strength,resilience and endurance. The name "Flag Tree Capital" should appearwith the image.Shouldbe very simple, elegant, and traditional. As a financial company, colors shouldbe appropriate. The logo will go on business cards, a website andletterhead.
Here isa link to four photos that were taken in Patagoniathat inspired the name.
Happy to provide feedback to the top 5-10 entries
- Easyto scale up/down – we would not consider the sample photos to be easilyscalable
- Clean
- Simple
- Original
- Iconof some type
- Simplefonts
- Formats– need high quality formats - We would need multiple high quality formats, andsizes – Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator vector format is a must, also PDF,EPS (print), jpg/gif.
- Complexdesign
- Toomany colors
- Highprinting costs
- Generic logos
- Anything that can't be used on a business card or letterhead
- Any stock images used in the logo
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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- 16 jumbo pasta shells prepared according to package directions, rinsed and drained (try whole-wheat!)
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- 1 pkg. taco seasoning mix
- 1 cup water
- 1 16- ounce can refried beans
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 1½ cups of your favorite salsa
- ¼ cup sliced green onions
- sour cream and other taco "fixings' to serve (optional)
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Cook beef in large skillet until brown; drain.
- Add seasoning and water; cook over low heat for 5 minutes, until thick. Add beans and 3/4 cup cheese; stir to mix.
- Spread ¼ cup salsa over bottom of 8X11 inch baking dish.
- Fill shells with beef mixture and arrange in baking dish, filled side up. Spoon remaining salsa over shells.
- Cover tightly with foil and bake (now or later) for 40 to 45 minutes or until heated through. Sprinkle with onions, (sliced olives?) and remaining cheese. Serve with sour cream, lettuce, tomato
- Freezes well! Make a double batch and save ½ for another day.
Terri's Notes
Make this your own, according to your family's likes.
I like more cheese, use Monterey Jack or Taco seasoned cheese, use "black bean and corn' salsa, use low fat products, stir a 4 ounce package of low-fat cream cheese into the meat mix for a creamier version, sprinkle with crushed tortilla chips just before serving.
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