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The Amazing Spider-Man zips viewers through plenty of vertigo-inducing action and conjures a fearsome 9-foot freak straight out of a '60s Japanese horror flick, but all that expensive spectacle would matter little if we didn't care about the guy inside the Spidey suit.
Luckily, that guy is Andrew Garfield. Lanky, limber and funny, the ace British actor and director Marc Webb clearly understand a fundamental truth about superhero wish fulfillment: Before the costumed crime-fighter takes flight with spectacular feats of heroism, you've got to get viewers on board with a character that seems to have at least one clumsy foot planted in the real world.
For this hero's journey, the road to Spider-Man's death-defying acrobatics is deftly paved with the geeky charms of his socially awkward alter ego Peter Parker, a tormented teen science geek who's able to leap complicated equations with a single bound long before a lab accident leaves him with sticky appendages and an uncanny spider-sense.
(Spoiler alert: Minor plot points follow.)
The setup for this origins story: Raised by kindly Uncle Ben (played by Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field), Peter Parker discovers secret research in a briefcase belonging to his scientist father, who vanished years earlier. Some quick web searches lead the bullied teen to the laboratory of Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans). An expert in cross-species genetics, the one-armed Oscorp Industries scientist injects test subjects with reptile genes designed to regenerate amputated limbs.
Elsewhere in the Oscorp complex, a swarm of mutant spiders spin fantastically strong webs. After finagling his way into the secret lab, Parker gets bitten, and soon develops the strange powers that lead him on the path of costumed vigilantism.
As in the Tobey Maguire/Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie trilogy that swung onto movie screens a decade ago, Spidey's crime-fighting agenda gets complicated by a romantic entanglement, this time with self-assured classmate Gwen Stacy (played by husky-voiced 25-year-old Emma Stone.)
She and Garfield, 28, come across as mighty mature teenagers in the PG-13 movie, which opens Tuesday. Then again, this is a superhero fantasy, so chemistry trumps realism. Garfield's squirmy Peter Parker sparks so convincingly with the doe-eyed Stone, it's no surprise the two actors have become a real-life couple.
Garfield rejuvenates the Spider-Man persona by offering two qualities that rarely coexist in equal measure. First off, he can really act. Check out the Red Riding TV movie trilogy to witness the actor's intensity as a crusading reporter, or catch him in The Social Network, where he subtly played second fiddle to Jesse Eisenberg's Mark Zuckerberg as the dude who got eased out of the Facebook empire.
In The Amazing Spider-Man, Garfield's acting chops get a workout as Peter Parker blows his fuse over the long-simmering heartbreak caused by his parents' disappearance. He grows cocky with his new powers to the point of taunting his former tormenters in a basketball humiliation scene played to perfection as everynerd revenge fantasy. The moody teen character also plumbs his own heart of darkness when he's forced to confront the guilt caused by a lapse in moral values.
Garfield invests the role of Spider-Man with the one thing even the best actor can't fake: intelligence.
Throughout, Garfield invests his character with the one thing even the best actor can't fake: intelligence. Parker/Spider-Man needs a keen mind to add credibility to a pumped-up emphasis on modern technology and science rarely seen in Spidey's previous movie incarnation. Garfield's strong performance lends a measure of credibility to story points dealing with advanced developments in interspecies DNA splicing that lead to the film's mutations.
Secondly, Garfield brings an unusually athletic aptitude to the role. He excelled in gymnastics as a child and uses his motor skills, honed by six months' worth of six-days-a-week training sessions, to energize Spider-Man's swinging charisma as a wall-climbing, ceiling-sticking, skyscraper-scaling acrobat.
As for the villain that every Spidey flick requires, Rhys' reptilian alter ego serves up scary claws, squishy globs of flesh and a tail that functions as a human fly swatter-cum-noose. The Lizard looks like a descendant of the mutant beasts that once ran rampant through Japanese B movies, which are smartly referenced by the filmmakers themselves: After Parker breathlessly describes Dr. Connor's outlandish transformation into a giant homicidal reptile, Dennis Leary's skeptical police chief counters, "What do I look like, the mayor of Tokyo?"
The shrewd Amazing Spider-Man screenplay by James Vanderbilt, Alvin Sargent and original Spidey trilogy screenwriter Steve Kloves gives Garfield's hero plenty of angst to work through, but the darker themes get leavened with humor. As Spider-Man gains confidence in his super strength, he becomes almost as adept at sarcastic wisecracking as he is at web-slinging.
Director Webb ((500) Days of Summer) smartly retools the Peter Parker legend as a 21st-century fable that leans into the future and away from the comic book vibe established in Raimi's $3.4 billion-grossing trilogy. Where Raimi modeled his visual aesthetic on acclaimed Marvel Comics illustrator Steve Ditko's color-saturated drawings, Webb sets a more naturalistic tone in the acting and stages the story without a trace of camp.
Webb mounts a striking production that looks downright stunning in the Imax 3-D version, but his key contribution comes in the casting. He picked Garfield for his lead, and when your movie's called The Amazing Spider-Man, it is going to rise or fall on the shoulders of its title character.
Garfield gets it done. He's in nearly every scene of the 2-hour, 18-minute movie, and we never get tired of watching him. That, in itself, is pretty amazing.
WIRED Andrew Garfield infuses the new Spidey with soul, humor and athletic awesomeness.
TIRED Unbelievably mature teenage characters.
Read Underwire's movie ratings guide. Images courtesy Columbia Pictures.Go Back to Top. Skip To: Start of Article.

subset: commoncrawl


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Looks like the organizers of Edinburgh, Scotland's massive Fringe festival have made a little gaffe in the credits for Limerick's own rap-duo, The Rubberbandits. The festival's website has named the act's country of origin as England, instead of Ireland.
Oddly enough, the duo - famous for their YouTube hit 'Horse Outside' which garnered over 9.3 million hits - has Limerick listed as their hometown in their brief bio on the Fringe's website.
The lads will be in Edinburgh for three weeks, performing 12 one-hour shows which are sure to entertain adult audiences in Scotland's capital city.
The Rubberbandits took to their Twitter (@Rubberbandits) on Tuesday in the wake of the Fringe fest's apparent typo saying that, "@edfringe As much as we'd love to swear allegiance to Lizzie. Could ye change our country of origin from "England" to Ireland on yere site?" (sic)
That tweet was quickly followed by a tweet saying, "The Edinburgh fringe festival website has our country of origin as England. It's our own fault for drinking that cup of soup they gave us."
Edinburgh's Fringe festival replied via Twitter on Wednesday saying, "@Rubberbandits Your country of origin has been changed by box office team, but please be aware changes can take up to 6 hours to appear."
Looks like The Rubberbandits will be returned to their rightful owner of Ireland now on the Fringe's website. Good thing, too, as the duo has been preparing diligently for their Fringe stint, according to their Twitter: "12 nights in a row in Edinburgh is getting close. I've been running around the field with my greyhound Lavender, to build stamina."
Check out their video for 'Horse Outside' here [warning: graphic language]:


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ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y., — Fourteen 2012 St. Bonaventure University graduates whose academic credentials earned them early acceptance to George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Services have begun their studies at George Washington.
The students were among 177 new medical students who participated in George Washington's White Coat Ceremony on
Aug. 18, a symbolic beginning of the medical careers of the school's class of 2016.
The students were presented their medical white coats, recited an oath, and signed the School of Medicine's Honor Code.
The St. Bonaventure graduates were participants in the university's Franciscan Health Care Professions program, a highly competitive program offering combined degree and early assurance programs in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and physical therapy, in combination with medical programs at seven colleges and universities.
Of the 14 St. Bonaventure students beginning their medical school studies this year at George Washington, 13 were accepted as high school seniors into the SBU-GW combined degree program in medicine. Along with their acceptance to SBU, they were awarded a provisional acceptance to GW's School of Medicine, assuring them a seat at GW upon satisfactory completion of their undergraduate studies. One student earned acceptance to GW through the early assurance program with St. Bonaventure, which offers the same provisional acceptance to GW to academically qualified SBU sophomores.
At the White Coat Ceremony, George Washington President Steven Knapp, Ph.D., said this year's incoming class is the most competitive in the medical school's history, a "deep pool of academic talent" drawn from a record 14,700 initial applications. The average age of the class is 23, with an overall 3.7 GPA and 30.4 MCAT score. The students represent 25 states, Canada and India, and 79 undergraduate schools.
Among the St. Bonaventure graduates participating in the White Coat Ceremony at George Washington were these members of the class of 2012:
For more information about St. Bonaventure's Franciscan Health Care Professions program, go to www.sbu.edu/prehealth.
Application forms, procedures and additional information
There are many ways to experience
St. Bonaventure for yourself
Learn more about the programs that interest you


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Ah, summer. Time to sit around the campfire, making s'mores and talking about everyone's favorite new codec, ProRes 422, which was introduced with Final Cut Studio 2. Now that folks have had some time to bang on it a bit, we're getting a clearer picture of what this puppy can and can't do. Tim Wilson over at Creative Cow has taken the time to sift through their forums and collect the general consensus. He wants to clear up a lot of misconceptions about Apple's new trophy codec that compresses HD content down to SD bitrates with a negligible loss in visual quality.
Wilson is quick to point out (several times in fact) that many are failing to take in the context of the term "lightweight." Relative to uncompressed HD, ProRes 422 is certainly a big improvement, but uncompressed HD is a feat that requires specialized hardware for even the beefiest of machines. Even 10-bit uncompressed SD (to which ProRes is supposed to be comparable in terms of bitrate) is a challenge for pre-Intel machines, so if you want to make use of ProRes at HD resolutions, you still need the biggest, baddest Mac you can get your hands on. Another important note is the fact that you'll have to have FCP 6 installed to use it, which is unlikely to be a problem for most but seems like a silly limitation.
Don't let me give you the impression that it's all doom and gloom. Overall, the general consensus seems to be that ProRes 422 is going to be an excellent addition to the HD toolbox, and Wilson is positively glowing about the ability to use the "medium quality" feature to squeak out four times the performance with almost no loss in visual quality. If you work with 1080i/60 in FCP (or plan to in the near future), it's definitely worth your time to check out the article.
Now where did I put my pointy stick and marshmallows?
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After a drumbeat of transit disasters this year, it became impossible to ignore the failures of the New York City subway system.
A rush-hour Q train careened off the rails in southern Brooklyn. A track fire on the A line in Upper Manhattan sent nine riders to the hospital. A crowded F train stalled in a downtown tunnel, leaving hundreds in the dark without air-conditioning for nearly an hour. As the heat of packed-together bodies fogged the windows, passengers beat on the walls and clawed at the doors in a scene from a real-life horror story.
In June, after another derailment injured 34 people, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo declared that the system was in a "state of emergency."
But the problems plaguing the subway did not suddenly sweep over the city like a tornado or a flood. They were years in the making, and they might have been avoided if decision makers had put the interests of train riders and daily operations ahead of flashy projects and financial gimmicks.
An examination by The New York Times reveals in stark terms how the needs of the aging, overburdened system have grown while city and state politicians have consistently steered money away from addressing them.
Century-old tunnels and track routes are crumbling, but The Times found that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's budget for subway maintenance has barely changed, when adjusted for inflation, from what it was 25 years ago.
Signal problems and car equipment failures occur twice as frequently as a decade ago, but hundreds of mechanic positions have been cut because there is not enough money to pay them — even though the average total compensation for subway managers has grown to well over $200,000 a year.
Daily ridership has nearly doubled in the past two decades to 5.7 million, but New York is the only major city in the world with fewer miles of track than it had during World War II. Efforts to add new lines have been hampered by generous agreements with labor unions and private contractors that have inflated construction costs to five times the international average.
New York's subway now has the worst on-time performance of any major rapid transit system in the world, according to data collected from the 20 biggest. Just 65 percent of weekday trains reach their destinations on time, the lowest rate since the transit crisis of the 1970s, when graffiti-covered cars regularly broke down.
None of this happened on its own. It was the result of a series of decisions by both Republican and Democratic politicians — governors from George E. Pataki to Mr. Cuomo and mayors from Rudolph W. Giuliani to Bill de Blasio. Each of them cut the subway's budget or co-opted it for their own priorities.
They stripped a combined $1.5 billion from the M.T.A. by repeatedly diverting tax revenues earmarked for the subways and also by demanding large payments for financial advice, I.T. help and other services that transit leaders say the authority could have done without.
They pressured the M.T.A. to spend billions of dollars on opulent station makeovers and other projects that did nothing to boost service or reliability, while leaving the actual movement of trains to rely on a 1930s-era signal system with fraying, cloth-covered cables.
They saddled the M.T.A. with debt and engineered a deal with creditors that brought in quick cash but locked the authority into paying $5 billion in interest that it otherwise never would have had to pay.
In one particularly egregious example, Mr. Cuomo's administration forced the M.T.A. to send $5 million to bail out three state-run ski resorts that were struggling after a warm winter.
At the same time, public officials who have taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions from M.T.A. unions and contractors have pressured the authority into signing agreements with labor groups and construction companies that obligated the authority to pay far more than it had planned.
Faced with funding shortfalls, the M.T.A. has resorted to borrowing. Nearly 17 percent of its budget now goes to pay down debt — roughly triple what it paid in 1997.
"It's genuinely shocking how much of every dollar that goes to the M.T.A. is spent on expenses that have nothing to do with running the subway," said Seth W. Pinsky, the former head of the city's Economic Development Corporation. "That's the problem."
Reporters for The Times reviewed thousands of pages of state and federal documents, including records that had not previously been made public; built databases to compare New York with other cities; and interviewed more than 300 people, including current and former subway leaders, contractors and transit experts.
The examination found that the agency tasked with running the subway has been roiled by turnover and changes to its management structure. Dozens of people have cycled through high-level jobs, including many who left to work for contractors who do business with the M.T.A. Byzantine layers of bureaucracy have allowed transit leaders and politicians to avoid responsibility for problems.
But the theme that runs through it all is a perennial lack of investment in tracks, trains and signals.
On a good day, managing New York's subway is a challenge. It is the largest urban transit system in the country and one of the oldest in the world. It is also one of the few to operate 24 hours every day. And in the past two decades, M.T.A. leaders have guided the authority through the Sept. 11 attacks and Hurricane Sandy, disasters from which it is still recovering. After the emergency declaration this year, the authority unveiled an $800 million rescue plan that included adding train cars and staff.
But politicians and transit leaders have not acted on a series of chances to turn things around sooner. They ignored decades of warnings from state and city comptrollers. They failed to pass a congestion pricing plan in 2008. They chose not to give mass transit much of the proceeds from large settlements with banks after the financial crisis. They brushed aside the findings of the M.T.A. Transportation Reinvention Commission, a 2014 panel of transit leaders from around the world.
And through it all, The Times found, the M.T.A. has used sloppy data collection and accounting games that hide from the public the true causes of the subway's problems.
Much of this story unfolds in the musty pages of budgets and contracts. But under the jargon and numbers is a world of misery. New Yorkers who depend on the subways are missing court hearings, arriving late for medical appointments, losing out on jobs or being robbed of time with their children.
Last year, for the first time in decades, the number of people riding the subway actually slightly declined — an astounding development in a growing city with a booming economy.
"It's heartbreaking," said David L. Gunn, a former transit system president who helped drag the subways out of the 1970s crisis only to see the system deteriorate again. "I actually lose sleep over it. I get so mad when I see what's happening."
While many politicians have contributed to the decline of the subway over the years, the problems reached a fever pitch under Mr. Cuomo, who as governor appoints the M.T.A. chairman and effectively controls the authority. Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat who is expected to seek a third term next year and is also seen as a potential presidential candidate in 2020, tried to stave off the emergency by committing additional funding to capital construction and getting involved in decisions about how to spend it. But several transit leaders said that the interference backfired, and that the governor would have helped more if he had introduced any legislation to boost funding for core maintenance.
In a statement, Dani Lever, a spokeswoman for Mr. Cuomo, said the governor was dedicated to improving the M.T.A., including by ensuring a record $8.5 billion in state funding for capital needs.
Ms. Lever acknowledged that the subway was in "unacceptable disrepair" but argued that politicians and transit leaders had done their best with limited resources and a flawed agency. She said the problems stemmed from a lack of accountability caused by the city and suburbs having seats on the M.T.A. board, and the city and Legislature having power to veto capital spending.
"A camel is a horse designed by committee, and the M.T.A. is a train service run by committee," Ms. Lever said.
Another Monday Morning
On July 17, Chétina Muteba tried to catch a train from Inwood, in Upper Manhattan, to her office in Midtown. Everything that happened next, every seemingly tiny event that turned her commute into a frustrating crawl beneath the city, could be traced to decisions made in Albany and City Hall years before.
It was just another day in what had become a maddening summer for the city's subway riders.
Ms. Muteba, a 32-year-old advertising strategist, was thinking about a meeting she was supposed to attend that Monday morning when she saw that her usual entrance to the 207th Street station on the A line was taped off.
"There was just someone who was working there, on the outside, on the street," Ms. Muteba said. "He said, 'Hey, it's a block ticket,' and I said, 'I don't know what a block ticket means.' And he said, 'You have to transfer.'"
No one told her that a fire, caused by debris on the A line track near 145th Street in Harlem, was slowing whole stretches of the subway.
The humidity that day hovered around 70 percent, and the temperature was climbing toward 85 degrees as Ms. Muteba headed to a 1 line stop down 207th Street. Drawing closer, she saw a long line snaking up the stairs to the elevated station. It was moving only incrementally, like an assembly line feeding into a broken factory. She took her place at the end.
When she reached the platform, she found that trains that usually arrived every four or five minutes now seemed to be coming 10 minutes apart. She pushed onto one and felt lucky to find a seat. It stopped at Dyckman Street, and she braced herself as an enormous number of people got on.
As Ms. Muteba fought to get to work, other commuter dramas were playing out across the system.
For years, officials had only partly funded signal repairs and replacements. Much of the subway's signaling equipment was decades beyond its life span. Just a few months before Ms. Muteba's ill-fated commute, the M.T.A. had cut signal funding by $500 million to support projects favored by Mr. Cuomo. Internal M.T.A. records show that on the morning of July 17, at least 124 delays were caused by signal issues on the 2, 4, E, F, G, J and M lines.
Nearly a decade earlier, a budget crunch had led M.T.A. officials to relax standards for vehicle inspections and overhauls and allow maintenance jobs to go unfilled. At least 24 delays across the city that morning had roots in malfunctioning motors, faulty brakes or broken air-conditioning systems, records show.
And the M.T.A. had saved more money by putting off track maintenance not deemed absolutely essential. At least 55 delays stemmed from track problems that morning — not counting the fire that was slowing Ms. Muteba's commute.
By the time her 1 train left 168th Street, the car was impossibly full. She was not unfamiliar with feeling crowded, having taken the subway since 2011. But now people on the train were packed so tightly that it triggered a flight reflex. It took her until 137th Street to elbow her way out.
Standing in the heat on the platform amid a horde of frustrated commuters, she instantly regretted it.
Records show that ahead of the 1 trains creeping south that morning, a sick rider was causing problems at 96th Street and a passenger riding between cars was stirring trouble at 72nd.
To save money years earlier, the M.T.A. had eliminated its practice of positioning people trained in medical aid at some busy stations. As one train and then another were held up at two of the busiest express stops in the city, waiting for emergency responders, it deepened the anguish for Ms. Muteba — and for untold thousands of others up the line.
Three trains passed her at 137th Street before she found one that she could squeeze onto. By the time she got to her stop, her 30-minute commute had taken nearly two hours. She emerged with a meeting to reschedule and a resolution never to rely on the A train again.
Ms. Muteba said she commiserated with fellow riders that morning.
"There was a lot of discussion about, 'What are we paying for?'"
A Steep Decline in Cash
New York's subway system has always struggled to get the money it needs.
Decades of cost-cutting and deferred maintenance led to the darkest days in the history of the 113-year-old system: the crisis in the 1970s, when the subway became a symbol of urban decay.
Officials rescued the subway with a simple formula: Invest in the system, and it will improve.
After more than a decade of spending, about $50 billion in today's dollars, reliability soared. Cars traveled 10 times farther before breaking down. Riders returned in droves. It was a golden era; New York and its subway seemed to be on the rise together.
Then, records show, officials pulled back.
It started with New York City's mayors.
While the M.T.A., the sprawling organization that operates the New York subway and bus lines, two commuter railroads and several bridges, is run by the state, the subway is owned by the city. In addition to creating confusion, this dynamic sparks funding battles.
Historically, the city has funded about 10 percent of the M.T.A.'s total budget.
Mr. Giuliani decided to change that in 1994, when he became the city's first Republican mayor in two decades. Facing a budget shortfall and eager to show he could run the city without raising taxes, he announced he would cut the city's contribution to the M.T.A.'s operating and capital budgets by $400 million.
Mr. Giuliani defended the reduction by calling the authority bloated and noting that it had a surplus the previous year — but he did not suggest any reforms to increase efficiency. Critics were outraged. Hundreds protested at public hearings, chanting, "No more cuts!" At one hearing in Manhattan, attendees waved posters depicting a two-headed mutant with the faces of the mayor and Mr. Pataki, who was proposing his own cuts. "Monster That Ate Mass Transit," the posters said.
"We've spent 10 years clawing our way back," one M.T.A. official said at the time. "You've only begun to turn the corner. It would be easy to go backward."
The mayor made the cuts nonetheless.
Despite the consternation, the reductions did not immediately cause problems. That paved the way for other city and state politicians to make more cuts.
Mr. Giuliani did not return multiple messages seeking comment.
His successor, Michael R. Bloomberg, used city funds to help finance bonds for a development project — the extension of the 7 line to the Hudson Yards on the Far West Side of Manhattan. But he otherwise left subway funding where it was, which effectively cut the city's contribution by not allowing it to keep up with inflation.
A spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg, Marc La Vorgna, said the former mayor contributed by fighting vigorously to get the state to adopt a congestion pricing plan that would have provided a huge amount of revenue. "It's hard to argue any mayor in history has made a greater effort to improve the M.T.A.," he said.
Mr. de Blasio has been hands off. He committed $2.5 billion in city funds for the M.T.A.'s capital program, but he rebuffed requests to increase operating subsidies and has declined to provide money for the authority's plan to address the delays. During town hall meetings, he often quizzes attendees to ensure they know the city does not run the subway.
A City Hall spokeswoman, Freddi Goldstein, said the de Blasio administration "has contributed its fair share year after year." Ms. Goldstein noted that the city's police officers patrol subway stations and that its residents provide most of the M.T.A.'s tax revenue. "What the City of New York contributes daily is bigger than the budget alone can show," she said.
Still, the budget shows that the city's contribution to M.T.A. operations has dropped by almost 75 percent.
In today's dollars, the city gave the M.T.A. roughly $1 billion in operating funding in 1990. This year, not counting money for managing some formerly city-run buses, the city gave the system about $250 million.
The mayors stuck to the cuts despite a surge in property values that the subways helped create. New York real estate values — and property tax revenues — have quintupled since the early 1990s, according to the Independent Budget Office.
None of that increased property tax revenue was earmarked for the subways.
Getting Less, Borrowing More
If the city's cuts hindered the subway, the state's actions practically hobbled it.
Lawmakers in Albany trimmed funding for subway maintenance throughout the 1990s, records show, even as the state budget grew from $45 billion to $80 billion. Then they kept funding mostly flat for years, despite the surge in ridership.
Under Mr. Pataki, the state eliminated subsidies for the M.T.A., opting to make the authority rely entirely on fares, tolls and revenue from taxes and fees earmarked for transit. It also ended state funding for capital work.
The move rankled the state comptroller at the time, H. Carl McCall, who warned that taxes and fees were unstable.
Mr. Pataki also started a trend of redirecting revenues from taxes. In 1995, he pushed through a state income tax cut and helped pay for it by taking more than $200 million in tax revenues that had been set aside for transit. His three successors followed suit. At least $850 million has been diverted in the past two decades, records show.
Richard Ravitch, the former lieutenant governor and M.T.A. chairman who came up with the idea for many of the dedicated taxes as part of his plan to save the subways in the 1980s, said it never occurred to him that the state would redirect the revenue.
"It's very disappointing," Mr. Ravitch said, adding that the diversions were just another in a long list of examples of politicians taking the subway for granted and neglecting to invest in its health.
"This is the lifeblood of the city," he said. "Everybody depends on it. And yet nobody cares about it enough to think more than four years ahead. They only want to think about the next election. Nobody is thinking about the future."
Budget shortfalls have led transit leaders to routinely raise fares to stay afloat. The subway now derives more than 60 percent of its funding from fares, a higher rate than almost any other transit system in North America.
Perhaps nothing has hamstrung the M.T.A. more than a maneuver Mr. Pataki introduced in 2000.
That year, Bear Stearns, then a Wall Street powerhouse, approached the governor with a proposal to alleviate an M.T.A. budget crunch: If the authority refinanced $12 billion of its debt, the bank said, it could get a huge influx of cash without having to pay for years.
Within weeks, a Bear Stearns executive was pitching the idea to skeptical lawmakers in a marathon meeting at the State Capitol.
Critics denounced the move, saying it was a "debt bomb" that would hurt future generations. But the lawmakers eventually signed off, and the M.T.A. agreed to the deal in 2002.
The bankers and bond underwriters — many of whom had ties to Mr. Pataki or had donated to his campaign — earned an estimated $85 million.
Mr. Pataki did not return messages seeking comment.
Today, bonds have become the biggest funding source for M.T.A.'s construction needs. The authority has borrowed about $15 billion in the past six years — about 52 percent of overall capital funding, records show. In the 1980s, only about 30 percent of capital work was financed by debt.
The current state budget director, Robert Mujica, who was appointed by Mr. Cuomo, said it was sensible for the M.T.A. to borrow more today because interest rates are much lower than in the 1980s. "Using debt is a responsible way to invest in assets that are going to last a long time," he said.
Still, most other American transit systems fund their capital work more by government financing than borrowing.
Like the budget cuts in the 1990s, the borrowing did not immediately wreak havoc on the subway. But more than two dozen current and former M.T.A. officials said that years of underinvestment caught up to the system by the mid-2000s. Reliability plunged, they said, and it kept plunging even when Gov. David A. Paterson and Mr. Ravitch raised tax rates to benefit the authority.
"They figured that the subway was fixed, and so they stopped thinking about it," said a former budget director at the M.T.A., Gary G. Caplan. "You can only stop funding something for so long before it breaks. That's what happened."
A State 'Piggy Bank'
The subway's budget has not only been squeezed. It has been milked.
Fees demanded by the state for bond advice are a prime example.
A bill passed by the Legislature in 1989 included a provision that lets state officials impose a fee on bonds issued by public authorities. The fee was largely intended to compensate the state for helping understaffed authorities navigate the borrowing process. It was to be a small charge, no more than 0.2 percent of the value of bond issuances.
"It was not widely discussed, I can tell you that," said Richard L. Brodsky, a Democrat from Westchester who served in the Assembly from 1983 to 2010, including as chairman of the authorities committee. "I don't think anybody noticed it at all."
The charge has quietly grown into a revenue stream for the state. And a lot of the money has been sapped from one authority in particular: the M.T.A.
The authority — a sophisticated operation that contracts with multiple bond experts — has had to pay $328 million in bond issuance fees over the past 15 years.
In some years, it has been charged fees totaling nearly 1 percent of its bond issuances, far more than foreseen under the original law.
The Times uncovered the payments by piecing together state and authority records and interviewing current and former M.T.A. officials.
Mr. Mujica, the state budget director, defended the payments, saying that his staff meets "periodically" with the M.T.A. and its bond counsel "to work out the timing of what they're doing."
He also said the fees were routinely paid by all authorities.
But records show that other agencies have had tens of millions of dollars in bond issuance fees waived, including the Dormitory Authority, which is often used as a vehicle for pork projects pushed by the governor or lawmakers. The M.T.A. has not benefited as often from waivers.
Mr. Brodsky called the charges "unsavory" — especially because state funding cuts forced the M.T.A. to issue the bonds in the first place.
"They're using the public authority system as a piggy bank," he said.
After questions from a Times reporter, Mr. Mujica said the state would no longer impose bond issuance fees on the M.T.A.
Costly Undertakings
This was just one way that officials redirected M.T.A. money that could have gone toward fixing the subway. The remaking of the Fulton Street station in Manhattan was another.
Damaged during the Sept. 11 attacks, the station was eligible for federal renovation money when Sheldon Silver took it up as a cause.
Mr. Silver, who was then Assembly speaker and one of the state's most powerful politicians, envisioned not just a subway station in his district but a soaring transit hub, "the Grand Central of Downtown," complete with an enormous glass dome and mirrors to filter sunlight into underground passageways.
By 2008, the cost had shot past its original $750 million budget, and M.T.A. leaders decided to scale back the project. But Mr. Silver sent a letter threatening to veto the authority's funding if he did not get what he wanted. The M.T.A. quickly fell in line.
In the end, the project cost $1.4 billion — more than the total annual budget of Chicago's rapid transit system — and did nothing to improve the subway's signals or tracks.
Mr. Silver, who stepped down as speaker in 2015 after being charged in a federal corruption case, declined to comment.
There have also been costly overhauls at other stations. Bleecker Street in Manhattan got improvements, including a neon light display, at a cost of $135 million — more than twice the initial estimate. The remodel of the Cortlandt Street station in Manhattan, also destroyed in the 2001 attacks, is still not finished, despite $66 million in spending so far.
Last year, Mr. Cuomo pushed the M.T.A. to spend nearly $1 billion on enhanced lighting, signs, countdown clocks and other upgrades at dozens of stations, many of which were not considered most in need of rehabilitation by M.T.A. leaders. The project, called the Enhanced Station Initiative, did not include funding to make all the stations comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act.
Mr. Cuomo also pressured the authority to spend tens of millions of dollars to study outfitting M.T.A. bridges with lights capable of choreographed display, install wireless internet and phone-charging ports on buses and paint the state logo on new subway cars.
Joseph J. Lhota, whom Mr. Cuomo appointed M.T.A. chairman in June, defended the spending.
"Service and reliability shouldn't just be while passengers are on the train. It should be while they're on the platform," he said, adding that not having phone-charging ports was unacceptable in the 21st century.
But Roger Toussaint, who ran the M.T.A.'s main union from 2001 to 2009, said the spending reflected a pattern of focusing on flashy projects over maintenance. "The spinal cord of the subway system is the ability to move trains — signals, power and the actual track and infrastructure," Mr. Toussaint said. "They haven't been spending money on the spine. They've been spending money on the limbs."
The state has also made the M.T.A. bail out other entities in need of help, including the state-run ski resorts. The $5 million was sent in March last year, after a warm winter in which the Belleayre Ski Center, Gore Mountain and Whiteface Mountain saw a 25 percent decrease in visitors. In 2013, the M.T.A. was made to send $5 million to an affiliate agency, the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, to cover the cost of reducing tolls.
M.T.A. board members, who learned of the ski-resort bailout from an article in The New York Daily News, hired a law firm to investigate the payments. The firm concluded they probably were legal, according to records shared with The Times, but several members said they were inappropriate nonetheless.
"It would have been far more responsible for the state to have left that money with the M.T.A. I love skiing, but if you want to ski at a state-owned ski resort, buy a lift ticket," said James E. Vitiello, an appointee of the Dutchess County executive. Mr. Vitiello is among several board members who have complained that the governor has taken a stronger role in the authority and limited their ability to direct policy.
During this period of spending, subway performance slid. The percentage of trains arriving at their destinations more than five minutes late — the M.T.A.'s cutoff for whether a trip is "on time" — has increased in 14 of the past 15 years. "Mean distance between failure," the measure of how frequently trains break down, has worsened almost every year since 2010.
The financial crisis in 2008 intensified the problems, in part because of the M.T.A.'s reliance on taxes and fees. Among other issues, revenue from a real estate transfer tax plunged by 75 percent — leaving the authority scrambling to deal with a $1 billion drop in revenue.
The M.T.A. curtailed 40 types of maintenance. Among other moves, it lengthened schedules for routine work on most cars from about every 66 days to every 73, and schedules for comprehensive overhauls from every six years to every seven.
Mr. Lhota said the cuts, which have never been restored, were the biggest reason for the rising delays. "The maintenance intervals were stretched, and they were stretched too far," he said.
Hurricane Sandy struck a few years later. The M.T.A. drew praise for its response, but transit leaders said the storm took resources away from routine maintenance.
Mr. Cuomo had steered clear of the M.T.A. during his first years in office, but in his second term he took an intense interest. He placed aides within the organization and, in an unusual move, made some report directly to him. He badgered transit leaders about the construction of the Second Avenue subway on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. And over the objections of some board members, he canceled several M.T.A. capital projects to make room for his own priorities.
According to high-ranking current and former M.T.A. officials, the moves interfered with the authority's plans to address the rising delays.
They also bothered the respected former M.T.A. chairman Thomas F. Prendergast, who retired in January. Mr. Prendergast said his retirement was not related to the governor, but several of his former colleagues said it was a factor.
Soaring Salaries
Even in the face of the financial crisis and budget shortfalls, the M.T.A. has given concession after concession to its main labor union.
Members of the Transport Workers Union got a total of 19 percent in pay raises between 2009 and 2016, compared with 12 percent for the city's teachers union over the same period.
The labor contracts also gave members lifetime spousal health benefits and free rides on the Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road. (They already were allowed to ride the subway for free.)
According to a former union president, John Samuelsen, the organization has secured better deals over the past eight years than any other public labor group in New York.
"I look back with satisfaction on what, together, we have accomplished," Mr. Samuelsen said in a September letter announcing that he was becoming the union's international president.
Each of three deals signed from 2009 to 2017 cost more than the M.T.A. anticipated, forcing it to take money from other parts of the budget. The 2014 deal, which cost $525 million, was funded by tapping into a pay-as-you-go account that was intended to pay for capital work, former officials said.
Subway workers, including managers and administrative personnel, now make an average of about $155,000 annually in salary, overtime and benefits, according to a Times analysis of data compiled by the federal Department of Transportation. That is far more than in any other American transit system; the average in cities like Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington is less than $100,000 in total compensation annually.
The pay for managers alone is even more extraordinary. The nearly 2,500 people who work in New York subway administration make, on average, $240,000 in salary, overtime and benefits. The average elsewhere is less than $115,000.
New York is more expensive than most other cities, but not by that much. The latest estimate from the federal Department of Commerce said the region's cost of living was 22 percent higher than the national average and 10 percent higher than the average for other areas with subways.
Mr. Samuelsen rejected the idea that subway workers were overpaid, arguing that it is a dangerous job in which assault is common. "We earn every penny that we make," he said. "This is New York City. This isn't Mayberry. It costs $700,000 to buy a house in Brooklyn. What do you want us to make? Fifteen dollars an hour?"
Union rules also drive up costs, including by requiring two M.T.A. employees on every train — one to drive, and one to oversee boarding. Virtually every other subway in the world staffs trains with only one worker; if New York did that, it would save nearly $200 million a year, according to an internal M.T.A. analysis obtained by The Times.
Several M.T.A. officials involved in negotiating recent contracts said that there was one reason they accepted the union's terms: Mr. Cuomo.
The governor, who is closely aligned with the union and has received $165,000 in campaign contributions from the labor group, once dispatched a top aide to deliver a message, they said.
Pay the union and worry about finding the money later, the aide said, according to two former M.T.A. officials who were in the room.
Mr. Cuomo's office said in a statement that the M.T.A. handled its own labor negotiations and that campaign contributions had not influenced any of his actions.
A Vast Personal Toll
The cost of increasing delays can be measured not only in numbers, but also in painful absences on special occasions, lost wages and blown opportunities. Over the summer, The Times asked readers to share their experiences with the subway. More than 1,000 responded, mostly with stories of sorrow.
Ashley Patterson, 24, from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, began having anxiety attacks on the subway this summer and now follows a careful routine to keep calm during delays.
"I think that that's something that the M.T.A. should be thinking about," Ms. Patterson said. "It's not just about the inconvenience of being late to work. There's this mental health aspect."
Laura Hernandez, 34, a city employee from Woodside, Queens, missed an appointment to inspect the housing conditions of the clients of a social service agency. "I am a new employee on probation, and it does not look good to arrive over an hour late for an appointment," Ms. Hernandez said.
Juliana S. Karol, 30, from the Upper East Side of Manhattan, is a rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College downtown. She was late to a meeting to discuss her senior thesis, ordination and job placement. She was also 38 weeks pregnant.
"I actually ended up writing my High Holy Days sermon about the subway," Ms. Karol said. "About the opportunities that the subway crisis gives us to reframe both the gratitude we have when things are going right and how we respond when they are not."
The entire fifth-grade class at Public School 32 in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, had to cancel a field trip to see a movie — a reward for completing math exams.
"They had actually gone to the station, and they just ended up waiting forever," said Dawn Reed, 52, whose son was one of the disappointed students. She said she used the experience to teach him about managing expectations. "It's getting progressively worse," she said of the subway. "And delays are a part of life, and it's difficult to have any sense of consistency."
Ariel Leigh Cohen, 26, from Sunnyside, Queens, missed an interview for a job painting scenery for a major Broadway show. It would have paid twice her salary as a salon receptionist and brought her closer to her dream of working in show business.
"I was trying to change my life and do what I came to New York to do," Ms. Cohen said. "It would've opened up another world of possibilities. Opportunities like that don't come around often at all."
And then there are stories like Rosalie Osian's. A chaplain who comforts the terminally ill for Caring Hospice Services, Ms. Osian, 58, got word one Friday that a patient was dying in Brooklyn, and she struck out on a 2 train from 72nd Street in Manhattan.
She made it as far as Fulton Street downtown before an announcement told her to switch to the 4 or 5. Problems on that line forced her to switch trains again, and at one point she was left standing on a platform, racked by the need to be with the patient and prepare the family for grief and pending loss. She was late getting there but made it before the patient died.
"I'm not the only one," Ms. Osian said. "There are people traveling the city all day helping people. There are home health aides and others. And if the subways are delayed, they can't get to their work."
Avoiding Culpability
Although riders have bemoaned delays on the subway for years, they often have no idea what is causing them.
This is a byproduct of 30 years of transit officials seeking to avoid blame for the system's problems, The Times found.
Every day, officials collect data that could be used to improve the system. For every incident that causes a delay, workers are supposed to log the time, location, duration, cause and department responsible. In theory, the data could be studied to identify patterns in delays and shed light on how they might be fixed.
That has not happened.
In 1986, the M.T.A.'s inspector general discovered that the delay records were "seriously flawed" — and shot through with biased reporting, unauthorized adjustments, illegible entries and omissions. In the 1990s, investigators twice concluded that the count was riddled with errors and misrepresentations.
John Gaul, then the assistant chief of rapid transit operations, acknowledged at the time that the process was susceptible to fraud because operators were being asked to collect data on their own performances. "In many cases, undue pressure had been imposed on supervisors in the field to meet on-time performance goals," he said.
Three former high-ranking subway officials told The Times that little had changed since the 1980s. Before final delay reports are issued, M.T.A. departments argue about who should be blamed. Sometimes, the reports reflect more on a department's arguing ability than on its actual performance.
The officials also said that different tactics had been used over the years to avoid culpability.
From September 2009 to May 2010, records show, some 530,000 delays — 80 percent of all delays recorded — were lumped into a category called "supplement schedule." The officials said that whenever maintenance work in the system caused a scheduling change, virtually all delays were put under this label, regardless of their cause.
In recent years, the M.T.A. has stopped using the category.
Today, M.T.A. documents say that the most common cause of delays is "overcrowding." More than 111,000 delays were put into that category in the first four months of 2017 alone. That was 37 percent of all delays.
New York politicians and transit leaders have seized on the figures to suggest that most of the subway's problems come down to its popularity.
But the M.T.A.'s own records call that into question.
In March 2015, records show, more than 153 million trips were recorded, making it one of the busiest months on record. There were 19,000 delays attributed to overcrowding.
Last March, two million fewer rides were recorded, but 30,000 delays were said to be caused by overcrowding.
Mr. Lhota said that quirks existed in all data and that M.T.A. officials handled the classification consistently. He rejected any suggestion that officials were manipulating numbers to make themselves look better or blame customers for problems. "The delays are solely the responsibility of the New York City Transit Authority," he said, referring to the agency that runs the subway.
Still, the murkiness of what is truly causing delays only feeds frustration for riders like Ms. Muteba, the advertising strategist whose 30-minute commute became a two-hour odyssey of packed cars and angry riders after a track fire in July.
Though the number of passengers on the 1 line swelled temporarily that morning because riders were avoiding the blocked A train, dozens of delays were not attributed to the track fire. They were attributed to overcrowding, records show.
"You're just kind of like, 'It's a lost cause,'" Ms. Muteba said. "It's kind of like beating a dead horse."


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Georgia lawmakers are tough on undocumented immigrants. They want all members of the University System of Georgia to ferret out these students from the total enrollment of 318,000 to make room for "real Americans." A recent audit reveals that there are about 300 undocumented students enrolled (about .09%). We are guessing that Georgia will have to search far and wide to fill those 300 seats with "real Americans" (whatever that means). Ludicrous way to spend legislative effort but Georgia wants to follow Arizona in getting tough on these folks. Red meat for the red states.
STORY: Georgia's immigration law targets universities


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The cameras in your iPhone take great photos even in difficult conditions. If you accidentally move a camera when you take a picture, the resulting image can be blurry. To prevent this, some iPhone models have optical image stabilization (OIS).1 OIS lets you take sharp photos even if you accidentally move the camera. Additionally, some iPhone models have closed-loop autofocus (AF).2 Closed-loop AF resists the effects of gravity and vibration to preserve sharp focus in stills, videos, and panoramas.
With OIS, a gyroscope senses that the camera moved. To reduce image motion, and the resulting blur, the lens moves according to the angle of the gyroscope. With closed-loop AF, on-board accelerometers measure and compensate for gravity and vibration effects. Magnetic sensors determine the lens position so that the compensating motion can be set accurately.
- Optical image stabilization is available on iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR, iPhone X, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 6 Plus, and iPhone 6s Plus.
- Closed-loop AF is available on iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR.
A strong magnetic field can interfere with OIS and closed-loop AF
Lens-position sensors respond to magnetic fields. If you place a magnet near these sensors, the magnetic field will interfere with or temporarily disable the sensors. This can degrade the sensors' accuracy and limit the range of movement available to the lenses. The camera will continue to take photos with other means of stabilization but without the benefit of OIS and closed-loop AF.
How to avoid magnetic interference
Third-party manufacturers make some accessories with strong magnets or magnetizable metal plates that are near the iPhone rear camera (or cameras). These magnets and plates can latch folio covers, join separable cases, or attach to rigid mounts—for example, car mounts. Apple recommends that third-party manufacturers avoid using magnets and metal components in cases and other accessories. For best camera performance, avoid accessories that use magnets or magnetic metal.
If your camera still isn't working
If you removed your iPhone case and any other magnetic accessories and your iPhone camera still isn't working, find out what to do.


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Record Broken!
See Current
Longest Eight-Finger Plank With 100 Pounds On Back
Darryl Learie
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada / January 12, 2012
Darryl Learie performed an eight-finger plank exercise without using his thumbs while carrying 100 pounds of additional weight on his back. He remained balanced in position for 33.72 seconds.
- must show proof of weight
- may use one sheet of sand paper per hand for stabilization
- attempt must be made on concrete or cement
- must observe RecordSetter balancing criteria for weights
- must provide video evidence
Guillaume Bourgeois
Hi Darryl. That's it, I threw the invitation on facebook. I'm not Italian, and finally only the original. Otherwise I'm french. Thank you for the proposal to Guinness record in Italy, but I can not make the trip. (financially). sorry
Guillaume Bourgeois
Thank you Darryl. Yes, indeed, it is very difficult to hand because of the lack of carpet. I would be happy to contact you through facebook, and communicate with other champions of push ups. But I found only one person at your name on facebook, but I do not know if it's you? I write with the google translator because I do not speak English. If at times there are some inconsistencies.
Guillaume Bourgeois
very strong
History (6)
DarrylLearie on 10/18/201200:45.10
DarrylLearie on 4/19/201200:43.71
DarrylLearie on 1/30/201200:41.61
DarrylLearie on 1/15/201200:33.72
DarrylLearie on 1/12/201200:19.65
DarrylLearie on 12/23/2011


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While HTC's Android cell phones have stolen the show, the company originally made its name here in the United States on deluxe, full-featured Windows Mobile phones. The HTC 7 Pro on U.S. Cellular continues that tradition, albeit with Microsoft's vastly improved Windows Phone 7 OS. The HTC 7 Pro is a solid smartphone, and a good choice if you text or email more than the average person, although it lacks the battery life and third-party app catalog of other models.
Design, Call Quality, and Apps
The HTC 7 Pro measures 4.6 by 2.3 by 0.6 inches (HWD) and weighs a substantial 6.5 ounces. It's made of a complex mix of matte plastic, glass, soft touch rubber, and aluminum surfaces; the effect is bulky, but handsome. The front panel slides back and tilts up at a 45-degree angle, which is great for watching movies or using the phone as a very tiny laptop computer.
The 3.6-inch capacitive touch screen is on the small side for such a bulky phone, but its 480-by-800-pixel resolution looks sharp. The display lacks the vibrancy of HTC and Samsung's newer panels, though. The slide-out, five-row QWERTY keyboard is an absolute gem. It features large rectangular keys that are well-raised and separated. They exhibit just the right texture and resistance for fast, near-silent typing.
The HTC 7 Pro is a dual-band EV-DO Rev. A (850/1900MHz) device with 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi; the phone connected to my WPA2-encrypted network without a problem in tests. There's no Wi-Fi hotspot mode, though. Voice quality was fine overall, with a clear if somewhat brittle tone in the earpiece, and plenty of available gain. Callers uniformly said I sounded good through the microphone. Reception seemed about average. Thankfully, the HTC 7 Pro doesn't suffer from the same horrid background hiss as the HD7S ($199.99, 2.5 stars), even though the wide earpiece speaker looks identical on both handsets.
Calls sounded clear through an Aliph Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset ($129, 4 stars) and the TellMe-powered voice dialing worked flawlessly over Bluetooth. The speakerphone was excellent, with plenty of gain for use outdoors, albeit with a touch of distortion at the highest volume setting. Battery life was short, though, at just over four hours of talk time.
By now it's clear that Windows Phone 7 is a beautiful smartphone OS that's fun to use. It features smoothly sliding home screen tiles; tight integration with Microsoft Office, Exchange, and Outlook; XBox Live compatibility; and it works just like a standalone Zune for music and video playback. Regardless of the task, the 7 Pro's 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU keeps things moving at a good clip. That said, while the Windows Marketplace offers a decent selection of apps and games, it's nowhere near what's available for Android and iOS devices. Keep an eye out for news on the upcoming "Mango" version of Windows Phone 7, which adds many new features to the OS.
Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions
There is a standard size 3.5mm headphone jack, plus 16GB of internal storage for media files, with about 13.7GB free. There's no microSD card slot or USB mass storage mode, though; you must sync the phone with a PC or Mac using dedicated Microsoft apps in each case.
Music tracks sounded clear and full through Samsung Modus HM6450 Bluetooth headphones ($99, 4 stars). The Zune-like music app was fun to use, with large album art, clear fonts, and smooth animations and responses—much like the rest of the OS. There's also an FM radio that uses the bundled, tinny-sounding wired stereo earbuds as an antenna. Standalone videos played smoothly in full screen mode, but audio only played through the phone's speaker, not over stereo Bluetooth.
The 5-megapixel auto-focus camera has an LED flash. Test photos were okay but not great, with well balanced in bright outdoor sunlight but only modest detail and muted colors. Indoors, some shots exhibited slight graininess and a softer focus, but they weren't too bad. The HTC 7 Pro's auto-focus works before you press the button, not after; let the phone focus automatically first, then snap the photo, and you're golden. The camcorder recorded crisp 640-by-480-pixel videos at a smooth 27 frames per second. But 720p files (1280 by 720 pixel) looked soft and not as detailed, with a more uneven frame rate that averaged 19 frames per second.
U.S. Cellular still trails the four major U.S. carriers in terms of network coverage and high-end smartphones, but it's beginning to rectify the latter problem in earnest. The HTC 7 Pro is a fine choice if you like Microsoft's clean slate, Zune HD-influenced mobile OS. But with a paucity of third-party apps, it's still a niche player next to Android phones like the HTC Merge ($149, 4 stars), our current Editors' Choice smartphone on U.S. Cellular, and the LG Genesis ($149, 3 stars). Both of those handsets are $50 less expensive up front, offer more features like free, Google-powered GPS navigation and a mobile hotspot mode, and work with a vast selection of third-party apps in the Android market.
Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388650,00.asp


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Mon 03
Get thee to a bookstore
It's out! And oh, it's good to see the thing in an actual bookstore. It's such a long process to get a novel from idea to bookshelf—I began writing it in November 1999, if you can believe that—so it's very satisfying to be done. It's also great to see Jennifer Government and Syrup side-by-side. It makes me look like a real writer. A real writer who can't decide what his name is, sure, but still.
Early signs suggest the book is selling well, although it's hard to be sure. Book stores generally don't report this information to publishers, so I can only get an indication from store re-orders, my Amazon.com sales ranking, and bestseller lists (which lag by a couple of weeks anyway). But so far, so good!


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If the recent spate of bedroom buddy romantic-comedies were the sisters of the Brady Bunch, "Friends with Benefits" would be Marcia, "No Strings Attached" would be Jan, and "What's Your Number?" is little Cindy Brady. Neither as grating and obnoxious as Jan, but not quite as shiny and earnest as Marcia, "What's Your Number?" works hard to differentiate itself from the pack, has a few truly winning traits, but ultimately will always be lumped into the bigger kitschy bunch she's associated with.
"What's Your Number?" stars Anna Faris as a woman unwilling to go over twenty sexual partners once she learns that she's risking more than being labeled a slut. In fact, research proves it will diminish her chances of finding a husband to a paltry 4% (side note: we'd love to see the oh-so scientific study this premise, which the filmmakers claim is real, was based on). To find her husband, she goes green and decides to do some sexual recycling, revisiting all of her old flames, hoping one of them might be her true love. Luckily she's assisted in her quest by her diabolically hot neighbor played by Chris Evans. Gee, anyone wonder if he'll be lucky number twenty-one?
Romantic comedies follow a formula we all know like the back of our hand. The question is, are the people you're watching and the situations they find themselves in compelling enough to make the journey interesting and worthwhile? "What's Your Number?," though unoriginal and, at times tiresome, is better than one might expect and has some moments of genuine delight, most thanks to an oft semi-nude Evans who has palpable chemistry with everything he shares the screen with, whether it's a sandwich, a guitar or Anna Faris. Speaking of, Faris is no Mila Kunis ("Mila, Mila, Mila!"), and her brand of slap sticky humor can run thin, but when she relaxes into the role and stops pushing for laughs, she can be winning.
U.S. & World
If watching two pretty people slowly work themselves together like romantic Legos floats your boat, seeing Faris and Evans march toward the inevitable is perfectly enjoyable. Unfortunately, it's also kind of forgettable, much like the youngest child of six.


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Did you know that there are over 600 million websites on the Internet, with over 50 million added in the last year alone? That's a lot of information – and a lot of potential usernames and passwords!
Although LastPass is designed to efficiently save your logins for the majority of websites, it's inevitable that a few prevent LastPass from properly auto-saving your credentials.
There are three common reasons why LastPass is not able to save your credentials:
- Extra security: Bank and financial websites have added security measures, including preventing auto-filling of data, requiring keystrokes before data can be entered, and more. They're designed to prevent malicious activity but also make it hard for LastPass to appropriately detect and fill your logins.
- Additional form fields: Sometimes LastPass will pick up extra fields on a page that will complicate the login process, or LastPass can't detect additional fields that you do want it to save and fill.
- Multi-page logins: Websites may prompt you for your username or email address on one page, then after you submit that information will ask for your password or code on the second page, which LastPass cannot always string together.
We continue to work to improve our accuracy on common types of login forms, but if you run into any of these obstacles, you should try our "Save All Entered Data" feature. This feature force-saves any fields filled in on a login page, giving LastPass better accuracy next time you are logging in to the site.
To use Save All Entered Data:
- Login to your LastPass account via the browser addon.
- Go to the website whose login you need to force-save with "Save All Entered Data".
- On the login page, fill in your credentials (username, email address, password, etc) but do not press login.
- Click the LastPass Icon and select the "Save All Entered Data" option at the bottom of the menu.
- Confirm the information in the save site dialog.
- Once saved, when you return to the login page LastPass should fill the data for you.You can also "force-fill" the login from the LastPass notification bar, or from the LastPass icon by selecting the site name at the bottom of the menu and then clicking "autofill".
Our video tutorial shows this feature in action:


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Discussion Area for Enthusiasts who practice the Ancient Art of Paperfolding
origamimasterjared wrote:Everyone I know of uses Macromedia Freehand. It's kind of expensive though.
T wrote:So is there a trick to knowing which creases are for the final product and which were just used to help the model build up.
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Today I�m the one asking a question: What�s new in the hiring-and-firing world? Dr. John Sullivan has discovered interesting answers in articles appearing on ERE.net, the top online hangout for recruiting professionals.
Dr. Sullivan, well known in the human resource career field, is a management professor at San Francisco State University. Here are 10 capsules, drawn from 23 items that appear in his new two-part report focusing on �Bold and Outrageous HR Practices.�
American entertainment website IGN doesn�t accept r�sum�s, but offers �Code-Foo,� a six-week paid apprenticeship program where prospects train and work. When the training�s over, IGN hires the best performers.
In Atlantic City, N.J., Revel casino and hotel required many new hires who were to interact with customers to sign employment contracts with a limit of four to five years. After the contract expires, an employee must formally reapply to be hired again. The rationale: Employees dealing with the public are more likely to remain productive and customer-friendly without a guarantee of job security.
Netflix and several startups have begun to offer employees unlimited amounts of vacation and sick leave. The bold approach treats employees like mature adults who know how to manage how much time they spend away from work. Management�s rationale: By offering compelling work and performance-based pay, the positive incentives may actually drive employees to work more hours.
The Consumerist, a consumer affairs blog, published a poll asking readers to rank the worst employers in America. A name-game publisher beat out a big bank as the most loathed. Website Glassdoor.com allows readers to rank a company�s chief executive. Bad scores can damage an employer�s brand and recruiting.
Competitions aimed at recruiting employed professionals are happening because they attract highly competitive people who are not actively looking for a job. Quixey, a functional search engine for apps, uniquely uses a telephone operator to provide a contest problem to prequalified contestants. All winners are automatically invited to interview.
Marriott International, the giant hotel company, uses social media for recruiting. Marriott gave away $100 gift certificates (one a day for 10 days) that could be cashed at shoe powerhouse Zappos. To qualify for the selection, the individual merely had to sign up to become a member of Marriott�s Facebook recruiting page.
Giant retailer Target has begun using games to motivate individuals working in particular jobs. Cashiers, for example, can be scored on each transaction, and individual employee scores can be competitively compared to other cashiers. The result is both higher quality work and improved morale.
To read more of Dr. Sullivan�s HR news flashes, search for the first article in his two-part report: �Bold and Outrageous HR Practices That May Indicate Your Approach Is Too Conservative� on ERE.net.


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align with the stars, astrology, call dates & times, Chart Gallery, Free Calls, full moon, GoodVibeAstrology.com, GVA Talkshoe, horoscopes, Jeannette Maw, Kim Falconer, law of attraction, learn astrology, Mercury direct, Saturn trine Uranus, Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, talkshoe, Upload your chart
Image: Stephanie Pui-Mun Law – Wheel of Fortune
Hi Everyone,
It's time for our monthly Align with the Stars call on Talkshoe
Jeannette Maw and I will be talking about the January – February 2017 Astro weather including Mercury Direct, Saturn trine Uranus and the Full Moon T-Square. Exciting events!
Our monthly "Align with the Stars" calls are a chance for everyone to learn how to put astrology and the Law of Attraction into practice. All welcome to the live gathering. Come check out our community!
Feel free to listen and/or join in, ask questions or simply stream online.
If you want to use you chart as an example, upload your chart to the GVA Gallery before the call.
Call Date and Time
January 10/11 Tuesday/Wednesday
LA – Tuesday – 2pm
NY – Tuesday – 5pm
Lon- Wednesday – 10 am
Syd- Wednesday – 9 am
See you there!
To stream online, visit Good Vibe Astrology on TalkShoe. Or dial in on Phone Number: (724) 444-7444 Call ID: 25859
Open to everyone
Learn more about GoodVibeAstrology.com


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Prom Hairstyles for Long Hair
This Year it's Long Prom Hairstyles
Prom hairstyles come in all shapes and sizes and it's not too early to choose whether your inspiration should evoke a 'twilight' vampire vibe or perhaps a flashy number reminiscent of the ladies of 'high school musical.
Of course the long hair styles for prom that will suit you best is the one that best matches the mood you want to set. Will you be the glamour gal; the tantalizing coquette; the rock 'n' roll queen; the romantic enchantress; the funky fun type; or maybe the sweetest of the sweet? Whatever style you're shooting for, be sure you create the complete package! You will need the killer dress with killer shoes and accessories and, of course, a drop dead gorgeous long prom hairstyle!
Here are a few long hair styles for Prom that you can give a try before the big event . . .
An elegant, glamorous look!
Get the look: Set hair with hot rollers and with a side parting, pull back into a loose, low ponytail. Take two sections and pin-up to extend curls of the ponytail. Leave out a couple of face framing layers and softly curl with iron. Side swept bangs are hot, and will soften the look and draw attention to your eyes.
Rock 'n' roll style!
Get the look: Set hair with hot rollers, leave out long swept bangs and smooth with round brush/hair dryer. Pull hair into two high side ponytails from a side part, leaving out some face framing layers. Curl face framing layers away from face. Take one inch random sections and pin above and around the ponytail elastic, to widen and lengthen into more cascading curls. For the look of more hair, purchase a ponytail or hairpiece with a clip or comb securing it into your hair.
The tantalizing coquette!
Get the look: Set hair with hot rollers or curl using a curling iron throughout to create loose curls. Create a deep side part, leaving out a two-inch section in bang area to braid or twist. Pull rest into a low side ponytail, secure with elastic. Wrap a small section of hair around the elastic and pin underneath. Braid the bang section and pin behind ponytail. Lightly tease ponytail to make a ruffed-up texture and lightly spray.
Funky n' fun!
Get the look: long swept side bangs are a must for this funky hairstyle. Straighten hair and bangs using a hair dryer and paddle brush keeping some volume in the hair. Pull hair back into a high pony tail securing with clear elastic. Pull hair straight up and clip at crown using a wide, hair clip and letting hair fall over top of the hair clip. Lightly backcomb at crown.
The sweetest of the sweet!
Get the look: For a 70's look this long prom hairstyle is pulled into a side ponytail and twisted until it wraps onto itself. Pin in flowers and softly curl face framing tendrils.
Soft and feminine prom hairstyle
Get the look: pull hair back into a chignon leaving a few two-inch pieces out around hairline. Curl pieces pull back and pin leaving curled ends showing. Pin in aromatic, spring flowers for a most feminine touch.
For more great longer looks check out our Pinterest Long Hairstyles Board.
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This post is in: Long Hair, Prom, Wedding and Up Do HairstylesJanuary 6, 2013 By: Barb Quinn Hairstyle Blog Leave your comments (0), Your input matters.


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Church St
Luton LU1 3JG
JiveSwing Luton, is held at St Mary's Church Hall, a 850 year old renovated building, in central Luton (near The University of Bedfordshire's Luton branch), Church St, Luton, Bedfordshire, LU1 3JF. JiveSwing classes are fun cosmopolitan, with people of all ages (typically 18 – 60), race and background. Whilst it's a great place for those who are absolute beginners, we also run a higher level of classes at intermediate levels and beyond, for dancers who wish to really challenge themselves.
Doors open at 7:45pm.
8:00pm – 9:00pm
Whilst you can drop in at anytime, a fresh Absolute Beginners (Even for those with 2 left feet) cycle runs every 6-7 weeks covering key fundamental moves, including the key 8 counts, 6 Counts and classic Charleston steps. There's no need to book, just turn up in comfortable clothing and flat shoes. We rotate people around every few minutes, so don't worry if you don't have a partner.
At the end of your first class, you'll leave with at least 3-5 simple moves that you can use straight away to impress your friends. By the end of 6 weeks, you may not be a world champion, but you'll be able to dance a whole track.
Intermediate – Intermediate / Advanced
9:00pm – 10:00pm
Here you learn build upon the fundamental moves already learnt in the beginners class. We will teach you a number of variations, assuming you already know the basic Swing Outs, Lindy Turn, Circles and Charleston variations.
You will start to learn more challenging footwork and moves to enhance your social dancing, whilst improving your styling and lead/follow techniques.
Those that are visiting for their first time, are invited to join the review class, whilst the intermediate class is on.
Social Dancing/Practice time
10:00pm onwards
This is a great opportunity to practice the moves learnt in class with lots of other dancers. We encourage all students to stay on and dance with other students. No new dancer will never find themselves stuck watching from the sidelines. We find that people who do stay till the end seem to progress quicker and grasp new concepts and moves a lot more easier.
Safe Spaces / Etiquette
Please see our SAFE SPACES policy here… http://www.jiveswing.com/safe-spaces-policy/


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It might be Spring but with the way the weather has been around here, it seldom feels like it, so this month's Sweet Heat challenge was perfect for transporting us to warmer, exotic climates and the beautiful aromatic tastes of Thailand. So whether you have a passport or not, with this collection of recipes you could quite easily be basking on the white beaches of Thailand, sipping coconut water and savouring the regional delights.
To whet our appetites and get things going, Nicola from 41 Feasts kept her other half (and us!) extremely happy with her Thai Spiced Prawns.
Next up and Corina from Searching for Spice recreated one of her favourite restaurant starters and made a fantastic Thai Spiced Beef Salad packed with chilli, lime and coriander for that perfect Thai salad.
My entry for this month's challenge was one of my favourite starters for a Thai feast – Thai Fishcakes with Cucumber Dipping Sauce.
And you can't have a Thai challenge without a Thai curry appearing so I was delighted to see this beautiful Thai Green Curry from Tango Like Raindrop who was able to finally put her green curry paste to good use.
Another mouth watering and finger licking chicken recipe came courtesy of newcomer and the very lovely Dom of Belleau Kitchen fame who whisked us away to the exotic climates of Thailand with his one-pot Roasted ThaiChicken Thighs.
I was also delighted to welcome another newcomer, Jen from Juanita'sCocina, to the Sweet Heat party with her absolutely fantastic looking and super Spicy Thai Noodles....they definitely pack a spicy punch!
And finally Laura from Credit Munched ends this Thai feast with a deliciously light and aromatic Thai soup packed with Thai chillies, ginger and lime.
As always thank you so much to everyone that took part this month and check out tomorrow's post for the next challenge which is being hosted by the lovely Emma over at Souperior. As always it's going to be spicy!! Happy Cooking : )


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The Price Of Gas Is Outrageous – And It Is Going To Go Even Higher
Does it cost you hundreds of dollars just to get to work each month? If it does, you are certainly not alone. There are millions of other Americans in the exact same boat. In recent years, the price of gas in the United States has gotten so outrageous that it has played a major factor in where millions of American families have decided to live and in what kind of vehicles they have decided to purchase. Many Americans that have very long commutes to work end up spending thousands of dollars on gas a year. So when the price of gas starts going up to record levels, people like that really start to feel it. But the price of gas doesn't just affect those that drive a lot. The truth is that the price of gas impacts each and every one of us. Almost everything that we buy has to be transported, and when the price of gasoline goes up the cost of shipping goods also rises. The U.S. economy has been structured around cheap oil. It was assumed that we would always be able to transport massive quantities of goods over vast distances very inexpensively. Once that paradigm totally breaks down, we are going to be in a huge amount of trouble. For the moment, the big concern is the stress that higher gas prices are going to put on the budgets of ordinary American families. Unfortunately, almost everyone agrees that in the short-term the price of gas is going to go even higher.
When you are on a really tight budget and you are already spending several hundred dollars on gas each month, you certainly do not want to hear that gas prices are going to increase even more.
A lot of Americans are moving or are getting different vehicles just because of these outrageous gas prices. The following comes from a recent Mercury News article….
The Rest…Here


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Elle Macpherson gets engaged to billionaire
ELLE Macpherson is engaged.
The Australian supermodel is set to wed Jeffrey Soffer, who she recently reunited with after breaking up last March following two years of dating.
A source told Access Hollywood that the 49-year-old beauty is planning to move from London to Florida with the 43-year-old billionaire real estate developer, who lives in Miami.
Elle, who was briefly linked to wealthy financier Roger Jenkins last year, reconciled with Jeffrey after she rushed to his side in November when he was involved in a helicopter crash in the Bahamas, which killed his friend Lance Valdez and saw him undergo surgery for a fractured vertebrae.
A source previously said: "Jeff is very shaken up and mourning the loss of his friend. Elle is landing in Miami imminently to visit him and offer her support at a very tough time."
The helicopter - which was also carrying one of Jeffrey's employees Dan Riordan and his wife Paula - came crashing down at the Baker's Bay Golf and Ocean Club on Great Guana Cay in the Abacos Island chain on Thanksgiving Day.
The couple, who have yet to comment on their wedding plans, were both previously married. Elle tied the knot with photographer Gilles Bensimon in 1986 but they divorced three years later.
The former 'Fashion Star' host also has two sons Arpad, 15, and Aurelius, 10, from a previous relationship with Arpad Busson.


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José Clemen was an Argentine comic artist and illustrator, and the brother of artists Juan Clemen and Carlos Clemen. Clemen was a contributor of both covers and interior art to the weekly western series 'Poncho Negro' (including the 'Ponchito' feature), and to the war comic book Fuego! in the 1950s.
He was also present in Paturozito with the comic 'Mitzy y Volatín'. Clemen was one of the artists for 'El Hombre Nuclear' and drew the comic series 'Russ Congó' from scripts by Hector German Oesterheld for Top in 1970. He was a cover artist for the Colección Robin Hood in the late 1940s and early 1950s. He also illustrated 'Phantom' ('El Fantasma') covers for Editorial Edmal.