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This chapter describes the Cisco Unified Serviceability alarms and error messages and CiscoLog message format. Network alarms tracked by Cisco Unified Serviceability for Cisco Unified Presence generate the error messages.
This chapter contains the following sections:
•Cisco Unified Serviceability Alarms and CiscoLog Messages
•Preconfigured System Alarm Notifications
•Emergency-Level Alarms
•Alert-Level Alarms
•Critical-Level Alarms
•Error-Level Alarms
•Warning-Level Alarms
•Notice-Level Alarms
•Informational-Level Alarms
Cisco Unified Serviceability alarms provide information on runtime status and the state of the system, so you can troubleshoot problems that are associated with your system. The alarm or error message information includes the application name, machine name, and recommended action and other critical information to help you troubleshoot.
You use the Trace and Log Central option in the Cisco Unified Real-Time Monitoring Tool (RTMT) to collect alarms that get sent to an SDI or SDL trace log file. To view the alarm information sent to the local syslog, use the SysLog Viewer in RTMT.
CiscoLog, a specification for unified logging in Cisco software applications, gets used in the Cisco Unified RTMT. It defines the message format when messages are logged into file or by using the syslog protocol. The output that is provided by Cisco software applications gets used for auditing, fault-management, and troubleshooting of the services that are provided by these applications.
Be aware that CiscoLog message format is compatible with one of the message formats that is produced by Cisco IOS Release 12.3 by using the syslog protocol when Cisco IOS Software is configured with the following commands:
•service sequence-numbers—A default sequence number that is produced by Cisco IOS. An additional sequence number can also be enabled with this command. This command forces sequence numbers to be shown in terminal output, but results in two sequence numbers in the syslog output. CiscoLog standardizes on a format with just one sequence number. Thus, the compliant Cisco IOS Software configuration occurs when the second number is disabled by using the no service sequence-numbers command.
•logging origin-id hostname—The CiscoLog HOST field remains consistent with that produced by the Cisco IOS Release 12.3 when configured with this command. This command does not get documented in the Cisco IOS Software documentation but is available in Cisco IOS Release 12.3. CiscoLog stays compatible with the results that Cisco IOS Software produces in this field.
•service timestamps log datetime localtime msec show-timezone year—The CiscoLog TIMESTAMP field remains consistent with the timestamp format produced by Cisco IOS Release 12.3 when configured with this command.
Note CiscoLog uses the same field delimiters as Cisco IOS Software Release 12.3.
The following topics are described in this section:
•Log File and Syslog Outputs
•Standard Syslog Server Implementations
•Clock Synchronization
•Multipart Messages
•CiscoLog Message Format
When CiscoLog messages are written directly into a log file by an application, each message is on a separate line. The line separator should be a standard line separator used on a given platform. On Windows, the line separator must be the sequence of carriage return and line feed characters (ASCII decimal values 13 and 10; often designated as "\r\n" in programming languages). On Solaris and Linux, the line separator is a single line feed character (ASCII decimal value 10 and in programming languages typically "\n"). Two line separators must never appear one after another, for example, you cannot have "\r\n\r\n" on Windows, but "\r\n" is fine because these two characters are a single line separator.
In practical terms, this means that applications should be careful when appending data to an existing log. In some cases an initial line break is required and in others not. For example, if application crashes when writing CiscoLog message, but before it wrote a line break to file, then when the application starts up, it should print an initial line break before printing the next message. An application can determine if an initial line break is necessary during startup by checking the last character sequence in the log file that will be used for appending.
CiscoLog message format is identical for messages written directly to a log file or those generated by using the syslog protocol with two minor exceptions. When CiscoLog messages are written directly into to a file they must be appended with line separators. When CiscoLog messages are sent by using the syslog protocol then the syslog RFC 3164 protocol PRI header must be prepended to each CiscoLog message.
The syslog PRI field encodes syslog message severity and syslog facility. The severity encoded in the PRI field must match the value of the CiscoLog SEVERITY field. Any syslog facility can be used regardless of the content of the message. Typically, a given application is configured to send all its messages to a single syslog facility (usually RFC 3164 facilities local 0 through local 7). Refer to RFC 3164 for details about how to encode the PRI field. Below is an example of a CiscoLog message with the syslog protocol PRI field <165> which encodes the severity level of notice (5) and facility value local4.
<165>11: host.cisco.com: Jun 13 2003 12:11:52.454 UTC: %BACC-5-CONFIG: Configured from
console by vty0 [10.0.0.0]
Messages as shown in the example above can be sent to UDP port 514 if using RFC 3164 logging mechanism.
Syslog RFC 3164 provides additional guidelines for message content formatting beyond the PRI field. However, RFC 3164 is purely information (not on IETF standards track) and actually allows messages in any format to be generated to the syslog UDP port 514 (see section 4.2 of RFC 3164). The RFC provides observation about content structure often encountered in implementations, but does not dictate or recommend its use. CiscoLog format does not follow these observations due to practical limitations of the format defined in the RFC. For example, the time stamp is specified without a year, time zone or milliseconds while the hostname can only be provided without the domain name.
CiscoLog messages must remain unaltered when relayed. The PRI field is not part of a CiscoLog message, but rather a protocol header. It can be stripped or replaced if necessary. Additional headers or footers can be added to and stripped from the CiscoLog message for transport purposes.
Standard syslog server implementations can be configured to forward received log messages or to store the messages locally. Most syslog server implementations strip the PRI field from the received messages and prefix additional information to the message before storage. This additional information typically includes two extra fields: the local time stamp and the host identifier (IP or DNS name) of the server, which generated or relayed the message.
The following example of a CiscoLog message shown the output after being logged by the Solaris 8 syslog server:
Jun 13 12:12:09 host.cisco.com 11: host.cisco.com: Jun 13 2003 12:11:52.454 UTC:
%BACC-5-CONFIG: Configured from console by vty0 [10.0.0.0]
There is no standard that defines how syslog servers must store messages. Implementations vary greatly. CiscoLog only addresses the format in which messages are sent to the syslog server, not how they are stored by the server that receives them. Specifically, the format and presence of any additional header fields in syslog log files is outside of the scope of this specification.
Note The CiscoLog specification recommends that the syslog server implementation store CiscoLog messages in exactly the same format as it receives them only stripping the PRI field and without any extra headers. This would provide an identical storage format for CiscoLog messages written directly to the log file by an application or logged through syslog protocol.
It is important that the clocks of all hosts of a distributed application be synchronized with one authoritative clock. This can be accomplished by using protocols such as NTP. Clock synchronization is recommended because the time stamps in log messages are required in order to be able to reconstruct the correct sequence of events based on messages originating from multiple processes or multiple hosts. Clock drifts can still occur, but ongoing synchronization should reduce this issue to a minimum.
ASCII control characters are not permitted in any of the fields of CiscoLog message format. Control characters include characters such as line feed, form feed and carriage returns. This means that multi-line messages are not allowed unless to allow:
•Better presentation (for example, a stack trace)
•Fragmenting messages which exceed 800 octet limit
Multi-part CiscoLog message consists of a set of multiple valid CiscoLog messages. Messages are grouped together using a special tag key "part", which identifies the part number and the sequence number of the original message.
All messages which are part of a multi-part message must have a "part" tag as well as identical values for the HOST, TIMESTAMP, APPNAME, SEVERITY fields and other TAG values. However, the sequence number of each message has to be incremented as usual.
Example of a multi-part message:
16: host.cisco.com: Jun 13 2003 23:11:52.468 UTC: %BACC-3-UNEXPECTED_EXCEPTION:
%[pname.orig=rdu][part=16.1/3]: Null pointer exception
17: host.cisco.com: Jun 13 2003 23:11:52.468 UTC: %BACC-3-UNEXPECTED_EXCEPTION:
%[pname.orig=rdu][part=16.2/3]: com.cisco.Source:123
18: host.cisco.com: Jun 13 2003 23:11:52.468 UTC: %BACC-3-UNEXPECTED_EXCEPTION:
%[pname.orig=rdu][part=16.3/3]: com.cisco.Main:1112
In this example, the first message has part number 1 and its sequence number, 16, embedded in the part tag. Subsequent messages embed the sequence number of the first message part and provide their own part number. The trailing "/3" in each part tag value means that the message consists of three parts.
The CiscoLog message format follows:
All fields gets separated by a single colon character (ASCII decimal value 58) and a single space character (ASCII decimal value 32). The HEADER field is also preceded by a percent character (ASCII decimal value 37).
The TIMESTAMP, HEADER and TAGS fields have internal formatting. Below is a complete format with details for TIMESTAMP and HEADER fields:
All fields except for ACCURACY and TAGS are required.
The following example shows a CiscoLog message:
11: host.cisco.com: Jun 13 2003 23:11:52.454 UTC: %BACC-5-CONFIG: Configured from
console by vty0 [10.10.10.0]
The following example shows the optional TAGS and ACCURACY fields in a CiscoLog message:
12: host.cisco.com: *Jun 13 2003 23:11:52.454 UTC: %BACC-4-BAD_REQUEST:
%[pname.orig=rdu][comp=parser][mac=1,6,aa:bb:cc:11:22:33][txn=mytxn123]: Bad request
received from device [1,6,aa:bb:cc:11:22:33]. Header missing.
The values of the specific fields in the above example are as follows:
•HOST - "host.cisco.com"
•MONTH - "Jun"
•TAGS - "%[pname.orig=rdu][comp=parser][mac=1,6,aa:bb:cc:11:22:33][txn=mytxn123]"
•MESSAGE - "Bad request received from device [1,6,aa:bb:cc:11:22:33]. Header missing."
The maximum length of a complete CiscoLog message must not exceed 800 octets.The term octet is used for 8-bit data type instead of byte because byte is not 8 bits on some platforms. The words "character" and "octet" are not synonyms in parts of this specification because in places were internationalization is supported a single character may need to be represented with multiple octets. This limit is dictated by RFC 3164. The limit of 1024 octets reserves some extra space for syslog forwarding headers and/or fields that may be formalized in later specifications.
When CiscoLog message includes the syslog PRI field, then the combined CiscoLog messages and PRI field length must not exceed 805 octets.
The SEQNUM field contains a sequence number, which can be used to order messages in the time sequence order when multiple messages are produced with the same time stamp by the same process. The sequence number begins at 0 for the first message fired by a process since the last startup and is incremented by 1 for every subsequent logging message originated by the same process. Every time the application process is restarted, its sequence number is reset back to 0. The sequence number of each message must be in the exact order in which messages are fired/logged by the application.
This may mean that in a multi-threaded application there must be some kind of synchronization to ensure this and another consideration may have to be made for Java applications that have some native (C) code in JNI. If log messages originate in both native and Java parts of the same process, the implementation needs to be synchronized to use the same sequence number counter across the two process parts and to fire messages in the order of sequence numbers.
The maximum numeric value of the SEQNUM field is 4,294,967,295 at which point the counter must be reset back to 0. The maximum positive value of a 32-bit unsigned integer as used in Cisco IOS. Cisco IOS uses ulong for the sequence number counter and ulong is a 32-bit unsigned integer on all current Cisco IOS platforms including mips, ppc, and 68k.
Sequence numbers are process specific. If application architecture has multiple application processes on a single host, which share a single logging daemon, the sequence number still has to be process-specific. Thus, each process has it is own sequence number which it increments.
Sequence numbers also help detect lost messages. Therefore, sequence numbers cannot be skipped. In other words, a message must be produced for every number in the sequence order.
The HOST field identifies the system originating the message with a Fully Qualified DNS Name (FQDN), hostname or an IPv4/IPv6 address. If the FQDN or hostname is known, one of the two has to appear in the HOST field. It is expected that in most deployments the hostname is sufficient. However, if a deployment spans multiple domains, then using FQDNs is recommend. If an application is expected to be deployed in both scenarios, then it is recommended that the application default to the FQDNs, but make it a configurable option.
Note With regards to the compliance with Cisco IOS format. Cisco IOS Release 12.3 supports producing hostname, IP address, or any user-defined string in the HOST field. If it is configured to provide a hostname and it is not set on the device, it will use a string such as "Router."
The length of the HOST field must not exceed 255 octets.
FQDN & Hostname
If multiple FQDNs or hostnames are known for a given system, applications must use the primary FQDN/hostname or an arbitrary one if no primary is designated. However, applications must use the same HOST field value until some relevant configuration change takes place. In other words, the FQDN/hostname value should not arbitrarily change from message to message if system is configured with multiple FQDNs/hostnames.
Only printable US ASCII characters (those with decimal values 32-126) and foreign language characters are allowed in the HOST field when encoding an FQDN or hostname. The appropriate character set and encoding for HOST should be compliant with RFC 1123 / STD-3.
The acceptable character set per these standards includes US ASCII letters, numbers, dash and dot separator characters (although not starting or ending with a dash). The reason that these are only recommendations of adhering to these standards is that, in practice, many hosts do not follow the convention and use characters such as underscore in the hostname. However, the HOST field cannot contain a character sequence of ": " (colon and space) as this sequence is used as a field delimiter in the CiscoLog format.
Foreign language characters outside of the printable US ASCII characters have to be encoded according to internationalization rules.
Use of non-printable (control) ASCII characters is not allowed in the HOST field. Control characters include characters with ASCII decimal values 0-31 and 127. If an application provides a CiscoLog-compliant library with a host string, which includes one or more control characters, the logging library must do the following. If the horizontal tab character (ASCII decimal value 9) is encountered, it must be replaced with one or more space characters (ASCII decimal value 32). Eight spaces per tab are recommended because this is a convention on most Unix and Windows platforms. Other control characters must each be replaced with a question mark character (ASCII decimal value 63).
While DNS is letter-case agnostic, CiscoLog places an additional recommendation of using only lower-case characters in the HOST field for ease of readability. The use of the trailing dot at the end of the FQDN is optional. The following examples are valid HOST fields:
IP Addresses
The IP address value used in the HOST field can be either an IPv4 or IPv6 address. If a device has multiple IP addresses, the primary IP address of the device must be used regardless of the interface through which the CiscoLog message is sent to syslog server. If no primary IP address is designated, a fixed/static IP address is preferred to a dynamically assigned one. If multiple static IP addresses exist, any one can be used, but it must be used consistently in all messages until a relevant configuration event occurs on the system.
•IPv4 Address—IPv4 address should be represented in dot notation "x.x.x.x", where x is a decimal value from 0 to 255 encoded as ASCII text. If an IP address is unknown, "0.0.0.0" (without quotes) must be used as a place holder. Examples of valid IPv4 addresses are 0.0.0.0 and 220.127.116.11.
Below is an example of a message with an IPv4 address in the HOST field:
11: 188.8.131.52: Jun 13 2003 23:11:52.454 UTC: %BACC-3-BAD_REQUEST: Bad request
received from device [18.104.22.168]. Missing header.
Below is an example of a CiscoLog message when FQDN, hostname or IP are all unknown:
11: 0.0.0.0: Jun 13 2003 23:11:52.454 UTC: %BACC-3-BAD_REQUEST: Bad request received
from device [184.108.40.206]. Missing header.
•IPv6 Address—IPv6 address representation must follow conventions outlined in RFC 3513, sections 2.2.1, 2.2.2 and 2.2.3. Specifically, all three conventions are supported. Both lower-case and upper-case letters can be used in the IPv6 address, but the lower-case letters are recommended. If an IP address is unknown, "0.0.0.0" (without quotes) should be used as the IP address. Examples of valid IPv6 addresses:
–1080:0:0:800:ba98:3210:11aa:12dd (full notation)
–1080::800:ba98:3210:11aa:12dd (use of "::" convention)
–0:0:0:0:0:0:184.108.40.206 (last 4 octets expanded as in IPv4)
–0.0.0.0 (unknown FQDN, hostname and IP address )
Below is an example of a message with an IPv6 address in the HOST field:
11: 1080:0:0:800:ba98:3210:11aa:12dd: Jun 13 2003 23:11:52.454 UTC:
%BACC-3-BAD_REQUEST: Bad request received from device [18.104.22.168]. Missing header.
The TIMESTAMP field provides date with year, time with milliseconds and a time zone identifier in the following format:
Below are several examples of valid time stamps:
Jun 13 2003 23:11:52.454 UTC
Jun 3 2003 23:11:52.454 UTC
Jun 22 2003 05:11:52.525 -0300
*Feb 14 2003 01:02:03.005 EST
In some cases, it is possible that a device may not have the knowledge of the date and/or time due to hardware or software limitations. In such circumstances, the following string must be produced in the TIMESTAMP field: "--- 00 0000 00:00:00.000 ---". Below is an example of a CiscoLog message from a device which has no knowledge of date and/or time:
11: host.domain.com: --- 00 0000 00:00:00.000 ---: %BACC-3-BAD_REQUEST: Bad request
received from device [188.8.131.52]. Missing header.
Devices which are not aware of their clock, may choose to provide an uptime as a relative measure of time. If device is capable of providing uptime, it is recommended that does so as a substitute for unavailable time stamp. If uptime is provided it must be provided with a standard uptime tag as outlined in the CiscoLog Standard Tags specification.
Table 6-1 details each field specification.
Table 6-1 TIMESTAMP Field Specifications
This is an optional field. If present, it must be either a single asterisk character (ASCII decimal value 42), or a single dot character (ASCII decimal value 46). No separator character is used after this field. This field indicates the status of clock synchronization.
Cisco IOS uses a special convention for time prefixes to indicate the accuracy of the time stamp. If dot character appears before the date, it means that the local time was synchronized at some point via NTP, but currently no NTP servers are available. The asterisk character in front of the date means that the local time is not authoritative, i.e. NTP servers are not setup.
CiscoLog supports the use of this convention, but does not require it. If an application is integrated with NTP client software, and knows that its time is out of sync, then it can optionally prefix the message with asterisk character. However, because applications may choose not to use this scheme, the lack of "." or "*" in CiscoLog messages should not be interpreted to mean that the local time is synchronized.
Must be one of the following three-character month designations followed by a single space (ASCII decimal value 32) as a delimiter character: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Sep, Oct, Nov or Dec.
Must consist of two characters. If day is a single digit, it must be prefixed with a single space character. The acceptable range of values is from 1 to 31. The day value must be followed by a single space as a delimiter character.
Must consist of exactly 4 digit characters followed by a space as a delimiter character.
Must consist of exactly two number characters. The hour value is based on a 24-hour clock. Values range from 00 to 23. If hour value is a single digit, it must be prefixed with a single zero character. The hour value must be followed by a single colon as a delimiter character.
Must consist of exactly two number characters. Values range from 00 to 59. If minute value is a single digit, it must be prefixed with a single zero character. The minutes value must be followed by a single colon as a delimiter character
Must consist of exactly two number characters. Values range from 00 to 59. If seconds value is a single digit, it must be prefixed with a single zero character. The seconds value must be followed by a period as a delimiter character.
Must consist of exactly 3 digit characters. Values range from 000 to 999. If milliseconds value is less then 3 digits in length it must be prefixed with extra zeros to make it a 3-character field. The milliseconds value is followed by a space as a delimiter character.
Must consist of at least one, but no more than 7 characters in the following ASCII decimal value range: 32-126. The value must not include a combination of colon-space-percent of characters - ": %" (ASCII decimal values 58, 32, 37) - as this character combination is reserved as a field delimiter that follows the time stamp.
There is no standard set of acronyms for time zones1 . A list of common time zone acronyms and corresponding time offsets from UTC is provided in the UTC specification.
Uppercase letters are recommended for time zone acronym values. CiscoLog recommends the use of time offset instead of time zone identifier in this field. The offset, if provided, must follow the following format "-hhmm" or "+hhmm" to indicate hour and minute offset from UTC.
In this format time zone field must always contain 5 characters, with the last 4 characters being constrained to numbers only. Unlike a textual time zone identifier, this format provides a specific time offset from universal standard time.
Cisco IOS Release 12.3 supports any 7-character string as a time zone identifier, so it can be configured in a way which is compatible with this recommendation. Multiple messages may and sometimes must be produced with exactly the same time stamp. This can happen naturally on a non-preemptive operating system or may need to be deliberately induced as in the case of multi-part messages. Sequence numbers then become helpful for establishing message order. Time stamp should always be accurate to the millisecond unless it can significantly hinder performance of the application.
In either case, applications must always provide the administrator with an option to output messages with exact time stamp in milliseconds. If an application uses time stamp with accuracy to the second (instead of a millisecond), it must put the last known milliseconds value or 000 in place of the milliseconds. Whatever convention is chosen by the application, it should be followed consistently.
1 Neither Cisco IOS nor CiscoLog define a standard set of time zone acronyms because there is no single established standard.
The HEADER field has the following format:
A single dash character (ASCII decimal value 45) serves a separator for the three fields.
APPNAME Field
The APPNAME field in the HEADER defines the name of the application producing the message. Cisco IOS uses FACILITY in place of APPNAME that names the logical component producing the message. Cisco IOS 12.3 defines approximately 287 facilities for 3950 messages. Example of some easily recognizable facilities: AAAA, SYS, ATM, BGP, CRYPTO, ETHERNET, FTPSERVER, CONFIG_I, IP, ISDN, RADIUS, SNMP, SYS, TCP, UBR7200, X25. A complete list of defined facilities is available in Cisco IOS documentation at http://.
Outside of the Cisco IOS, there can be multiple applications on the same host originating log messages. Therefore, it is necessary that APPNAME field identify the specific application. Additional source identifiers are available in the HOST field as well as various standard TAGS field values (pname, pid, comp, etc).
The APPNAME field must consist of at least two uppercase letters or digits and may include underscore characters. More precisely, the acceptable character set is limited to characters with the following ASCII decimal values: 48-57 (numbers), 65-90 (upper-case letters) and 95 (underscore).
The length of the APPNAME field must not exceed 24 characters.
Application names cannot conflict with other Cisco software applications and with Cisco IOS facilities.
On the Solaris platform, it is recommended (not required) that the application name values used in the APPNAME field be consistent with those used for the application installation package name, only in upper case and without the CSCO prefix. For example, an application registering as "CSCObacc" on Solaris should use "BACC" as the value of the APPNAME field.
Some applications may choose to specify a version as part of the APPNAME field. This is acceptable and may be useful in cases where the meaning of certain messages is redefined from one release to another. For example, an APPNAME value could be "BACC_2_5" for BACC version 2.5. The use the version within an application name is optional and may be introduced by applications in any release.
SEVERITY Field
The SEVERITY field is a numeric value from 0 to 6, providing seven different severities. The severities defined below match Cisco IOS severity levels. They are also standard syslog severities.
It is important that messages use the correct severity. An error in a certain component may be severe as far as the component is concerned, but if the overall application handles it gracefully, then the severity may be lower for the application as a whole. Table 6-2 lists guidelines that should be followed in determining the severity of a message.
Table 6-2 Name and Severity Level and Descriptions in Error Messages
Emergency (0)
System or service is unusable. Examples:
•Service repeatedly fails to startup
•System ran out of disk space while disk space is essential for this system to operate
•Application requires root privileges to run but does not have them
Alert (1)
Action must be taken immediately. Examples:
•Application is about to run out of licenses
•Application is about to run out of disk space
•Too many unauthorized access attempts detected
•Denial of service attack is detected
Critical (2)
Critical condition. Similar to alert, but not necessarily requiring an immediate action. Examples:
•Received an invalid authentication request
•Service crashed due to an error that could not be handled, like an out of memory condition, (provided it has a watchdog process to restart it, it does not necessarily require immediate action)
•Unexpected code error that could not be handled
Error (3)
An error condition, which does not necessarily impact the ability of the service to continue to function. Examples:
•Problem parsing/processing a particular request which does not prevent the application from handling other requests
•Unexpected, but handled code exception
Warning (4)
A warning about some bad condition, which is not necessarily an error. Examples:
•Lost network connection to some resource
•Timed out waiting for a response
Notice (5)
Notifications about system-level conditions, which are not error conditions. Examples:
•Configuration was updated (not audit level information)
•Process has started
•Process is shutting down gracefully on request
Informational (6)
Informational messages are distinguished from notification in that they provide information for internal flows of the application or per-request information instead of system-wide notifications. Informational messages are used for troubleshooting by users who are familiar with the basic flows of the application. Examples:
•Request received
•Request was parsed successfully
•Request being processed
•Response sent back
•Acknowledgement received
•Detailed audit information
If an application uses a default severity level to determine which messages should be logged, then it is recommended that this level be set at 5 (notice). This ensures that all messages of severity 5 or higher are logged by default.
MSGNAME Field
The MSGNAME field of the HEADER uniquely identifies the message within the context of a given APPNAME. A fixed severity and logical meaning is associated with a specific MSGNAME within a specific APPNAME. In other words, the same message name cannot appear with different severity or a completely different logical meaning for the same APPNAME value even if the message is originated by a different process.
Message names are only unique within a given application (a given APPNAME value) unless the message is one of the standard messages. Thus, applications interpreting CiscoLog messages should be careful not to assume that a message with a given name has the same meaning for all applications that may use this message name. Indeed, if the message is not one of the standard messages, it may have a different severity and meaning in a different application.
The MSGNAME field must consist of at least two characters. Acceptable characters are limited to the following ASCII decimal values: 48-57 (numbers), 65-90 (upper-case letters) and 95 (underscore). While IOS allows lower-case letters as well, the vast majority of IOS messages use only the upper-case letters. In order to be consistent with established conventions we opted to restrict the character set to upper-case letters, numbers and underscore characters.
Both numeric-only or alphanumeric message names are acceptable. However, per IOS convention, it is recommended that a user-friendly alphanumeric label be preferred to a numeric-only label. For example, "NO_MEMORY" message name is preferred to a "341234" identifier.
A special tag mid is defined in the CiscoLog Standard Tags specification for identifying a numeric id corresponding to a message name. This tag can be used to provide a numeric message is in addition to the MSGNAME. When this tag is used, a given MSGNAME must always correspond to a single message id value. CiscoLog defines mid tag values for each standard message.
The length of the MSGNAME field must not exceed 30 characters, but most message names should be more concise. MSGNAME value may not conflict with the names defined in this standard.
A separate message name must be defined for each logically different message. In other words, while the message text for a given message name can vary by virtue of some substitutable parameters, logically different messages must have different message names.
The following is an example of correct use of message name:
11: host.cisco.com: Jun 13 2003 23:11:52.454 UTC: %BACC-4-CONNECTION_LOST:
%[pname.orig=rdu]: Server lost connection to host [126.96.36.199]
12: host.cisco.com: Jun 13 2003 23:11:52.458 UTC: %BACC-4-CONNECTION_LOST:
%[pname.orig=rdu]: Server lost connection to host [188.8.131.52]
Notice that while the IP address of the host changes, it is still logically the same type of message. The following is an example of an INCORRECT use of the message name:
15: host.cisco.com: Jun 13 2003 23:11:52.458 UTC: %BACC-4-CONNECTION:
%[pname.orig=rdu]: Server lost connection to host [184.108.40.206]
16: host.cisco.com: Jun 13 2003 23:11:52.468 UTC: %BACC-4-CONNECTION:
%[pname.orig=rdu]: Server re-established connection to host [184.108.40.206]
The use of a single message name for two different events in the above example is wrong and unacceptable. This is referred to as a "catch-all" message name and they must be avoided. Another extreme example is defining a message named "ERROR" and providing all error log messages under the same message name. This defeats the purpose of having the message name field, which is to enable external filtering of messages or easily trigger actions.
The only exception to the "no-catch-all" rule is when message cannot be identified ahead of time with anything better than a generic description or the users will not benefit from distinguishing the various subtypes of the message.
Although some applications may choose to do so, there is generally no need to define a separate message name for all debugging messages because debugging messages are not intended for automated filtering and action triggering based on message name. The sheer number of debugging messages and the highly dynamic nature of what is produced in them makes it very hard to define separate messages.
This specification proposes establishing a mailing list that could be used by groups for consulting purposes when in doubt about how to define certain messages. Currently, the mailing list alias used for this purpose is "cmn-logging".
The TAGS field is optional in the message format. It provides a standard mechanism for applications to provide structured content in the form of key-value pairs which can be used to categorize or filter a set of messages externally.
Tags can be used to identify virtual logging channels. A set of messages flagged with the same tag can later be grouped together. For example, an application may flag messages belonging to a particular thread by supplying the corresponding tag. This would then allow filtering and viewing messages based on threads.
Virtual logging channels can also be established across multiple applications. For example, if all applications could tag requests from a device with device id (mac, ip, etc), then it would be easy to filter all messages related to that device even thought it communicates with multiple components.
Each application may define its own set of supported tags. A single tag consists of key and value pair separated by the equals sign and surrounded by square bracket characters as in the following format: [KEY=VALUE]. This is an example of a valid tag key-value pair [ip=184.108.40.206].
The TAGS field is prefixed with a percent character (ASCII decimal value 37) and ends with a sequence of colon and space characters (ASCII decimal values 58 and 32). When multiple tags are assembled together, no characters should appear between the tags as separators. The following example has a complete CiscoLog message with four tags:
12: host.cisco.com: Jun 13 2003 23:11:52.454 UTC: %BACC-4-BAD_REQUEST:
%[pname.orig=rdu][comp=parser][mac=1,6,aa:bb:cc:11:22:33][txn=mytxn123]: Bad request
received from device [1,6,aa:bb:cc:11:22:33]. Missing header.
If TAGS field is missing, the percent character prefix and the trailing colon and space must be omitted. Thus, when the TAGS field is missing, the HEADER and MESSAGE fields must be separated by just a single colon and a space which follows the HEADER field. For example:
12: host.cisco.com: Jun 13 2003 23:11:52.454 UTC: %BACC-4-BAD_REQUEST: Bad request
received from device [1,6,aa:bb:cc:11:22:33]. Missing header.
Multiple tags with the same tag key can be provided in the same message. This essentially provides the capability for handling multi-valued keys. Below is an example of a message produced from a device which has two IP addresses where the application chose to provide both IP addresses in the TAGS field as well as the process name:
12: host.cisco.com: Jun 13 2003 23:11:52.454 UTC: %BACC-4-BAD_REQUEST:
%[pname.orig=rdu][ip.orig=220.127.116.11][ip.orig=220.127.116.11]: Bad request received from device
[1,6,aa:bb:cc:11:22:33]. Missing header.
Any number of tags can be provided in a given message. The only limit is the overall length limit of the CiscoLog message of 800 octets.
If multiple tags are present, it is recommended that they appear in the alphanumeric order of the keys. This insures that tags are always produced in the same order. However, a different order may be chosen by an application if the order of tags is used to communicate some semantic value.
Tag Keys
Tag key must contain at least one character. The characters are limited to ASCII characters with decimal values 48-57 (numbers), 65-90 (upper-case letters), 95 (underscore), 97-122 (lower case letters). Use of lower-case letters is recommended. There is no strict limit on tag key length, although a general message limit of 800 octets applies and dictates that one should attempt to define short tag key names.
Tag Semantic Extensions
In some cases, a tag can have a standard value syntax, but different meaning depending on the content in which it is used. Tag semantic extensions are used to differentiate the contextual meaning of tags.
The semantic extension tags are created by appending the tag key with a single dot character (ASCII decimal value 46) and a text string consisting of characters from a proper character set.
For example, an "ip" tag defines syntax for an IP address representation, but no semantic value. An "ip" tag found in a CiscoLog message generally means only that this IP address is somehow related to the message. In some cases, such vague association is sufficient. However, sometimes, communicating semantic value could be useful.
A message may have two IP address tags associated with it, for example, from and to IP addresses. In this case, using tags "ip.from" and "ip.to" would communicate both the syntax of the tags and some semantic value. Another example, is a standard tag "ip.orig", which specifies the IP address of the host which originated the message. The following is an example of all three tags appearing together:
Multiple levels of semantic extension tags are allowed with each extension providing meaning that is more specific. For example, tag key "ip.to.primary" is valid and could mean the primary IP address of the destination host.
The semantic value is much harder to standardize than the syntax because there can an infinite number of meanings for a given value depending on the context. Thus, it is anticipated that defining tag semantics extensions will be largely application specific.
Tag Values
Tag values may contain zero or more characters. The empty (zero characters) value is interpreted as unknown or undetermined value. The value must only include printable US ASCII characters (those in the ASCII decimal value range 32-126) and foreign language characters
There is a restriction on the use of three characters: "[", "]" and "\". The bracket characters (ASCII decimal values 91 & 93) must be escaped with a back slash character (ASCII decimal value 92) . This helps to avoid confusion with the brackets that signify the start/end of the tag. Thus, when the tag value needs to represent characters "[" or "]", a sequence of "\[" or "\]" is used instead respectively. When the escape character itself needs to be represented in the tag value, then instead of the "\" character a sequence of "\\" is used.
Use of non-printable (control) ASCII characters is not allowed in the TAG value field. Control characters include characters with ASCII decimal values 0-31 and 127. If application provides to a CiscoLog-compliant library a tag value string, which includes one or more control characters, the logging library must do the following. If the horizontal tab character (ASCII decimal value 9) is encountered, it must be replaced with one or more space characters (ASCII decimal value 32). Eight spaces per tab are recommended because this is a convention on most Unix and Windows platforms. Other control characters must each be replaced with a question mark character (ASCII decimal value 63). Technically, we only need to require escaping a closing bracket. However, requiring escaping both open and closing brackets simplifies parser code and provides for a more consistent display in raw form.
There is no strict limit on tag value length; although a general message length limit of 800 octets applies and dictates that one must be conservative.
Tag Guidelines
The TAGS field is optional in the CiscoLog message format. Tags do not replace substitutable parameters in the message body. Tags merely provide an additional way to identify and categorize messages.
Since tags are optional, they can be enabled or disabled by the application/user as required. There is no requirement for the same message to always be produced with the same set of tags. If the application supports a given tag, it does not necessarily mean that it must always produce it. This can be configurable. Indeed, it is recommended that applications provide the administrator with at least limited control over which tags get produces.
Application developers have a choice as to what information to make available in the tags and what in the message body. In some cases, the information may be duplicated between the two. This is acceptable.
The general guideline is to put all required information in the message body and make appropriate information available via tags. In other words, the message should provide sufficient meaning even when all tags are disabled. Tags merely provide additional useful information and a way to present it in a standard, easily filtered, form.
The following are two valid examples of a message where both the message and the message tags contain a MAC address. Example with tags disabled:
11: host.cisco.com: Jun 13 2003 23:11:52.454 UTC: %BACC-3-BAD_REQUEST: Bad request
received from device [1,6,aa:bb:11:22:33:aa]. Missing header.
In the above example, the MAC address appears as part of the message field - it is not a tag. In the following example, the tags are enabled. Even though MAC address is duplicated between the tag and the message, it is acceptable.
11: host.cisco.com: Jun 13 2003 23:11:52.454 UTC: %BACC-3-BAD_REQUEST:
%[mac=1,6,aa:bb:11:22:33:aa][tid=thread1][txn=mytxn123]: Bad request received from
device [1,6,aa:bb:11:22:33:aa]. Missing header.
Process Identification Tag
One of the standard tags, pname.orig, is used to identify the logical process name which originates the message. Any application that seeks to provide originating process information must do so using the "pname.orig" tag.
This tag is extremely valuable in addition to information in the APPNAME field because some applications consist of multiple processes, each of which may originate logging messages. It is recommended that any application which consists of multiple processes always provide the "pname.orig" tag.
The MESSAGE field provides a descriptive message about the logging event. This field may consist of one or more characters. The character set is limited to printable US ASCII characters (ASCII decimal values 32-126) and foreign language characters.
Use of non-printable (control) ASCII characters is not permitted in the MESSAGE field. Control characters include characters with ASCII decimal values 0-31 and 127. If application provides a CiscoLog-compliant library with message string, which includes one or more control characters, the logging library must do the following. If the horizontal tab character (ASCII decimal value 9) is encountered, it must be replaced with one or more space characters (ASCII decimal value 32). Eight spaces per tab are recommended because this is a convention on most Unix and Windows platforms. Other control characters must each be replaced with a question mark character (ASCII decimal value 63).
The maximum length of the MESSAGE field is constrained only by the maximum length of the entire message. The maximum length of the CiscoLog message must not exceed 800 octets. Another practical limitation is a potentially highly variable length of the TAGS field.
Message text may contain substitutable parameters, which provide necessary details about the message. For example, the IP address in the following example is a substitutable parameter.
11: host.cisco.com: Jun 13 2003 23:11:52.454 UTC: %BACC-3-INVALID_REQUEST: Invalid
request received from device [22.214.171.124]. Missing header.
It is recommended (but not required) that substitutable parameters be surrounded by bracket characters "[" and "]" as in the above example. It is further recommended that the message text and values of substitutable parameters do not include bracket characters. When it is not possible to avoid brackets characters in the values of substitutable parameters, it is recommended that the value at least does not include unbalances brackets (like an opening bracket without a closing one). When these recommendations are followed, it would be possible to programmatically extract substitutable parameter values out of a CiscoLog message. However, this recommendation is not a strict requirement.
Message text should be spell-checked. Editorial review is recommended. This includes all messages that can be seen by the customers, even debugging messages.
If the first word of the message is an English word, the first letter should be capitalized. Single sentence messages do not require a period at the end.
Foreign language characters are defined as characters with ASCII decimal values 0-126. Foreign language characters are supported in the HOST field, the value part of the TAGS field and the MESSAGE field.
Foreign language characters must be encoded using the Unicode standard UTF-8. UTF-8 provides encoding for any language without requiring the application to know local encoding/decoding rules for a particular language. In fact, the application encoding the message does not even need to know the language of the message. UTF-8 can encode any Unicode character.
UTF-8 encodes US ASCII characters exactly as they would normally be encoded in a 7-bit ASCII convention. This means that applications interpreting CiscoLog messages can assume that entire messages are encoded in UTF-8. On the other hand, applications producing CiscoLog messages can encode the entire message using US-ASCII 7-bit convention if they are known not to support foreign languages in their products.
Since UTF-8 can encode characters in any language, it is possible to mix and match languages. For example, it is anticipated that a one use-case would be the inclusion of just some parameters in foreign language in an otherwise English message. For example, an English message about user authentication could have a username in Japanese. Similarly, any number of languages can be combined in a CiscoLog message.
In order to take advantage of messages, which include a foreign language, a log viewer capable of interpreting UTF-8 would be necessary. Most likely, the log viewer would also require that the appropriate language fonts be installed on a given system. In a US-ASCII only editor, the user will see garbage for non-US-ASCII characters encoded in UTF-8, but should be able to see all US-ASCII text.
Internationalization support can be readily used with CiscoLog messages written to a local file. Syslog RFC 3164, however, does not currently define foreign language support. Thus, in order to take advantage of internationalization with a syslog server, one would need to use a server implementation, which was tested to correctly relay or store all 8-bits of each octet unchanged. This would ensure that UTF-8 encoded parts of the message retain all their information when foreign languages are used.
In UTF-8, a single character is encoded with one or more octets. The CiscoLog message length limit is specified as 800 octets. Developers must be aware that with foreign languages, the 800-octet length limit may mean fewer than 800 characters. When a message is split into a multi-part message using guidelines provided in Multipart Messages, octets belonging to a single character must never be split into separate lines.
CiscoLog does not provide any versioning information in the message format. Extensions to the format must be made within the restrictions of the format. CiscoLog message formats provides for extensions by way of defining additional tags.
If applications require changes to existing messages, the value of APPNAME can redefine message within the new space. For example, the application version can be appended to the application name as BACC_2_5 for BACC 2.5.
The following list contains the preconfigured system alerts in RTMT. Refer to the Real-Time Monitoring Tool Administration Guide for information on configuration.
Authentication validates the user ID and password that are submitted during log in. An alarm gets raised when an invalid user ID and/or the password gets used.
Table 6-3 provides the default configuration for the AuthenticationFailed RTMT Alert.
Table 6-3 Default Configuration for the AuthenticationFailed RTMT Alert
Enable Alert
Enable/Disable this alert on the following servers
Enabled on listed servers
Number of AuthenticationFailed events exceeds:
1 time in the last 1 minute
Trigger alert immediately
Trigger alert on every poll
24 hours daily
Enable e-mail
Trigger Alert Action
This alert occurs when the DRF backup or restore process encounters errors.
Table 6-4 provides the default configuration for the CiscoDRFFailure RTMT Alert.
Table 6-4 Default Configuration for the CiscoDRFFailure RTMT Alert
Trigger alert when following condition met:
CiscoDRFFailure event generated
Enable E-mail
This alert occurs when the CoreDumpFileFound event gets generated. This indicates that a core dump file exists in the system.
Table 6-5 provides the default configuration for the CoreDumpFileFound RTMT Alert.
Table 6-5 Default Configuration for the CoreDumpFileFound RTMT Alert
CoreDumpFileFound event generated
Trace download Parameters
Not Selected
CPU usage gets monitored based on configured thresholds. If the usage goes above the configured threshold, this alert gets generated.
Table 6-6 provides the default configuration for the CpuPegging RTMT Alert.
Table 6-6 Default Configuration for the CpuPegging RTMT Alert
Trigger alert only when value remains constantly below or over threshold for 60 seconds
Trigger up to 3 alerts within 30 minutes
The CriticalServiceDown alert gets generated when the service status equals down (not for other states).
Table 6-7 provides the default configuration for the CriticalServiceDown RTMT Alert.
Table 6-7 Default Configuration for the CriticalServiceDown RTMT Alert
Service status is DOWN
Enable Trace Download not selected
This alert occurs when a hardware failure event (disk drive failure, power supply failure, and others) triggers.
Table 6-8 provides the default configuration for the HardwareFailure RTMT Alert.
Table 6-8 Default Configuration for the HardwareFailure RTMT Alert
HardwareFailure event generated
This alert occurs when the LogFileSearchStringFound event gets generated. This indicates that the search string was found in the log file.
Table 6-9 provides the default configuration for the LogFileSearchStringFound RTMT Alert.
Table 6-9 Default Configuration for the LogFileSearchStringFound RTMT Alert
LogFileSearchStringFound event generated
This alert occurs when the percentage of used disk space in the log partition exceeds the configured high water mark. When this alert gets generated, LPM deletes files in the log partition (down to low water mark) to avoid running out of disk space.
Note LPM may delete files that you want to keep. You should act immediately when you receive the LogPartitionHighWaterMarkExceeded alert.
Table 6-10 provides the default configuration for the LogPartitionHighWaterMarkExceeded RTMT Alert.
Table 6-10 Default Configuration for the LogPartitionHighWaterMarkExceededRTMT Alert
Log Partition Used Disk Space Exceeds High Water Mark (95%)
This alert occurs when the LogPartitionLowWaterMarkExceeded event gets generated. This indicates that the percentage of used disk space in the log partition exceeded the configured low water mark.
Note Be aware that this alert is an early warning. The administrator should start freeing up disk space. Using RTMT/TLC, you can collect trace/log files and delete them from the server. The administrator should adjust the number of trace files that are kept to avoid hitting the low water mark again.
Table 6-11 provides the default configuration for the LogPartitionLowWaterMarkExceeded RTMT Alert.
Table 6-11 Default Configuration for the LogPartitionLowWaterMarkExceeded RTMT Alert
Log Partition Used Disk Space Exceeds Low Water Mark (95%)
This alert occurs when the percentage of available disk space on the active partition is lower than the configured value.
Table 6-12 provides the default configuration for the LowActivePartitionAvailableDiskSpace RTMT Alert.
Table 6-12 Default Configuration for the LowActivePartitionAvailableDiskSpaceRTMT Alert
Active Partition available diskspace below (4%)
RTMT monitors virtual memory usage. When memory runs low, a LowAvailableVirtualMemory alert gets generated.
Table 6-13 provides the default configuration for the LowAvailableVirtualMemory RTMT Alert.
Table 6-13 Default Configuration for the LowAvailableVirtualMemory RTMT Alert
Available virtual memory below (30%)
This alert occurs when the percentage of available disk space of the inactive partition equals less than the configured value.
Table 6-14 provides the default configuration for the LowInactivePartitionAvailableDiskSpace RTMT Alert.
Table 6-14 Default Configuration for the LowInactivePartitionAvailableDiskSpace RTMT Alert
Inactive Partition available disk space below (4%)
This alert indicates that the available disk space on the swap partition is low.
Note The swap partition makes up part of virtual memory, so low available swap partition disk space means low virtual memory as well.
Table 6-15 provides the default configuration for the LowSwapPartitionAvailableDiskSpace RTMT Alert.
Table 6-15 Default Configuration for the LowSwapPartitionAvailableDiskSpaceRTMT Alert
Swap Partition available disk space below (105)
This alert occurs when a remote node cannot be reached.
Note Cisco Unified CM clusters only—The ServerDown alert gets generated when the currently "active" AMC (primary AMC or the backup AMC, if the primary is not available) cannot reach another server in a cluster. This alert identifies network connectivity issues in addition to a server down condition.
Table 6-16 provides the default configuration for the ServerDown RTMT Alert.
Table 6-16 Default Configuration for the ServerDown RTMT Alert
ServerDown occurred
Trigger up to 1 alert within 60 minutes
This alert occurs when the SparePartitionHighWaterMarkExceeded event gets generated. It indicates that the percentage of used disk space in the spare partition exceeds the configured high water mark. Some core file or log files are purged until the percentage of used disk space in the spare partition is below the configured low water mark. Check if the configured high water mark for used disk space in the spare partition is too low.
Cisco Log Partition Monitoring Tool (LPM) starts purging trace log files in the spare partition and keeps deleting trace log files in the spare partition until spare partition disk usage is just below the low water mark.
Name of the service generating this alarm is Cisco Log Partition Monitoring Tool.
Check if the configured high water mark for used disk space in the spare partition is too low; if it is, change the high water mark setting to a higher value. Also examine each application trace log files under spare partition and delete those trace log files that are too old or too big.
Note Spare Partition is not used for Intercompany Media Engine server. So this alert will not be triggered for Intercompany Media Engine.
Table 6-17 provides the default configuration for the SparePartitionHighWaterMarkExceeded RTMT Alert.
Table 6-17 Default Configuration for the SparePartitionHighWaterMarkExceeded RTMT Alert
Spare Partition Used Disk Space Exceeds High Water Mark (95%)
This alert occurs when the SparePartitionLowWaterMarkExceeded event gets generated. It indicates that the percentage of used disk space in the spare partition has exceeded the configured low water mark threshold. There are files to be purged by Cisco Log Partition Monitoring Tool (LPM). If the spare partition disk usage keeps increasing until it exceeded the configured high water mark, Cisco LPM starts purging the trace log files in the spare partition. Cisco LPM sends the alarm periodically if the spare partition disk usage has not changed.
Check if the configured low water mark for used disk space in the spare partition is too low; if, change the low/high water mark settings to the higher values. Also examine each application trace log files under spare partition and clean up those trace log files that are too old or too big before the used disk space exceeds the high water mark.
Table 6-18 provides the default configuration for the default configuration for the SparePartitionLowWaterMarkExceeded RTMT Alert.
Table 6-18 Default Configuration for the SparePartitionLowWaterMarkExceededRTMT Alert
Spare Partition Used Disk Space Exceeds Low Water Mark (90%)
This alert occurs when the SyslogSeverityMatchFound event gets generated. This indicates that a syslog message with the matching severity level exists.
Table 6-19 Default Configuration for the SyslogSeverityMatchFound RTMT Alert
SyslogSeverityMatchFound event generated
Syslog Severity Parameters
This alert occurs when the SyslogStringMatchFound event gets generated. The alert indicates that a syslog message with the matching search string exists.
Table 6-20 Default Configuration for the SyslogStringMatchFound RTMT Alert
SyslogStringMatchFound event generated
Syslog Alert Parameters
(Text box for search string)
This alert occurs when a mismatch in system version exists.
Table 6-21 Default Configuration for the SystemVersionMismatched RTMT Alert
SystemVersionMismatched occurred
This alert occurs when the TotalProcessesAndThreadsExceededThreshold event gets generated. The alert indicates that the current total number of processes and threads exceeds the maximum number of tasks that are configured for the Cisco RIS Data Collector Service Parameter. This situation could indicate that a process is leaking or that a process has thread leaking.
Table 6-22 Default Configuration for the TotalProcessesAndThreadsExceededThreshold RTMT Alert
TotalProcessesAndThreadsExceededThreshold event generated


text:
The World Database of Key Biodiversity Areas™ hosts data on Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs). This database can support strategic decisions on protected areas by governments or civil society towards achieving Aichi Biodiversity Targets. It also guides the identification of sites under international conventions and in the setting of private sector policies and standards. The database is managed by the KBA Partnership, which comprises 13 partners and is served by the KBA secretariat hosted jointly by BirdLife International and IUCN.
Learn more about KBAs and how to use this data on the KBA platform: www.keybiodiversityareas.org
In a nutshell
- Since 2009, the IUCN WCPA-SSC Joint Task Force on Biodiversity and Protected Area led a global consultation to identify and mobilise key experts and organizations around Key Biodiversity Areas.
- The KBA Partnership was established in September 2016 at the IUCN World Conservation Congress by 13 partners, many of which are IUCN members.
Learn More
- How are KBAs identified ?
- How to use KBA data ?

subset: commoncrawl


text:
New set photos for James Mangold's The Wolverine, Spike Lee's Oldboy remake and Dean Parisot's Red 2 have emerged today. From Wolvie, we don't get more shots of star Hugh Jackman, but we get a glimpse of Silver Samurai and of the actor playing him (Will Yun Lee). There's also a stuntman on hand to unleash the first look at Logan's claws in action. The Oldboy images put star Josh Brolin front and center and shirtless for the most part. Red 2 shows off previous cast members Bruce Willis, John Malkovich and Mary-Louise Parker as well as new additions, Catherine Zeta-Jones and David Thewlis. Pay special attention to Malkovich's insane attire (he's fabulous).
The Wolverine bows on July 26th, 2013. Lee's Oldboy, also starring Samuel L. Jackson and Elizabeth Olsen, opens sometime next year. Red 2 is slated for an August 2nd, 2013 release. Hit the jump to see the set photos. [Update: We've removed the unofficial images.]
Here's the official synopsis for The Wolverine:
Based on the celebrated comic book arc, THE WOLVERINE finds Logan, the eternal warrior and outsider, in Japan. There, samurai steel will clash with adamantium claw as Logan confronts a mysterious figure from his past in an epic battle that will leave him forever changed.
Here's the synopsis for RED 2:
The sequel to the action-comedy hit RED, which reunites our team of retired CIA operatives as they use their old-school style to take on a new set of enemies all across Europe." The film is being directed by Dean Parisot ("Galaxy Quest") and will star: Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Hellen Mirren, Catherine Zeta-Jones, David Thewlis, and Mary-Louise Parker.
The Oldboy remake centers on Brolin's character, a man who is kidnapped and imprisoned for over a decade, who then escapes to seek his revenge.


text:
I've noticed a tendency of some early stage tech companies to be excessively distracted by what their competitors are doing, or what they think they are doing.
Understanding the landscape and differentiating your product – or approach to the market - is of course essential and there could be a number of areas of head-on competition. Competing for key words on Google as key distribution channels are examples of these.
But, the overriding focus of the CEO must be the customer/user not the competitor.
The questions to be answered are:
- · What is our real mission
- · What would make a better experience
- · How can we deliver our service/product better, cheaper, faster? Than we are currently doing.
My own experiences have brought home the importance of this focus.
Joe Corre, co-founder of Agent Provocateur, never looked at a competitor's product! I well remember the occasion that a new member of the design/marketing team went out and bought a pile of competitor's bras for price, quality comparison. Joe absolutely flipped and practically threw both the offending garment and the unfortunate member of staff out of the office. He and Serena, his partner, had our clear vision of what the product should be like and they wanted no distraction of that vision.
This may be extreme but during my 5 years I was associated with AP I was able to see firsthand how this unfettered vision was instrumental in making AP one of the worlds admired fashion brands.
Steve Jobs at Apple clearly comes from a similar school.
Wonga, one of Europe's start-up superstars, was founded and is run by two entrepreneurs (Errol Damelin and Jonty Hurwitz) who designed their business, product and service without any regard to competitors but rather by recognising a consumer need and filling it with precision and dedication to a great user experience.
The same can be said of Daniel Ek at Spotify.
Look around and I'm sure you'll recognise the characteristics in most of the great new companies.
Great entrepreneurs and companies don't spend large amounts of time and money refining and defining nuances of differentiation from competitors or indulging in feature wars with them.
Quite often the real competitor is NOT the other on line (or pure play) company but the off-line incumbents putting the user at the centre of the thinking, immediately flushes out who the real competitor is.


text:
I'm looking for...
4ft6 Double Sleep Shop Memory Pocket Supreme Adjustable Bed
The Sleep Shop Memory Pocket Supreme Adjustable BedFor a medium feel 50mm of memory foam 1000 pocket springs Viscose quilted cover Foam encapsulated for edge-to-edge support Treated with Adaptive Supports weight up to 18 stone Medium feel Mattress The Pocket Supreme Adjustable gives you a slightly firmer Medium feel as its completely encapsulated in foam for superior edge-to-edge support, so you wont roll off or feel your partner get out of bed. The Pocket Supreme Adjustable bed has some great benefits - reactive memory foam on individual pocket springs with 1000 here plus the soft touch viscose cover and the cooling, drying Adaptive sleep technology.The Pocket Supreme Adjustable has been designed to put you in control of your comfort. Foam encapsulated to provide you with edge to edge support, this mattress features memory foam to mould to the contours of your body and pocket springs that evenly distribute your body weight across the entire sleep surface. As an added benefit, the Pocket Supreme Adjustable has also been treated with Adaptive technology to keep you cool and dry, all night, every night.Base: 5 Part motorised adjustable frame Offering unique, customisable support to different areas of the body which can help relieve minor aches and pains, promote better circulation and an improved posture.Mattress: 50mm Memory foam provides pressure relief / relieves your body of stress and tension / can reduce the amount of tossing and turning during sleep / conforms to the curves of the body to keep your spine in natural alignment / promotes better posture / absorbs energy so the movement of others should not cause a disturbance.1000ct Pocket Spring Unit: Promotes natural alignment of the spine / ensures that your weight is evenly distributed / reduces the amount of strain put on your body/ offers an increased amount of air circulation to provide a comfortable bed temperature.Adaptive: To keep you cool and dry, all night, every nightNon-slip base panel: Helps to keep the mattress in placeFoam Encapsulated: For edge to edge supportMulti-slat motorised system: Adapts to exerted pressure offering improved back support /facilitates even distribution of pressure which can help improve blood circulation / gaps allow air to pass freely beneath the bed which keeps your mattress fresher for longer.Sliders for tension adjustment: Allowing the user to set the amount of support to meet their unique preferences in lumbar region
All manufacturer spring counts are always based on a king size mattress (measuring 5ft x 6ft 6in /150cm x 200cm). The amount of springs will alter on a pro-rata basis dependent on your choice of mattress size.
Please note that any additional accessories, pillows, headboards or mattresses shown may be for illustrative purposes and may not be included in the purchase price unless otherwise stated, but may be available separately.
If your item is in stock you can have this delivered on a FREE next working day delivery if ordered before 4pm or alternatively choose another day that suits you if that is not convenient*
Our Standard delivery service available at no extra charge for all large items is a 2 man room of choice service with the items unpacked if required and all packaging removed.
Our delivery partner will contact you the evening prior to your chosen day of delivery with a 2 hour time slot and a further call is made on the delivery on the day itself.
For single mattresses (2'6 or 3'), Vacuum packed or rolled mattresses and smaller items such as pillows we also offer a next day service but this is a one man delivery to the door only.
Orders placed after 4pm will be available for delivery within 2 working days.
Deliveries are made Monday to Friday as standard, a Saturday delivery is available on either the one man or two man service for an additional £30.00
If the item is not available from stock or is made to order there are delivery lead times on the specific product. Once the item is available for delivery we will contact you to arrange a convenient day.
Please note that the delivery price stated (where applicable) is for Mainland UK only.
Delivery to Scottish Highlands, Grampians, Southern and Northern Ireland, Isle of Man and the Isle of Wight is available but will incur additional delivery charges.
Additional services such as assembly is available on certain items. We are here to help so please contact us for further information or alternatively call (0800) 614 172 or (01529) 301919
Mon - Sat 9am-5.30pm Sun 10am-4pm.
*certain product categories are subject to a minimum order value of £299.00
Did you find a better price somewhere else? We'll gladly price match the competition.
And of course, by shopping with us you get the benefit of our expertise.
Price Match conditions:
1. Our Price Promise applies to any competitor in the mainland UK, including UK websites but excluding factory outlets, membership clubs, duty free shops, home shopping channels, other auction sites, market stalls, private sales and liquidation (or any other "closing down" or insolvency) sales.
2. The product must be new, identical in style, specification, size and colour, and offered on the same terms.
3. The competitor store or website must have the product in stock and available for immediate purchase or delivery.
4. Gift vouchers, voucher codes and cash back are exempt.
5. Typographical errors shall not apply. No affiliate, promotional, voucher code or media discount applies. Any other retailer's price match promotion which offers an additional rebate or other benefit for any price matched product is also excluded.
6. We must be able to verify the competitor's price and stock position to our satisfaction.
7. The price being matched must include all taxes (including VAT), postage and packing charges as applicable.
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ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss bank UBS UBSN.VX is closing four branches in Germany that serve wealthy clients and cutting up to 35 jobs as it seeks to improve profitability.
UBS said in a statement clients of its branches in Dortmund, Essen and Rosenheim would be served in Duesseldorf and Munich from the middle of 2013, while the Wiesbaden office would be merged with the Frankfurt branch at the end of 2012.
"Germany is and remains one of the most important European markets for UBS," UBS Germany chief Axel Hoerger said in a statement. "With this new organization, we are preparing ourselves for an increasingly difficult market environment."
Swiss banks are struggling to build up profitable onshore banking businesses in key European markets as the business of offering wealthy clients offshore Swiss accounts has come under pressure from neighboring governments hunting tax evaders.
A UBS spokeswoman said that while UBS Germany was profitable as a whole, its wealth management business in the country was not yet making money although it was heading that way with net new money inflows positive in the second half of 2012.
German state prosecutors said last month they had launched a country-wide search of premises of UBS clients on suspicion of tax evasion. UBS denies it helped clients evade tax.
UBS said from July 2013 it would retain branches in Berlin, Bielefeld, Bremen, Duesseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Cologne, Nuremberg and Stuttgart.
UBS said it was also cutting five jobs in fixed income in Frankfurt as part of plans announced in October to cut 10,000 jobs worldwide as it slims down its investment bank.
Reporting by Albert Schmieder and Emma Thomasson; Editing by Helen Massy-Beresford


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|October 17, 1998, 02:41 AM
Junior Member
Join Date: October 8, 1998
Posts: 5
Ok folks, here it go's. I've taken a glock 21 and shortened and reshaped the grip to match that of the G-30. The result is a grip you can hide with a sight radius that will shoot. Now I would like to reduce the girth, take out some backstrap. Does anyone know just what type of epoxy or other material folks are using to do this? I've also done this to a G-23 for a friend (down to G-27 length) and would to add the finger grooves. Thanks for any help !
|October 18, 1998, 12:22 AM
Join Date: October 9, 1998
Location: Hotels
Posts: 3,667
Grip reduction is fine for improved concealability, but let's not make so much out of the longer barrel on the 21. I went out with a USP, G30, and P14 thursday and shot best with the G30, from ranges of 5' to 15 yards.
A friend of mine has worked the backstrap down on all of his Glocks, but fell madly in love with the new frames when he got a hold of one. You should try a new framed G21 when you get a chance.
|October 18, 1998, 03:09 AM
Junior Member
Join Date: October 8, 1998
Posts: 5
Rob, I'll try not to sound too curt in my reply. I'v e shot the P12 and P14, owned and carried a Colt Officers ACP and now own a 30 as well as the 21. I've fired the baby glocks, the kahr, the sigs,etc. And most shot quite well. The 30 has shot a 300 out of 300 on the LFI qual, but the 21 provides a tighter 300. Lock them both in a ransom rest and you probably won't notice the difference, put them in the average mans hands and you will. Ever seen extended sights on a bullseye gun? Why put a tang mounted peep on a sharps? Or the bridge mounted peep on an 03A3. Sight radius, as I'm sure you know . Now if I was a little curt I'm sorry. We do however live in America, you have your opinion and can
voice it as well as carry what you like, I like my short gripped 21. One last thing, I doubt you expected this reply to your posting, I'm sorry but you struck a nerve. All I was asking for was a little help on epoxy.
|October 18, 1998, 03:55 PM
Join Date: October 9, 1998
Location: Hotels
Posts: 3,667
No, no problem here. I get flamed worse than that for explaining what "Limp-wristing" is on Rec.guns... hehe...
I just think that when it comes to a difference of an inch or two with a handgun you will shoot better with a gun that you practice with, than a similar gun with a longer barrel. What you said struck a nerve with me, too...
(technical note.. If I knew how to insert one of those smiley faces, I would do it *here*)
|October 18, 1998, 06:37 PM
Join Date: October 6, 1998
Location: Cotati, CA USA
Posts: 37
>>If I knew how to insert one of those smiley faces.....<<
Easy, Rob ... at least I can help you with that. Just type a colon and a right parenthesis and the emoticon should automatically pop up.
For info for all forum members, there are several emoticons available for your use, explanations of which are found in the "faq" section of the forum. I've found over the years that judicious use of emoticons can save a few cyber-punches from being thrown from time to time. Intonation of the written and spoken words vary so much that emoticons can often save the day.
Just be aware that the operative word here is "judicious." A little emoticoning (??) goes a long way.
----Mac Scott
|October 18, 1998, 07:41 PM
Junior Member
Join Date: October 8, 1998
Posts: 5
I agree that one will shoot better with the gun they practice with. The 21 is my carry gun, every day, every where. I also teach with it, though the 30 is great for recoil management demos. I also use it for IDPA as well as other tactical matches. Every day, every where.
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The mirage of U.S. healthcare
On healthcare, the White House is struggling with a political riptide that threatens to drag it into deep water.
Americans, as they contemplate change, have suffered a weakness of nerve. The main reason is that nearly two thirds of Americans are apparently happy with their healthcare coverage, for all its deficiencies. Repeated reassurances from President Obama that those who like the existing set-up will not be forced to change, have had little effect.
A change of tactics may be in order. The administration must do a better job of underlining the glaring defects of the existing system. The genius of the U.S. healthcare is in providing the illusion of value and security. For their own sake, Americans must be encouraged to set aside jingoistic claims about having the best care system in the world and look more honestly at its short-comings.
Let's start with value. Most Americans are blissfully unaware that their healthcare system provides appallingly little value for their money. This is because when it comes to costs, they see only the tip of the iceberg. While companies typically pay about three-quarters of an employee's family premium — on average $12,680 a year — individuals ultimately bear the burden. In a free market, companies do not hand over to their workers more than they absolutely have to. Money spent on healthcare is carved out of take-home pay or other benefits.
"We pay for healthcare in considerably lower salaries," Uwe Reinhardt, a Princeton University economics professor, said in a telephone interview. "The system seduces people into thinking care is pretty cheap. We are kidding ourselves if we think that the shareholder pays."
One measure of this financial sacrifice is that employer premiums are now 17 percent of median household income — up from 15 percent in 2003. From 1999 to 2008, family health insurance premiums rose by 119 percent.
With healthcare costs rising fast, it is small wonder that middle-class Americans have failed to wring real pay increases out of employers. The drag on pay will increase further, according to research by the Commonwealth Fund. The foundation estimates that without reform, the cost of premiums could double again by 2020 — gobbling up still more take home pay.
The second big healthcare mirage is security. If the current downturn has demonstrated one thing, it is the fragility of an employer-based healthcare system. Lose your job — as more than 6.5 million have in this downturn — and your insurance can disappear with it. (COBRA provides only a temporary patch and can be expensive.)
It also means that you can lose your coverage if you get very sick. "Get so sick you can't work, you can also forfeit coverage," Gary Caxton, an analyst with Kaiser Family Foundation, said in an interview. The very idea of insurance is to protect you during a crisis. Instead Americans are getting insurance that works only when the sun shines. "The American system is least good at the worst times," as David Cutler, a Harvard healthcare economist, puts it.
The final illusion is that the healthcare system can be relied on in the longer term. In reality it is taking on water fast. This is most obvious in small companies. Less than half of companies with fewer than 10 employees now offer insurance, down from 57 percent in 2000, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. For all companies, the percentage is down from 69 percent to 63 over the past 8 years. Companies are also starting to unload a growing share of costs onto employees anyway.
Deductibles for most employees have more than trebled since 2000 — a trend that looks almost certain to continue. This is all before you take into account the prodigious quantity of tax dollars soaked up by healthcare.
As the private sector has faltered, the state has been forced to step in. The result is that America is stumbling toward nationalization.
A recent Gallup poll found the share of Americans dependent on the state for healthcare — including Medicare, Medicaid and VA benefits — had climbed to 29 percent from 26.5 since the start of 2008. If you include the 17 percent of U.S. workers employed by the state, then closer to 40 percent are covered by the government.
Americans need to take a good look at their existing healthcare system, warts and all. It is the administration's job to hold up a mirror to U.S. healthcare. If they fail to do so, the U.S. will pass up an opportunity to build a system that's fair, sustainable and offers better value.


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Former Major League Baseball Player Killed by Lightning Strike
CARACAS, Venezuela – Former major league pitcher Geremi Gonzalez, who won 11 games for the Chicago Cubs in 1997, was killed by a lightning strike in his native Venezuela on Sunday. He was 33.
Emergency management official Herman Bracho said Monday that Gonzalez was struck by lightning at a beach.
Gonzalez pitched for five major league teams from 1997-2006. The right-hander appeared in 131 games with 83 starts, compiling a 30-35 record.
Gonzalez also played for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Boston Red Sox, New York Mets and Milwaukee Brewers. He made a combined 24 appearances for the Mets and Brewers in his final major league season in 2006.
The Toronto Blue Jays released him during spring training last year. Gonzalez then moved to Japan and pitched in five games for the Yomiuri Giants.


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Nice to hear from ya Donny!donlever wrote:Hey Hoss.
Went away for a few days of golf and debaauchery and uploaded a few old cd's to the iPod prior to departure.
Listened to Sandinista on the way there and the way back.
Been a long time since I listened to it (probably not even in this millenium).
Forgot how much I liked it.
Strummer and Jones.
Had a similar moment a few weeks ago, played a few Clash songs on the ole Internets. I burned myself out pretty bad on the first three records - I think I was one of the biggest Clash geeks on the planet for about 5 years. I even had two Clash stickers on my car. What a knob. I never messed around with much after London Calling though - I have to confess I haven't heard Sandanista in its entirety. I should probably rectify that.
Interestingly, a friend of mine just had a baby boy and named him Strummer. Now there's a diehard for ya.


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Backyard Angry Birds: Endless Outdoor Fun for Your Kids
Do your kids love Angry Birds?
Are you looking for ways to connect with your children through the games they enjoy?
Bring the game to life and have some outdoor family fun with your own version of Angry Birds.
In this article, I'll show you how to create an outdoors Angry Birds game in less than 10 minutes so you can turn a favorite video game into an offline adventure with your kids.
Why Angry Birds?
Angry Birds is one of the most popular games available. It not only teaches players physics but it's a lot of fun.
I must confess when I first came across the game I spent hours trying to knock down the piggy fortresses myself, so it's not just for kids.
Angry Birds is fun for everyone. This is why it's an ideal game to bring into your real life game play.


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XE Currency BlogTopics7227 Posts7272
The main currencies chopped around in thin conditions. The yen made a fresh trend high for a fourth consecutive trading day, at 105.41. There were reports of Japanese exporters on the offer, which helped cap the dollar ahead of the 105.50 level, and the pair subsequently sank to a low of 105.12 during the London morning. Japanese markets will now be closed through to next Monday. EUR-USD oscillated around 1.3750, steadying after the wild price volatility of Friday, which now looks like an aberration on the charts. GBP-USD popped to a peak of 1.6497 following strong U.K. house price data before retreating toward 1.6450.
EUR-USD drifted lower on Monday, to 1.3730 before finding a footing after making a peak of 1.3770 in early Asian trade. Volumes have of course remained very low, though the pair was comparatively steady after the wild, stop driven volatility of Friday. The short-lived spike to 1.3894 that was seen on Friday looks like an aberration on the charts, which is essentially what it was. The move marked a sharp turnaround following the Dec-20 low of 1.3625 that had been seen following the Fed's tapering announcement. Technically, the move would appear to be a bullish development, but we would advise caution with regard to a 'validity' of the move given the low volumes.
The yen made a fresh trend high for a fourth consecutive trading day, 105.41, during the last business day of the year in Tokyo. There were reports of Japanese exporters on the offer, which helped cap the dollar ahead of the 105.50 level. Japanese markets will be closed from tomorrow until next Monday. We expect the yen to remain on a weakening path during the early part of 2014. Japanese policymakers are pursuing a weak currency and there will be market concerns about the impact of the planned 8% rise in sales tax next April, to which the BoJ is expected to offset this by making further liquidity provisions. At its December meeting , the central bank maintained monetary policy unchanged, reaffirming its commitment to expand the monetary base by an annual 60-70 tln yen.
There remains a strong fundamental case in favour of sterling. U.K. yields have recently been rising quicker than other G7 yields following a run of impressive data and S&P last week affirmed its triple-A rating of the U.K. (albeit while retaining a negative outlook due to continue risks posed to U.K. trade by Eurozone ongoing uncertainties). Forward looking survey evidence, such as PMI order data, CBI industrial trends, along with recent lending figures and house prices data, are collectively pointing to continued robust economic expansion. Cable has now been in a bullish trend for six months, reflecting a trade-weighted appreciation of the currency over this time as U.K. recovery took hold. We anticipate more of the same in 2014.
USD-CHF got caught up in the EUR-USD centered, thin market volatility on Friday, but EUR-CHF has remained comfortably above 1.2200. EUR-CHF had breached above 1.2200 ahead of the Christmas/new year holiday period, recovering from pre-Fed tapering decision low of 1.2166, which was the lowest level seen in eight months. The gain in the cross had reflected an unwinding in the Swiss currency's safe haven premium as the period of Fed policy uncertainty ended with its decision to commencement QE tapering. Resistance comes in at 1.2280, marks a series of former lows seen between October and November. Support is at 1.2220 and 1.2200.
USD-CAD has seen some pretty choppy price action over the last coupled of wees, spiking to a major-trend peak of 1.0737 on Dec-20, subsequently diving to sub-1.06 levels before recovering the 1.0700 level once again. Much of the volatility is down to thin, year-end market conditions. Bigger picture, the pair has been looking stretched technically, with prevailing levels having deviated above the 200-day moving average by a comparatively wide margin by historical standards (the average is presently situated at 1.0440). This conviction may have been strengthened by the repeated rejections from levels above 1.0700 over the last three weeks, and we may see a period of price stasis or a deeper correction over the coming weeks. Support is suggested by the Dec-12 low of 1.0561 and the 1.0550 level, between which are encompassed a multiple of former daily lows and daily highs that were recorded over the last six-months.


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Dick Howser managed the KC Royals to their only World Series victory. It is not as well known, however, that he was friends with Burt Reynolds as a youth. They both went to Florida State. I think this was actually before Bobby Bowden was the football coach. That's how long ago this was. Reynolds played football for the 'Noles, but he went on to acting. One of his early movies was Deliverance. He was in that with Jon Voight.
Voight sired Angelina Jolie who is married to Brad Pitt. Pitt played Billy Beane in Moneyball. Chris Pratt played Scott Hatteberg. In a sabermetric twist, Pratt's day job is playing Andy Dwyer on Parks and Rec. Parks and Rec is written by Michael Schur. He was also Ken Tremendous on the Fire Joe Morgan blog. Scott Hatteberg was a pickin' machine. Morgan was on the Big Red Machine. But before that, he was an Astro. One of his teammates was diarist Jim Bouton. Bouton and Howser were teammates before that on the Yankees.
DC Pierson is a comedian and buddy of Donald Glover who plays Troy on Community. Pierson has appeared in episodes of Community. Not sure if he had a speaking role, but he was involved in the recent war between Troy and Abed. Chevy Chase is Pierce Hawthorne on that show. He was Clark Griswold in the Vacation movies. Jane Krakowski played Cousin Vicki in the first movie. Now she plays Jenna Maroney on 30 Rock. Jenna is friends with Liz Lemon who has had a few boyfriends on the show. Among them is Dennis Duffy.
Duffy is/was played by Dean Winters. Winters is "Mayhem" in Allstate commercials. Another person who appears in Allstate ads is Pierson. He gets into a fender-bender with some business guy. Hopefully, this post ins more entertaining than a car wreck.
PS – The main Allstate spokesman is Dennis Haysbert. He appeared in Heat along with Jon Voight. They weren't in the same scenes. I suppose that type of connection works in the Kevin Bacon Game, but it is rather tenuous.


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I had not updated the old blog for a few weeks because I have been busy with many things lately and adding posts to the site was not one of them. That does not mean I have stopped going to football matches so I will update you on my most recent trips in the upcoming days.
On Saturday 12th November I decided to take a train to Saltcoats to see the Emirates Junior Cup second round tie between Saltcoats Victoria and fellow Ayrshire side Darvel. This fixture had already been postponed twice in the previous couple of weeks but it seemed it was finally game on and the weather forecast looked fine. I picked this fixture as it was a relatively short trip (only thirty minutes on the train from Paisley) and it gave me the opportunity to tick off another Wetherspoon pub, the Salt Cot. I had forgotten about this pub but fellow groundhopper Stephen aka Groundhopper 2000 reminded me just in time.
I got off the train at Saltcoats at 1pm, exactly one hour before kick-off. From the train station it was a short walk to my first stop, The Salt Cot, one of the smaller JD Wetherspoon pubs I have been to but with plenty of real ales available. After I had finished my pint of Avalanche I made my way to Campbell Park, home of Saltcoats Vics and a fifteen-minute walk from the town centre.
When I arrived at Campbell Park it seemed very quiet, and I got that eerie feeling that is well known to most groundhoppers...a quick check on the Saltcoats Vics internet side confirmed that the game was off. It also mentioned that the game was supposed to be be played at Ardeer Stadium, home of Ardeer Thistle. So not only was the game postponed, I had shown up at the wrong ground as well. Unfortunately the SJFA website had the game still down as 'on' at that time and no mentioning was made of a ground switch.
It looked like I had wasted my money on train ticket but I quickly checked the Junior fixtures and found out Kilwinning Rangers were playing at home against Lugar Boswell Thistle. I decided to take the 2:35pm train to Kilwinning.
The Junior Cup tie was rescheduled to Saturday 19th November and the venue was switched to Darvel's home ground, Recreation Park. Despite losing home advantage Vics thrashed their opponents 8-0.
First a pint in the Salt Cot
The gate to Campbell Park remained closed...
Saturday 12th November 2011
Emirates Junior Cup second round
Saltcoats Victoria P Darvel P
Emirates Junior Cup second round
Saltcoats Victoria P Darvel P


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Richard Rapaport shows us why hard-hitting journalists make the big bucks:
At the start of the Revolution, South Carolina informed the Continental Congress that it would refuse to sign the Declaration of Independence unless slavery was recognized. South Carolina even demanded the right to disregard an embargo on trade with Great Britain agreed to by the 12 other colonies. It was an exemption that allowed South Carolina to maintain its lucrative rice trade and remain among the richest colonies throughout the Revolution, which it largely sat out, happily occupied by the British army.
Um, South Carolina didn't exactly sit that one out, dude. The Palmetto State possibly played host to more Rev War engagements than any of the thirteen. By one estimate, almost one-fifth of all combat deaths in the entire war took place in South Carolina during the last two years of fighting. "Happily occupied" is a most inappropriate description of a state riven by bloody partisan warfare for much of 1780 and 1781.
Granted, this has little bearing on his larger point, which is that South Carolina has been and continues to be a state which is off its collective rocker. Personally, I've always been of the opinion that this reputation for extremism has been overstated. The evidence Rapaport presents—a restriction of the right of manumission in the colonial period, rampant secessionism in the mid-1800's, and so on—doesn't really indicate a greater degree of lunacy than that found in any other state's history. I'm not sure how a social scientist would account for centuries of sustained kookery on such a scale. Some heretofore unidentified Lamarckian process—an inheritance of acquired political characteristics? Something in the water?
Oh, well. Not being a South Carolinian myself, I suppose I don't have much at stake in the matter. I do travel to the Palmetto State on a fairly regular basis, and wouldn't at all mind taking up residence there, so that probably explains why the article irked me. That, and one other thing: Rapaport's byline describes him as a "Bay Area writer." Surely San Franciscans above all people should hesitate before diagnosing an entire population with psychosis? People who live in glass houses, etc.