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With absolutely no encouragement, red, yellow, and some purple raspberries will produce new plants from root suckers. In the early spring, as soon as the suckers emerge, dig up whole clumps of sucker roots and soil. Separate the roots of the suckers from the mother plant. Then transplant.Propagating Black Raspberries
Blackcaps and the remaining purples require a different procedure. Give the plants a year or two to get established before prodding them to multiply. In mid-summer, the current season's new canes (or their lateral branches) will be ready for tip-layering: insert the tips of some healthy and actively growing young canes straight down about 4 inches deep into loose, moist soil. Several shoots should emerge in the fall. Early next spring, separate the new plant from its mother and transplant.
|1. Raspberry Essentials
|2. Planting Raspberries
|3. Raspberry Care and Pests
|4. Harvesting Raspberries
|5. Propagating Raspberries ← you're on this article right now
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Todd & Marlon Llc-#yourtime Luxury Timepiece
At Design Interviews
Interview with Todd & Marlon LLC : Frank Scott: What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?. Todd & Marlon LLC : Todd & Marlon timepieces are custom made to suit the needs of the people who create their own future - the entrepreneurs. This collection, in fact, has been inspired by the entrepreneurial spirit - the mindset of the entrepreneurs but also of many of us who approach personal life as entrepreneurs. .Frank Scott: What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?. Todd & Marlon LLC : #YOURTIME has been carefully crafted for the entrepreneurs – for them every second counts and having an accurate view of time is a must. Entrepreneurs want to seize the day no matter what and a 24-hours dial allows them having the entire day at a glance hence helps better planning and organizing events – perfect for a busy person or someone who wants to live life to the fullest! By the way this watch is inspired by entrepreneurs and is meant also to sustain entrepreneurs. In fact we work very closely with the non-profit organization Spark MicroGrant to enable entrepreneurs in rural areas. .Frank Scott: What are your future plans for this award winning design?. Todd & Marlon LLC : We have already started the commercialization of this watch collection via a successful crowdfunding campaign. We are also in talk with some retailers, dealers and distributors around the globe. By the way, in parallel we have also launched a second collection based on the same structure but with a 12-hour automatic movement instead of a 24-hour quartz. .Frank Scott: How long did it take you to design this particular concept?. Todd & Marlon LLC : From the idea to the design didn't take long time. However, making the design more tangible for the people that are crafting it, took longer. .Frank Scott: Why did you design this particular concept? Was this design commissioned or did you decide to pursuit an inspiration?. Todd & Marlon LLC : The design was not commissioned it was "just" an inspiration. .Frank Scott: Is your design being produced or used by another company, or do you plan to sell or lease the production rights or do you intent to produce your work yourself?. Todd & Marlon LLC : The watches are manufactured and commercialized by Todd & Marlon LLC (I'm the founder and CEO) .Frank Scott: What made you design this particular type of work?. Todd & Marlon LLC : Passion for jewelry has always been in the family DNA. My grandfather was crafting jewels the old way. I still remember him using cuttlefish bones to prepare the molds for rings and my father helping him out with the stones. This passion seems to hold also with the new generation and one of my sons once asked me for his own watch so this is how I ended up designing watches. .Frank Scott: Where there any other designs and/or designers that helped the influence the design of your work?. Todd & Marlon LLC : I don't work with professional designers and the only influencers are my sons and my wife. .Frank Scott: Who is the target customer for his design?. Todd & Marlon LLC : The entrepreneurial spirits. People with the attitude to actively seeks out change, rather than waiting to adapt to change. .Frank Scott: What sets this design apart from other similar or resembling concepts?. Todd & Marlon LLC : One of the many peculiar things is the double-XII dial. There are quite few 24-hour watches in the market but generally they indicate the time as 0-23 or 1-24. The double-XII (twice 1-12) system is practically not used on readily commercially available watches. I believe that this best reflect the way people talk about time while offering a 24-hour view at a glance. .Frank Scott: How did you come up with the name for this design? What does it mean?. Todd & Marlon LLC : Entrepreneurs are amazing people and the most successful ones are master of time management. With #YOURTIME watches we wanted to celebrate their work and achievements. #YOURTIME is also a call to action for all the 'want to be' entrepreneurs. We want them to take the first step in the long and often difficult journey to success and we want to accompany them with #YOURTIME watches and much more… In a nutshell #YOURTIME is meant to remind you that life is too short not to take action. .Frank Scott: Which design tools did you use when you were working on this project?. Todd & Marlon LLC : I'm not a professional designer and I'm very down-to-heart. The entire design has been done on a very simple tool - powerpoint - would you believe that? .Frank Scott: What is the most unique aspect of your design?. Todd & Marlon LLC : One of the many peculiar things is the double-XII dial. There are quite few 24-hour watches in the market but generally they indicate the time as 0-23 or 1-24. The double-XII (twice 1-12) system is practically not used on readily commercially available watches. I believe that this best reflect the way people talk about time while offering a 24-hour view at a glance. .Frank Scott: Who did you collaborate with for this design? Did you work with people with technical / specialized skills?. Todd & Marlon LLC : The design is 100% done by us with no influence from other parties .Frank Scott: How did you decide to submit your design to an international design competition?. Todd & Marlon LLC : International design competition and especially A'Design Award are a great way to build credibility especially when the design is done by non professionals like in my case .Frank Scott: What did you learn or how did you improve yourself during the designing of this work?. Todd & Marlon LLC : There is never ending to the search for perfection but if you want the design to end up in the hands of many then you need to stop somewhere. .
Todd & Marlon Llc-#yourtime Luxury Timepiece Images:
End of the article, click here to go back to previous page, or alternatively go back to Designd - Best Designs homepage.
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The Pocket Gamer Report: Is Nintendo Barking up the Wrong Tree with the 3DS?
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The Pocket Gamer Report: Is Nintendo Barking up the Wrong Tree with the 3DS?
James Cameron's Avatar, what have you done?
If nintendo sells millions of these (like we know they will), it will get 3d into millions of people's heads who don't go browsing online for videos and stats of $2000 tv's that do 3d. This could raise demand for 3d games on the consoles and 3d tv's to support them, leading to lower prices due to high demand, making 3d set's more affordable and ushering in a new era.
This whole article is based on suppositions. All you know is that there will be 3D tech that does not require glasses. Nintendo would not make a big deal out of it and release a whole new platform if this were possible with the DSi. So you wasted your time writing this.
Are you sure it's a revision? It's been 6 years since the DS launched, it's about time we get a new one with 16x more processing power (doubled every 1,5 years)
Let's give it up for the next virtua boy, people!
News Report: Pocket Gamer is Skeptical... Again!
I remember a while ago, some guy had inverted the Wii's pointer sensing controls by putting the LED lights on the edges of his glasses and placed the remote in front of his TV. The effect was pretty interesting had you feeling like you could lean and look around corners. To some extent, this was true. I could be wrong, but I seem to recall that fellow got picked up to work on Microsoft's Natal.
Now Nintendo is releasing another handheld upgrade that supposedly does the same thing as the hacked Wii head-tracking technique, without the need for glasses. Hey, awesome. Will I buy it? Probably not. Will I question it and mock it before I even see it? No, I'll leave that to the experts at Pocket Gamer. ;-)
The only thing I see here is Nintendo further saturating the market with their devices. It's a smart move that the physical game format remains the same as it allows those with money to upgrade without abandoning their library and I can guarantee all those perfectly good, 2-3 year old DS units will be given away to friends and family... further promoting the DS infestation of our culture.
Variety is a good thing. Apparently some people would prefer only one choice of car to drive, but I ain't one of them.
Yes. An unequivocal, resounding yes.
I posted in my blog last week that Nintendo seem to releasing more versions of the DS this year than good games. It's ridiculous - what difference does quality hardware make if they won't farking release software?
-sigh- They need to put brakes on the hardware and release some more decent games. I don't need more bells and whistles; I want more things to do with the hardware I already have.
If Nintendo is really going to go through with this, let's hope they've learned their lessons from the Virtual Boy debacle.
I wonder how many people here are mistaking the 3DS as hardware revision to the DS rather than being a next gen DS.
There is a giant library for games for the DS that Nintendo doesn't really have to publish all that much software for their own device. I can find a plethora of great games for ~$40 and under. Oh and Pokemon Heartgold/Soulsilver *just* came out, and they are quite possibly the best Pokemon games I've ever played.
I feel this article didn't do enough research into the 3DS and is bashing it just because. I have no doubts that if Apple had done the same thing with the iPhone they would be slobbering all over the innovation. Never mind that the article completely glosses over analog controls (which are hopefully better than the PSP's) and other innovations that Nintendo doesn't even use in their consoles, and the article makes a GIANT assumption that the 3D technology will be lifted from an experimental game. I can't say that's not true, but the theory I hear the most is that the 3DS will feature polarized layers over the screens.
If PocketGamer existed 10 years ago, I bet they would be bashing the Gameboy Color for its backwards compatibility with the original Gameboy. "While people may have chuckled at the porky proportions of the Gameboy, this new device is an entirely different matter. It's rumored that the Gameboy Color will have a 256-color screen, though it appears that the Gameboy Color remains tied to the Gameboy cart format, so one has to wonder just how significant a technological step it can be."
Or was the GBC 128 colours? I don't remember, seeing as I held out for a long time, playing black and white games, all the way to the GBA.
[Shrugs] I have a regular DS lite at this point, I'll be holding out until we see some major revisions to the system like the DS-2 they are supposed to be announcing before I go running out to buy a new version.
In general until carts start requiring a new handheld/format I don't see the point. Plus I mostly use my DS when I'm out and don't have a computer or full size console, I am less than interested in anything that is remotely tricky to use. Heck, as it is I find it irritating that both my DS and PSP have trouble being seen in direct sunlight/bright light. Meaning I can't use them effectively while say at the dog park and letting my Pug run free. :P
The whole 3d Format already doesn't impress me with the "head positioning" thing, not to mention the fact that my opinion of 3d movies has been fairly "meh" so far despite the huge crowd reaction. Maybe because I'm one of those people who gets headaches from it.
This is their new next-gen hardware. This was the rumored DS2.
We have seen nothing yet. Way too early to be this negative.
We can only hope...I have a bad feeling about it, but willing to give them the chance to see if they can redeem themselves
3D to me seems like the biggest waist of time in the world. I'd rather have a good game/film then then some stupid gimick.
Scrap it, this is just something new so the prices of games get jacked up and the qualty goes down cuz these less money to spend on writing.
I don't know if the comparison to Rittai Kakushie Attakoreda is truely apt, that isn't the impression I got from info about the 3DS at all. Yes, the camera-controlled parallax would certainly be an option, but that's possible with or without the 3DS's features, as the DSi certainly proves. I think what people are going to get really excited about is the '3D-without-glasses' presentation, which will soon be coming to home television sets as well and that will certainly get people talking and coveting. I'm in line with the article, though, when it says that RKA-style parallax games will be better applied somewhere else - namely, I think the Natal platform is going to excel at this.
quite correct
Pocket Gamer should get his head out of his pocket and realize that this is not a simple DS revision.
That does make sense, however I've been thinking it's something else since allegedly the DS-2 annoucement wasn't supposed to be until like June.
My mistake if so, no biggie I suppose. Quite disappointing though since I'm not even sure if I like the idea of a 3d handheld.
More power to Nintendo if they want to jump on the 3D bandwagon as it is about to take off. You know someone was going to do it eventually. Hmm... the tracking technology really doesn't seem to fit with the portable idea at all. Unless they come up with a stand for a DS which would put it into the correct position for you instead of having to hold it yourself, they might avoid some problems in the future.
Me too: The 3DS isn't a Revised DS, it's the next Handheld for Nintendo(At least that's what I read and thought). I also read that the 3DS isn't the official title, so I am still hoping for it to be Called the Gameboy Omega.
This article is SO badly misinformed as are most of the comments. You all need to just stop and think. And then think some more.
I think its still to early to start judging the thing since it seems all we know right now are rumors.
...approved, and...
I hope this tanks and fails horribly. Not because of any bias, but because I just can't stand the thought of 3d becoming popular, then hearing every retarded gamer complaining about how their favorite company doesn't make their game in 3d.
Oh yes, ask them to spend more money on a game that you won't buy because you think it's expensive already. Sheesh. No wonder corporates don't take us seriously.
Yes, a little 3d would be nice, but don't you dare start asking for it in every game.
I absolutely can not wait for this. pocket gamer is being way to hard on a system that havnt even seen in motion, let alone played.
"well this new ds could use technology like shown here on this dsi game, so lets assume that its going to and run it into the ground"
what bullshit. I feel insulted, that I, a consumer, know more about a product then a website dedicated to those types of products.
Not too much of a handheld gamer, haven't even picked one up in a couple of years, but this should be interesting to see how it pans out. What level will its graphics be at? PSP level? Higher? Curious, because 3D, no matter how glorious, will look atrocious if low-res/pixellated...
I bet the 3DS, is actually a DS with newer 3D graphics like a PSP
This is true of about 90% of PGRs on this site.
OT: ...wow. I honestly have no idea where to begin on this. That was probably one of worst PGRs I have seen to date. I think making a list, in order of your "arguments," would be a good place to start.
This article would have been better suited to reporting on the actual device at E3. Posting this now, however, just does not fly and, unfortunately, manages to drag down the quality of your articles even further into the mud, IMO.
I don't really see this as rushing in a new age, the next amazing breakthrough, ect ect ad infinitum. This is just the same rubbish, with a new pixel added in.
Look at the amount of money people have spent on the Gameboy line over the years. The original Gameboy, which was the appx size and shape of a brick. Then the slimmed down version. Gameboy color. Then the slimmed down version. Gameboy Advance. GBA SP (slim). Nintendo DS. The slimmed DSi.
I'm sure I probably missed a few, but does it really matter? They are all carbon copies of the same brick handheld. Just add color. I think I'll just save my money and wait for a bit, if you don't mind.
Imagine what they'll have released in another year or so. Odds are, the same recycled rubbish.
And yes, much to my shame, I have owned at least one of each generation, often the slimmed one. Why? Masochism would be my nearest guess. I just love having somebody wittle on my shoes and tell me it's rain.
You really don't understand the tech behind 3d do you?
Have you ever looked at the 3d capabilities of the PC?
Hell, with specialist drivers, you can get anaglyph 3d working for just the cost of a pair of cardboard glasses with red/green filters.
I've tried it... And it works on pretty much every game.
The only 'extra' work it takes is the developer being careful with things like HUD's and such because they can be an eyestrain if not planned out properly.
3d doesn't require extra development to make, because any game with '3d' graphics in it (eg, polygons, rather than sprites - 95% of all games made since 1996), contains the nessesary information needed to produce an actual '3d' effect anyway.
Anyhow, I am curious how this console's 3d effect is supposed to work.
(3d effect without glasses, and accounting for eye accomodation, not just stereoscopic depth perception, and thus gets rid of most of the headaches.)
But that seems really unlikely for a handheld...
Also, this article is terrible. The author should be ashamed of themselves.
Why is being tied to the DS's cartridge format significant anyway?
The DS cartridge is basically a custom variant of an SD memory card, and those are available with capacities up to 32 GB right now.
Well, the problem comes in when a company just doesn't want to try 3d in their games and they promptly get flak for it. It would be like saying a game with good gameplay and decent graphics is horrible because it doesn't have the shiniest textures.
I say people should stop being so critical of them already. Let 3d be an eventual process. Don't force it into gaming. You say it isn't expensive, I call bullcrap.
But of course, nobody will listen. And that's why gaming is suffering. I just don't trust 3d gaming right now and nothing you say can change that. Maybe when I see it being used effectively on a global scale, then I'll reconsider.
I can see your point there, and I agree that devs being forced into it isn't a good idea.
But you're 'bullcrap' remark is, well, bullcrap.
I can 'force' 3d on ANY game whatsoever on a PC.
The fact that It can be turned on without the desire or intent of the game's creators should tell you something.
Most games are already '3d'. It isn't like film, where you have to modify the actual recording process.
It's little more complicated than it is to increase the resolution the game runs at, which is, frankly, trivial, and only really depends on your hardware...
Do you wonder at all why the PS3 can output 3d?
Well, that does shed a bit more light on the subject. If it's that easy to do it, then I guess there won't be much trouble with it.
But mark my words, something is bound to come up and cause turbulance with this. I'm just wondering what.
Yeah, there probably will be. Sorry if I was being a bit forceful about the issue, but I've seen first-hand how it works, and that it's mostly a hardware issue.
But the trouble comes, like I said, from minor things; If you try this with a random game, there's a fair chance you'll find several things quite distracting.
So... A dev will have to think about the interface design, and make sure it isn't a huge nuisance in 3d.
So, it will take a bit of thought for developers, but it'll work irrespective of tat, just not as well as it should.
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- This event has passed.
Thursday Nights LIVE @ Swallow Bar
November 15, 2018 @ 5:00 pm - 8:00 pm
|Recurring Event (See all)
An event every week that begins at 5:00pm on Thursday, repeating until January 10, 2019
Every Thursday night Swallow Bar hosts an amazing array of local music talent.
These gigs are FREE and fabulous!
You can expect cheeky jazz, dirty blues, gypsy jazz, bossa nova, honky tonk, and a little country!
Artists include Jessie Gordon, John Bannister, Damian Drac Denyer, Michelle Smith Harpist, Lachlan Gear & Fiona Rea, Johnny Matthews, Kazinko Bossa Nova, Jaime Oehlers & Ben Vanderwal, with new artists regularly being added to our family.
Check our website for details and the weekly line up….
Come on down folks!


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With Tempestt Bledsoe and her character leaving for college sooner than expected, the show needed a new Vanessa. To solve this problem, they introduced Cousin Pam, a distant relative of Cliff's who has never met anyone in this family even though she lives a couple boroughs away. Seriously, her friends ride the subway to come visit her, and she couldn't do the same to see her blood relatives? I'm also a little lost on the exact structure of the family tree here. I know it's possible to have a cousin more than 30 years younger than you, but it's rare, and a little illumination on that would have been nice. But whatever.
He's giving me OITNB Crazy Eyes realness.
There's no need for stank, girl. You just got here.
Men on this show are usually a terrible influence on the women they date.
They're not great fashion advisers, either.
Who the hell are you?
So you just, like, live here now?
Eyes on the pies.
They'd rather cast someone new than give her more lines.
At least she had two scenes this time.
So welcoming.
So much for welcoming.
Why are you huddled against the cabinet like that?
I know that this entry wasn't necessarily worth the wait. But I promise I'm not going to stop now that I've gotten this far. Even if finishing this blog seems like a ridiculous goal sometimes.


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Publicly insistent that they are not seeking a destination for center fielder Colby Rasmus, the Cardinals have made the struggling 24-year-old talent available for the right deal with the Chicago White Sox, according to several sources familiar with the situation.
… Negotiations with White Sox general manager Kenny Williams have accelerated in recent days, according to sources, with the Sox able to dangle pending free agent pitcher Edwin Jackson or high-salary lefthanded reliever Matt Thornton.
Talks also hinge on minor-league or cost-controlled talent the White Sox could include in a deal and, according to a source, a third team may be sought to facilitate a trade.
Dammit Kenny. That's too much. Rasmus had a good year last year due to a high-BABIP. He hit .276/.361/.498/.859 with a .356 BABIP. He had the 7th highest BABIP-xBABIP difference in baseball (chart)! This year when his BABIP is down to a normal .286, his batting line is down to .241/.327/.402/.730. And why give away Thornton too and weaken the bullpen? When Chris Sale goes to the rotation next year, the bullpen will be 2 lefties down. And I don't see any good, not even adequate, lefties in the minors (starters or relievers).
UPDATE: Oh, I forgot Hector Santiago and his new screwball. He MIGHT be an option.


text: Ok, having once dated a Mouse King, I was totally amused that the Ovation network is having a 1 week 'Battle of the Nutcrackers'. Yeah, in the true spirit of Christmas, they are presenting a Nutcracker grudge match; six different presentations of Tchaikovsky's's classic ballet go head to head in a Battle Royale to determine the winner. So far, I am liking Nutcracker: The Movie, but never bet against Balanchine.


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(CNN) – First lady Michelle Obama's trip to Chicago on Wednesday will include a stop at a public high school where the city's rash of gun violence has been acutely felt.
She'll stop at Harper High School, where 29 students, past and present, have been shot in the past year, according to the White House. Eight of those students died.
While in Chicago the first lady will also deliver remarks at a lunch meeting designed the curb youth violence.
Chicago has suffered a plague of gun violence in recent years - some 506 people were murdered in the city last year, according to local crime statistics, up from 433 in 2011.
The first lady's trip to her hometown is part of a week-long effort by the White House to pressure Congress into passing stricter gun control measures, including an expansion of federal background checks.
On Monday, President Barack Obama spoke at a college in Connecticut, miles from the scene of December's deadly school massacre in Newtown.
Family members of those killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School traveled with Obama to Washington to lobbying members of Congress.
Vice President Joe Biden and Attorney General Eric Holder have also joined the effort, delivering remarks to law enforcement officers on Tuesday and calling on Congress to act.
The Senate plans a vote on Thursday on whether to take up gun legislation, which faces a possible Republican filibuster.
An earlier version of this story erroneously reported the number of murders in Chicago last year.
Since she's making a stop at a school, the republicans need to dig up as much filth as they can. After all, an educated electorate is a threat to future republican office holders.
Ill bet there will be a lot of guns in the school to protect her.
I'm glad she got around to it.
Surely how many Kids have to die before this good for nothing politicians do something?


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Actor Gary Coleman weekend burial has been called-off as his parents and live-in ex-wife bickered over funeral arrangements for the former "Diff'rent Strokes" star.
Coleman, who died at age 42 on May 28th after suffering a brain hemorrhage, was supposed to be laid to rest this weekend before a battle brewed over custody of his body.
But a Salt Lake City attorney said Friday he had a will Coleman wrote in 1999 naming an executor of his estate with the authority to make funeral arrangements.
U.S. & World
The attorney, Kent Alderman, said he plans to take the will to court but declined to speak on any details or identify the executor.
"We will submit that for probate next week and find out if this is the last will. We believe it is. Nobody's come up with a more recent one," Alderman said, according to the Associated Press.
Coleman's estranged parents had been preparing to go to court seeking to bring the actors body for burial at childhood home in Illinois once it was revealed that Coleman had divorced his wife Shannon Price in 2008.
Their attorney, Frederick Jackman said the parents are dropping their claim after the will emerged. Jackman told the AP the will names Dion Mial, Coleman's friend and former manager as the executor.
"The Colemans from the start simply wanted to do what he wanted to have done," Jackman said.
Price's representative, Shielia Erickson said "all we wanted to do is fill Gary's wishes."


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Christ Is Risen!
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Steve -I think your observations are very astute.In a way I am glad about what has happened over at "Protestants R Us."I was getting tired of beating my head against the brick wall over there, and the prolonged contact with heresy was wearing me down and making me feel kind of spiritually sick.The Divine Liturgy each Sunday was my anti-venom.Now I understand the master heresiarch (Berean53) is back at CBBS and in fine form, referring to all apostolic Christians as "cultists" and "idolaters," etc.With the new constraints that have been imposed over there, it is now next to impossible to deal with people like him. Our deleted posts would only make him look good and make others think we had resorted to swearing and were being censored for that reason.
This reminds me of my wife's experience with the new age occultisms. Seems that ANY religion but Christianity is a valid path to follow.
From gecko: Ya know, TOS #17 is getting REALLY annoying. I can't follow the one sided conversations like this. What did you say to warrant the censoring?
Since you supplied some good advice from St. Silouan, I will supply an example from the life of St. Polycarp, who was dealing with someone a little more extreme than those to whom Silouan's Archimandrite was preaching:On his visit to Rome Polycarp met the heretic Marcion, who called on Polycarp to recognize him, to which Polycarp replied, "I recognize, I recognize, the first-born of Satan." (From Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History, quoted in Penguin Books' Early Christian Writings, p. 115).I think the difference between St. Silouan's advice and what Polycarp had to say to Marcion is that evidently Silouan's Archimandrite was dealing with some folks who were essentially Orthodox (maybe Roman Catholics?), and Polycarp was dealing with a genuine soul-endangering heretic.Obviously it would not do any good to call Fundamentalist Protestants "sons of Satan." But it might be good to recall that many of the Fathers of the Church were not as easy-going as we are today.
Polycarp sinned gravely in the example you cite, because he in essence stated that Marcion was not worth saving.
Holy Scripture is part of the Tradition of the Church. We are not the ones who have trampled, edited, or removed entire books from the Bible. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In Christ, by His every WORD-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What of the Word that was removed 1000 years after it gathered together into the Bible by the Church ? What happened to all Scripture is useful ... ? And of course, we have Scripture that attests to the fact that the Bible is not the exhaustive word of God: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Joh 21:25 But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Why do you not hold to His teachings that are passed down from the Apostles by tradition as Scripture itself commands ? 2Th 2:15 So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter. These traditions are as much the word of God as Scripture. Where does Scripture say that it contains all that Christ taught and commanded ?
Linus 7<<Now my goal is to imitate my heroes here and rack up enough posts to become a "Patriarch.">>Go for it, just so long as you don't try to take away my patriarchal territory, Linus! Hypo-Ortho
From Keble: And you would do well to remember that not all that appears in the lives of the saints is commendable. Perhaps you should greet these heretics with a right hook, in the manner of St. Nicholas. Polycarp sinned gravely in the example you cite, because he in essence stated that Marcion was not worth saving.
Discussions of "sacraments" versus ordinances stumble across two problems. First, you cannot very well deny that the Eucharist is an ordinance, because we are commanded to do it. And as far as "sacrament" is concerned, only polity evokes as wide a range of opinions. You can find every gradation of opinion on sacraments from strict memorialists to high-and-dry Anglicans who hold a higher theology of the sacrament than you do.
From Keble: I have to say that posting pointers to anti-fundamentalist Catholic tracts in a evangelical- or fundamentalist-dominated forum is an act of aggression. It's more or less a proclamation that you're going to talk down to them and not listen to their replies.
Oblio, Gecko, and Monkey -I do not know how you guys are continuing to post over there. It is just too frustrating for me.
Quote from: Linus7 on April 01, 2003, 08:33:51 PMOblio, Gecko, and Monkey -I do not know how you guys are continuing to post over there. It is just too frustrating for me.Is there such a thing as a cyber-martyr?
NiC doesn't like me. He glossed over, or completely ignored my post to him. I noticed he started doing that in the Church, Bible, tradition thread.SteveP.S. Folks, I want to know where what I'm posting stacks up with you all. If I post error then I want to know and also the reason why. It's a learning process...
Oblio, Gecko, and Monkey -I do not know how you guys are continuing to post over there. It is just too frustrating for me.I relished the chance to preach the truth when I was allowed to do so, but now . . .It is heartbreaking to work for 30 minutes or an hour on a post, typing out Bible references or quoting the Fathers, just to have some Saddam-in-sheep's-clothing come along and delete it.
Think of it in relation to the other outward symbols of faith that we use, such as baptism, communion and the cross, those are just symbols but they act powerfully upon us. Annointing with oil in addition to prayer has a similar impact.
(sigh) Totally contrary to what the church, as taught by the Apostles, believed. However, since my defending this further would be a TOS violation, I'll leave it at that.
This post violates TOS#17 in advocating a non-evangelical belief. It has been removed to Review & Hold and a report has been filed with the administration of this website. Please refrain from such posts. Thanks
Well, it's official. As of 11:06 last night, I am banished from CBBS. I'm not sure what post did it, but whatever it was, Crow did not like it.
That's bad! Was it for TOS #17?
tonight I think I will take a try at the idea that was stated on the first page of this thread by creating a thread on the protestant forum of "ask the orthodox christians" just look for it later and if you can try to help me out in there AAAHHH!!!
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Freiburg Zaehringen near the Zaehringer Castle with Downhill Mountain Biker René Schmidt, Black Forest, Germany
The Pano for René was taken after a Photo Shooting on the small Downhill and Freeride Training Area next to the Parking. The Tracks and the Mountan Bike Action is gently tolerated by the Owner of the Land. Even the building of Jumps and Woodrails is tolerated. Therefore a Thank You to the Owner for his Tolerance.
René is member of the follow me team and friend of my two other friends of this team: Mirko Deckler (Fresstyle Skiing) and Tim Fritz (Freeride Skiing and German Master Telemark Skicross).
Baden-Wuerttemberg is the most south west land of Germany


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Ducks defenseman Sheldon Souray underwent season-ending surgery on his right wrist Friday, the team announced. The operation, performed by Dr. Steve Shin at the Kerlan-Jobe Clinic in Los Angeles, was to relieve arthritis symptoms related to a torn ligament suffered last summer.
"This is a difficult situation for Sheldon and a tough loss for the team," Ducks general manager Bob Murray said in a statement. "Sheldon has been in pain for quite some time. This surgery was his best course of action in order to alleviate pain and discomfort and regain full mobility in his wrist.
"Sheldon's long-term health is the most important issue right now, and we support his difficult decision to have this surgery."


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December 2009
Marshall Gerometta, CTBUH Database Editor
The CTBUH is the recognized arbiter on tall building height, and the body that determines the title of "The World's (or Country's or City's) Tallest Building". It maintains three definitions for measuring tall building height along with numerous definitions pertaining to tall building height, function, materiality, etc. Its official Height Committee was formed in 1993, but the function of determining height, data and "tallest" titles pre-dates this, with the creation of the first official "CTBUH 100 Tallest Buildings in the World" list first appearing in the 80's and which is now published in numerous reference books and periodicals each year.
Of course skyscrapers had been in existence for almost 80 years before the Joint Committee on Tall Buildings (as the Council was first known) formed in 1969. The first skyscraper (acknowledged because of its use of a curtain wall construction on a steel frame) is generally accepted as the 1885 Home Insurance Building by architect William Le Baron Jenney in Chicago. Being the first skyscraper, it was also the first to claim the title of "World's Tallest Building" at 55m (180ft). Next to claim the title was the World Building in New York in 1890, followed by the Manhattan Life Insurance Building in New York in 1894. Most of the early skyscraper designs had flat roofs or domes at the top of their structures and were measured from curb to the top of building, with flagpoles generally not included. So, there wasn't too much to debate when it came to claiming the "World's Tallest" title. Even in 1905 when the New York Times Building, New York, was completed at 111m (363ft) to the roof with 128m (420ft) including flagpole, it was not considered to be taller than the 119m (391ft) high Park Row Building (also located in New York), which had held the world's tallest title since 1899.
Following the Park Row Building, the Singer Building in New York was next to claim the title of "World's Tallest" in 1908. It was surpassed the next year by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower in New York in 1909. In 1913 the Woolworth Building was completed and would claim the title for the next 17 years.
Things got interesting in 1929, when two buildings in New York competed neck and neck to surpass the Woolworth—the Bank of Manhattan and the Chrysler Building. The Bank of Manhattan topped out at 282.5m (927ft) while the Chrysler Building's final height was planned at 281.9m (925ft). But just a few months after the Bank of Manhattan was completed, a spire was secretly assembled in the Chrysler Building's dome and hoisted into place, bringing the total height to 319m (1,046ft). The spire was considered an architectural element of the building, thus giving it the world's tallest title over the Bank of Manhattan. The Chrysler Building only held the world's tallest title for just less than a year however, when the Empire State Building was topped out at 381m (1250ft).
After the Depression and World War II, most new skyscrapers used the "International Style", which typically had an orthogonal form with flat roofs and no spires. Many of the new buildings did add radio and television antennas to their tops, but these were not included in the official heights of the buildings.
The Empire State Building held the world's tallest title for 41 years until New York's 1 World Trade Center took over at 417m (1,368ft) in 1972. But its title was short-lived when Chicago's Sears Tower was completed in 1974 at 442m (1,451ft). There was some debate at the time that the 540m (1,772ft) Ostankino Tower in Moscow (1967) and the 553m (1,815ft) CN Tower in Toronto (1976) should be considered the world's tallest building, but since they were basically communication towers with observation platforms and not buildings in a traditional sense, the CTBUH did not consider them contenders for the "World's Tallest Building" title. Instead each was designated as "the world's tallest self-supporting tower."
Defining the Criteria
So what actually is the world's tallest building in terms of the criteria? The answer to this question is perhaps not as simple as it might first appear. First of all, the issue of what constitutes a "building" needs to be addressed, and how is it measured? Early discussions between CTBUH founders such as Lynn Beedle, Fazlur Kahn and Leslie Robertson in the early 70's after the completion of the Sears Tower in Chicago came up with some basic height criteria. Here are a couple of excerpts taken from the later 1986 CTBUH publication "Tall Buildings of the World," based on these early discussions:
A "building" is considered to be a structure that is designed for residential, business or manufacturing purposes. An essential characteristic of a building is that it has floors. Height is measured from the sidewalk of the main entrance to the structural top of the building including penthouse and tower. Television towers, radio antennas and flagpoles are not included. On the other hand, a tower is included if it is enclosed as an integral part of the structure—the Chrysler Building, for example. The number of stories begins at street level, main entrance.
The incident that really brought the whole issue of height—and the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat's Height Committee—to prominence, was the debate in 1996 between Petronas Towers Malaysia and the Sears Tower Chicago. With their decorative spires considered part of the architectural height (similar to the Chrysler Building some 70 years previously), the 452m (1,483ft) Petronas Towers took the title of the world's tallest building away from the then holder Sears Tower by 9.7m (32ft) since the antennae of Sears at 519m (1,704ft) height were not included in its height measurement.
However, the twin Petronas Towers were only 379m (1,242ft) without the spires, which was much shorter than both the highest inhabitable floor and the roof of Sears. Thus viewing the Petronas and Sears Towers side by side (or seeing them in diagrammatic form), it seemed that Sears Tower was much taller, since the two 77m (253 ft) TV antennas brought the total height to 519m (1704ft). At the April 1996 CTBUH Height Committee Meeting, it was decided that the spires should count in the official height of the Petronas Towers, thus giving it the world's tallest title, but it was a decision that many (especially Chicagoans!) disagreed with.
Partly in response to this situation, the Council created a further three new height categories: highest occupied floor, highest roof and highest tip of antenna, but this did not necessarily settle the issue, since the architectural height (including spires but not antennae) was the one that determined the world's tallest title. This decision on Petronas versus Sears brought international attention in the news media since this was the first time a country outside the United States had held the world's tallest building.
The Sears Tower still held the titles of highest floor (436m/1,431ft) and highest roof (442m/1,451ft), while 1 World Trade Center, New York held the highest antenna title at the time at (527m/1,728ft)
Things transitioned again in 2004 with the completion of Taipei 101, Taiwan, which became the world's tallest building at 509m (1,670 ft), beating the Petronas Towers by 57m (187ft). A meeting of the CTBUH Height Committee convened in March that year recognized Taipei 101 with the world's tallest title, along with the highest occupied floor (438m/1,440ft) and highest roof (448m/1,473 ft). There was still some disgruntlement from the US though, as the Sears Tower antennae were still higher than the spires of both Petronas and Taipei 101, at (527m/1730ft—the western antenna had been extended in June 2000 by 8m/26ft). Sears had achieved the title of the "tallest to tip" through default in 2001, after the terrorist acts of 9/11 and the destruction of the World Trade Center towers, New York.
On 24th May 2007 the CTBUH held a Height Committee meeting at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago with an international attendance to debate further the robustness of the existing height criteria, especially in light of projects such as the New York Times Building, New York, which was due for completion soon after with an architectural spire which looked to all intents and purposes like an antennae (and in light of several other projects which had architectural spires which contained antennae). The complexity and emotive subjectivity of the issues were apparent however in that, after a full day of involved debate, no change to the criteria was agreed on. The following points found a majority preference at the meeting:
- That the existing official height criteria to the architectural top should remain in place.
- That the highest occupied floor should be a conditioned floor where people continually either work or live, thus including observation decks but excluding mechanical floors.
- That parapets and screenwalls should be included in the height.
- That signage and lettering should not count in the height.
- That 50% or more of the building's height (i.e. the majority) needed to be occupiable space for it to be counted as a building, and thus structures such as the CN Tower should not be considered buildings.
- That a building should only be added to the official tallest list when it is (i) topped out structurally and architecturally, (ii) fully clad, and (iii) open for business, or at least partially open. This became the CTBUH official definition of a building's "completion."
On September 15, 2009 a sub-group of the CTBUH Height Committee held a meeting in Chicago, specifically to discuss the shortcomings of the existing criteria in response to the ground conditions at both Trump International Hotel & Tower, Chicago and the Burj Dubai. All four CTBUH height categories were currently worded: "Height is measured from the sidewalk level outside the main entrance to…" but this is problematic as the world of tall buildings is increasingly witnessing (as in the case of both Burj Dubai and Trump), multiple significant pedestrian entrances at differing levels.
As a result of that meeting, the full height committee passed the changes in wording to: "Height is measured from the level of the lowest, open-air, pedestrian entrance to…". The height committee felt this offers the protection from buildings including sub-grade basements, car parking, etc. in their height figure, while allowing buildings such as the Burj Dubai to be not penalized for having a lower but above-grade entrance which may not be considered "main" but allows people to enter and exit the building at that point nonetheless.
This change resulted in the Burj Dubai being measured from the office entrance, which is the lowest of 3 entrances (residential, hotel, office), and also resulted in Trump Tower being measured from the public riverwalk, from which residents can enter directly into the building, and the public can enter the retail elements which are contained within the tower footprint. Interestingly, it also moved the Trump Tower one up the tallest rankings at 423m (1,389ft), from 7th to 6th place at the time of its completion, leap-frogging Jin Mao Tower at 421m (1,381ft). Also in response to the changing designs and forms of tall buildings, the Height Committee has elected to discard its previous "Height to Roof" category.
The CTBUH Height Committee continues to meet regularly to review and, occasionally, refine the existing height criteria. To read all CTBUH Height Criteria click here.


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Newburyport is a favorite local town to shop - especially during the holidays. The fantastic lights downtown, the tree in Market Square, all the beautifully decorated window boxes and of course, Santa's Workshop, where the kids can whisper their wishes to Santa.
Santa's Workshop on Inn Street in downtown Newburyport isdedicated to the memory of James F. Patten Jr. The workshop, which is handicapped-accessible, will welcome children on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Children can visit Santa and tell him their Christmas wishes and each child to visit Santa will receive a complimentary photo.
Then enjoy strolling around the beautiful downtown area - a great way to spend a weekend day with the family during the holiday season.


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For folks that would like to use the NameTrain for room decor, until the baby gets old enough to play with it, this simple to install Wall Mount Bracket System is ideal. 2 brackets hang easily on a head of a screw (hardware not included). Brackets can be placed anywhere along the track but to get the best support mount them so they are approximately 2" from each end. Each track has a knob at each end so the train can't roll off. The track measures 32.5" long. The track and brackets are made from native rock maple and have a light coat of a non-toxic finish. The track has our traditional stripes.This set comes with 2 brackets and a piece of track that is long enough to hold 12 NameTrain cars (32.5" long). (NameTrain pieces sold separately).
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Price $24.60
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© Maple Landmark, Inc.


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PureDWTS 2013 Kelly Monaco, Mark Ballas, Cheryl Burke, And Derek Hough Celebrate New Years At The Act Nightclub
Pictured above is Cheryl Burke, Derek Hough, and Kelly Monaco!! The three dancing stars along with Mark Ballas were in Las Vegas last night to attend the New Years Eve festivities at The Act Nightclub. You can see more fun photos of them at Pure Derek Hough as Heidi has a full round up and other fun things!!! Thanks to Dona for the image above.


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Monday, October 6, 2008
Hruska Du
We criticize and receive criticism without reactionary defensiveness and accept others' ability to do the same with respect for their doing so rather than as an opportunity to press our agenda that much further.
Actually, I think the last half of the statement could use some clarification in the form of a concrete statement; I think I know what he means, but I'm not sure. But the first half is crucial, and a sentiment that seems to be building among those of us frustrated with the relationship between critics and cartoonists. I've seen too many creators freaking out in public over honest (if not always thoughtful) criticism. I don't know if it's a mentality endemic to comics or to a culture overlapping with comics. Kevin Smith's frequently callow relationship with his critics suggests the latter. (BTW, how funny is it that Smith's Wikipedia page cites the MTV Movie Award for "Dirtiest Mouth" (sponsored by Orbit gum!) among the awards won by Clerks II? Surely this is a joke, right? Or would Wikipedia's gestapo editors purge such levity?)
Even more cutting is this bit from Tucker and Nina Stone's interview with Chris Mautner (this being Tucker speaking):
Watchmen, Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, Criminal, Carl Barks, Darwyn Cooke, David B, Lynda Barry, Charles Burns, Krazy Kat—those comics, those creators get real serious writing because they earned it, because they did something that's worth talking about, that's worth taking seriously. If you're not getting really brilliant reviews, really incisive, intelligent response—it's because you don't deserve it. It's because you're a waste of time to the people who might write those reviews. Not because "it's comics." It's because that thing you did was just middle of the road, and you can't say anything smart about middle of the road. Because you didn't earn it, and no sour apples begging will get it for you.
Comics readers seem to love the mediocre. I don't think the problem with comics criticism (in a broad, broad, very inclusive sense) isn't that it rewards terrible, bottom-of-the-barrell work; it's that it rewards second-rate work. Any stab at respectability, no matter how modest, is too-often greeted with hosannas. I've seen people laud Kingdom Come because it used foreshadowing--which I'm sure we all remember is an actual, honest-to-god literary technique! I guess that's a step up from those who think crying superheroes holding the charred remains of less-famous superheroes connotes respectability.
Look, there are certainly people out there who don't care about anything other than Wolverine slicing people up (or the 2008 equivalent, shocking events which will change everything you thought you knew about She-Hulk). But this isn't a Manichean struggle between those people and those who actually want some shred of readability or craft in their comics; I'm not lining up with people who think Starman is the greatest comic of all time in a struggle against those who pay exorbitant amounts to see Batman strangle the Joker with his own intestines, provided that it's in continuity. I want to read legitimately good comics; I want to be an advocate for legitimately good comics and nothing else. It's not enough that a comic doesn't cater to a narrow, dying audience. I want comics which are good, which aspire to something grander than "at least it's not as bad as Wolverine: Origins."
In film reviews, a middling review is often worse than a abysmal review. In comics, works desrving of a middling review win major industry awards. Joss Whedon may not insult your intelligence as egregiously as, say, Jeph Loeb, but he doesn't belong in the same company as Harvey Kurtzman. Many people are well aware of this, but it's always good to remind those who don't quite believe you. Especially in an environment where anti-intellectualism isn't just prevalent but normative. Don't believe me? Consider this comment from the Blogorama interview:
He [Tucker Stone] tried to show he was "down" with comics by saying he liked an issue of the Detroit Justice League that found by accident. But he immediately started espousing the glories of Chris Ware and the "Arty" comics that he can find in NYC.
See? What kind of fucked up culture are we in that familiarity with a terrible, terrible superhero comic confers expertise, while modest praise for a book regarded as instrumental in establishing a bridge to the literary world is evidence that one is out of touch and unqualified to judge the value of an issue of Nightwing? Christ, this idiot seems to imply that Acme Novelty Library isn't even a REAL comic! This is an absolutely outrageous statement, but it's sadly not unique.
We can't say or do enough to eliminate comics' love affair with the mediocre. It's so obvious. Don't make me allude to a certain national political figure here.
17 comments:
- Anonymous said...
Oh man, I couldn't agree more. I'm a pulsing mess of agreement right now.
That comment on the Tucker & Nina Stone interview just drove me crazy, but I didn't really feel like getting into an interfight with some guy and his KFC Famous Bowl.
- October 6, 2008 at 4:52 PM
- ADD said...
Great post, Dick. Thanks for actually thinking about this stuff.
- October 6, 2008 at 9:26 PM
- Lynxara said...
People losing their shit over reviews is not unique to comics criticism, in my experience. I've had PR types try to have my job over video game reviews that amounted to "This is a fine concept but it is poorly executed."
Every medium's majority audience has a love affair with the mediocre. That's basically normative. The problem with comics (as I see it) is that the reading community is so small, there's really no way for a serious critical community to entirely separate itself from the less-demanding mainstream community that demands little more than basic coherence.
Film and novels, as more saturated media, have fewer problems with this sort of thing. Nobody expects the same sort of people to recommend Harry Potter and Umberto Eco, but the comics equivalent of this happens frequently enough to be jarring to me.
- October 7, 2008 at 4:11 AM
- Unknown said...
I dunno, I would say that the love affair with mediocrity extends across all mediums. Dean Koontz and Tom Clancy are pretty popular, and Date Movie or whatever romantic movie starring Richard Gere always end up at the top of the box office. Maybe it just seems more noticeable in comics, since the community is small enough and vocal in online circles. You kind of have to make an effort to avoid it if you want to stick to the more serious discussion. Of course, I'm not saying you should stop calling out the obnoxious members of the mediocrity-trumpeters, but I don't think it's anything that's going to change anytime soon. Myself, I try to write about what I like, and be as objectively critical as possible. So maybe that's something, but trying to convince people that the stuff they like actually sucks will probably only piss them off.
Or maybe I agree with Laura Hudson and Greg Burgas; I've outgrown the damn superhero comics, and those losers can have them. I've got plenty to keep my interest outside of that ever-dwindling genre.
- October 7, 2008 at 2:14 PM
- Unknown said...
Jeez, I've been kind of a dick (no relation) lately, haven't I? For other examples, see this comments thread, in which I called people who like All Star Batman 'babymen'. That'll win me friends!
- October 7, 2008 at 2:16 PM
- Todd C. Murry said...
As always, I agree with what you are saying top to bottom, but I got distracted thinking about the following:
"Look, there are certainly people out there who don't care about anything other than Wolverine slicing people up (or the 2008 equivalent, shocking events which will change everything you thought you knew about She-Hulk)… I want to read legitimately good comics; I want to be an advocate for legitimately good comics and nothing else. It's not enough that a comic doesn't cater to a narrow, dying audience. I want comics which are good, which aspire to something grander than "at least it's not as bad as Wolverine: Origins.""
Which, great, but I'm interested in the way there has been very little analysis in what's going on in those "shocking events which will change everything" comics beyond either Newsarama commenter types saying xyz was the most awesome thing ever or our crowd dismissing them out of hand. I am still, on some level, able to see, if not fully feel, the way Marvel has been able to use the big events to tell oddly hypertextual narratives (DC is maybe trying the same thing, but is failing) that are simply different in kind than the more conventional narrative stuff we are deriving our value criteria from.
I think Marvel is also handling these EARTH SHATTERING EVENTS in a way that invites a kind of pseudo-interactive excitement. The books themselves are not so much story as little Lego blocks of main ideas that have been well executed conceptually (even though, as story, many of the blocks are poorly executed). It's like D&D when I was eight… you'd buy a module because of all the cool stuff in it and to imagine playing it, and talking with your friends about how exciting this or that design or trap was, more than actually playing it, which often we never got around to. In fact, I think you could enjoy Secret Invasion quite a bit without reading any of it (maybe more than if you did).
What I'm hypothesizing here is a kind of narrative that lives at the messageboard level, which is a great idea in the current product-living-through-its-marketing environment. Its like you stand the very idea of viral marketing on its head… they meant for the Blair Witch Project movie to be enhanced by it's website popularizing the idea of the "reality," but in the case of these Marvel projects, the product, as much as they'd like it to stand on its own, is often inferior to (or made an afterthought by) the discourse that they've encouraged around it. This is editorial as performance art. I'm just saying maybe this isn't wrong, but deserves to be judged by another standard that takes these context related values into account.
So, the measure of the "quality" of these "events" may be how much the target audience members pee themselves upon getting a little whiff of info that they won't remember next May. I can understand and appreciate this, though, and I think it is quite an accomplishment for Marvel to be able to push the audience's buttons in such an active way. The only thing I don't like is that these things, since they don't provide a ready creative outlet for the audience other than the comment sections of blog posts, might acclimate numbers of reasonably intelligent kids to satisfy mental itches in a passive/non-productive, consumer stimulus way. Wait, I forgot… thanks to computers in general, and the internet in specific, that ship has sailed.
Note: I'm to old and fixed in conventional narrative values to think this way. It would take some intelligent youngster, weened completely on the compu-tit to posit such a new-value system.
- October 7, 2008 at 2:23 PM
- Dick Hyacinth's Ghost said...
Those books don't sell well enough for me to worry too much about ruining an entire generation's ability to appreciate anything other than itch-scratching.
I think it's kind of interesting to think about the different approaches Marvel and DC have had to this summer's events, and the reflection in the type of criticism we've seen. Final Crisis has attracted traditional, serious-minded reviews from people like Jog, Sean Collins, and Douglas Wolk. The most prominent critic of Secret Invasion has been Abhay Khosla, who approaches the comic in a serious, yet highly idiosyncratic way. I think this is the only successful way to write about the story, for the reasons you mentioned. Have you ever tried to read an issue? I have no idea how one would write a traditional review of that comic. It's like trying to review a mail order catalogue for gas mask fetishists. I mean, the only way to approach it is to review the culture surrounding it, like Abhay did in that review mentioning the San Diego panel.
But yeah, sales figures might support the idea that people want something other than a reading experience from a comic. Final Crisis isn't an entry-level comic, but it at least resembles a traditional narrative. Secret Invasion isn't, and it's outselling its counterpart by about 50%.
- October 7, 2008 at 2:37 PM
- Anonymous said...
At the risk of committing the greatest sin one can say in art: The reason comics, and other mediums, reward the mediocre is because the audience are largely mediocre themselves.
- October 8, 2008 at 3:29 AM
- Unknown said...
Time for more dickishness (dicketry?): so the primary benefit of superhero comics these days is in the Pavlovian sense of salivating when a new issue comes out? Push the button, get a tiny reward? I say: FUCK THAT NOISE. Sure, maybe it's interesting as a sociological phenomenon, but I certainly have lost any interest in being a participant. That's for the babymen (apparently I've come to love using that term). Give me something of substance, or at least something I can enjoy beyond the level of arguing online about whether its okay to kill green aliens.
- October 8, 2008 at 6:58 AM
- Todd C. Murry said...
I'm not really saying that, Matt, although my reference to peeing oneself as an objective standard may have implied it. I'm simply positing that the "story" of these events isn't really going on in the books, which only exist in the process as anchor points or brick like building units (story nodes), but in the minds of people "playing" the event (more like a game than a conventional narrative).
I'm a Lost fan, and I've got to tell you that much of the fun of it is participating in a large scale discourse about the thing. There are two differences between this and superhero events, though: 1.) Lost is designed to work as a primary work of art in itself apart from the "happening" (something that Marvel and DC aren't doing to well at)and 2.) the fans talking about it (as well as the subject matter) are, by and large, smarter and better educated (note this doesn't imply comic fans are dumber than TV fans, but simply fans interested in talking about Lost are smarter than those interested in how shocking events will shake up the New Warriors status quo - smart comic fans are mostly occupied elsewhere).
The D&D module is the key example... as a primary narrative, the modules suck. They read like outlines of how to navigate the "story" and imply the narrative. Secret Invasion is really "written" at the editing conference level, and the parts are executed (to varying degrees of success - Black Panther and Hercules have been pretty good, many parts have sucked), but the point is not reading them, but being involved in an evolving process as data arises about what has "happened," which doesn't require reading any of the books at all.
This is made possible by the fanbase who are 1.) well versed enough in the characters, institutions and settings to understand the implication of specific events or information; and 2.) are used to the Lost-like illusion of participation in the narrative (comic fans probably invented this- well maybe Stan Lee did it for them).
My point is that the end product (the books) are sort of beside the point, and the success or failure of the endeavor should probably be judged in more conceptual terms which would likely require more the language of gaming criticism than comics criticism. If you don't want anything to do with this shit, join the club. I've stated this stuff is not aimed at my audience, but I'm pushing 40, and I think I would have responded to elements of this really well at age 11.
This also indicates a real command on Marvel's part of its universe as a global storytelling setting (maybe the first time this has ever happened in a comic universe). It's just that the "command" and ingenuity exists in those editorial retreats, and the results are hard to measure in our conventional value terms. This isn't cartooning or sequential art and those of us who are interested in that stuff maybe need to look elsewhere.
- October 8, 2008 at 1:08 PM
- Dick Hyacinth's Ghost said...
You should write all this up on your blog, Todd. More people should hear these ideas.
- October 8, 2008 at 1:24 PM
- Anonymous said...
Yeah. Jesus, Todd, that was pretty brilliant.
- October 8, 2008 at 6:30 PM
- Unknown said...
That's definitely an interesting point, Todd, so don't let my obnoxiousness dissuade you from elaborating. It makes me think of how I got into the X-Files (or X-Men comics, for that matter) when I was in high school; I would obsess over the various details of the mythology, and while I didn't really join an online discussion, I did talk about it with friends. But eventually, I lost interest, and it seemed for good reason, since the show kind of fizzled out lamely (X-Men comics will probably never stop fizzling though). It seems like RPGs, or maybe video games, would be a better use for that sort of shared experience, since the users actually get to have some hand in the development of the narrative, rather than the illusion thereof before some guy in a boardroom fucks it all up.
- October 8, 2008 at 9:22 PM
- Gene Phillips said...
I've posted some responses to this thread here:
- November 22, 2008 at 1:55 PM
- Quân Đào said...
dich vu lam bao cao tai chinh tai my dinh
dich vu lam bao cao tai chinh tai hai ba trung
dich vu lam bao cao tai chinh tai ba dinh
dich vu lam bao cao tai chinh tai thanh tri
dich vu lam bao cao tai chinh tai hoang mai
dich vu lam bao cao tai chinh tai tay ho
dich vu lam bao cao tai chinh tai dong da
dich vu ke toan thue tai dong da
dich vu ke toan thue tai tay ho
dich vu ke toan thue tai bac ninh
dich vu ke toan thue tai hai ba trung
dich vu ke toan thue tai tu liem
dich vu ke toan thue tai hoang mai
dich vu ke toan thue tai ba dinh
dich vu ke toan thue tai thanh tri
dich vu ke toan thue tai thai binh
cong ty dich vu ke toan tai vinh phuc
cong ty dich vu ke toan tai hung yen
cong ty dich vu ke toan tai phu tho
cong ty dich vu ke toan tai hai duong
cong ty dich vu ke toan tai hai phong
cong ty dich vu ke toan tai bac ninh
dich vu ke toan thue tai vinh phuc
dich vu ke toan thue tai hung yen
dich vu ke toan thue tai hai duong
- January 9, 2015 at 1:08 AM
- Quân Đào said...
dia chi hoc ke toan tai cau giay
dia chi hoc ke toan tai ha dong
dia chi hoc ke toan tai bac ninh
trung tam dao tao ke toan tai ha dong
trung tam dao tao ke toan tai cầu giấy
trung tam dao tao ke toan tai thanh xuan
trung tam dao tao ke toan tai tphcm
khóa học kế toán tổng hợp tại hải phòng
khóa học kế toán tổng hợp tại tại bắc ninh
khóa học kế toán tổng hợp tại tphcm
khóa học kế toán tổng hợp tại hà nội
trung tam dao tao ke toan tai quan 3
trung tam dao tao ke toan tai binh duong
trung tam dao tao ke toan tai bac ninh
trung tam dao tao ke toan tai hai phong
- January 9, 2015 at 1:08 AM
- Quân Đào said...
dich vu ke toan tai tay ho
dich vu ke toan tai ba đinh
dich vu ke toan tai hoang mai
dich vu ke toan tai thanh tri
dich vu ke toan tai dong da
dich vu ke toan tai tu liem
dich vu ke toan tai ha dong
dich vu ke toan tai long bien
dich vu ke toan tai thanh xuan
dich vu ke toan tai hai phong
dich vu ke toan tai bac ninh
dich vu ke toan tai hai ba trung
dich vu ke toan tai dong anh
dich vu ke toan tai gia lam
dich vu ke toan tai ung hoa
dich vu ke toan tai quoc oai
dich vu ke toan tai son tay
dich vu ke toan tai thanh oai
hoc ke toan tong hop
dich vu ke toan thue tron goi
dich vu bao cao tai chinh
dia chi hoc ke toan tong hop
khoa hoc ke toan tong hop
hoc chung chi ke toan
dich vu ke toan thue tai ha noi
- January 9, 2015 at 1:08 AM


text:
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Latin America has had a good run over the first two months of 2012. The S&P Latin America index was up 14.5% year-to-date by the end of February. Could this signal a new boom?
First of all, two months is clearly not enough time on which to base a prediction. And second, Latin America is not the same place that it was in 1990. The region outpaced the world in the 1990s. The equity indexes of Peru and Colombia each gained more than 800% over the decade ending Dec. 31, 2009. Brazil's Bovespa index rose more than 300% in that period. Latin America mutual funds averaged an annual 16% gain over the decade, putting them at the top of the Morningstar list of major categories.
The commodities boom accounted for most of the lift. But with that boom over, my bet is that Latin America is not going to be a leader. Instead, it will be a place where you will have to look harder to find gold. Whether that search is for specific stocks, sectors of the equities market, asset classes, investment vehicles, or innovative investments, the gold is hidden deeper than it was in 1990. Latin America has become a place where identifying the trends that will shape the economies and markets over the coming years is the key to investing.
The possibility that the U.S. could face a long-term, Japanese-style downturn is just one of many reasons why investors should look to expand their target area. Putting a portion of your portfolio overseas — anywhere from 10 to 50 percent — reduces your overall portfolio risk while boosting your potential for higher returns in the long run. And yet, U.S. investors fail to take heed. A whopping 90 percent of U.S. investment dollars remains in the U.S…
If you're looking to expand the Latin American portion of your portfolio, here are eight tips to keep in mind when investing in the region:
1. Diversify
Diversification is why you're going global in the first place. A portion of that international portfolio should include Latin America. What has changed over the past few years is that "emerging markets" doesn't mean what it used to. Developed markets have become riskier, and some emerging markets have become less risky. That may mean investors will have to explore more to find the right investments that provide a mix of growth, low correlation to the investor's home country index, the right amount of risk for the investor, better value and a lower level of contagion vulnerability to global or regional shifts in economies or markets.
2. Follow the Middle Class
Latin America is rapidly gaining a middle class. Fueled by the commodities boom of the last decade, the middle class in Latin America has grown to 51% of the major economies in 2011, from just 41% in 2001, according to a report by Banco Santander. That growth has pushed buying power, and has favored consumer stocks such as consumer discretionary and consumer staples, media, wireless communications, and real estate, and some technology companies. Some examples of companies in those sectors include Companhia Brasileira de Distribuicao Pao de Acucar
3.The Search for Energy
As the middle class in Latin America grows, and indeed as global economic and population growth continues, the search for energy sources persists. That isn't going to stop anytime soon. Recently, that search has led to more interest outside of Middle East oil and into Latin America, particularly as a source for oil and alternative energy. Major energy companies that stand to benefit over the long term are Brazil's PetroleoBrasileiro, or Petrobras
4. Growth in banking
Five factors have contributed to the growth in banking in Latin America: The previously mentioned growth in the middle class, access to the previously "unbanked" population, growth in deposits (and credit), a broader and expanding loan portfolio, and greater efficiency by Latin American banks. Itau Unibanco Holdings
5. Think outside the equities box
Don't limit yourself to equities when investing abroad. Alternative assets such as private equity, bonds, commodities, real estate, and others are an important part of a Latin American portfolio just as they are domestically. Latin American bonds, either sovereign issues or corporate, can diversify your fixed-income portfolio and can sometimes bring higher yields than the bonds of the U.S. or European countries, often without a significant amount of added risk. Also, while the commodities boom is over as far as I'm concerned, that doesn't mean these companies are bad investments. If all you're looking for is exposure to the region, mining and iron ore producer VALE SA
6.Exchange traded funds and mutual funds.
Exchange traded funds and mutual funds are still good ways to lower your costs and diversify across the region. I'm on the fence as to which is better. ETFs are more flexible from a trading standpoint and can be less costly, but if you're investing for the long term and want to put your trust in a professional rather than yourself, mutual funds can in many cases offer better value. As a long-term investor, some of the mutual funds I like are BlackRock Latin America
7. Invest in small capitalization companies
Over the next decade, investing in Latin America is going to mean more than just investing in the region as a whole. It will mean picking the right stocks, the right asset classes, and the right investment vehicles. And increasingly, that is going to mean small capitalization stocks. Small caps have the advantage of being lightly traded, and that means large institutional investors tend to ignore them. That gives small investors who have the time to research them an advantage. Plus, there are significant reasons for investing in small caps in Latin America now as an asset class: their correlation to U.S. stocks is lower than large-caps; their access to capital has increased; and they are tied more closely to the growth of local economies than are larger cap companies, which could be a significant benefit over the next few years.
8. Don't ignore risk
Risk can be measured and quantified, either by looking at volatility (standard deviation), correlation (r-squared), relative volatility (beta) or risk-return measures such as the Sharpe Ratio. Get to know these terms. Even if you don't fully understand them, you can use them to compare potential investments. Understanding risk is especially important when investing outside your home country. Find out what risks your investments are subject to such as currency risk, political risk, or regulatory risk, and weigh them against the stock's potential returns.
Remember, diversity, stock-picking and following the long-term trends that are shaping the economies and markets are important when sitting down to research Latin America — and will make the difference to your investment portfolio.
Note: To avoid conflicts of interest, I don't invest directly in Latin American securities


text:
Going to Miss the Rays Aussie Bloke
I somehow knew this moment was coming, but still it's hard to finally accept. He was the one player of that large Tampa Bay Rays Free Agent mish-mosh corps that I thought might just be out on a Winter walk-about and would again this January somehow wander back to the Rays brood for 2011.
Maybe that was really wishful thinking to imagine that such a return could possibly be in the cards for RP Grant Balfour, but I wanted to believe as long as possible that it could happen.
Instead I am now a solo participant in a local St. Petersburg Outback Steakhouse holding my own private Aussie funeral dirge complete with an I-pod filled with the musical rhymes and verses of Colin Hayes (Men at Work Lead Singer) ringing through my head.
Surely I could have picked the upbeat styling's of either AC/DC or even Midnight Oil as my musical accompaniments as I pound a oilcan of Fosters, and eat a hearty Blommin' Onion.
But this is a solemn celebration of Balfour's new multi-year contract. It has been one of those days where I will rise a middy or two as I begin a sit-down of bountiful tucker (food) and possibly one last XXXX (Queensland brew) to wish him the best and a long career.
I sit her pondering the notion that Balfour has taken his leave and gone onto the big smoke ( big city) of Oakland and I will have to settle for conversations only 3 times this year when Balfour again visit's the Trop.
Talking to Balfour has became a game day ritual for me, standing there by the RF retaining wall near my seat joking with him, I am really going to miss my old Tampa Bay Rays Bullpen mate.
I guess the best way I can finally put closure to the loss and sorrow within my chest is to ponder and spout a few Aussie terms and nuances I learned from you over your Rays time as a faithful farewell to my favorite bloke from Oz (Australia).
You know Grant, I was hoping the furphy (rumor) of your Rays departure was premature and totally bollocks before I heard the good guts (accurate information) about your grouse (very good) contract offer in Oakland. I consider you a bonza (really great) Aussie Grant that I used to have many a chinwag (conversation) with daily either during the game or at Batting Practice.
I truly hope you do not consider me an irritable ear masher (talks too much) or even a drongo (slow-witted bloke). I still consider it so crook (sick) what that Rays Pitching Coach Jim Hickey did to you last season during your BP open slather (free-for-all) that cost you unwarranted disabled list time. It was totally onus (unacceptable) and showed what a nong (fool) Hickey really can be at times.
I do hope you make a good fist (to do well) in Oakland and hopefully when you come into our humble homestead again we can wring hands and possibly go down to a local billabong (watering hole) and hoist a few stubby (375ml bottle of beer)to your success. G'day ol' fair dinkum (really genuine) cobber (friend).
12 Comments
I love your Aussie goodbye to Balfour (I learned a whole new language from this post!), and I know you'll miss him. This has been an off-season of goodbyes for Rays fans and it can't be easy.
As you already know, I am a glass half full kind of guy. With that comes the reality that sometimes you have to wave hello and goodbye at the same time.
Goodbye to the guys you grew attached to, but hello to the next generation of Rays stars and guys who will take over until they too are gone.
Endless cycle of happy and sad, but in the offseason of 2010…more sad than glad…so far.
Rays Renegade
That is a good reason to have Grant on your Fantasy squad. Ialso have had him on my Fantasy team for the last 2 seasons. Won a championship, and had the 2nd best record the following year.
But he is going to a solid A's staff that has a history of having great pitching…..Maybe it will be a great move for his career, and he has a 2 year contract with a thrid year option…..Just like he wanted.
Rays Renegade
Are you still upset that Farnsy decided to wear your style of glasses?
It is okay, because Farnsworth said today he is a "teddy bear" untiul he has to become a grizzley.
I guess you too have even more in common, his home is in a town called Celebration,Florida that only a few months ago hadits first murder ever……Maybe he is a kindler, gentler towe-buzzer ( I hope not).
Rays Renegade
Losing Balfour wouldn't be sad if they got a first round pick, but they didn't, and they could have had him for a million dollars more than Farnsworth. Horrible, horrible on the Rays part.
It had more to do than one year's contract. Balfour wanted a multi-year deal and the Rays have guys knocking on the Triple-A door in quantity and quality.
I is sad they only got a 2nd Round pick becuase the A's First Rounder is protected, but it is still a high pick in a deep draft and should benefit them around 2015 when the next wave of Rays prospects hit the MLB level.
But that is the problem where I sit, I get attached to some of these guys while most fans just keep their distance.
Rays Renegade
Lose a Balfour, gain a Farnsworth… I say that's a terrible, terrible swap. But what do I know?
Another great thing about baseball. Talking with the players! I'd go with AC/DC
—Mark Gauthier
Grant actually did go with AC/DC near the end of 2010.
But that was after bouts of Men at Work's "Land Down Under" and Midnight Oil's "Bed Are Burning". I was suprised he did not pick Kylie Minogue.
But that one of the cool things about baseball, you get warm-up, walk-up music that shows a bit of your personality. In football if I could have picked mysong it might have been…Pat Travers "Boom,Boom Out Go the Lights".
Rays Renegade
Man, Friedman has made me a believer in recent years, that's why it didn't bother me too much with some of the signings and trades he has made. I also was/am still believing that they are indeed trying to put together a winning team this year, despite what a lot of people think. I think the guys from AAA with come up and contribute in Dan Johnson and Justin Ruggiano. Also guys like Jake McGee.
However, I find myself questioning Andrew here. How does he let Balfour go to the A's for 4m/year but pay BJ 4.85? Everyone knows BJ is an exceptional talent, and I've stuck behind him, however, let's be honest: He's been vastly underachieving for years. I know a lot of people are saying he's had injuries and recent years, and I understand how that can play a part. However, let's face it: How many times did he strike out last year? What was his BA? There's also been questions about how often he does/doesn't hustle. I mean, hell, I think he'll be making more than Longo this year. That's just wrong.
Here's to hoping BJ breaks out this year.
I am guessing that Friedman and the Rays scouts think more than a few of the Double-A or Triple-A guys will be ready for the next battle for the AL East title by 2012-2013.
Ruggiano has to get it done this year because he will not clear waivers to go back to Durham for 2011.
I think the Rays are not waving the white flag, but it is also not royal blue in color.
As I have mentioned before, we can rebuild the farm system with a thrid wave of attack with the draft picks for 2011. The current level is maturing and should be here fighting for a MLB spot by next season.
But also, 4 of our top 10 prospects have a chance to break camp with the big club if they have an exceptional Spring. Last time that happened was in 2005 when Jorge Cantu and company made it to the MLB level for the first time.
Rays Renegade


text:
The company uses Jira Software Data Center and Confluence Data Center to manage software development and testing for applications that customers use to analyze sequenced genomic data, as well as the cloud-based platform where data is accessed. "Atlassian helps us develop software faster and more efficiently. As a result, the time and cost to develop these tools has been reduced." says Huw Morgan, staff software project manager at Illumina.
Faster documentation and approvals through Atlassian
To initiate a software project, business owners create a marketing requirements document (MRD) in Confluence. Next, teams in the US, UK, Canada, and Singapore begin to collaborate through Jira, and automatically keep stakeholders apprised through Confluence.
"Using Atlassian for collaboration and approvals has shaved days off our development process," says Morgan. Once there's consensus, the team transposes requirements into a project in Jira. When development and testing are done, the team locks down the design history file as a permanent record in Confluence.
More teams adopt Jira and Confluence
Other teams at Illumina who haven't traditionally used 'software development' tools have seen the value of using Atlassian as well. Some have moved to using Jira for tracking non-software orientated requests. "A process that used to take multiple emails and Excel documents, now gets tracked in Jira where it's easy to review and report on," says Morgan.
Marketing is also joining in. "We are using Confluence and Jira to build an agile marketing team," says Ilya Chorny, business manager at Illumina. Almost 2000 people at the company now take advantage of Jira and Confluence.


text:
Title 9 pointed me to Vada's page on CaringBridge.com, a website for family and friends to share information and support throughout a significant health challenge. There, his family revealed on February 18th that Vada's cancer had metastasized to his brain.
In the next update on the 26th, his wife provides the following update:
Vada is home from the hospital & resting comfortably. He has finished radiation treatments to the brain & is undergoing treatments to his spine & pelvic bone. Radiation makes Vada very tired. I am still limiting visitors & will let you know when this changes.
We have never, ever, in our lives felt so scared. We also have never felt so loved. Thank you for the cards, emails, text messages, phone calls & messages on this website; thank you for your continued expressions of love & support. Thank you to the Ann Arbor Police Department for their unwavering love. They give true meaning to the phrase, "Whatever you need, whenever you need it." Thank you for understanding if we don't personally return your message. We both want you to know, we love you back.
Sarah (and Vada)
We here at the MZone wanted to let Vada and his family know they're in our thoughts and prayers.
We also wanted to provide the Vada's CaringBridge.com info above in case any of our readers want to give any words of encouragement to Vada and his family during this most difficult time.


text:
Aerosols are tiny suspended liquid and solid particles found in the atmosphere. These particles degrade air quality and are active in the climate system. Over the past 20 years, man-made aerosols, those particles emitted hand-in-hand with greenhouse gases, have been the focus of intense scrutiny by the aerosol-climate community.
Let's not forget natural aerosols. The bulk of aerosol particles are natural, not man-made, and these natural aerosols are just as important to the climate system. Natural aerosols travel long distances and affect exceptionally pristine areas of the Earth where small changes in the aerosol environment can produce relatively large responses. Most importantly the processes producing natural aerosols such as dust and volcanic emissions are not constant. Therefore, there is no background aerosol environment from which to quantify the perturbation made by human activity and man-made particles. How do we calculate the aerosol forcing imposed by human activity if we do not know what the aerosol effect was before people became involved?


text:
Well here we are sitting on the edge of lockout abyss for the NBA. If you consider yourself an optimistic person you will be encouraged by the fact the NFL appears to be on the verge of solving their labour issues. But to compare the two disputes is a little misleading. The NBA is in much worse shape overall than the NFL. The NBA is much more in a position similar to the NHL prior to their lockout that took away an entire season. Which ultimately never solved the issues. At the time it appeared the NHL Owners had landed a major victory. They got a salary cap put in place. A 15% rollback on salaries and all seemed good. But at the start of that new agreement the NHL Cap was 39 million and the cap floor was in the low 20 million range. Fast forward to today and that floor is now 48 million dollars. The major issue for the NHL has been the rise of the Canadian Dollar and that has made the NHL an even more profitable league as a result based on it's 6 Canadian franchises(Soon To Be 7). Now obviously the NBA is different and only has the Raptors here in Canada. The impact of the Canadian dollar is helpful for the Raptors but really has little impact on the league as a whole.
Why I bring up the NHL example is that if the NBA is going to go down this road they have chosen they better get it right. I think you can list a number of reasons why this lockout needs to happen in terms of the NBA Owners. While interest in the NBA has grown thanks to those 3 guys down in Miami. So has a growing issue of players control of the league. Sure it is great if you live in certain cities the way the NBA is currently constructed. But for small market teams and a team like the Raptors it is not exactly a great setup. While the Raptors can survive the fact that they basically are playing at a disadvantage there are other teams in this league that can not survive that over the long haul. Not to mention the whole idea of competitive balance which is fading fast under the current CBA.
While the impact of this lockout on myself and others like me could have a major impact. I mean for the last few years I have tried to eek out a living in covering Raptors and the NBA. So this lockout is no doubt devastating for me and others that try to do the same. But as a fan of the game I can understand why this is happening. If after all is said and done the NBA is better off I will be happy. However if this ends up similar to the NHL result in which nothing is actually solved I will be less than thrilled. I make it no secret that I have not been a fan of the NHL or Hockey for quite some time. The fact they blew an entire season away and basically stuck up their middle finger to the fans of their sport is part of why. Most of Canada has long forgotten that lockout and support the sport and league with very little consequence. But in the U.S the story is different for the NHL. The league dropped off the map and is not really on level with other major sports. Now the NBA will not have this happen but it will be a blow to the league should they let a season go away.
The outlook is far from optimistic for this lockout but I have a lot more faith in David Stern than I would in Gary Bettman who once upon a time worked under Stern in the NBA. It is vital for the league that he does. But it is going to be a long road to get there and you only need to look at how long it has taken the NFL to finally gain some momentum towards a deal. The issues in the NFL are far less and then is far more money to be made. The NBA issues are much more complex and not easily solved. How do you create a CBA that ensures teams some kind of security that players will not just stay with a team and then bolt at the first opportunity to do so. Players on the high end of the NBA pay scale make far to much money that is the major issue. Chris Bosh and Lebron James already were going to be loaded for life before they made the choice to head south. In the past greed was always the secret weapon for owners in CBA's. If a player could make more money playing somewhere it was always more likely that team had a great chance to retain that player.
Here at the Dino Nation Blog we will try to fight and stay alive during this lockout. It is not going to be easy but I have not given almost 4 years of my life to this to let it just be taken away. More than ever we will count on you folks that read and support the blog to help in that. What will happen during this lockout and how it will impact on us is unclear. But I urge you all to stick with us and support the DNB. I will do my best to keep things rolling along some how. It will likely mean less blogs and having to be very creative but I will do my best to keep this thing rolling along.
How long will this last is uncertain but it would seem highly unlikely we are talking about an NBA season getting started at the end of October. Things are always a little slower in the summer but with no off-season at all that will make it very different. It is hard not to be some what emotional about all of this. I have worked extremely hard to get everything I have with the DNB. Although this is something that is out of my control and really out of all fans of the NBA's hands. Still I refuse to give up and pray that we will all be better for this on the other side.
It is always a pleasure doing this blog and I will miss doing it as often and speaking with you on a more frequent basis. For now we will wait and see how things play out and once things have settled in likely take a break and come up with a plan for how we move forward from here. I thank you all that have supported the Dino Nation Blog and together with your help we will keep it alive through these difficult times for all of us.


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