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Plot: vampire from outer space avenges the death of her stepfather.
You gotta feel for Puerto-Rican model-turned-actress Talisa Soto. She almost made it. She was so close. She went off with a flying start as Bond girl Lupe Lamora in Licence to Kill (1989) and followed it up with in the Johnny Depp rom-com Don Juan DeMarco (1994) before spoofing herself in Spy Hard (1996). Mortal Kombat (1995) was an entertaining popcorn flick but hardly anything to legitimize an actress' career. In 1997 Soto married actor Costas Mandylor but divorced from him in 2000. Talisa married actor Benjamin Bratt in 2002 and the two have been together since. It was the double-whammy of the absolutely cringeworthy Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997) and the Lucy Liu videogame adaptation Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002) that in all likelihood permanently killed any chances of Talisa's career ever recovering. The lowest la Soto was forced to sink must have been the ill-fated comic book adaptation Vampirella. After two decades in development hell Vampirella was produced as a direct-to-video feature from Concorde Pictures by legendary exploitation pillar Roger Corman. It was directed by low-budget action/erotica specialist and frequent Fred Olen Ray collaborator Jim Wynorski who makes Albert Pyun and Andy Sidaris look like John McTiernan in comparison. In the credits it's announced that "Vampirella will return in Death's Dark Avenger" – but that proposed sequel, thankfully, would never come to fruition.
In 1969 Forrest J. Ackerman and Trina Robbins created Vampirella for Warren Publishing. The James Warren company had already released two horror magazines with Eerie and Creepy. Warren saw the potential for Vampirella to make the leap to the big screen in the same way Jean-Claude Forest's famous Barbarella had done. The Dino De Laurentiis adaptation of Barbarella (1968), the fumetti by Roger Vadim and starring Jane Fonda, set the multiplexes alight. At its most potent Hammer Films helmed excellent reimaginings of classic Universal monsters.
By the mid-1970s Hammer Films was deeply ailing. After having dominated the domestic horror landscape for a good decade and a half the company had trouble keeping up with the flavors du jour. The early seventies gave rise to a spate of erotic fantastiques from France, Spain and Italy and although the company valiantly tried to tap the market with the likes of The Vampire Lovers (1970), Lust For A Vampire (1971), and Twins Of Evil (1971) it was hopelessly struggling to keep up with the changing times. Head of Hammer Films Michael Carreras – who was sinking a lot of funds into his Nessie, a large-scale take on the Loch Ness monster, in co-production with Toho Studios from Japan - had a thing for properties with strong female leads and ran an ad in Warren's magazines what the public wanted to see. The answer was Vampirella. Hammer optioned the rights to the character in 1975 and pre-production began and so started the search to find Vampirella.
Caroline Munro was steadily on the rise with her appearances in The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), Dracula AD 1972 (1972) and Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter (1974). Once Munro read the screenplay she politely declined the role based upon the amount of nudity it required. Next on Carreras' shortlist was bodacious belle Valerie Leon – famous for her turns in The Italian Job (1969) and Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971) - who turned down the part for the same reason as Munro did. Down on his luck to find his Vampirella Carreras took the screenplay to half Irish Cherokee Native American model-actress Barbara Leigh, who had made an impression in Sam Peckinpah's rodeo tale Junior Bonner (1972) where she starred opposite of Steve McQueen. Leigh was famous for being a one-time girlfriend of Elvis Presley. Carreras contracted Leigh for a six-picture deal. Leigh on her part was so excited for the part that she paid the "Western Costume" Couturier department for Hammer Films a reported $7,000 to make her costume and $2,000 for the boots out of her own pocket. In 1975 Carreras took Leigh and Cushing to the Famous Monsters Convention in New York City to promote Vampirella. On the convention Leigh met Forrest J. Ackerman and American International Pictures (AIP) vice-president Samuel Z. Arkoff. Ads and posters were printed and distributed. Leigh was the cover model for various issues of the Vampirella comic book. Hammer Films was serious in its commitment in bringing Vampirella to the screen. Plus, they had the support from Arkoff and AIP. The only stipulation on AIP's end was that Vampirella had to have an American star. Leigh was American.
Carreras tasked Jimmy Sangster with writing an outline with input from John Starr and Lew Davidson. Chris Wicking was commissioned to produce the screenplay and allegedly was to be a zany mix of horror, comedy and science fiction involving the mythical Bermuda Triangle, a subject of great speculation and human interest at the time. Directing would be either John Hough and Gordon Hessler with location shooting in both London and Vienna and with an all-star cast including Peter Cushing, Gene Kelly and Sir John Gielgud. The Wicking treatment was forwarded to the Bermuda Department of Tourism for approval with location shooting on the island to commence in the summer of 1976. A lead story in the Bermuda Sun led to widespread protests from tourism-related businesses and church groups who feared that the association with Vampirella would be to the detriment of the reputation of the island and its business community. According to James Warren, Hammer failed to pay for Leigh's screentest and for use of the character. Carreras relayed that Warren would not give up merchandising rights and allegedly stormed off the studio lot at Bray. American International Pictures never committed to the project and the agreement went sour. In 1978, after two years of fervent campaigning and marketing, Hammer Films was unable to secure the funds and the deal collapsed, along with Barbara Leigh's nascent career. Warren Publishing went bankrupt in 1983 and with them the rights to Vampirella were up for the taking.
In the eighties the rights to Vampirella came in possession of the dynamic duo Peter Guber and Jon Peters from PolyGram. Guber started at Columbia Pictures Entertainment in 1965 and during his tenure the company released The Way We Were (1973), Shampoo (1975), Tommy (1975), and Taxi Driver (1976) before he made his exit in 1975. As an independent producer Guber released The Deep (1977) and the seven time Academy Award nominated Midnight Express (1978). In 1979 Guber formed PolyGram's motion picture and television division as well as the Guber-Peters Company (GPC) along with producer Jon Peters, a one-time hairdresser in California and a paramour of Barbra Streisand. The two managed to produce a string of bigger and smaller hits, despite having no hands-on filmmaking experience whatsoever to speak of. In 1989 Guber became CEO for Sony Pictures Entertainment. As the head of Columbia Pictures Guber and Peters left parent company Sony with a massive $3.2 billion in debt.
Understandably the rights to Vampirella expired and eventually came they into the hands of another famous duo, exploitation kings Roger Corman and Jim Wynorski. When Corman set to producing Vampirella with his Concorde-New Horizons Pictures in association with Sunset Films International he only had a brief 6 month period before the rights were to expire. Jim Wynorski was chosen to direct and he brought in Vampirella aficionado Gary Gerani to write the screenplay. According to Barbara Leigh Wynorski wanted to cast singer/dancer Paula Abdul in the role and Wynorski had since come out and said that he would have liked Andy Sidaris muse Julie Strain but the studio insisted on Talisa Soto. Soto had just appeared in Mortal Kombat (1995), a medium-budget supernatural take on the Bruce Lee classic Enter the Dragon (1973). In his voluminous body of work Wynorski would later confess that he should have declined on making Vampirella.
The production was fraught with problems to say in the very least. Vampirella suffered everything from wage strikes, union problems in Las Vegas, theft, accidents and studio interference to a sweltering 112 degree heat and the wrong choice for lead. To spare expenses the production reused footage from Corman's Not of This Earth (1995). That Vampirella was destined for failure in the light of the troubled production was all but certain. Then there's also the fact that Soto barely can act and doesn't have the right body type for the part. Vampirella is Amazonesque and curvaceous. Talisa Soto on the other hand is… sort of mousy. This Vampirella simply isn't near sexy enough than Vampirella ought to be. Soto doesn't get to wear the famous skimpy red slingshot bikini, mostly out of practical considerations. If only Julie Strain, Samantha Phillips, Tai Collins or Shae Marks were given the chance to be Vampirella in her signature costume.
In the far-flung future the planet Drakulon is inhabited by a highly advanced society of pacifist vampires who have renounced the olden hematic hunting ways. They feed their sanguinary needs from the rivers and streams that are virtually identical to blood. An underground sect of wayward vampires led by hardened criminal Vlad (Roger Daltrey) is hellbent on restoring the ancient ways of predatory feeding. The Council has captured Vlad and is preparing to hand down sentence on the cultleader. Before they can do so three of Vlad's partners - Demos (Brian Bloom), Sallah (Corinna Harney), and Traxx (Tom Deters) – come bursting into the halls, freeing their leader from captivity and killing the High Elder (Angus Scrimm) in the process. Vlad escapes to the distant planet Earth and births a race of vampires.
Sworn to avenge the death of her stepfather Ella (Talisa Soto) immediately sets to tracking Vlad down but en route to Earth is caught in an ion storm and is shipwrecked for centuries on Mars. One day she's able to make her escape to Earth as a stowaway on a manned expedition. On present-day earth Adam (Richard Joseph Paul), a descendant of the famous Van Helsing bloodline, is part of PURGE, a globetrotting, high-tech paramilitary unit fighting against the vampire threat. Along the way Ella meets clumsy computer geek Forry Ackerman (David B. Katz) who helps her remain inconspicuous in her quest and comes up with her name by deducting "vampire… Ella… Vampirella!" Forry knows that Traxx is posing as a university professor famous for debunking the supernatural and unexplained. In Las Vegas Vlad has reinvented himself as famous rockstar Jaimie Blood. In a race against time Vampirella and fearless vampire hunter Adam must stop at nothing to foil Vlad's plan for world domination that will throw humanity into an eternity of darkness.
It's sort of ironic that Munro and Leon declined Vampirella on part of the nudity and that the Corman adaptation of Vampirella ends up with practically none of it. What little nudity that does appear doesn't concern Talisa Soto and by Wynorski standards it isn't as as gratuitous as you'd expect given his body of work. Wynorski started out semi-legitimately with directing everything from Chopping Mall (1986), Deathstalker II (1987), The Haunting of Morella (1990) to 976-Evil II (1991) and Ghoulies IV (1994). Productions like Hard to Die (1990) - a combination between a slasher and Die Hard (1988) with Melissa Moore, among others - were clear indication of where Wynorski's career was heading.
By the mid-nineties he was churning out late night and direct-to-video erotic thrillers en masse and the turn of the new millennium saw him directing digital video shlock with titles as The Bare Wench Project (2000), Alabama Jones and the Busty Crusade (2005), Lust Connection (2005), The Witches of Breastwick (2005), The Breastford Wives (2007), House on Hooter Hill (2007) and Scared Topless (2015). Over a career lasting three decades and counting no one has come close to good old Jim's adoration and adulation of large breasts and no other filmmaker outside of Russ Meyer has surpassed Wynorski in facilitating voluptuous women with career options in cinema. Jim Wynorski makes late, great Hawaiian T&A specialist Andy Sidaris look like a man of sophistication and finesse in comparison.
Vampirella is memorable for several reasons. First, there's Talisa Soto in a PVC two-piece with suspenders and former The Who singer Roger Daltrey in a plotline straight out of Anne Rice's The Vampire Lestat novel. For the cult – and pulp cinema fans there are Angus Scrimm from Phantasm (1979), Tyde Kierney from I Drink Your Blood (1970), John Terlesky from Chopping Mall (1986) and Deathstalker II (1987) and Lee de Broux from Terence Young's critically savaged historic drama Klansman (1974), RoboCop (1987) and Geronimo: An American Legend (1993). To top things off there's Playboy's Playmate of the Month (August, 1991) and Playmate of the Year 1992 Corinna Harney and Wynorski regular warm bodies Peggy Trentini and Antonia Dorian. It has score from Joel Goldsmith, son of Jerry. Vampirella references the Corman classic It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958) and there's a Captain Stryker. The only thing given Vampirella any production value is footage lifted from Corman's Not of This Earth (1995) and PURGE's sun-gun is a prop about as cheap as the invisible ray gun Jess Franco's The Girl From Rio (1969). It remains a mystery why Talisa Soto ever thought this was a good idea to advance her post-Mortal Kombat (1995) career. Soto might not have been much of an actress but even she deserved better than this. At least she can be glad that she didn't end up working with Albert Pyun and Fred Olen Ray. Which was in the realm of possibility after this flaming trainwreck. In hindsight Vampirella is one of those movies that would have improved had Pyun sat in the director's chair.


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JoJo Seames, known for her work on webcomics like The Makeshift Man and Monster Plus, is embarking on a months-long effort to adapt The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, credited as the original Gothic novel, into comics form. Otranto is the story of Manfred, lord of Castle Otranto, whose son Conrad is mysteriously crushed to death by a giant helmet on his wedding day, and Isabella, Conrad's betrothed, who is horrified when her would-be father in law announces his intention to marry her instead. The comic is being published for free on tumblr, one page every weekday, and is well worth your time. I had the opportunity to interview Ms. Seames about Otranto, horror, and her career in comics.
Dylan Roth: How'd you first become aware of the source material for your comic?
JoJo Seames: I love classic literature. Like, my go-to source of reading enjoyment is to pick out something from the 18th or 19th century. Found myself with a copy of The Castle of Otranto on my shelf 'cause my husband had it from a college literature class. And I'm not NOT gonna read that. It's the first Gothic novel. It's got ghosts!
DR: What inspired you to translate Otranto to comics form?
JS: I think in a very visual way. Any time I'm reading something, I picture it all in my head the way I would draw it. I basically want to illustrate everything I ever read! Ha!
DR: What was it about Otranto in particular, rather than one of your other gothic horror favorites? Was it its relative obscurity?
JS: Obscurity, yes. I'm so surprised that there haven't been dozens upon dozens of movie and comic adaptations of it. Also, and importantly: it is very short It's, like, 90 pages long. So adapting the whole story seemed very…possible. Not too daunting a work to take on… [The comic will total in] the 400-500 comic page range? That would be my rough estimate. Page 50 is where I think it starts to get REALLY interesting.
DR: That image of Conrad beneath the helmet is a very striking, memorable visual that seems perfectly suited for comics.
JS: Right? How am I the first person who's doing this? Droppin' the ball, there, Pop Culture As A Whole.
DR: What has been your process for adapting a book to graphic form? Do you write a script or do you go directly to art?
JS: With this project in particular, my goal for myself is to not overthink the process. So I'm actually not even thumbnailing. I draw three pages at a time, and I just open up the book, read and re-read the particular part I'm at, and then draw what's happening. The most planning ahead I'm doing has been relating to what order to show scenes in, if there's two things going on simultaneously. There's some of that going on at the end of chapter 1, where I don't want to have to backtrack to what a character was doing before a scene we've already gone through.
DR: Have you taken any liberties with the original story? How faithful has your adaptation been?
JS: Super faithful! I've tried to make this as unabridged an adaptation as possible. So all the dialogue and prose is direct from the novel, except for a couple parenthetical asides, where I'm kind of summarizing for brevity's sake.
DR: Your take on The Castle of Otranto has a very simple, minimalist cartoon style, in black and white, with only one additional color, that pale blue. Did you always know the comic would look the way it does, or did you experiment with a few different ideas?
JS: …I always knew I wanted it drawn in that minimal way, and then adding another tone would let me indicate when a scene was dark or if there was dramatic torchlight or something. And a lot of the story involves running down dark passages, so the aura of darkness was important.
DR: It is a gothic novel, after all.
JS: Right. And the minimal style seemed an obvious way to keep the kind of sardonic tone of the book. There's a level of distance between the reader and the events that draws a little more focus to the TELLING of the story, rather than just the situations themselves. Less…I want to say emotional realism? (Bonus: Easier to draw?!)
DR: Characters, particularly Manfred, sort of transform depending on the tone of the scene – more detailed when he's meant to be menacing, like when he explains his plan to marry Isabella, or more simple and cartoonish, like early on when he's being sort of silly and impatient.
JS: Yeah, that's intentional. He changes size, too, when I want him to be more threatening. I also use less prose when I want it to be more serious, so there's less of that emotional distance. Let you get lost a little bit in Isabella's emotions So that this stays a horror story.
DR: Let's talk about some of your other projects. What else are you working on?
JS: The big one is The Abettor's Letters, an indie video game from Beach Interactive. It's a point-and-click RPG for iPad — a spy story, that teaches you French as you play! My role on the project is Character Artist, which means designing and illustrating all the characters and interactive objects, storyboarding and illustrating animatic cutscenes, promotional art, and otherwise being part of the story and design team with a say on every aspect of how the game works. So it's a pretty big job.
DR: How do you like doing design work on a big project like that, compared to comics work?
JS: There are pros and cons to both. Working on a team is AMAZING, with the way we all push each other and suggest ways to make the project better and better. And there's so much motivation to get things done and make them the best, because no one wants to be a weak link in the chain, or inconvenience anyone else, because we see how hard each other are working. And there's such a feeling of accomplishment on a big project. BUT big projects take a long time to get done. Comics can be done so relatively quickly, and the way they can be a totally solitary pursuit also allows for them to be such a personal, intimate thing. There's an immediacy, both in the sense of a time frame, and also on an emotional level.
Not that Otranto is particularly personal. I didn't write it, so it's still a sort of collaborative process…but with a partner who's completely silent. That's how I think of Otranto. It's not "my"comic, it's still "our" comic, even though Horace Walpole and I have obviously never directly communicated.
DR: I'd like to shift to more general questions for a bit. What draws you to horror stories?
JS: I like the way they work on a symbolic level to talk about our most primal feelings. Feelings so strong we can't deal with them directly. I think that's fascinating.
DR: What kind of advantages and limitations do you your think the comics form has in telling horror stories?
JS: It's really hard to draw a comic that's actually, ya know, scary. The reader controls the pacing, so you can't jump out at them with a shock. It's silent, so you can't make spooky sounds or leave spooky silences. You can't draw something they see for only an instant, leaving them wondering if they actually saw anything at all. So you have to take entirely different tactics. You have to work by suggestion, and deal in the CONCEPTS of horror. Use atmosphere. Use any tool where you're going to LINGER on an image, or a thought. You have to work with the reader's ability to fill in the gaps, themselves, and work with the power of suggestion. So it's challenging. At the same time, there's a lot of power in a piece of visual art. It's the best for things like body horror, or dealing with the grotesque or bizarre, those times when dwelling on something just makes it more and more horrific.
DR: Who do you think does horror comics best? Do you have favorites, influences, books you go back and reread?
JS: Emily Carroll immediately comes to mind for that creepy, suggestive kind of horror. Junji Ito is the master of that grotesque kind that scares you more and more the longer you look at a drawing.
DR: You offer The Castle of Otranto for free, but is there any way your readers and fans can support your work?
JS: I have SO MUCH original art for sale! SO MUCH! And I have prints and t-shirts and things! And I'm pretty much always open for commissions!
DR: Are you in the midst of publishing anything else that we should be reading?
JS: Gonna be soon re-launching my other (all original) comic, The Makeshift Man, and that'll be online for free, AND available in print. That'll be some time this spring. And I've been developing another book with Chad Bowers (my collaborator on webcomic Monster Plus before he got distracted by writing jobs that actually pay him) that'll be a for-sale-digitally kind of thing, a little bit later in the year or early next year.
DR: I've read some Monster Plus, it's super fun. Can you tell us anything about your new project with Bowers or is it still hush hush?
JS: It will involve bunny rabbits. That's all I can say right now.
DR: Anything else you've been reading that you'd like to recommend?
JS: Bowers' comics, Down Set Fight and Subatomic Party Girls! And my husband, Andrew Ihla, has Paradoxicals coming out very soon with Joe Hunter, and that is going to be AMAZING.
The Castle of Otranto is ongoing at otrantocomic.tumblr.com.

subset: commoncrawl


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Mon, 26 September 2016
Comedian Kyle Bottom returns to talk fun proposals, hit and runs, and squeamishness.
Direct download: Episode_445_-_Kyle_Bottom.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:00am PST
Mon, 19 September 2016
Comedian and writer Charlie Demers returns to talk cartoon voice acting, sleepy intruders, and beard conventions.
Direct download: Episode_444_-_Charlie_Demers.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:30am PST
Mon, 12 September 2016
Actress Morgan Brayton returns to talk fan mail, Los Angeles, and scary malls.
Direct download: Episode_443_-_Morgan_Brayton.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:54pm PST
Mon, 5 September 2016
Comedian D.J. Demers returns to talk about DJs, America's Got Talent, and his love for John Mayer.
Direct download: Episode_442_-_D.J._Demers.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:14am PST


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Baby room automation and monitoring with Udoo.
A sassy virtual assistant, with Wolfram API access and real-world control
An LCD touchscreen interface, compatible with multiple OSes.
Smart lighting is a catalyst for the IoT. In this tutorial we'll see how to control NeoPixel LEDs via mobile using the Zerynth App.
RC car powered by UDOO and Android. With this project we won the Droidcon IT 2015 Hackaton.
Make a screen move towards your face when it moves in the camera range
Coordinate networked sensors with this UDOO-based system.
Building a Ubuntu LTS configuration for the UDOO Quad
Developing discovery-based learning applications
An elegant, cocktail-mixing system with touchscreen interface
A sheet metal case for the UDOO module
Build a rover and control it with your Android phone.
Experiences and benchmarks with SATA drives on the UDOO.
A Photobooth created using UDOO prototyping board.
A wall of LED where you can spell out messages from the Upside-Down is the best way to impress your friends and to cheat the Demogorgon.
The world's first ECU, that's also a eXpandable, eXtendable, and 100% open electronic management platform!
Autonomous, dynamic obstacle avoidance on a mobile robot
Nerd's favourite Network Attached Storage
Open-source Motion-Capture Face-Recognition Streaming Suit for delocalized live theater using 3d avatars
A fully-featured Linux server with a screen to tell you about the status or any problems.
A Disc and Video Jockey, plays music, videos and controls lights and visual effects for your personal disco!
Far more than a NAS, a standalone media system powered by UDOO that fits in the palm of your hand.
Revive an iconic musical instrument with UDOO!
Elegant all-in-one UDOO based computer that is compact, easy to assemble and move around


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Original Art Fan Works Fandom Anime
Top: Arts: Animation: Anime: Fandom: Fan Works: Original Art: K
- Kuri's Tea Party - Original anime-style art work in CG and marker k as well fan works as fan art from video games k and manga.
- Knight-Edge - Self-published manga by Gary Lau about ninja assassin original art Daenon k Merrick. Preview art, ordering, and contact information.
- Kraystone Art Gallery - Gallery with sketches, illustrations, 2d and 3d computer fan works graphics, animation, stories and links.
MySQL - Cache Direct


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Get ready – on January 10th I'm launching the ABC Declutter Challenge!
For the next 26 weeks we are going to have some fun decluttering our spaces.
I will allocate a letter of the alphabet to each week and I want you to declutter at least one thing starting with that letter. The fun bit will be to share a pic of it either here on my website or on my fabulous Facebook page (DD's Facebook page). Have a giggle, champion on others as they take on the ABC Declutter Challenge and celebrate your successes.
I love making things that seem like a chore be a game. It's how I like to work with my clients when doing their in-home consultations. When you change your mindset and approach, you usually have more success in dealing with your clutter. Remember the clutter is never the issue.
Happy Decluttering!


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Pick up a free art kit in the Museum of collage-based materials to create a personal journal inspired by artist Cauleen Smith's themes surrounding the power of art, music, and text.
About Open Studios
CAMH's Open Studios feature activities that draw inspiration from the exhibitions on view to provide an opportunity to explore imaginative concepts inspired by world-renowned artists.
Open Studios instructions are released on our website at 2PM, the first Saturday of every month. In-person, a limited number of Open Studio Kits are available for pick up in the Museum between 2-4PM, until we run out. Open Studio Kits include instructions and art supplies to complete the featured project. Each kit will include bonus items such as CAMH buttons, Art Guides, and extra activities. All ages, always free.
In-person pick up for Open Studio kits are low contact and designed with the safety of our visitors, staff, and community in mind. Visit our Museum From Home page for more hands-on activities you can enjoy anytime!


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text:
New Restaurants, Cafes and Bars in Singapore: September 2017
At this wanton noodle store (you'll recognise it by its insanely long queue), it's the char siew that the crowds will gladly wait an average of 30 minutes for. The Wanton Noodles (from $4) are springy and decent, but pale in comparison to the barbecued pork on top — beautifully charred, sliced into thick slices and just delicious. To make the queuing worth your while, take the advice from Tastemakers Casey Tan and Amanda Liu to go for the Premium Cha Shao Noodles (from $6), which is made from the armpit of the pork (bu jian tian in Mandarin). According to Tastemaker Amanda, this prized cut results in char siew that sports the perfect ratio of meat to fat, so it's tender without being overwhelmingly fatty. Pro tip: The char siew sells out early, so make this a breakfast outing.
Avg Price: $10 per person
Photo by Burpple Tastemaker Amanda Liu
To quote Burpple Tastemaker Fiona Ting, this hole-in-the-wall Clifford Centre newbie is the place for "seriously saucy" Braised Pork Belly Rice ($3 for small, $5 for big). Portion-wise, we found the best way to go was to add meat ($1) to the small bowl to get a great proportion of meat to rice. Get your appetites ready for a bowl of Japanese pearl rice, topped generously with slow-cooked braised pork belly. Burpple Tastemaker Xing Wei Chua describes the rice to be drenched with the savoury braised sauce, and the meat to be melt-in-the-mouth tender. In short, it's a super comforting, belly-warming meal that'll perk you up for lunch. They also serve pretty tasty old-school waffles, smeared with your choice of filling. Fiona loves the Nacho Cheese Waffle ($2), sandwiched with a slice of cheddar and copious amounts of nacho cheese sauce. Pro tip: Ask for a bowl of chili to go with your lu rou fan!
Avg Price: $5 per person
Photo by Burpple Tastemaker Fiona Ting
Tokyo's famously hip coffee house has found its way to our shores, and aficionados can now get their fix at Downtown Gallery. So far, the Burpple community has affirmed that the coffee is as good as it tastes in Japan. Omotesando is known for their quality coffee (beans from Melbourne are roasted in Kyoto by Ogawa Coffee Roasters), and the brand's dedication is reflected in their very precise approach to brewing coffee. Taste the magic in the Iced Cappuccino ($7.50), a milky, mellow brew that comes with Omotesando's signature bubble cap, topped generously with cocoa powder. If you prefer a stronger brew, take Burppler Dex Neo's to go for the hot drinks, which'll give you more of a kick. Pro tip: Good things come to those who wait. Be prepared to queue; the average waiting time is about 40 minutes.
Avg Price: $10 per person
Photo by Burppler Lewis Tan
This new Japanese kushiyaki bar at The Sail @ Marina Bay serves up amazingly smoky and yummy kushiyaki (skewered sticks), but that's not all — they dish out some stellar rice bowls too. There are only counter seats, so come solo or bring just one friend. Get acquainted with their style through the Kushiyaki Omakase ($22), which gets you six skewers that are grilled till they sport a lovely char. Expect the likes of pork, chicken, and chicken with leek, all of which go very well with a drink. Portions run small for the rice bowls like the Kushiyaki Don ($14.90) that is served with four assorted sticks atop a bowl of rice, along with a fried onsen egg; or the Special Tempura Don ($14.90), which sees the chef's selection of ingredients battered and fried till crisp golden. Order the free-flow Ocha (hot tea, $2) to wash it all down.
Avg Price: $15 per person
Photo by Burppler chutoro eats
Housed in a standalone metal and glass structure, sporting floor-to-ceiling windows, wood accents and lush greenery, this gorgeous light-filled space in CHIJMES is ideal for a bit of respite in the city. Pop in for a coffee and something small to eat, be it a cinnamon roll, a slice of banana cake with cream cheese frosting or an open-faced sandwich from their toast bar — try the Avocado & Dukkah ($7) if you fancy something savoury. They use sourdough from The Bakery at Woodlands Sourdough for their toasts, so expect a good, crisp crust. The Burpple community has praised the friendly service and warm ambience, so file this away for some me-time or a quiet tete-a-tete. Coffee-wise, their offerings (from $3.50 for a black coffee) feature a rotation of beans from various roasters, so you're likely to be surprised every time.
Avg Price: $10 per person
Photo by Burppler Salsera Love
This durian dessert cafe is THE place for all things durian, served with a dose of industrial chic — think brick walls and exposed beam ceilings. Four Seasons Durian is well-known for their durian confectionaries, so rest assured these desserts will hit the spot. Go in a group so you can share the love but think twice about bringing non-converts; as Burppler Kris Lim says, the smell will hit you once you enter the space. The extensive menu is bound to get durian lovers hot under the collar. The D24 Durian Mochi ($5 for four) are chewy and rather mild but if you yearn for stronger flavours, go straight for the Mao Shang Wang Durian Mochi ($8.80 for four). Others to try include the Durian Strudel ($15.80), Mao Shan Wang Ice Cream ($5.80), Mao Shan Wang Coffe ($5) and the delectable Mao Shan Wang Ice Cream Puffs ($15.80 for six), which many say are a must-order. If you can't find a seat, get the Mao Shan Wang Takeaway Cup ($6.80) to go — the soft serve sundae makes a lovely treat while moseying through Chinatown.
Avg Price: $10 per person
Photo by Burppler Kris Lim
For a whole new perspective on hotdogs, visit Frank for their creative fusion takes on the humble sausage. These guys dish it out from Singapore's first and only food container! While the franks are creative, the menu is kept uncomplicated and simple, making it really easy to narrow down your choices. Go classic with the Nürnberger Dog ($10), sandwiched in a pretzel bun with potato salad, wholegrain mustard, mayonnaise and chives; the Tokyo Frank ($12) that tops a kurobuta pork sausage with miso dressing and bonito flakes; or the Curry Dog and Beer ($22, comes with a 300ml beer) at dinner. The latter is elevated with sauerkraut and crispy bacon, and is so good that Burppler Kenneth Lee declared it to be one of the tastiest ones he's had. Try it, and then tell us all about it. Lowenbrau lager is also served on draft (from $8 for 300ml).
Avg Price: $15 per person
Photo by Burppler Kenneth Lee
If you want good and satisfying fried chicken wings — those sporting a perfectly crisp outer coat while maintaining juicy insides — go to Sticky Wings. Taking over Four Fingers in Westgate, this casual chicken restaurant (pending Halal certification) serves wings, burgers and light bites. Choose from three different flavours for your wings — sweet-savoury Kecap Manis glaze mixed with garlic and gula Melaka, fiery Spicy Flamin' that is a blend of chillies, or have it Naked, simple but still finger-licking good. For a satisfying meal, opt for the Black Belt ($8.50), which comes with a drumstick and three two-joint wings and top up $2.50 for a soft drink and a side. Of all the sides that we tried, we enjoyed the Fries with Minced Beef Rendang and the My Butter Half ($1.50), a portion of tasty butter rice.
Avg Price: $10 per person
Photo by Burpple Tastemaker Marc T.
Located in the basement of Marina Bay Sands, this sprawling 350-seater nautical-themed buffet space is great for hosting company lunches as well as weekend family gatherings (prices start from $42 for adults). There are private rooms for large groups (50 pax) and round booth tables that are designed to look like boats on the outside for smaller families. Parents, take delight as kids under 1.3m dine for free! There are 10 hot and cold stations to choose from — tuck into familiar continental buffet items like pastas and pizzas, sashimi, Alaskan king crab (even at lunch!) and local dishes like chilli crab and sio bak. There's also a dedicated Korean station where you can make your own bibimbap, customise your bowl of guksu (noodles) and have free-flow soon dae (blood sausages). For dessert, go crazy at the DIY Bingsu station and don't forget about the chewy Korean cakes, waffles and chocolates!
Avg Price: $45 per person
Photo by Burpple Tastemaker Julius Lim
For a modern spin on bak kut teh, check out BakBak at Circular Road. The 80-seater space is started by the same guys behind Rong Cheng Bak Kut Teh, so expect good ol' flavours, albeit with a twist. They've even modernised the ordering system — diners order using their mobile phones and the QR codes assigned to every table. There is an emphasis on healthy eating, so expect the likes of sea cucumber, tofu and brown rice on the menu. Try their Sanuki Udon with Dragon Rib ($11) — Burppler Rachel Chua loves how the noodles soaked up all the umami flavours from the broth, or keep it classic with the Premium Dragon Rib Soup ($10.50). The use of fresh pork loin ribs and garlic lends a robustness to the broth. For sides, don't miss out on the Fried Prawn Roll ($11), which Burpplers are raving about. Pro tip: This place is great for groups but if you're in the need for some solo time, opt to sit at one of the single diner booth seats.
Avg Price: $15 per person
Photo by Burpple Tastemaker Cassie Ong
When in the mood for an Indonesian feast, book in for the weekend lunch buffet ($38) at this Bay Hotel restaurant. The current buffet promo ($55 for two pax) makes it a fair deal to enjoy a smorgasbord of Indonesian flavours. For us, their Indonesian dishes were the standouts — be sure to ladle on the ayam kalio, reminiscent of rendang albeit with more turmeric and blue ginger, the DIY Indonesian rojak (check out the shrimp paste gula Melaka sauce!) and the udang petai belado (prawns with petai beans) stir-fried in a sambal gravy. The chilled seafood and French pastries aren't worth the calories, so zero in on the Nonya kueh kueh instead. Pro tip: There's no guarantee when the promo buffet prices will last, so visit quick!
Avg Price: $40 per person
Photo by Burppler Muriel A.
Located on Stanley Street, the Singapore outpost of Barcelona's Michelin-starred Restaurant Gaig serves delish Spanish plates, with a focus on Catalan classics. While cosy, the white-washed space is inviting, and the rustic cooking is steadily winning the Burpple community over. The Paellas (from $28.20) are foolproof, but it's the Catalan dishes that are likely to lure you back. Try the flawless Stuffed Baby Calamari ($24.50), which sees the calamari stuffed with minced squid, beef, pork and egg, and slicked in a rich tomato-based sauce, and the Pig Trotter with Turnips ($19.20), a super comforting dish that features melt-in-the-mouth meat. Order the Chocolate Beignets ($12.70) for dessert. Battered, deep-fried dark chocolate ganache balls that are crisp on the outside and silky smooth within? Yes please.
Avg Price: $40 per person
Photo by Burpple Tastemaker Blueskies Cottonclouds
The top picks, popular finds and newly opened places in Singapore, Malaysia and Philippines, curated by Burpple editors!


text:
Crossword Quiz Answers | Crossword Puzzle Answers 06.09.2017
Crossword Quiz Answers | Crossword Puzzle Answers 06.09.2017
__ Jug: British Open trophy
__ Field: Brooklyn Dodgers' home
__ Alamos
Yale alum
Wood measure
Where Springsteen was born?
Uses too much
Tug __
Transp. group in the Loop
Traffic light symbol
Tennis legend who wrote 'Days of Grace'
Tennessee whiskey cocktail
Tattoo, in slang
Take a long bath
Swing voter: Abbr
Summer Games org
Sugar-free soft drink
Sty dweller
Stump speech
Squeeze (by)
Sort of
Screen writer?
Scale syllables
Question at a reunion
Pupil's place
President pro __
Prefix with caching
Pre-employment investigation
Palmolive's corporate partner
Outdoor gear retailer
One taken for a fool
One above criticism
Most GRE takers
MLB's Indians, on scoreboards
Magic Eraser spokesman
Lindros in the Hockey Hall of Fame
LAX posting
Jockey's wear
Iran, once
Influential pairing, and a hint to the circles in four puzzle answers
Hr. segment
Holy recess
Height: Pref
Hall of Fame Sixer, familiarly
Groundbreaking tool
Good opponent
Get by
Game show hosts
Fun time, in slang
Fruity dessert
Former Labor secretary Elaine
Done with one's career: Abbr
Course that makes you sweat, briefly?
Cooks, as broccoli
Con targets
Colorful songbird
Charlottesville sch
Camped in a trailer, for short
Blackens, as tuna
Aquatic plant
Angel dust, for short
Alter ego of 7-Down
Actor __ Baron Cohen
Actor Estevez
'Othello' antagonist
'My package has arrived!'
'How'm I doing?' New York mayor
'Darn it!'
___ Sea (body north of Australia)
___ America
Who said religion 'is the opium of the people'
Visit to the salon?
Trash hauler
These days
Texting format, in brief
Stir up
Soldiers in line formation?
Small amount
Significant qualification
Shirk one's responsibilities
Shade provider
Setting for many a joke about a priest, a rabbi and a minister
Senior's grandson
San ___, Calif
Rock's Brian
River forming part of the boundary between Europe and Asia
Rice-and-broth dish
Rhodes of the Rhodes scholarship
Result of a deadlocked jury
Rainbow flag letters
Pinza of 'South Pacific'
Piece of equipment for 29-Down
Part of a cruise itinerary
Pare a phrase?
One-named Swedish singer with the 1997 hit 'Show Me Love'
One traveling around Scandinavia?
Noted architect who turned 100 in 2017
Not made from scratch, say
Not for here
News site like the Drudge Report
New Zealand native
Muslim pilgrimage
Mojave plant
Metro area
Mendes and Longoria
Many a Labor Day event, for short
Many a charity golf tourney
Like early computer graphics
Late journalist Ifill
Kind of wave
Kind of history or hygiene
House speaker Ryan
Grammy and Tony nominee Bareilles
Give a charge to
Gig parts
Gelatin substitute
France's Pic de Rochebrune, e.g
Folklore fiend
Female singer with a hit album in every decade since the 1960s
End of the sentence 'Make like a drum and …'
Dangerous circus jobs
Course designer
Controversial argument
Confused state of mind
Comme ci, comme ça
Cesar who played the Joker on TV
Car speaker
Begin to enjoy
Be dependent
Authorize to
Argument that involves pointing?
Apple consumer
Ancient worshiper of Huitzilopochtli
Ana's aunt
'What's the ___?'
'South Park' kid
'Not so fast!'
'It's boiling in here!'
With 9-Across, high-rise feature
With 72-Across, roll to one side, e.g
With 57-Down, drift
With 45-Across, hurricane-prone area, and a clue to this puzzle's edges
With 32-Down, it's used in a rebound shot
Way around London
Very near
Valued strings
TV premiere of Oct. 11, 1975
Tubes in a studio
Tree exudation
Traveling through
Town on Long Island's southern shore
Tibia's place
Temporary suspensions
Stein and Hemingway in Paris, e.g
Soundly defeat
Skyping need
Shaman, e.g
See 71-Across
See 35-Across
See 17-Down
See 12-Down
See 1-Across
Sales team member
Resort near Park City
Puts up with
Puny pup
Potpie veggies
Pizza chain, informally
Pass over
Park place?
Music's Mahler
Lindy's hop?
Like some communities
Katharine Hepburn's acting gamut, according to Dorothy Parker
Jellyfish delivery
It's brought to order
It makes the bed
Hung in there
Hole in the head
High school dept
Heartsick one
Golf's 'Big Easy'
Goes downhill
Go back to square one
Franklin's belief
Foal's father
Firefly features
Extraction target
Drug trafficker
Disco guy on 'The Simpsons'
Dernier ___
DDE's 1942 command
Consumes conspicuously
Cologne divider
Christensen of TV's 'Parenthood'
Cherokee Landing State Pk. location
Bordeaux bestie
Big house
Beach shades
Barbershop item
Above, in odes
1994 Italian film nominated for the Best Picture Oscar
'The Racer's Edge'
'Starpeace' artist
'La Classe de Danse' artist
'Boola Boola' singer
'Beetle Bailey' dog
___ down (muted)
Young newt
Yoko of the avant-garde
Word with 'pressure' or 'group'
Word attached to 'land' or 'sea'
Within striking distance
What beef is to her royal highness?
Voting group
Variety show
Type of whale
To the left, at sea
The timid family lawyer was granted ..
Tackle box item
Swirl in the water
Start of a classic Yuletide verse
Spoke multiple times?
Some snake varieties
Some ship officers
Slow mover in the Suez Canal
Slippery sea creature
Sets in balance
Root number or root word
Rockslide debris
Question from a milk-loving phone purchaser?
Poorly insulated
One of the Rubbles
Off-white color
New Old World money
Manicurist's target
Male and female
Made bubbles, in a way
List contents
Line in clothing
Like vacant apartments
Like a drooling dog
Landlord's due
Lacks, briefly
Lab bottle (var.)
King toppers
Killed, as a dragon
Judging partiality
Item used in strokes
Iron, bauxite and copper
Indistinct, as vision
High-flying recruiters
Griffith of boxing
Got up
Framed stuff
First lady Truman
Feels sorry for
Feeling of uneasiness
Expression of relief
Exclusively or solely
Egg part
Dubbed men
Displace, as a plant
Dentist's tool
Dark purple
Corbeled bay window
City in Arizona
Certain cookie brand
Celeb's achievement
Candidate for rehab
Canal of song
Break in the action
Beehive State college athlete
'Dynamic' prefix
'Don't ___ little thing like that get you down!'
'Black Beauty' author Sewell
Yell 'Heads up!' to
Wage a war of words
Universally accepted statement
TSA agents check them
Trucker's unit
Treasure chest contents, perhaps
Televisions or stereos
Take orders from, in a way
Surface statistic
Succotash morsel
Steamed up
Statue-covering cloth
State Fair of Texas site
South of the border 'Bravo!'
Sound-boosting gear
Shoots nine or 18, say
Seabirds with pointed bills
Rustic renter of rooms
Rue Morgue's creator
Respond to an ump's bad call
Reader's high-tech option
Railroad bridge support
Raid-making govt. bureau
Quality measured in megapixels, briefly
One who encounters the last parts of 17-, 29- and 45-Across on a climb
One in need of salvation
Olympics glider
Obsession, as with a pop star
Not so green
Navigation software display
Movie vampire's hairline feature, often
More in need of a rubdown
Memorable Chaplin screen character
Like a shepherd's crook
Letters before an alias
Journalist Sawyer
Jessica of 'Fantastic Four' movies
Jerry's best friend on 'Seinfeld'
Insect's midsection
Houseflies' undoings
Host before Fallon
Home to Nikes, once
Hoisted item during Oktoberfest
Good guess in Battleship
Garlic-crushing gadget
Flock loser of rhyme
Fleecy pack animal
Figure at a December party, perhaps
Festive December twosome
Eventful spans
Enjoy Aspen
Ear flap
Drop the curtain on
Dozer's vision
Does a dressmaker's chore
Composition of tots' pies
Competed a la Joey Chestnut
Cod-catching net
Chairman portrayed in 'Nixon in China'
Burdensome task
Bucket go-with
Bruins great Bobby
Brings joy to
Award co-presented by the Village Voice
Aqueduct action
Alternative to 'Yours truly'
All skin and bones
Alaskan region near the Arctic Ocean
Actor Alan who is a Math-O-Vision judge
Acropolis Museum city
36 for nine holes, often
'What has hands but can't clap?' is one
'Raiders of the Lost Ark' slitherers
'It ___ the best of times . . .'
'Chiquitita' vocal group
'Chicago' director Bob
'Bagel and a schmear' shop
__ Paese (Italian cheese)
Yoga accessories
Withheld from, with "of"
With no decoration
Was in first place
Walking stick
Unnamed ones
Underwater diver's gear
Trip to the grocery, say
Transmitted verbally
They're over a buck in the woods
The badly misbehaving teens were __ . .
Tear (off)
Take a break
Studied hard, with "up"
Speedometer abbr
Source of shade
Small fly
Singer __ Amos
Sea, to Cousteau
Sailor's affirmative
Sagittarius or Scorpio
Rotation line
Pub beverage
Pronoun category of "it"
Praise highly
Post-workout soreness
Pay-__-view movie
Part of FDA
On the __ (out to sea)
NFL broadcaster
Mine resource
Metal in tubas
Manicotti shape
Make alterations to
Make a blunder
Like best
Lawyer's post-trial filing
Lamented loudly
Jack's beanstalk adversary
Informal language
Inflatable mattress
Huff and puff
High school math class
Golfer Mickelson
Golf peg
Go sightseeing
Garden bulb
Full moon or crescent
Fuel for some ranges
Fringe benefit, for short
Finance deg
Driving force
Dog show org
Definite article
Cultural, as cuisine
Brought on board
Bring about
Boot out
Banned pesticide
Bank charge
Bake-sale org
Avoided detection by
Actor Sean
. . . so their parents gave them a __ . .
. . . and as punishment, they were __
"It's c-c-cold!"


text:
Autumn in Chisinau
Autumn is here to stay in Chisinau. The sky is clear and the air is fresh, the trees are shifting colours and there is a smell of wet leaves and apples all around the city. Outside my house, the grapes are getting ready to be picked.
The grapes outside my house
Yesterday evening, I met up with Valeriu, Doina and Liliana at La Placinta – a Moldovan chain restaurant with fresh-made traditional Moldovan placinta and the side dishes of different pickled vegetables and sauces that go with. And the house wine of course! Kind of like Moldova's TGI Friday. (Can't really come up with a better resemblance, but I am sure I will after a few months in the US.) I will really miss these moments when I leave!
Valeriu and Doina
Liliana and I


text:
Today, there is a metamorphosis of our meeting spaces at work taking place before our very eyes. This is because of an interesting convergence of change in the nature of society, collaboration, and technology. And we believe that in this current scenario, when it comes to designing collaboration rooms for your business, more is less and less is more…
This interesting convergence is taking place due to various factors. In the past, internal teams, business partners, and clients were mostly regional. This meant that the people you would work with were located within the building or within driving distance. Most meetings were conducted face-to-face.
Enterprise users would book large rooms for these group meetings. Also, organisations wanted to bring in remote participants and presentations via video technology when necessary.
This fuelled the need for expensive, technically complex boardrooms, executive rooms, and more. These rooms needed a large investment in AV design and implementation to ensure a quality user experience.
And even while all of this was going on, the world became virtual. Remote working became normal and accepted. Your internal teams, business partners, and clients may not even be in the same country anymore.
This means that instead of face-to-face meetings in the boardroom, organisations now use audio and web conferencing, with about three to five people at any one location. The boardroom is not appropriate for these more frequent needs. What is needed are smaller rooms or an open area to meet.
Technology needs for smaller meeting rooms
The technology needs for these meetings is also different. User interfaces need to be standard, not customised, as they are intended for self service. Systems need to be standard, repeatable, scalable and reliable. In its most simplified terms, businesses need more rooms with fewer features and fewer rooms with more complex and expensive technology…what we call more of less and less of more!
Many new products have hit the market to serve this new need. Many of them are great, offering installation times in hours instead of days. They also meet the need for high quality, high reliability, ease-of-use and scalability. Many, however, are not great and rely on deceptive marketing and user confusion to carve out a niche for themselves.
The process to select the right collaboration solution for an enterprise hasn't changed. The following are the steps to follow:
Create a user segmentation plan, admitting that no organisation has a single "typical user".
Document all use cases and conduct an analysis of the organisation's existing systems.
Make a decision regarding the correct blend of solutions needed.
Consult with outside experts who have performed this type of analysis before, provided they have no vested interest.
So, there you have it…the right way to design next-gen collaboration solutions for your enterprise. Follow the tips, but remember….when it comes to designing a collaboration solution for your business, more is less and less is more…
You can know more about designing the right collaboration solution. For more information about designing the right collaboration room and solution for your home or business, contact Actis at 022-30808080 or at email@example.com.
(Content courtesy: www.networkworld.com and Image courtesy: Bayer India)


text: Ace your race at Axle City, and then cosy up in this brilliant Blaze dressing gown! Crafted in a soft fluffy material, this bath robe is perfect for your little racer to relax in after a day at the races. It features a hood, tie waistband, two front pockets, with an all over motif of all things Blaze & The Monster Machines. Product details 100% Polyester


text:
National Public Radio is so biased isn't not even funny anymore. Consider the spin on this story by WDET, the Detroit-area affiliate of NPR:
Wayne State Univesrity's [sic] faculty union is hoping to protect its members from the impact of Michigan's right-to-work law, which takes effect in the spring. The union wants the university to lock dues into its next contract for 10 years, to shield members from the law banning mandatory membership and fees as a condition of employment.
Gee, how thoughtful. The union is trying to "protect" its members from making a choice. And the union is going to "lock dues" to "shield" mandatory dues payers from making that choice.
Who is WDET kidding?
In the interview with union president Charlie Parrish, host Pat Batcheller asks why the union wants to "poke the bear" – the Republican-led legislature in Lansing that controls the university's revenue stream.
"Well, I would hope that the Republican legislators would be more responsible in terms of what the long-run needs of our institution are instead of embroiling, getting involved in this particular issue," Parrish said.
In other words, go fly a kite, Republican legislators.
Parrish also said they're seeking a 10-year guarantee on compulsory dues to "assure their power" for a "reasonable amount of time."
He added that his union has been authorized to strike if they are unable to reach a new contract with the university. Public employee strikes are illegal under Michigan law.
A strike doesn't seem too likely. Detroit News' NoIan Finley notes that Wayne State University's "board of trustees (is) made up nearly entirely by Democrats whose election campaigns were financed by labor unions."
If the two sides manage to reach a sweetheart deal in time for Valentine's Day, we can only imagine the ridiculous spin WDET might put on that story.


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Find out if Facebook is helping or hurting your happiness and well-being.
Did you know that the average Facebook user uses a combination of Facebook and Instagram an average of 50 minutes per day? That's more time than the average person spends socializing with other people, watching sports, and almost as much time as we spend eating. So if you're a Facebook user, it's now important to ask yourself, "Is spending your time on Facebook actually making you happier?"
Using Facebook passively can make you like yourself less.
If you're the type to just view what your friends are up to, read articles, and scroll down your wall, it's likely hurting your happiness.
A few studies have shown that using Facebook passively like this can lead to upward social comparisons. When you compare yourself to the best qualities of others on Facebook, suddenly you like yourself less. You know, like when you see the accomplishments of your high-school friends and you start questioning whether you've done enough with your life. Or when you see the fancy, adventurous meals your co-workers are eating and then you wonder if you are boring because, let's face it, you never do anything cool.
It's human nature to compare yourself to others, but on Facebook, everyone is presenting the best versions of themselves. So you always compare upward and end up feeling like you're not good enough.
Using Facebook passively can lead to envy.
Have you had that feeling? Like when you see the beautiful beach vacation that your friend went on with the love of their life. Or when your former classmate suddenly gets their dream job and you're still struggling to make ends meet.
The little green envy monster can make you feel inferior, hostile, and resentful. These emotions can actually harm your social relationships instead of supporting them while making you feel miserable in the process.
But wait! Facebook can actually help some people be happier. So, when and why doesn't Facebook make you miserable?
Using Facebook actively can help you feel more socially connected
If you're the type of Facebook user to post regularly, use messenger to chat, and disclose personal details about yourself, you may feel happier with Facebook in your life.
It turns out that both targeted one-on-one exchanges and broadcasting (posting) can increase happiness. This type of Facebook use helps you build weak social ties into stronger ones, maintain social ties that would have otherwise ended, and enhance the bonds you already have with your inner circle. You may even feel connected to a larger community. As a result, you are likely to feel less loneliness and greater well-being.
To use Facebook or not to use Facebook
If you're not sure how you use Facebook – or you're just not the type of person who wants to post and disclose intimate details about yourself on your Facebook wall – you're likely better off limiting Facebook use, or, dare I say it, quitting Facebook altogether.
Research has shown that on average, people feel worse from using Facebook for 20 minutes than they do from browsing the internet elsewhere. Another study suggests that taking a week off from Facebook boosts well-being. I once took a year-long break from Facebook and, if you ask me, it vastly improved my quality of life.
So if you're looking for the easiest possible way to find out if Facebook is making you miserable, take a week off. Then ask yourself if you felt better. If it did, consider taking more time off.
Verduyn, P., et al. (2017). "Do Social Network Sites Enhance or Undermine Subjective Well‐Being? A Critical Review." Social Issues and Policy Review 11(1): 274-302.


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Mic jack
I realize they are going for simplicity but would it kill them to include a mic input jack?
The pocket-sized Flip camcorder was one of the top tech toys of summer 2008, and it spawned a host of equally diminutive copycat products – not to mention our own compact camcorder round-up. The secret of the Flip's success lay in its sheer simplicity. Unlike most digital cameras and camcorders, which are festooned with buttons …
Why is it that companies produce these things when most modern phones (such as the new Samsung & LG models) can record video at 720 x 480? Not quite HD, but with the addition of stereo sound and a slight increase in resolution, that would mean one less gadget to carry around.
Comments about the above, didn't fill me with confidence about the review – they gave the impression that the reviewer doesn't know what's on the market.
"The no-frills design means that it doesn't have any of the image stabilization features found in more expensive camcorders…"
Or even ones the same price… or even cheaper. Toshiba, for instance, has just revamped its Camileo range - all of which have image stabilisation; the S10 is about the same price (though can be had for cheaper) and the other two models are less expensive. Aiptak also, has had image stabilisation on some of its offerings for a while. But Flip can be excused the lack of image stabilisation (something that many consider a fairly useful feature), because of the 'no-frills design' even though it's a charging a premium price.
"The Flip Mino HD has a 2x digital zoom, which does cause a slight loss of detail in the image, but a more powerful optical zoom is probably a bit much to expect at this price."
The Camileo P30 can be had for cheaper and has a x5 optical zoom. Sony offer a similar range, though its models are a little chunkier.
Flip cameras have had mixed scorings from El Reg – e.g. the Flip Ultra got 60% in last October's round-up, but 80% a couple of months earlier – the score for this does seem to be a little high, given the obvious features (found in some competing models) that are missing.
For a while, it's been common to read about 'Flip killers', so it was going to be interesting to see what the company was going to bring out in response – not much, for a much greater mark-up.
We are aware that Toshiba is about to update its Camileo range. However, none of the new Camileo models were available when we reviewed the Flip so it seemed unfair to compare it to products that hadn't launched yet.
We are, however, planning to review the new Camileo shortly.


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Plus, receive recommendations and exclusive offers on all of your favorite books and authors from Simon & Schuster.
Lucky Few
Table of Contents
About The Book
The life of homeschooler Stevie Hart gets all shook up when she meets a strange boy, Max, who survived a freak near-fatal accident and is now obsessed with death. He enlists her and her best friend, Sanger, to help him complete his absurd "23 Ways to Fake My Death Without Dying" checklist. What starts off as fun begins spiraling downward when Stevie's diabetes sabotages her fumbling romance with Max, Sanger announces she's moving out of state, and then death—real death—cuts close to home.
For a dentist office receptionist, she had stunningly bad teeth. The ocher stains on her enamel were a mystery of Sherlockian proportions. What was the culprit? Was it years of coffee consumption? Tobacco use? Or some other foul substance equally capable of corrupting a pearlescent smile?
"Do you need a school excuse?" she asked.
I was far more interested in the answer to my dental whodunit than the answer the receptionist awaited. I was about to tell her something she wouldn't like and wouldn't understand.
"No," I told her.
I said it politely.
"I think both you and your cousin do," she said.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure we don't."
The receptionist inched a blue square of paper across her desk.
"Come on, honey," she said, like she was coaxing a naughty dog out from under the porch.
No choice was left to me.
I was forced to drop the H-bomb.
I said, "We're homeschooled."
Bad-Teeth Receptionist blinked at me. Then she asked the question I got asked about seventy percent of the time upon H-bomb impact:
"Oh, sweetie, don't you miss being around people?"
I was used to this. I was well versed in the homeschool stereotype. I understood that this receptionist was probably thinking, Lordy, she's Amish and doesn't have a cell phone and lives with fifteen inbred kinfolk.
What I wanted to tell her, but never would, was that the realm of the home educated was a many-splendored, multifaceted thing. There was nuance. There was diversity. She couldn't just slap a single, all-inclusive label on my forehead. She had to choose from an assortment of labels. If she wanted, she could pick from the list I had personally compiled in the ninth grade. I had divided the homeschooling population into four clean categories, as follows:
Blue-Jean Jumpers
The most common stereotype associated with the home educated. You know, families of seven or more. The standard issue of dress for boys is jeans two sizes too big, Velcro sneakers, and button-up plaid shirts (we're talking the original hipsters). Girls wear long blue-jean jumpers, and when they want to get super insane, they choose the jumper with the embroidered sunflowers on the front. They are bound by some cultish church law to never cut their straggly blond hair or expose their ankles. The kids all look slightly soulless, like something out of Children of the Corn. They're so painfully shy, they can't place their own fast-food order—if their parents even believe in fast food. They attend church five days a week, don't own a television, and live on a farm with chickens. The mom makes killer homemade monkey bread. Commonly sighted at:
The homeschool co-op
Hippie folk who are conscientious objectors to the public education system. Usually upper-middle-class progressives who drive a Prius or, better yet, a tandem bicycle. They live on a strict Paleo diet. They compost. Favorite fashion choices include Birkenstocks, homemade beaded necklaces, tassels, and tie-dye. A typical school day involves "field trips" to the backyard and to the local herbal remedy shop. Commonly sighted at:
Whole Foods
Anti-war demonstrations
Urban organic farms
Last-Chance Charlies
Mom and Dad have no clue what to do with their problem kid. After Charliekins got expelled from his third school, they figured they'd give homeschooling a spin, because if all else fails, do it yourself, right? Zero to 0.5 percent parental supervision. After parents leave for work, Last-Chance Charlie lapses into a pot-induced Netflix-slash-World-of-Warcraft binge. He texts his public school friends throughout the day to make them jealous of his unchecked autonomy. Dresses in baggy black jeans and one of thirty unwashed action hero T-shirts. Will eventually be booted to a school in Virginia or else run off to live with his gaming bro in the next county over. Commonly sighted at:
Comic cons
Gaming stores
Curb outside the local liquor store
Normal Types
The kids who are just trying to get a decent education. The most diverse pool yet, this reasonably normal lot chooses homeschooling for a variety of reasons. Maybe they've been zoned for a bad school district and are unable to afford private tuition; or the parents are geniuses better qualified than public school teachers; or maybe the kids are professional models, actors, or Olympians with erratic schedules. The normal types dress in whatever Gap says is in vogue. More often than not, they're high scorers on their SATs. Commonly sighted at:
Normal places
(like the dentist's—
NOT their parents' basement)
It irked me that this fourth category got lumped in with all the others. Brand yourself a homeschooler and you'd branded yourself a sheltered, narrow-minded prude for life. That's why I was loath to ever let on my true H-word identity. Not that it mattered there, in Dr. Kopeck's Lasting Smiles office. I didn't care that the stained-teeth receptionist was judging me.
But maybe I did.
A little.
Bad-Teeth Receptionist had asked me a question about my level of social interaction, and so far I wasn't making a great impression. I'd already exceeded the socially acceptable span of time between the asking of a question and the answering.
I had nothing to lose.
I leaned across the desk and looked slowly to my left, then slowly to my right.
"I miss people so much," I said. Then I shifted in closer and whispered the words "Help me."
I bugged my eyes meaningfully at the receptionist. In response, she emitted a low, warbling sound.
As she warbled, I trotted from the waiting room out to Mom's idling sedan.
I took shotgun. My cousin Joel was sprawled in the backseat, holding an ice pack to his jaw. His gangly legs were propped against the window in an odd, bendy way that looked like a yoga move gone wrong.
"You'll probably want to hoof it out of here," I told Mom. "That lady might be calling CPS on you."
"Oh God," groaned Mom, though she was smiling. "What did you do?"
"I told her I stay locked in my bedroom and I'm only fed one packet of Top Ramen per day."
"Huh," said Joel. "Sounds like college."
"Funny," I said, "I don't remember you going to college."
"Inconsequential." Joel tipped his chin proudly. "You wear shirts with the Eiffel Tower and shit on them, and you've never been to Paris."
"Language, Joel," Mom said, though it was more of an observation than a reprimand.
She pulled the sedan out of the parking lot.
"So," I concluded, "we may want to change dentists."
"I can't take you anywhere."
"Yeah, I know. That's the problem, remember? I don't get out. You lock me in my bedroom."
Joel moaned. He mushed his ice pack closer to his jaw.
"You are an infant," I informed him.
"It hurts," Joel whined, hovering in falsetto territory. "Oh sweet Lord, the pain. You wouldn't know. You've never had a root canal."
"Maybe because I clean my teeth with something other than Dentyne Ice."
"Cut it out, both of you."
Mom cranked up soft rock radio, effectively drowning out our bickering with the wails of Enrique Iglesias.
I propped my sneakers on the dash and watched cars crawl past as we joined the swarm of morning rush hour traffic on southbound I-35. I was in no particular rush to get back home. I had a trig test that morning. Mom would plunk down twenty questions on the breakfast room table, and the only thing I'd be able to sort out was where to write my name.
And yes, I realized that writing my name at the top of my tests was unnecessary, but it's the little things that make you feel like a normal sixteen-year-old.
I couldn't sweet-talk Mom into delaying the trig test. I'd already postponed my American Government quiz the previous week, and Joel had been in top academic form lately, so I couldn't deflect by pointing to him, the once perpetual scapegoat.
There had been a time when I could one-up Joel in every subject, bar none. My scores were always higher, my goal chart always fuller. Once, Joel was the very picture of Back-the-Hell-Off-Couldn't-Care-Less-Adolescent. And as long as Joel was in worse academic shape than I was, I could stay out of the heat. Then, in his junior year, Joel got serious about getting into UT-Austin, which resulted in a pretty impressive SAT score and a lot of backslaps from formerly concerned family members. I was happy for Joel and all, but his success meant my failures were more noticeable. I was going to bomb that trig test, and I was going to have to endure Mom's unadulterated wrath.
My phone lit up just as we were pulling into the carport. The screen flashed a selfie of me and my friend, Valerie Borkowski. Our cheeks were squished together, Valerie's lips forming the traditional fishy pout.
"This is important," I told Mom. "About tonight."
Mom waved her acquiescence, cut the engine, and got out of the car. I answered the phone.
"Are you alone?"
Valerie's voice was taut and papery—the voice of someone about to have a good cry.
I glanced back at Joel. He'd fallen asleep, legs still crossed in an awkward gangle, ice pack drooping off his cheek.
"Good as," I said. "What's wrong?"
There was a whimper. Then a wheeze. Then a full-out sob. I yanked the phone away from my ear and jabbed frantically at the volume, lowering it to a more palatable decibel.
I cradled the phone back against my ear as I opened the car door. Valerie was sobbing, and there was only one good reason I could think of for that sobbing, and that reason was passed out in the backseat.
It seemed like a betrayal to Valerie and Joel to stay where I was, in the presence of them both, whether that presence be auditory or physical. I hopped out of the car and gave the door a firm slam, hoping it would wake Joel up. I wanted him to suffer, at least a little. I'd warned him about dating one of my friends.
But I'd warned Val, too.
"Val, are you still there?"
I knew Val was still there, because she was choking out indiscernible, snot-coated words. I had to say something, and "calm down" or "what's wrong?" weren't available options. A few months back, Val and I had made a pact to not diminish each other's emotional validity by telling each other to calm down, which is harder than it sounds. And of course, there was no point in asking Val what was wrong, because I knew perfectly well what was wrong: Joel was a serial dater.
It took another excruciating half minute, but Valerie finally hitched in enough breath to form understandable speech.
"I thought it would be different with me. You know? I thought he was through being an asshole."
"Yeah," I said.
" 'Yeah'? What does 'yeah' mean? Is that your way of saying 'I told you so'?"
"No, Val. It's my way of saying 'yeah.' "
"I can't give you a ride tonight. The chance of seeing him at the house is too mortifying."
I was reminded, suddenly and vividly, of Mom's favorite soap opera, the one she watched when Joel and I were doing afternoon homework. Val sounded exactly like one of those insipid nurses with breast implants, an evil doppelgänger, and a hankering for a married doctor.
"Don't be melodramatic," I warned.
"Excuse me? Don't be melodramatic? That's as good as telling me to 'calm down'!"
I swore low, away from the receiver.
At least, I thought it was away from the receiver.
"Are you cussing me out now? It's not my fault you're related to a total douchebag!"
"Look," I said, "I'm really sorry about what happened. But you're my only ride to the rally. Mom and Dad are going to a concert, and I'm not about to ask Hilary Mayhu—"
"Just ask Sanger."
"Why not? She does anything you say."
"She hates politics. Anyway, she already drove me to the mall on Wednesday, and I don't want to abuse car privileges. I promised her I wouldn't be that friend."
"Well, I'm sooo glad that your friendship with Sanger means more than your friendship with me."
There was nothing to say to that, really. My friendship with Sanger did mean more to me. Sanger was my best friend. I'd known her for way longer than Val. Also, Sanger had yet to chew me out over the phone.
By now, I'd reached Dad's rock garden out back. I walked across the low bamboo bridge, my gaze flitting between pristinely raked pebbles and the morning shade cast by a long row of dragon trees.
I decided on a different method of persuasion.
"I won't let Joel anywhere near the door or windows," I said. "It's not like he's going to want to see you, either. If we're going to stay friends, you have to get over the fact that you might bump into him."
"But it's too fresh. Somehow he'll still know I'm outside your house, and I don't want him to think I'm a desperate psycho stalker ex."
"Uh. If Joel even thinks of you, I'm sure it'll just be like, 'Wow! How nice. She's picking up her friend for a nonprofit event.' "
"You can be so cruel."
"You're just like him."
Again, I thought of the big-breasted blonde on Mom's soap. What was her name? Esmeralda? Anastasia?
. . . Val?
"You're my only ride to the capitol," I said, "and I'd really appreciate it if you did the mature thing and—"
"The mature thing. The MATURE thing? THE MATURE—Why don't you talk to Joel about the MATURE THING to—"
I dropped the phone from my ear, and not just because Val was screeching at an unbearable volume, but because I saw it, across the fence, between the trunks of two dragon trees.
There was a blood-smeared body in our neighbor's backyard.
Product Details
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (June 7, 2016)
- Length: 384 pages
- Grades: 9 and up
- Ages: 14 - 99
- Lexile ® HL710L The Lexile reading levels have been certified by the Lexile developer, MetaMetrics®
Browse Related Books
Raves and Reviews
"LUCKY FEW swings between a wholly immersive search for a hand to hold in the midst of fear and loss, and navigating the vulnerable joy of true friendship and first love – a totally unique, beautifully crafted story at once hilarious and heartbreaking, exhilarating as the waters of Barton Springs. This book absolutely sings, without forsaking the honesty of loneliness and self-doubt – and the bravery it takes to become who we truly are."
– Jennifer Longo, author of Six Feet Over It and Up to this Pointe
"Stevie Hart puts the cool in homeschool. Whip-smart dialogue, top-notch writing, and truly unique characters make for the perfect reading combination: quick pacing and heartaching. This book is alive in so many ways."
– David Arnold, bestselling author of Mosquitoland
"A beautifully written story of loss and acceptance, of humor and tragedy, of finding yourself by losing yourself."
– Marci Lyn Curtis, author of The One Thing
*"Ormsbee writes with an occasionally tongue-in-cheek tone that manages to be authentically emotional while delivering a realistic picture of a population that rarely gets much scrutiny in fiction for young adults: home-schoolers. The smart, efficient language features dialogue that pops. A sweet story told with intelligence, humor, and just the right amount of kissing."
– Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
*"Winsome characters, crackling dialogue, and an effortlessly enjoyable writing style help this one stand out in the crowded contemporary YA marketplace."
– Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
"This second novel from Ormsbee shines in its offbeat humor."
– Publishers Weekly
"This quirky novel brings humor, relatable characters, and an inside look into the world of homeschoolers. . . . A fun, character-driven novel likely to find readers among fans of realistic fiction."
– School Library Journal
Awards and Honors
- Spirit of Texas Reading Program
Resources and Downloads
High Resolution Images
- Book Cover Image (jpg): Lucky Few Hardcover 9781481455282
- Author Photo (jpg): Kathryn Ormsbee Photograph by Kathryn Ormsbee(0.1 MB)
Any use of an author photo must include its respective photo credit
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World's Largest English Language News Service with Over 500 Articles Updated Daily
"The News You Need Today…For The World You'll Live In Tomorrow."
What You Aren't Being Told About The World You Live In
How The "Conspiracy Theory" Label Was Conceived To Derail The Truth Movement
How Covert American Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations
November 1, 2015
Islamic State Shootdown Of Russian Plane "Will Be Avenged" Vows
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
The Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) is reporting today that the catastrophic destruction of Kolavia Flight 9268 that had departed from Egypt's Sharm El-Sheikh in route to Saint Petersburg yesterday was due to its being struck by a portable surface-to-air missile device fired by Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) terrorists, and which these "barbarians" posted video of and took responsibility for in their social media postings.
According to this report, Flight 9268, an Airbus A321, vanished from radars at 4:14am GMT yesterday while overflying the northeastern region of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and had not issued any emergency transmissions (SOS) prior to it catastrophic destruction that caused the deaths of 244 passengers and crew and resulted in a massive debris field of 16 square kilometers (6 square miles).
At the exact same time Flight 9268 was destroyed, this report continues, Aerospace Forces high command issued an "urgent/immediate" report that the highly secretive Olymp (Olympus) satellite operating over this region had detected the launching of a "range-enhanced" British man-portable surface-to-air missile designated as a Starburst.
Important to note, this report explains, are that all known missiles, such as the Starburst, have a unique "signature" upon their firing that is programmed into the Olymp satellite so that the detection of these weapons can be instantly made and defended against.
However, this report further says, the detection "devices" providing protection against the launching of these types of missiles is only present in Federation warplanes, and not civilian aircraft like Flight 9286, thus it had no ability to either evade or defend itself against this type of attack. [Note: British pilots were warned not to fly low over Egypt three months ago.]
As to how Islamic State terrorists obtained such a lethal weapon of war such as this Starburst, this report continues, is due to British company Thales Air Defence providing these missiles to Saudi Arabia under a contract signed in 2007, and who openly operates in this kingdom too, and their shipment of them to Kuwait military forces.
With wealthy donors in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia supporting the Islamic State, this report continues, Federation military forces have long prepared for both British and American weapons, such as the Starburst missile, given to these nations to find their way into these terrorists possession, but did not envision their use against civilian aircraft as the retaliation against them for doing so would be "staggering".
But with Aerospace Forces now obliterating these Islamic State terrorists in Syria, this report notes, their US-Saudi-Kuwait "founders and sponsors" have begun to panic to such as a degree that the Obama regime has now ordered US military forces into this war zone as "human shields" to protect ISIS, and the deliberate targeting of innocent civilian aircraft has become acceptable to them too.
To the measure of retaliation the Federation will use for this deliberate war crime, this report concludes, has yet to be decided—but with Prime Minister Medvedev stating earlier today that this attack "will be avenged" after his appointment by President Putin to head the commission examining this crisis, it remains a known fact that Russia has never taken lightly the killing of innocent children, mothers, daughters and grandmothers, and which the Chechens can well attest to.
November 1, 2015 © EU and US all rights reserved. Permission to use this report in its entirety is granted under the condition it is linked back to its original source at WhatDoesItMean.Com. Freebase content licensed under CC-BY and GFDL.
[Ed. Note: Western governments and their intelligence services actively campaign against the information found in these reports so as not to alarm their citizens about the many catastrophic Earth changes and events to come, a stance that the Sisters of Sorcha Faal strongly disagrees with in believing that it is every human beings right to know the truth. Due to our missions conflicts with that of those governments, the responses of their 'agents' against us has been a longstanding misinformation/misdirection campaign designed to discredit and which is addressed in the report "Who Is Sorcha Faal?".]
Obama's Complete Terror Of China Revealed
They Are Going To Come For You…Why Are You Helping Them?


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This is a page about Betamax and some technical information
I own a number of Betamax VCRs, my favourite is my Sony SL-HF950
My others are a Sanyo VTC-M40, Sony SL-F1UB portable, and a Sony SL-HF100P.
I did own a Sanyo VTC6500 but sold it as it took up too much room and I have all 3 HiFi decks
Some good links Betamax PAL Site How I got a 950 LANC Protocol - Interesting - found it ages ago - applies to 950 Colins Beta Page
|The Sony SLHF 950 must be the video recorder most worthy of being converted to NICAM.
|Parts required:
|AVTS NICAM decoder
|AVTS Parallel IF board
|Box for decoder
|Power supply if not using 950 power +12v
|2ft ribbon cable 4 wires
|Thin coaxial cable
|Phone Plugs & Sockets
|Minimum of 4 each Maximum of 14 each
|0.1" Plugs
|Use to replace interboard lead
|The Parallel IF board is necessary because the 950 SAWF will not pass the NICAM sub carrier - this took me nearly a year to sort out.
|Now dismantle your 950 - a workshop manual is very useful! The top comes off first, then carefully unscrew the back panel and remove, now drill 4 holes in it to fit the phono sockets as per picture, if you are using 950 power you will need lines for +12v +5v and 0v (earth), a stereo sensor line is also required. These 4 lines can use a DIN or other small socket (even wires put through grills! - I did this for stereo).
|Now refit the back (with sockets fitted) and remove the bottom of the 950, unscrew and hinge out of the way the bottom circuit board - it's easier than it seems as the 950 is a very well built video recorder. The easiest way to do the next job is balancing the 950 on either the front or the side at the cassette end, make sure it is on a padded surface. The two boards we need to access are the top board TA37 and the third board AF14. Make up the interboard cable as shown and fit it plugging into connector CN002 on TA37 and connector CN012 on AF14. Reassemble the bottom of the 950 but leave the lid off.
|Join the two coaxial cables coming from TA37 together and solder to the FM out socket. Connect the cables from AF14 via the small circuit to the Stereo In sockets.
|Unscrew and hinge up the TA37 board and connect the IF out socket to the circuit board where shown. Cut the tracks joining IC009 pins 23 & 24 to a resistor and solder a cable from the pins to the stereo sensor socket. This is all the audio circuit modifications required by the video.
|Power supply, external. A small 12v transformer is required, just fit in the box with the decoder and parallel IF board and connect up. This is what I did as I was given a transformer and started the conversion before I got the 950 manual.
|Internal, connect to psu board ect. I may convert mine to this system in the future.
|Decoder box. Fitting sockets to the box is both safer and tidier than connecting the 950 to decoder cables direct to the board. Connect the stereo out lead to the stereo sockets, the FM cable to the FM in socket and the IF in cable from the board to the parallel IF board as shown, connect the IF in socket to the parallel board also. Connect up the three power leads, +12v & +8v on the main board, +12v on the parallel board, the 2 earths, connect the sensor cable to the second hole down as shown.
|Now connect to the 950 and switch on. If the board LED (if fitted) or the 950 stereo indicator light up congratulations, otherwise it is likely that the variable inductor on the parallel IF board needs adjusting. As the new boards 'burn in' it is likely that the inductor will need readjusting.
|Now switch the TV to line or connect the 950 to the hifi and enjoy the stereo!
|This conversion is easier than it seems and is capable by any one with a little electrical experience. It took me hours of following signal paths inside the deck to work out where to get the FM from, where to put the stereo back in, and worst of the lot how to operate the 950 stereo indicator.
|If any problems are encountered the 950 can be operated with the board disconnected by connecting a phono plug to two phono plug lead between FM out and stereo in.


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GNOC holds General Assembly
Aug 8, 2011, 2:50 PM
Tomorrow is Inauguration Day for Barack Obama - Reflections
One would never have thought of a day like this.Tomorrow
In God we trust.And
when events unfold so very swiftly and peacefully one shouldn't easily doubt
therein the invisible and sure hand of God.Consider the formidable East/West Berlin Wall - how swiftly and
peacefully it was finally resolved.Swift and smooth endings also characterized the release of
As we witness tomorrow's inauguration the following events could make important points of reflection.
Barack Obama has made history by becoming the first
African-American to be elected president of the
Black people first came to
In 1887 Booker T Washington had made this forecast : "No project seeking material, civil, or moral welfare ... can ignore this part (blacks) of our population and reach the highest success."
Thurgood Marshall became first black Justice of the Supreme Court in 1967.Captain Sam Gravely became first black Rear Admiral in the US Navy in 1971.More recently General Colin Powell and Dr Condoleeza Rice have become first African-Americans to assume the highest offices in the US Military and the Executive as Head of Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State respectively.
In 1961, Barack Obama is born in
In 2008 he contested and won the presidential elections to
20th January is the
date stipulated for commencement of terms in the US Constitution, which states:
'The terms of the President and Vice-President shall end at on the 20th day of January, and the
terms of their successors shall then begin."So at on
Tuesday the world will expect to hear those solemn words of oath or
affirmation: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute
the office of President of the


text:
The All Nippon Amusement Machine Operators (AOU) Expo 2007 took a phenomenal slice of the Chiba's Makuhari Messe facility. AOU represents an operator's show, in contrast to JAMMA that is a manufacturers' show – both association events experiencing their own changes. The big players on the show floor:
Konami Digital Entertainment
The KDE booth represented an advanced amusement operation by the premiere amusement factory – though not the largest, the company showed a diverse selection of amusement product, and strong titles that enthralled many who ventured into the lair.
'Silent Hill: The Arcade' – The big surprise for AOU on the KDE booth was the appearance of another console / amusement crossover with the Silent Hill franchise. The game offered a two-player blasting feat in a modified Lethal Enforcer 4 cabinet, now with an enclosure shroud for the players to feel the full benefit of the audio roof speakers and full screen effects. The game uses the same LE gun layout, but with the addition of e-AMUSEMENT PASS….. [read on at Highway Games]
Thanks Kevin Williams @ The Stinger Report