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Posted by Cassondra Murray Nov 19 2012, 10:57 am
Y'all know, by now, that I am a country girl.
Okay, yes, I am a coffin-sleeping, full-moon-worshiping, black-wardrobe-wearing, goth-Bandita country girl. But still, y'all know that I love the country.
When Steve and I got married, we moved to the country as soon as we could. But I find myself a little spoiled by the present day, when even out here in the country, I'm not too far from what I want or need. I usually end up going to town once a day to pick up something.
When I was a little girl, that was not so. We lived on a farm, and my mom shopped at the Houchens grocery story in "town."
"Town" was eight miles to the north. Eight miles was a significant drive back then. Even though my mom worked at a factory on the edge of that same town, she drove to work, and she drove home after work. No stops at a store on the weekdays. It just wasn't done.
"Town" was a special trip.
We made the drive to town once a week, on Saturday, to wash clothes at the Wishy Washy, and to shop for groceries at Houchens. Sometimes we'd stop on the square at the Ben Franklin, and just every now and then, we'd go to the diner for a burger. But that was a rare treat. The only other reason we went to town, was church on Sunday, or prayer meetin' on Wednesday night.
Things have changed.
These days, the farmers around here drive into town every day for one thing or another, even just for breakfast or coffee. Families have more than one car. If someone decides she wants to fix spaghetti that night, and she's out of pasta, she drives the ten or fifteen miles to the store and back, and doesn't think twice about it. That's what I do, but when I was a little girl, that would NOT have happened. If you forgot something, you usually did without it for a few days, until the next trip to town.
So although I live further out now than I did then, the miles that separate me and the "town" seem far shorter now than they did when I was growing up.
When you live in Southern Kentucky, small towns punctuate the rural landscape the way ground black pepper spots good homemade mashed potatoes.
Just enough for what you need.
I'm happy to live in the country between two towns. One, to the north, is a big town. It has a university, two WalMarts, three Kroger locations (that's the big grocery chain around here) and a mall. It also has a few liquor stores, which also sell wine, for which I am MOST grateful.
The other, to the south, is a small town. More like the one where I grew up. It has a town square. But it also has a WalMart, and just recently, a Lowe's. It's a dry county. No stores that sell alcohol.
But still, it has my favorite grocery store ever.
It has a Piggly Wiggly.
It's small. The produce section is about the size of my kitchen table. It never has, and never will, stock fresh cilantro, fresh Italian flat-leaf parsley, exotic mushrooms, or a spice like saffron, that costs a stupid amount of money per ounce. Because they don't have room, and the people who shop there, generally, don't buy that stuff. If they need that stuff, they shop at the WalMart, which has a huge (though not high quality) produce section, or if they want a higher quality ingredient, they drive to the big town 20 miles north, to shop at the Kroger.
I love Piggly Wiggly because it is everything a small town grocery should be.
It has all the stuff you absolutely need, and almost none of the stuff to fix a recipe from Food & Wine magazine. And for some reason I can't entirely explain, I'm glad about that.
I subscribe to Food & Wine, for the record. But I know that if hard times came around again, I'd go back to my raisin', and I'd eat just fine without those hoity toity ingredients. When I fix a Food & Wine recipe, the only thing I expect to get at the Piggly Wiggly, is the meat.
Because here on the upper edge of the buckle of the Bible Belt, nobody cuts meat nowadays. I asked, last summer, for the Kroger meat department to grind some sirloin for a new meatloaf recipe I wanted to make. They laughed at me.
"If corporate caught us grinding meat here, my ass would be grass," the meat man said. I looked through the window behind him. There was an industrial-size meat grinder bolted to the stainless steel table back there.
"What's that for?" I asked. He looked behind him, then back at me. "We don't grind no meat here," he said, and walked away.
At that point, I realized that as far as Kroger was concerned, I could eat what they packaged, or I could starve. And they didn't care which option I chose.
At the small town Piggly Wiggly, they have a real, honest-to-goodness meat man. Okay, it might be a meat woman, but although I am a feminist at heart, "meat woman" just doesn't have the same ring, does it? Ahem…
The meat man understands meat. He's worked as a butcher of some sort for years. He knows the cuts. He knows their challenges. He can discuss my recipes and what I'm after, and can make suggestions on how to cook the different cuts if I have trouble. And if I want a two-inch steak, if he has the sirloin in the back, he'll mess up his clean equipment to cut the steaks I want for the company I've invited that night. I am impressed that he is willing to do this for me.
At the Piggly Wiggly, young high school boys sack the groceries for me just as they did for my mom when I was a little girl. And they carry these groceries out to my car for me. I don't know any grocery store anywhere that still does that. Those days are gone, same as having somebody around to pump your gas at the gas station. When I was a little girl, and my mom shopped at Houchens, they carried her groceries to her car. Now, only at the Piggly Wiggly.
The aisles are narrow at "The Pig", and the entire store is smaller than the homes of some of my friends. The lights are fluorescent. The computer system at the checkout counter is…well..we'll just call it retro.
But I go back there, week after week.
In part, I return for the people who work there. They say hello to me and I know they actually recognize me. I'm not just the next customer in line. If I'm absent for a few days, they say, "haven't seen you in a while. "
At Kroger, they know I'm there only because there is some computer entry, somewhere, in some corporate office, that says my Kroger Plus Card has been scanned. I can call the Piggly Wiggly, mid-afternoon, and ask them to cut four sirloin steaks, two-inches thick, so I can pick them up later, and they'll do it. I don't have to leave a credit card number. They cut the steaks, leave them in the fridge in the back, with my name on them, and I pick them up when I can get there that evening.
Once, many years ago, Piggly Wiggly was the "big" grocery in that small town. As big-box stores took over, and small-town squares turned into shells of their former communities, not many small grocery chains–or small anything else–survived.
There is a rumbling around here, that Kroger will put a store in that small town to the south. It would be a lot easier to shop there than driving to the big town to the north. But do you suppose they will actually be any different than the Kroger in the big town? The one where "you can eat what we prepackage or you can starve" is the bottom line?
I'm thinkin' not.
I hope, even if the small town does get a Kroger, that the Piggly Wiggly survives.
I'm working on a series that is set partly in a huge city, and partly in small towns like the one where I shop. One of the things I'm using in the story is that contrast. The way a character deals with moving from the city to the small town, and how it changes her.
I love reading series that are set in small towns. It seems like the settings and characters stick with me, long-term, more powerfully than do most big city adventures. I think it's easier to get attached to small town characters because those "character communities" that authors set up seem to fit in small towns more easily, and I love those communities.
I think some of what I get at the Piggly Wiggly is also what I get when I read a series set in a small town. Of all book series, those are the ones that I tend to finish–I get every book–and when the author moves on to another series, I still want more. I think it's a connection to the people and the places in the books.
I was browsing the aisles of the Piggly Wiggly a few weeks ago, and came across a display of those thin children's books like ones they used to sell in the Houchens when I was growing up. In the Houchens, I'd spend the whole time my mom was shopping, standing beside that circular, spinning rack, checking out those little books.
I was sad to see that Piggly Wiggly's book rack was way up at the top of the magazine rack. Maybe to keep little fingers from tearing up the books when Mom isn't looking. And maybe, because times have changed, it's not safe for mom to leave the little reader alone to do her shopping. Bad people hang out in small towns too, after all.
Outside the Piggly Wiggly, there are boxes full of real estate magazines and the local "swap and trade" weekly. Beside those are some drink machines, a kiosk where you can trade your empty propane tank for a full one, and off to the side, there's Thunder.
Thunder is a plastic horse, and if you pay your money, he'll take you on the ride of your life. He's a little faded from years of sitting there, waiting for the next rider, but even in 2012, you can still get a ride for a quarter.
Okay, confession time.
I didn't know that this is Thanksgiving week.
I thought it was next week. I think of Thanksgiving as the 25th or 26th of November, usually. Which should be, according to my internal clock, NEXT week. Not this week.
I got home from West Virginia on Friday and I started cleaning up the house and yard. Then somebody reminded me, last night,that this Thursday is Thanksgiving. I panicked a little.
And I got in the car and went straight to the Piggly Wiggly. They had three fresh turkeys left.
So tell me Bandits and Buddies…
Do you live in a big town, or a small town?
What grocery stores do you have?
What is your favorite place to shop for groceries? Do they know you at "your" store?
Have the big box stores taken over where you are? Or do you still have small community groceries?
Do you live where there's a butcher and a green grocer? I admit that I turn a little green, myself, with envy, when I think of food sold by a specialist, and the wider choices that might mean.
Or do you live in a place like I do, where you have to depend on whatever they have at the big grocery?
Does your grocery still have a little rack of those thin children's picture books?
Posted in Book series, Cassondra Murray, Cassondra's blogs, Holidays, Small town settings, small towns
42 Comments
I live just a mile from the local IGA grocery store. But 6 miles down the road, there's a Walmart, Sam's Club, 4 Marsh Supermarkets, 3 Krogers, the local co-op has 2 stores and there's several ethnic food shops. Road construction has keep us from stopping by the stand alone butcher shop. My Sav-a-Lot closed. The IGA is my 'Yikes I'm out of 'store.
Maybe you should get a little greenhouse kit and start some herbs… I live in central Indiana and my rosemary comes in for the winter and goes out for the summer… At some point I'll have to give him to my sister who lives in the south.. when he gets too big for me to keep in the house..
Looks like the rooster is heading your way, CateS. Hope he doesn't mess up your rosemary. He gets sort of nervous this week.
Hi CateS,
I have some herbs in the garden, but don't have them growing inside, primarily, because I don't have a lot of light or much space. More and more though, I wish for them, and may do just as you say.
I'd love to have ethnic food shops close by. There are one or two in the big town to the north.
We actually have a Dollar Store up the road now, which I use for my "Yikes I'm Out Of" needs. Love that name, btw.
And congrats on the rooster! Don't let him do your shopping. That never works out.
Cassondra – I live in a 'burb of a big city. We have two Kroger stores, a Giant Eagle, and a Marc's. Marc's is the grocery division of Odd Lots. Everthing is prepackaged and it carries some unusual brands, but it's a lot cheaper than the other stores. We go there for canned goods and emergency buys and to Giant Eagle for produce and meat.
The community has been fighting putting in a Walmart for years, but they lost the battle and a new Walmart is going in near to one of the Krogers. Our community has a small town feel and I'm not sure what the impact Walmart will have. Our Kroger will carry out grociers and both Kroger and Giant Eagle will cut meat to your specifications – but I fear all this will be changing (sigh)
Donna, I didn't know Kroger still carried out groceries anywhere. They long ago stopped that here. Even the Houchens stores, now, don't carry out groceries. I suppose if you needed help, they'd do it. In fact I'm sure I've seen that on a sign somewhere. But it's not automatic any more.
I hope the Wally World doesn't change the feel of your town. It's hard for smaller stores to compete.
Hi, Cassondra–As you know, I grew up in a small town. I used to walk to the grocery store (Johnston's, I believe it was) with my grandfather. It was on Main Street, less than a mile from my house and only a few blocks from his.
There was a Harris Teeter in the next town over (the two towns literally flowed into each other), and a larger but also locally owned store opened when I was in high school, but Johnson's stayed around until Mr. Johston retired.
After that, the building became a dress shop, and then a succession of restaurants.
There's nothing like small-town service. The butchers at Piggly Wiggly cut your steaks and hold them because they know you.
Big chain stores have traditionally been the death knells of small town Main Streets. I hope that won't happen where you are.
When we went to the swamp last weekend, we also visited Waycross, Georgia, at the north end of the Okefenokee. It has a booming, very busy bypass full of chain stores and restaurants. The downtown area is beautiful–lots of old buildings with unique architectural details–but was nearly deserted at 3 pm on Saturday afternoon. That's just sad.
Nancy, I've seen a lot of towns try various approaches to keeping their downtown areas alive. It takes ingenuity and thinking outside the box, that's for sure, and a lot of small towns don't make it. The most successful attempts I've seen have focused on the encouragement of boutique shops and non-chain restaurants. Stuff that you can't get out on "the strip." When a new place opens on the strip, the people desert the downtown area for a few days, but then they come back, bored with the "sameness" of those cookie cutter places. The big town to the north is doing a fairly good job of keeping its downtown going. Not great, but good. The small town with the Piggly Wiggly? Not so much. I also hate to see it go, but I get frustrated with the way of thinking that doesn't encourage those areas to stay competitive by doing something different.
I hope the Piggly Wiggly doesn't go.
One thing that saved Davidson's downtown, I think, is having the college campus directly across Main Street. Also, there was no real place to put a bypass "strip." The interstate runs across part of a big lake, and the two adjacent towns already had development along the highway.
You know, Waycross had some cute shops I wouldn't have minded checking out, but they were closed. Folkston, which is closer to the swamp entrance we used, is smaller than Waycross but had more activity around its downtown.
Lovely post I really am looking forward to reading one of your books. We live in a fairly average city with lots of shopping centres and supermarkets we have Woolworths, Frankilins, Coles, IGA and Aldi. I do most of my shopping at Aldi and Woolworths but I always buy my meat from the butchers and my fruit and vegies from the fruit market I will pick meat and vegies up at the supermarkets as well sometimes but I prefer to get those things from the specialty shops. And yes at most of the supermatkets they do have shelves with the books on them
Have Fun
Helen, I adore Aldi! I am a huge fan of their extra dark chocolate bars. Here they have the lowest prices around on most everything, and I am all about that! 🙂
Posh, the prices at our Aldi are low too, but the store isn't inviting. In spite of the prices, I always make it my last choice because I just don't like to go there. I wish we had a better one.
Helen, we have an Aldi in the big town to the north, but I don't much like to go there. I think it must be a poor excuse for Aldi, as I've heard other people say they love theirs. We used to have Food Lion, but they had some bad publicity and that was the end of them.
Helen, I'm really looking forward to reading one of Cassondra's books, too. 🙂
I envy you your specialty shops. We don't have those, so much. We have wine shops and a couple of fancy groceries, but no butchers or cheese shops or such.
Cassondra, what a lovely piece! I love your take on life! Actually you brought back so many memories for me. I grew up in a tiny little farming hamlet about 25 miles from the state's capital city. These days, people live in Redland Bay and commute every day but back then, it was a major journey to get to the city (narrow roads, for a start). We only went for special stuff – family get-togethers or if I was lucky, Mum would take me to the ballet, the highlight of my year. There were a couple of what now would be called convenience stores in fairly easy reach but for a proper grocery store, we had to go to Cleveland eight miles away. And that was a hike! So much so that when I wanted to learn ballet, my parents felt it was too far to take me once a week. As you say, if you didn't have something in the cupboard, you went without until the next BIG grocery shop.
Anna, so interesting that your childhood experience was so much like mine in that way.
I think there are parts of the country where it still is the case–if you forget something, you do without, because it's fifty miles to the grocery. Now we just hop into the car and zip to town without a thought. Gas prices have made me think twice a few times this past year, but nevertheless, if I want to go, I just do it. *heavy sigh* Spoiled I am, I suppose.
Casssondra, I think life is so different now – and honestly, it's not like either of us is 100! Sadly, my little farming hamlet is now basically a dormitory suburb pretty much covered in houses. It's right by Moreton Bay and very picturesque and halfway between Brisbane and the Gold Coast so now that the roads are better and people travel more, it was the ideal place for development. So funny to look back and think how isolated in many ways we were!
Cassondra, I live in a big suburb of the big city. Even here, though, I have a tiny little taste of that small-town grocery store in my local Food Lion. At Food Lion (which used to be a chain called Food Town prior to the mid-80s), the butcher will still cut up a whole sirloin shoulder any way you want: a roast, some ground, some tips, whatever. They will still ask if you need help out to your car (and provide a usually non-surly teenager to do just that).
At least, that's how the Food Lion was up on the corner from my house. But last year, they closed that store and opened a new one. It is probably only a tenth of a mile farther from the house, but it's to the south and we head north for everything we need. For that reason, I haven't been to the new Food Lion. Now that they have that fancy new store, who knows if they even cut meat anymore? Lots is lost to "progress".
I have to laugh about Piggly Wiggly. They still populate any number of small towns in NC and SC, but there hasn't been one near us EVER. There is one, though, on Hilton Head Island. A fancy-ish one, too, for a Piggly Wiggly. Except…if you look at pictures in which I'm tagged on Facebook, you'll see a picture taken by my best friend from high school this summer at the Pig. Her husband, my husband and I are pointing in awe to a sign hanging over aisle 10. The top item listed on the aisle sign? Butt Wipes. Not sanitary wipes or cleansing cloths or baby wipes. Nope. At the Pig, these are Butt Wipes.
I love Piggly Wiggly for keeping it real, even on Hilton Head Island! 🙂
Okay I spewed coffee on the monitor. Butt wipes? OMG!!!
Until I left home and went into the music business in Nashville, I had never heard of Piggly Wiggly. We used to joke about the name. There is not one in the big town to the north. Only in the smaller town. When I moved to this house, we started shopping in the smaller town sometimes, because it was so much easier to get in and out of town. Far less traffic to deal with. And that's where I found the Piggly Wiggly and fell for its down-home ways.
We have Food Lion around here too–but the one in the small town to the south went out of business. They had some folks get sick because of improper sanitation in…yes, you guessed it…the meat department. They lasted less than six months after that. The building still sits empty. I was sorry about that, and believe I would probably shop at Food Lion if it were still around.
I like Kroger okay, but it's amazing how widely they vary. Even the three in the big town have differences. One is MUCH higher-end than the other two. But when I travel, for instance down to Peachtree City in Georgia, and visit THEIR Kroger, I think my high-end Kroger is actually really lame.
Not sure what it says about our area that nobody has put in a high-end grocery here. What are we, chopped liver? *sigh*
Woops. I posted my response to Cate down here. I'm editing and putting it up where it belongs.
The crazy day is not getting any less crazy, it seems. One thing after another.
I live in the city and we have a few chains like Pathmark, Associated and Key Food. There are also plenty of Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. When I visit my cousin in Detroit we go to Krogers and Meijer. They used to have Farmer Jack, too, but they closed down. For meat and veggies, we usually go to Chinatown. The produce is much fresher there.
Jane, we have a Trader Joe's now. They send out their ad circular, and it looks great, but parking is in a deck and totally insane, so I don't ever go there. A friend says it's okay if you go right when they open, but that's early for me. And I simply hate cruising a busy parking deck looking for a spot.
Jane, when I've been in the City, I've never seen any sizeable grocery stores at all. Just little bitty places. I've wondered where people in New York and downtown Chicago and other major metropolitan areas shop if it's not at small specialty stores. Our chains are just HUGE stores, with acres, literally, under roof, and the parking lots are even bigger. But we have the space for that. Even with parking decks, I just can't see there being space for that in huge, centralized cities. Some day when I'm up there I want to try out some of those chains I've never seen. That would be interesting.
I live in a small town and we're down to two "chain" grocery stores and one very small locally owned store. In a town this size, someone usually knows me wherever I shop (or knows my kids, my husband, my parents…) It's tough when the choices are so limited but we do try to hit a bigger store in Buffalo every few months *g*
Beth there's definitely good and bad about being in a small town or rural area.
I don't feel deprived, honestly. The fresh ingredients are the things I miss most. And we'll get there, I think, as more people get the income and the cultural experience to demand those foods. A few years ago, the produce sections were even smaller, but we have a HUGE population of immigrants here, and that has done wonderful things for produce. Those sections of the groceries have expanded by double.
Wonderful blog, Cassondra! After many years in the big city where I did most of my shopping at the Navy base, I now live back in a small town. Well, about five miles from town. I live on the lake. We have a large Wal-Mart, Bi-Lo, Ingles and Aldi on the by-pass. In the original downtown area there's a small Hometown grocery where they still cut meat for you but selections of anything outside the meat department are high priced limited. We have a meat processing company that also sells retail and is very competitive on pricing. I buy steaks, roasts and sausage there. The quality is superb and I can call, tell them what I want and it will be ready when I get there. Very customer friendly!
I buy most of my produce summer and fall from the local farmer's market.. The rest of the year, I'm restricted to the grocery stores.
Publix is building a store in the university town nine miles from our town. I love Publix! I'll probably be visiting it every time I go to the university student center to stock up on blue cheese.
Oh, I LOVE Publix too! I wish we would get a Publix up here. Even more than that, I wish we would get a Fresh Market, but I don't see it happening. It'll be another decade before Bowling Green would support a store like that. *heavy sigh*
Hi Cassondra,
1. We live in the 4th largest city in the coun-
try – Houston.
2. We have Wal Mart, Kroger, Randall, HEB,
Food Fair/Gerland, & Target has added food
departments. We also have Whole Foods,
Rice Epicurean, & a brand new Trader Joe's,
which are all an upgrade on the regular
stores. Whole Foods is the only one of the
three that I've shopped at.
3. Kroger and Wal Mart are my favorites,
mainly because they are close by and no,
they do not know me. My face maybe, we
are in WM once or twice a week.
4. Box stores everywhere!
5. Green grocer – don't know of one. Butcher
shops scattered over the city.
6. Back in the day, our family home was in
what we called the "country." Actually it
was 12 blocks outside the city limits. When
I was 9/10 y/o we shopped at Weingarten's,
which became my favorite place to shop,
even after we married. Alas, that chain and Safeway are both gone.
7. There are circular racks in most stores, but
they don't always hold books, The last one
I saw held e.l.f. cosmetics!
Pat C.
Pat, Houston is one of the cities I've never visited. Wow. I don't think I realized it was the fourth largest in the country!
And you have a LOT of grocery stores!
Yes, Whole Foods and its ilk are one of the things we lack up here. They have one in Nashville, and I love going there, but I fear it'll be a long while before we get such a high-end store in our smaller town.
I live in the suburbs -always have. Our closest store is a Shop 'n Save. Both my daughters worked there during high school and now my youngest works two jobs and is back. It is probably a medium size store. Not like our Giant Eagles that have a ton of different types of shops included but I'm not much of a driver so I stay closer to home. But our butchers will do anything you ask of them. I can't believe they won't at your Krogers.
It's just wrong that they really aren't butchers at all. They're just "repackagers" for the most part.
The kids coming back home is interesting I bet. Is one of her "new" jobs at the Shop N Save?
I didn't say that very clearly lol. Neither are living at home but she is back from college and yes, the one job is at the grocery store. Her and her boyfriend have an airbrushing/art shop nearby and since they like her at the grocery store, she can get days off for events (they go and airbrush at sports and dance events and even do murals) where a "real" job in her field would be impossible right now. When they both are away I watch the store lol.
Oh, FUN!
Interesting job, also. I'd love to see some of her work someday.
I live in Logan City; which is what is known as a Satellite City. This is a city which is built outside the CBD of a major city for poor people, but it took off and has flourished in its own right. I grew up here and it used to be 'out in the sticks' but now it's not and has an infrastructure of its own.
We have Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, Foodstore, The Big Apple (a fruit market), The Big Gun Marketplace (another fruit market with a massive WWII gun on top of it) and IGA
The Big Apple – as it's only a 10 minute walk down the road from me and they've gotten to know me very well; and the owners are Greeks! Wonderfully kind people!
Coles Logan Central Plaza – the manager knows me as do most of the staff as I'm there every fortnight to buy my groceries. I'm known as the woman with the blue trolley around Logan Central. 😀
Aldi has begun to take over… I don't like them because I can't buy everything I need in the one place.
Well, The Big Apple is a fruit market. And next door is going to be a bake house/bistro owned by the same people… very cool!
Yes. I like going to my Coles as it's a nice small place, it's cheap – because it's in a poor area – and I feel safe shopping there. Also, I can dress any way I like and people don't judge me; even if I go without make-up or don't do my hair some days (as there are people who do worse than I do and wear their pajamas out shopping! And I mean, dressing gown, slippers… the lot!)
Oh! Yes! Little Golden Books? Of course! And every little kid wants them! 😀
YES! Little Golden Books! I'd forgotten the name, but my goodness, my love of stories comes from that, as much as anything else.
Wow, you have a lot of stores near you. The lady with the blue trolley…is that a blue shopping cart? That sounds very festive and a fun way to do your shopping!
I see people out and about in their pajamas all the time now, and I always have to stop myself from staring. Times have changed I guess. I don't go out in my pajamas, but I suppose it could be worse. They could be WITHOUT pajamas…
REALLY don't wanna go there…
Aaah yes.. I loved those books.. so cute!
And as for PJ's? Well, seeing I don't wear any, it's not really a choice for me to go shopping like that. And besides, you gotta sleep in your own bed at night! Just think of all the gross things your PJ's have picked up in that day of walking around in them and you've put all that in your bed sheets and into your mattress! Disgusting!
Hey Cassondra!
My parents' hometown had a Piggly Wiggly and another grocery called White's. I love them both.
We have several big chains in Texas where I live, but I love my Krogers. Hubby would buy all things at Whole Foods, but I draw the line at that. I can get meet cut or ground to choice at Krogers. I can get things I need, and I tend to go late at night or early in the morning, so my check out people recognize me, too.
IF we had a piggly wiggly nearby, I'd probably shop there, too!
I need your Kroger meat people to come and jerk my Kroger meat people into the right attitude.
For real.
Great post Cassondra! And it brought back SO many memories. We lived in Selma, Alabama for five years in the sixties. Piggly WIggly was THE place to shop. And I believe it is still open!
I live on a dirt road eight miles from the local Walmart (where I also work!) However, if I need something on my day off I only go as far the local Winn Dixie to shop. And they still have a meat man there who will carve or grind your meat if you ask.
As this is a small town everyone knows everyone (and their business.) The joke is, if you don't know what you're doing ask someone. They'll tell you! LOL
I much prefer the pace here. In 1993 we had a surprise snowstorm right before Easter. I couldn't get my truck out of my driveway so I rode my horse, Taz, to the grocery store and back. People still see me as the lady who rode the horse to the store in spite of the fact Taz passed away ten years ago.
I really hate that the big box stores have run so many of the smaller more personal stores out of business.
Ah, Louisa, I mourn the loss of Taz. 🙁
But so cool that you rode your horse to the grocery!
And you would know more than most, how the big box stores are making the small business disappear.
But then I say…any business must adapt to the changing environment. Those businesses have not done so, but I hope new businesses will come along and be more flexible and adapt as necessary. Nothing ever stays the same, no matter how we'd like it to do so.
Hey, Cassondra–
I just love your posts. They make me wish I lived in your town so I could shop at the Piggly Wiggly, too.
I'm lucky enough to have a great meat market around the corner from my favorite bagel shop. It's expensive, so I don't splurge tremendously often but whenever I need expertise & advice, they're the guys I turn to. They're also my go-to guys for a Thanksgiving turkey, any time I'm doing red meat, or whenever grilling season kicks off. I just love their stuff. Plus they never laugh at me when I start a sentence with "Okay, so I was a vegetarian for sixteen years…." They just nod sympathetically, like they're glad I got out of there alive & are delighted to have me back.
I love them. 🙂
Oh SUSAN!
I had no idea you'd endured such torture and deprivation.
I also am glad you made it through.
And thank goodness, you have come over to the side of the meat.
Steak and a good Cabernet…that combination can change a life and make a person see God. For real.
I've had a number of experiences with the Divine, and I have to say, the right steak with the right Cabernet…that was one of them.
No, I am not kidding. As shallow as it sounds, I am totally serious.
Amen, Sister!
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farm, horse, georgia, north, usa, american state, United States, ungulate, district, United States of America, U.S., united states, state, north american country, workplace, animal, mammal, America, equine
Horse farm in north Georgia, USA

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The Wren's Nest
Unit 2 Wrens Nest Retail Park, Glossop Brook Road, Glossop, Derbyshire, SK13 8GN
Unit 2 Wrens Nest Retail Park, Glossop Brook Road, Glossop, Derbyshire, SK13 8GN
Come to The Wren's Nest in Glossop for traditional roast dinners and lunches exactly how you like them, any day of the week. Or tuck into our tasty pub-food classics, with unlimited veg and sides.
With every plateful offering cracking value, it's no wonder locals in and around Hyde, Hadfield and Charlesworth can't get enough.
Our restaurant is relaxed and family friendly, and we don't stand on ceremony. There's no need to book; just pop in when you're hungry. We also run a pub quiz every Thursday, and there's plenty of parking.
Breakfast: 8am - 11:30am (Mon-Sun)
Pub: 11am - 11pm (Mon-Sun)
Carvery: 11:30am - 9:30pm (Mon-Sun)
Call us on 01457 890910


text:
The DHL Stormers will be travelling to Singapore to play the Sunwolves in their fourth Vodacom Super Rugby match of the season on Saturday without their Springboks and with several other players sidelined with injury.
The Stormers had to fight back just to draw when they played the Japanese team at the same venue last year so there is no question of them underestimating the Sunwolves as they go out in quest of what would be their fourth win in four starts in their campaign thus far.
However, they do have to rest their Boks at some stage, which is why Eben Etzebeth, Pieter-Steph du Toit and Frans Malherbe weren't considered for selection.
Of course, two more Boks in the form of Damian de Allende and Juan de Jongh are also out injured, as are a host of regular first choice players such as Huw Jones, Jean-Luc du Plessis, Jano Vermaak and Cheslin Kolbe.
Leolin Zas and Scarra Ntubeni were ruled out before the start of the season. Fullback SP Marais and No 8 Nizaam Carr are being rested.
However, captain Siya Kolisi is back to lead the squad in the National Stadium clash after sitting out the last match against the Southern Kings.
And also back is Dan Kriel, which makes for an interesting choice for coach Robbie Fleck when he chooses his midfield.
Kriel played inside centre against the Jaguares but Dan du Plessis, who is also in the travelling squad, was good there against the Kings.
With the two Springbok locks out, young Cobus Wiese has been called up called up for what could potentially be a first Super Rugby appearance, while Jan de Klerk is also part of the group.
JD Schickerling returns from injury to be part of the squad for the first time since the competition kick-off at the end of February.
Schickerling was injured in the final warm-up game against the Lions, with Wiese proving most impressive as a replacement in the second half.
Damian Willemse, last year's SA Schools flyhalf, will get another opportunity to get game time and to gain some invaluable touring experience after his impressive cameo against the Kings as a replacement.
Robert du Preez should continue as the flyhalf in the absence of the injured Du Plessis but Kurt Coleman is there to provide cover, as is Willemse, though the last mentioned is more likely to cover Dillyn Leyds at fullback.
Leyds of course is normally a wing but he has played fullback and with Marais being rested he is the obvious choice to play at the back, particularly with Kolbe on the injured list.
There are 25 players on the plane to Singapore, so two will miss out. With four locks in the group, it would appear one of them could find himself sitting out, though there is also a strong possibility that young Wiese will get to play in a position he is well accustomed to, that being blindside flank.
That would necessitate a switch to openside for skipper Kolisi - if Wiese is starting.
Scrumhalf Godlen Masimla comes into the squad for the first time this season for Justin Philips.
A highly promising youngster, Philips was tried against the Kings and played well, but this selection is about giving both back-up scrumhalves an opportunity in the continued absence of first choice scrumhalf Vermaak.
DHL STORMERS TOURING SQUAD: Bjorn Basson, Kurt Coleman, Jan de Klerk, Dan du Plessis, Robert du Preez, Dewaldt Duvenage, Rynhardt Elstadt, JC Janse van Resnburg, Oli Kebble, Siya Kolisi, Dan Kriel, Dillyn Leyds, Wilco Louw, Godlen Masimla, Bongi Mbonambi, Sikhumbuzo Notshe, Caylib Oosthuizen, Ramone Samuels, JD Schickerling, Seabelo Senatla, Frans van Wyk, Chris van Zyl, EW Viljoen, Cobus Wiese, Damian Willemse.


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Red Tails [2012] [PG-13] -
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Unlike the MPAA we do not assign one inscrutable rating based on age, but 3 objective ratings for SEX/NUDITY, VIOLENCE/GORE and PROFANITY on a scale of 0 to 10, from lowest to highest, depending on quantity and context.
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Inspired by true events: While the US air force in WWII was losing bombers in their missions over Europe, some of the best combat escort fighters were kept segregated and away from the action because they were African American. Eventually, the pilots of the Tuskegee training program were called into duty and took their place in history as never losing a single American bomber. With Cuba Gooding, Jr., Terrence Howard, Nate Parker, Kevin Phillips, Daniela Ruah, David Oyelowo, Method Man, Elijah Kelley, Andre Royo, Tristan Palmer, Marcus T. Paulk, Ne-Yo and Gerald McRaney. Directed by Anthony Hemingway. [2:05]
SEX/NUDITY 2 - A man and a woman share a brief kiss and hugs in several scenes.
► A woman wears a white slip that reveals bare shoulders and legs and stands at a window with her fianc�, who is shirtless; the implication is that they have had sex. Men on an air base play basketball and two of them are shirtless (their bare backs and chests are seen).
► A man proposes marriage to a woman and she accepts after thinking it over for a few days. Several pilots joke about not being able to find a girlfriend. A pilot says that he has found a girlfriend and is in love. Pilots tease another pilot and say that they hear he buys lingerie for his girlfriend and the scene ends in laughter. While flying, a pilot tells another pilot over the radio that he's tired, but the girl last night was worth it.
VIOLENCE/GORE 5 - Throughout the film numerous military fighter plane combat sequences depict close quarter air engagements with machine gun fire, crashing planes, in-air explosions, ground explosions with smoke and flames, and buildings being bombed on the ground; also, a train is bombed and flies apart in smoke and flames and a German battleship at sea explodes twice in smoke and flame while crewmen aboard are seen falling off.
► We see about two dozen German soldiers at an air base, shot and killed by American plane crews; we see men fall dead, with staring eyes and motionless (a little blood is seen on the bodies) and we also see two men catch fire and collapse.
► We see four pilots shot in air combat, with blood oozing and flowing from head wounds, one chest wound and one thigh wound; one pilot loses his eyesight and lands at home base blind, another pilot lands with his plane in flames, a third pilot becomes dizzy, passes out and crashes into a farm field (it is assumed that he is dead) and the fourth pilot says he cannot breathe, coughs up blood in his cockpit, slumps to the side, he is silent and his eyes stare unfocused and his plane crashes to the ground in smoke and flame.
► After a pilot lands with his plane in flames we hear that he suffered 3rd degree burns and we see his peeling face; the scene cuts to him lying in a hospital tent with his face swollen and charred and we hear that he will recover.
► An American officer enters a US Officer's Club in Italy, where he is called a derogatory term for African-Americans, and he is told to leave because it's a "white's only" club; the African-American officer punches one man, a fistfight ensues and the camera cuts to the African-American officer in detention, his commanding officer enters the cell and argues with him about fighting with whites and we later see the detained officer receiving a reprimand and new call to duty.
► An American officer ejects from his damaged plane, lands in German territory and is rushed by four Nazi soldiers; they do not injure him. A POW is seen entering a Nazi prison camp building, an American CO explains to him that a secret mission is underway and we see him helping to draw Nazi fire as men escape from several guards firing rifles and handguns (no one is injured).
► A pilot tells another pilot that he is scared with each mission, and that closing the canopy on his fighter plane is like closing his coffin lid. The commander tells the troops, "Victory is saving a bomber with 10 people on board, not taking out a German plane." We hear that an American officer died in a Nazi prison camp, and later hear that he escaped through the woods at night.
► In air base planning meetings, we see black-and-white replay films of air fights. A scene of 100 Flying Fortresses shows at least a dozen bombs drop from each, but we do not see explosions as the planes turn to fly home.
PROFANITY 4 - 7 scatological terms, 8 anatomical terms, 31 mild obscenities, derogatory terms for African-Americans (crazy, stupid, drunk, bad luck Chuck, Jerries, arrogant, piece of work, punk, fool, knucklehead ), stereotypical references for African-Americans, US military leaders and equipment, whites and Nazis, 3 religious profanities, 6 religious exclamations. [profanity glossary]
SUBSTANCE USE - An air base pilot discusses his drinking problem with his bunkmate, a man drinks alcohol from a tin cup several times, a man drinks alcohol from a flask three times, a man empties a pint bottle of whiskey on to the dirt floor of his tent, and three Officer's Club scenes show men drinking from bottles and glasses of beer and from rocks glasses holding whiskey. An air base officer smokes a pipe throughout the film, an officer smokes a cigar twice, and an officer says he looks forward to cigarettes and wine on his next leave.
DISCUSSION TOPICS - War, weapons, racial discrimination, segregation, interracial dating, other cultures, discipline and determination, integrity, alcoholism, following direction.
MESSAGE - Segregating people according to race is stupid, immoral and a waste of talent. Embrace your passion and mission, despite the naysayers.
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text:
German club Hamburg could be Vincenzo Iaquinta's next destination given that he has no future at Juventus.
Reports from Germany are suggesting that the 2006 World Cup winner is of interest to the Bundesliga outfit.
The 32-year-old is available for transfer this summer as he's not in the plans of boss Antonio Conte and his contract expires in June 2013.
A number of English clubs have also shown an interest, most notably Fulham, in the man who joined Juve in 2007 after seven years with Udinese.
The Italian international didn't play a single minute for the Old Lady in 2011-12 and was sent out on loan to Cesena in January.
Iaquinta has had an injury plagued last 24 months and he only managed one goal in seven games for the Seahorses last term.
See the latest Serie A predictions and betting tips with Eurotips.co.uk


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Some fine-tuning will happen the next several days as the Lyon County Sheriff's Office moves away from its longstanding phone system.
A new phone tree went live Friday. Sheriff Jeff Cope says the new system has already lightened the load on dispatchers.
{wbty_audio audio_id="1397" audio_title="Cope: Dispatchers, jail staffers noticing difference"}
Cope admits there have been some glitches, with the system not allowing callers to get through. He anticipates the system should be largely trouble-free by the end of the week.
The new system lets callers call the main number at 342-5545 and connect to different departments or personnel. It also lets people access jail staff for questions about inmates -- and it lets people link to 9-1-1, although Cope says people should call 9-1-1 instead of the dispatch number in cases of emergencies.


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DLO HomeDock HD Pro for iPod
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DLO HomeDock HD Pro for iPod
High-definition is coming to the award-winning DLO HomeDock PRO with the unveiling of HomeDock HD PRO - the all-new on-TV entertainment dock lets custom installers integrate iPod functionality into home installations, letting customers view, select and enjoy iPod content directly on their HDTV. With HD upscaling technology and industry-standard connectivity, the HomeDock HD PRO is changing the way customers enjoy their home entertainment systems.
Shipping in fall 2008, the HomeDock HD PRO upconverts iPod video to 1080i or 720p through an HDMI connection. With its optical digital audio output users are ensured a completely digital iPod experience. And, with both the industry standard connectivity (RS-232) and I.P., the HomeDock HD PRO makes it simple to give your customers exactly what they've been asking for - a seamless integration of their iPod into their custom home entertainment system with an easy to use graphical interface.
In addition to providing superior audio and video output, the new HomeDock HD PRO also features an HDMI extension, enabling connectivity of HDMI devices at shorter distances. The HomeDock HD PRO also includes IR output to enable integration with universal remote controls. Additionally, the enhanced on-TV interface of the HomeDock HD features album art in an icon-based visual flow format for an exceptional user experience.
The HomeDock HD PRO will be available in fall 2008.
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Originally posted by Laurauk
reply to post by MavRck
My thoughts exactly,I couldnt agree with you more.
I am noticing all media outlets are committing thier resources to Egypt, but are not reporting the protests elsewhere in the Middle east.
Protests in Tunisia,
Protests in Egypt,
Protests in Jordan
Protests in Sudan,
Who is next in line:
Iran adding fuel to the fire:
Americans out Suporting Anti Mobarrac Protestors:
5 Eu Governments Condemming the Voilence in Egypt.
SO Yes and So It Begins...edit on 3-2-2011 by Laurauk because: (no reason given)


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"Bound to be one of the most controversial critiques in the public debate on the UN." —Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State
"An exceptionally valuable and timely book . . . Shocking . . . Gold brings us face to face with the reality that, even with the passing of the Soviet Union, the UN's moral failings have not much diminished." —Commentary
"Most conservatives, of course, realize by now that abolishing, or withdrawing from, the United Nations is never going to happen. Instead, they're seeking to bring it to heel. The strategy is outlined by former Israeli ambassador to the UN Dore Gold in his book Tower of Babble." —Los Angeles Times
"Dore Gold's excellent book Tower of Babble documents the UN's shortcomings." —New York Sun


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What is organization design?
Organization design is the deliberate process of configuring structures, processes, reward systems, and people practices to create an effective organization capable of achieving the business strategy. The organization is not an end in itself; it is simply a vehicle for accomplishing the strategic tasks of the business. A well-designed organization helps everyone in the business do her or his job effectively. A poorly-designed organization (or an organization by default) creates barriers and frustrations for people both inside and outside the organization.
Our philosophy is to analyze the current organization and catalog what is working and what is not working. From the strategy we develop criteria that guide us in developing and choosing between different organization alternatives. The Star Model™ is the framework we use in our analysis and subsequent recommendations. To learn more about the Star Model™ click Star Model™.
We view organization design as a continuous process, not an acute event that happens every decade or so. A healthy and effective organization is one that grows and evolves in response to both external and internal pressures and opportunities. This philosophy can be shown schematically in the diagram below:
The books and papers that we have posted on this website can help you in your quest to get the organization you need. Please see the Resources section of this site for more information. Otherwise, please feel free to CONTACT US with any questions you might have.


text:
Paul Aubin wrote a nice post about his trials and tributes while installing Autodesk BDS 2013. I thought I would follow his thoughts and post about my adventures.
First off I didn't have the issues that Paul had while downloading, I set mine to download went to bed and it was on the Install screen when I woke up in the morning. I cancelled out of this to go check about the folder naming Paul had described in his post and I didn't have this issue. My folder structure was this "BDS_ULT_2013_English_Win_x86x64". So no issue with the long version. Although I do agree that it has both 62 and 32 bit versions here so the folder is large to say the least. The downloaded and extracted .zip file ended up being 66GB on my hard drive.
By default for me when I started the install only Revit, AutoCAD and Navisworks Manage were checked for install. I thought this was a bit unusual since they are pushing the Suites you would think some of the other programs would be checked so users would have an icon on the desktop and try out something new. I also found it odd that AutoCAD Architecture and MEP installed 3 icons for each, Imperial, Metric and English Global. I know I told it to install all of those options but do I seriously need an icon for each.
I did notice that all of the products from the Media side of Autodesk all had updates (service Packs) available for them, including: SketchBook Designer, Showcase, 3DS Max Design. I do like this about the installations of late. I remember back in 2009 when the disks that were delivered were out of date because they had released a service pack for Revit during the shipping.
Infrastructure Modeler shouldn't even have any configurations because all you can do is change a path, which is in the options later. I did install this program although I don't foresee being able to try it out for a while.
I started the deployment and it took me 20 minutes just to go through the configurations and download the service packs for the media software. I then took 2 hours to run the installation, not bad considering everything it was installing. I didn't have any issues with anything failing so for me it went all smooth.
All I can say is sorry Paul my experience wasn't as bad as yours.


text:
PR pros adapt to a bigger, faster, tougher world
The fundamentals of public relations remain the same. It's all about the message.
Forming it. Shaping it. Delivering it. Responding to it. That is still what communications professionals are charged with doing and expected to master. But how they do that job today is radically different from what it was a decade ago because the wireless world has sped up the delivery of news, facts, rumors and opinions.
In order to understand how the changes are affecting communications officials, we convened a roundtable of six experts in New York earlier this month to talk about the issues they face and how they are dealing with them. We asked executives from leagues, media and agencies to join us, and we touched on everything from media fragmentation and crisis communications to managing negative news and building relationships. Here are excerpts from that conversation, with answers edited for clarity and brevity.
Here are the six individuals who met with the SportsBusiness Journal/Daily editorial team in New York City and the communications projects they have managed in the past 12 months.
Mike Soltys
Title: ESPN, Vice President, Communications
In the last year: Launched ESPN Front Row to cover all things ESPN; oversaw ESPN's response to college conference realignment; managed communications after Hank Williams Jr. was fired from "Monday Night Football" and the controversy over the Longhorn Network.
Chris Bellitti
Title: Fox Sports Networks, Vice President, Communications
In the last year: Handled crisis communications when FSN lost Los Angeles Lakers rights to Time Warner Cable; managed FSN communication during Los Angeles Dodgers bankruptcy; led response to Dish Network's decision to drop 19 FSNs.
Bret Werner
Title: Catalyst Public Relations, Managing Partner
In the last year: Expanded the agency's digital division leading to new programs with clients such as Subway and Timex; conducted a fan engagement study, measuring sports enthusiasts' habits with digital media; activated PR programs during the Super Bowl, Daytona 500, NBA All-Star Game and ING New York City Marathon.
David Higdon
Title: NASCAR, Managing Director, Integrated Marketing Communications
In the last year: Built out NASCAR's integrated marketing communications team; released the 2012 NASCAR schedule on Twitter; helped Kentucky Motor Speedway manage communications after traffic crisis.
Scott Miranda
Title: DKC Public Relations, Managing Director, Marketing and Government Affairs
In the last year: Served as agency of record for the U.S. Tennis Association and worked an issue-plagued U.S. Open; worked on business-to-business PR for Yahoo! Sports; managed communications for Citi's non-Olympic sponsorship, which includes Mets, Cubs, Presidents Cup and Women's Professional Soccer.
Brian McCarthy
Title: NFL, Vice President of Communications
In the last year: Dealt with league communications during NFL labor negotiations; managed NFL response to weather-related issues from Dallas during Super Bowl XLV; developed communications for the league's new season launch this year.
demands immediate response
■ You all recently dealt with a crisis PR situation when Hank Williams Jr. made political remarks about President Obama on Fox News. You ultimately let him go. Is there a different scenario, or a different media landscape, where it would have been possible for him to stay on with you?
SOLTYS: From a PR end 20 years ago, when an issue would break locally, we would just hold our breath that the local AP reporter wouldn't notice it. Then it became, would [SportsBusiness Daily] notice it? That has evolved to now where you know everything is going to be noticed. As soon as we saw the Huffington Post thing — even though it wasn't connecting it to ESPN — we knew that we had an issue to deal with.
WERNER: You talk about crisis and how swiftly it moves. Listening tools are essential. Consumer conversations and social networks peak in the evenings and on weekends when a lot of businesses close and go home. It truly makes it a 24/7 news cycle and job right now.
BELLITTI: One of the important things to remember is how social media has the potential to really amplify those issues. As Mike said, the Hank Williams thing went unnoticed until Huffington Post grabbed it and the Twitterverse got a hold of it. I was working with Mike at ESPN seven or eight years ago when Rush Limbaugh made comments about Donovan McNabb. That probably took almost a week for the comments to be amplified and then for ESPN to take action. It's a completely different environment now because of social media.
■ The Super Bowl issue in Dallas stayed in the news for weeks. Is there something you wish you had done differently that might have prevented the story from having such a long life?
McCARTHY: Got the seats done in time [laughing]. Quite frankly. That was a confluence of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that we're still feeling in part because of litigation. If you look back now, it was a time where we did use technology. It did become a sidebar, so we had people working specifically on that issue to react to media, push out our statements. And then we had to come together and do the right thing. And that's ultimately what the commissioner said: This may cost us money, we're going to take a PR hit, but we're going to do the right thing. And that's ultimately what we did.
WERNER: To add to what Brian said, I think the principles of dealing with a crisis still remain intact, and I think if you're an organization and you don't have a great crisis plan in place, you may have a crisis and just not realize it yet, so that's important. The speed of things has obviously sped up, and you do need to be conscious not to fuel an issue, which can be a very delicate balance. What's important at those times is the trusted sources you go to. We do an annual fan engagement study, and television is still the most trusted source with sports fans, so I think when you're going out there and disseminating your message, it's: What medium am I talking to; What outlet in that medium; and What influencer within there all need to be factored in to consideration. The trust of where the information is coming from is essential.
Fragmentation: PR pros
juggle newspapers, blogs, tweets
■ Talk to us in broad terms about media fragmentation and how it's changed your day-to-day jobs.
HIGDON: We're very active on social networks primarily because our fans are. We have rabid fans and we need to proactively keep them involved. Still, there's a place for the longer pieces, the quality stuff, the stuff that has influences way beyond our world into the decision-makers of sponsorship.
BELLITTI: In terms of black and white ink on paper, it may be different, but some news organizations just take their operation online. You're still going to put stories out online and break stories online. It's really delivery that's evolving and not the news organizations.
■ In a recent conversation with PR professionals, they said that things had evolved but The New York Times and others still set the agenda. Is that accurate?
WERNER: There's a huge trickle effect of influential outlets and those influential outlets could be TV, newspapers, online, a consumer or an athlete. There was a long time we just looked at media and then we looked at blogs. Now I look and there are a lot of key influencers who have an incredible trickle effect on additional coverage.
■ Those days are over. When did they end? Was it Twitter? Was it blogs?
McCARTHY: I think it goes back to blogs. The evolution of media has just gotten faster, quicker, more direct.
HIGDON: It all changed when we had to look at who was a journalist and who wasn't. Now really, what's the distinctive line between a traditional journalist and somebody who's expecting news? It's blurred.
When we released our schedule last week on Twitter, we were engaging with the media, but we were engaging with fans at the same time. It was a blurring of that. The question our executives were answering were from standard NASCAR reporters and Eddie in Peoria.
The need for a great crisis plan, Werner says, is one thing that hasn't changed.
■ Certainly you would consider them traditional media.
SOLTYS: I did until a few months ago. What he [Richard Sandomir] immediately puts out, for example with Hank Williams, he put out a First Amendment lawyer questioning Hank's take on things. That changes the conversation. He writes the same thing that appeared in [Friday's] New York Times, but he changed the conversation in the middle of the day Thursday by putting that out in the New York Times blog.
McCARTHY: Traditional media? It's just media. There's this ambient awareness where everyone is connected through social media. Richard [Sandomir] is a perfect example. He's a traditional journalist, but where is his material appearing? It's online. It's on Twitter. He'll do video for the Times website. That's the direction we continue to move in. Opening up the paper the next day is important, but it's just as important to control the message in real time.
■ How does Deadspin fit into the conversation? It's a site that you may be uncomfortable working with yet you can't deny the power of its popularity. How do you work with Deadspin?
BELLITTI: Keep them at arm's length. We had an issue with them a couple of weeks ago with this video that appeared on Fox Sports. It was obviously offensive to Asian Americans and Deadspin clipped it, put it out there and asked us for comment. That drove the conversation and gave the video life for several more days.
■ Have you tried to get things placed on there? Give us an example.
MIRANDA: Delicately, why not? We've had various clients that we've worked with that have desired to get that kind of reach and we've fed them footage. If there's something that's controversial that was said in programming, whatever the case may be, we've fed them footage and they've used it. Knock on wood, it's never gotten to the point where there's blowback but it has gotten the message out and amplified it more than it would with a traditional outlet.
The Response: How to handle
the negative and inaccurate
■ Give us your thinking and approach when a negative story hits.
HIGDON: For negative kinds of issues, it's important that executives understand we have to break the template. It's changing the mode where you ran a race on Sunday, traveled back on Monday and Tuesday and then you gather together and look at penalties and what just occurred. We actually are educating our executives internally that that's really no longer acceptable. It delays the opportunities within the media landscape where you might have a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday where you might have the opportunity to bring some positive stuff out. If there's some negative things coming out of a race, we're saying, "Let's deal with it a lot quicker." It's internal education.
For McCarthy, technology means not having to wait on the news cycle to react.
■ Let's look at that last week of the U.S. Open this year with ticketing issues and the coverage in the New York media. When did you realize that you had an issue that needed to be dealt with?
MIRANDA: With the Open, it's a two-week event and a number of things evolve during it, some you can control and some you can't. With the ticketing, unfortunately it could be an issue from the first day. And when we saw the forecast, we knew we would have to prepare for two to three days of this, and the same issues would come up with the roof, and getting that mess fixed.
With ticketing, we pretty much know that's going to come up on a yearly basis, just like food prices. But we've done things to counteract those. For example, if you were to talk about the conversation about food at the U.S. Open five or six years ago, it was about $10 hot dogs, and we changed the conversation over the last five years. Now you're talking about gourmet food and companies like Moet coming on board, and it being more about tastings. We've changed the message in terms of talking about high prices to talking about ambience and a lifestyle, and making it more of a push in that direction. That's just one effort.
HIGDON: That's one of the most fundamental things in a lot of sports — golf, tennis, NASCAR — sports that are affected dramatically by weather. It's always a running joke that if we can get through Wimbledon without much rain then we'll probably get through without many issues, because when they're playing, they're not talking. But now that you have Twitter, as soon as they stop playing and being athletes, they become communicators, so then they start talking and issues start festering.
■ In terms of negative stories, is using social media the new way to react to it?
McCARTHY: It's a matter of proactively reacting, and so it is through Twitter, but there's also ESPN Front Row [the blog of ESPN's communications department], and we have our own site. We have NFL.com, which is for the fan. We have NFLmedia.com, which is for media and password protected in part because you can get credentials through there. Then we have NFLcommunications.com, and that's the place where we will put out statements and fact sheets. To be able to lay out your position, be able to link to it and tweet it, has been very helpful for us versus the old days, which you mentioned was letter to the editor, and it may never get published. So now you're able to put out a tweet and it helps diffuse and drive the conversation with other media who may see the tweet and back off.
Relationship Management:
Foundation of PR in flux?
■ When it comes to working with reporters, what medium would you use? Would you pick up the phone first or utilize Twitter?
BELLITTI: My thought would be to pick up the phone. But it depends on the situation and how aggressive or unfair the reporter was being, but personally I would pick up the phone first.
WERNER: No matter how much technology advances, there's an art to a conversation or face-to-face meeting that should never disappear.
SOLTYS: I'm all for the relationships, but if there's a particular piece of information that's been put out there by a writer that's factually incorrect and is immediately taking off, if you don't put something out to refute it pretty quickly, you have this conversation half an hour later and the damage is done. You've got to be right to the point quickly when the issue first surfaces.
BELLITTI: I don't think you can ever say "screw them." At least if it has no effect, you can say we tried, we sat down with them, we explained our position. But if you don't do that then there's some regret there.
SOLTYS: You have to fight the "screw them" mentality because you have to live to fight another battle and there's no downside to having a conversation even with an outlet that you feel is very slanted against you. We engage with Deadspin, even though we don't like them, because they're a reality. Lots of people read them and they can influence a story. So for us to say, "screw them," is not smart on our end.
HIGDON: No one around this table is going to say, "screw them." It's the people who we work for who are going to put some influence on us, and it's our job to just say, "That's really not acceptable anymore." We've got to figure out a way to be better. It's getting into the layers and making sure you're not just dealing with the single reporter, who may be worrying about his job, but making sure you deal with all the layers, and that's a lot of work and energy and phone calls and meetings. I think that's as important as ever. Even though I said I'm not getting a lot of phone calls, I'm making a lot of phone calls and making a lot more personal visits.
McCARTHY: The concept of freezing out a publication is really mind-boggling. There's other ways to send a message to a particular reporter if you have a legitimate beef. But we'd rather work with the reporter, to try to educate, try to bring them up to speed, and give us a fair shake, because that's really all we're asking. It does come back to relationships, and we may not agree with everything Jay Glazer or [Adam] Schefter will put out there, but we at least have that ability to work with them. We develop those relationships over the years. It comes from late nights, league meetings.
Bellitti says it's important to try to sit down and work out a difficult media relationship.
MIRANDA: I've seen some change, and some not. It's case-by-case, but they're there and ultimately the media has what we want, which is coverage in certain instances. Whether it's one reporter or another, we've got to keep trying and foster those relationships and keep them positive as best as you can.
n What happens when you try to build on a relationship and it goes nowhere?
BELLITTI: Of course it depends on how deep the perceived bias is, but you try sitting down and explaining your position and if the bias continues then go to the editor. Just keep going up the ladder until you get some traction there.
■ What is the biggest frustration in dealing with today's media?
SOLTYS: I go back to the reaction game. There's just so little reporting and even the quality reporters are jumping into the reaction game when it's not their story. We need a little more focus on the reporting aspect to get the information correct because the citizen journalists are going to do their own reacting.
WERNER: I could see where that could work in your behalf, too, but it's a very fragmented media landscape right now. You need to understand how to navigate the media landscape and who's reaching which influencers. There's an incredible passion in North America for sports.
■ And that's frustrating to you?
WERNER: I think of it as a positive and negative, too. You like the depth of coverage, but it's not three network channels and one national newspaper anymore. It makes the job much more complex, which is why you're seeing the communications department at the table with the C-suite now.
MIRANDA: Now with the increase in media there's more outlets, there's more change, there's people changing beats, there's a lot more people that you have to educate and keep tabs on. While the work isn't necessarily keeping tabs on people, but making sure they understand, and if they take a negative slant, how are we educating them.
McCARTHY: There is a retweet mentality where reporters won't dig deep enough to find the facts or simply take it from other people. Other frustrations would be reliance on the same sources, when you see the same people quoted over and over again, but within the real industry, they don't have that credibility.
Tackling Twitter:
Demands of monitoring new medium rise
SOLTYS: We've got to spend a substantial amount of time over the span of the hundreds of personalities that we have both on a PR end and an editorial end. A lot of the ESPN editors are expressing frustration on the amount of time they have to spend watching what goes out on the social space. We're bringing it up in every meeting. We're doing the best we can to educate everyone to say that Twitter is no different than ESPN.com or ESPN
■ Are they better at thinking more before they tweet?
SOLTYS: Yes. Considering the volume of people we have tweeting, there's not a tremendous amount of problems. Some do come up, and we have to determine how much we're going to worry about it.
■ How do you monitor? Do you have an intern going through player accounts every day?
McCARTHY: Every team has an outside PR consultant come in and do a program during the preseason that includes social media. It's important for our players to be out there, but we want them to be smart on how they engage with their fans. It's a great opportunity for us. We're seeing it in TV ratings. The ability to have our players engaging, talking with fans is just amazing.
BELLITTI: There's this tendency to overcomplicate social media and Twitter in particular as it relates to guidelines for talent and making sure they adhere to these strict guidelines. If you start with the premise that these are all professionals and you reinforce the principle that you do not say anything on social media and Twitter in particular that you wouldn't say to an open mike … that can go a long way to keeping them and the organization out of trouble.
■ Do you think these similar guidelines should apply for league officials?
McCARTHY: We're fortunate in that the commissioner has told us in public relations and our events department, you should be out there engaging with fans, engaging with media, tracking what's being said by players, and so we do have our internal social media guidelines, which we continue to review. Which is — don't say something you wouldn't feel comfortable saying in front of an editorial boardroom or a group of fans.
■ What level of effort are you having to put in to make sure these concepts happen on a day-to-day basis?
McCARTHY: We at the league monitor player tweets, executive tweets, coaches' tweets, media. But more importantly it's also the fan tweets. We leave it up to the teams to discipline the player if he said something that he should not have on Twitter. We give guidelines, like don't post any competitive-edge type of information that could include an injury report that isn't made public. And don't disparage other teams or players. Beyond that, we have a 90-minute rule on game day where players may not tweet 90 minutes before the game to the conclusion of the game. Outside of that we leave it up to the clubs.
■ How has your job changed from the impact of social media?
SOLTYS: I started tweeting 2 1/2 years ago and thought it was the dumbest thing. And have quickly seen from a PR end it's the most effective tool that we have to deal with media but also the opportunity to deal with influencers.
■ Because of time?
SOLTYS: A lot of media members are two things — they're information junkies and they're narcissists. It becomes a very effective way to reach people quickly. Certainly that paid dividends yesterday morning [Oct. 6] in terms of getting our message out on Hank Williams Jr. You then also get lots of people in the media that you frankly wouldn't have the time to deal with regularly that are following you and then use things off your Twitter account. I saw last week I was quoted on a Florida State fan site and the editor of that apparently follows me. I saw last night I was on The Washington Post, but I didn't talk to them, it was from what I put on Twitter. You can put things out quickly and efficiently.
Doing the job, says Higdon, means dealing with all of a media organization's layers.
HIGDON: We never get any phone calls anymore. It's pretty shocking. I don't know about you guys, but it's very rare that I'm getting phone calls from journalists now. It's done a lot more through Twitter. Like Mike was saying, if we're being more proactive and being more aggressive in getting in our messaging then there's not that delay on getting our comments now. I find that the value of phone calls is diminishing significantly in the last few years.
BELLITTI: And let's not forget that Twitter is a two-way conversation, so it's a great platform to communicate your message. It's also a great platform to listen to the conversation about your brand. I obviously follow a lot of media reporters, and you understand what they're all thinking because they say it on Twitter. You can monitor that and if you need to react to something they said you can do it. But that two-way conversation is very important.
■ Does anyone have an example of a message on Twitter backfiring?
HIGDON: You put 50 more tweets out and hope it gets buried.
■ During the early part of the NFL CBA talks, there was a lot of sniping going back and forth on Twitter. Was there a point where you said let's just not engage each other on Twitter anymore?
McCARTHY: It was more of a federal mediator saying stop as it relates to talking about anything related to the meetings, so that was part of it.
■ You've been more aggressive and challenging stories on Twitter. What's the thought process behind that?
WERNER: The key is that the new mediums have allowed brands to tell their own stories. A brand can talk about how they're supporting a sponsorship, how they're doing cause-related work, whatever initiative they want, brands need to be their own disseminators of content, and you're seeing a lot more of that.
■ Are these micro-sized blogs the way of the future? Is everybody going to have that?
BELLITTI: We don't have any plans at the moment, but that's not to say we wouldn't consider it down the road. It could be an effective tool, but it's not a cure-all. Let's not lose sight of, while you can broadcast your message on Twitter and you can have a corporate blog to put your message out there, hand-to-hand combat is still fairly effective. Engage your reporter one-on-one who you may think is treating you unfairly, and try to drill down to what his issues are and what any perceived biases might be. That's still very important.
■ Does Facebook have as much of an influence on business?
BELLITTI: From a corporate standpoint, Facebook is less important, but for regional businesses Facebook is extremely important. Fox Sports Detroit probably has more than 45,000 followers, and in the Tigers-Yankees series going into the Rangers series there was constant conversation on Fox Sports Detroit's Facebook page about the team and what's going on, and we actively engage the fans, and some of our posts have 500-600 comments in reactions. So on a regional standpoint, Facebook is very important.
WERNER: With Twitter, no one is going to doubt the influence, and it most highly connects with college sports fans. But looking at three to five years in digital is eternity. We're looking at 2012 in seeing high indexing of location-based services with the sports fans. So probably the one question I get asked the most is, "What's next? What is the next Twitter?" I get that question constantly. So three to five years is a very long time in the digital space. But I think things like location-based services will change things, and you'll see a lot of things evolve in the next one to two years.
HIGDON: We all have our key influences and we need to adjust to that. What are the outlets that affect our business decisions? We have a fan counsel that we review the data after every one of our races, but that data is mostly based off of the hard-core fans. When we make business decisions, we can't rely solely on that. You have to find balance. That's where all the people here adjusted from being PR people to marketing communications people to something much greater.
WERNER: I will say there's an obsession with Facebook and Twitter on the amount of followers, which really isn't a great metric. It's about engagement — isn't that what every brand wants to do, engage their consumers? So metrics like stickiness and interaction are essential, and as marketers we need to move away from number of followers and number of fans. It's really a poor metric.


text:
RTR018 - READY TO RUN KOJX CATTLE WAGON (3 PACK) HOn3½ (12mm) GAUGE - SET 8
- Genuine Kadee #58 couplers
- Extremely fine door detail
- Fine brake detail
- Modern QR reflective logos as per the prototype
- Separately applied air hoses
- Designed to run on a minimum 18 inch radius curve
As with our other two RTR wagons, these KOJX wagons will be available
in limited numbers in HO standard gauge
The wheels for these wagons have been tried and
tested to ensure they will run on a minimum radius of 18 inches
without any problems. They have also been tested on Peco, Tillig,
Shinohara and Bemo track to ensure reliable running qualities no
matter what type of track you have.
The coupler heights have been set at the accurate height above rail
for Queensland Rail wagons. To cater for modellers with a higher
coupler setting on their current rolling stock, we have included
some spacers to raise the wagons.


text:
Fri, Dec 27 (9 pm)
With Jessica Jalbert, Concealer, DJ Action Jackson, Carl Cassidy
Barber Ha
It's such a lie. A damn dirty lie. In fact, there's absolutely nothing to quell good times from breaking out within 50 feet of the Betrayers, much less anywhere on its debut full-length, Let The Good Times Die.
What you will find on the disc (vinyl-only with a digital download) is a breed of rock 'n' roll that is at once muscular and melodic, driving (thanks to the holy rhythmic trinity of two sets of drums plus predatory-sounding bass) and trance-inducing (thanks to a psych-tinged Farfisa). The songs are pungent combinations of hallowed rock influences—Wall Of Sound girl groups, the Zombies, New York scenes from the Factory to CBGBs' heydey, the Jesus and Mary Train, the Warlocks—rigged with funhouse flourishes. In places, the record suggests a collision between beach-film music and B-horror soundtracks. Or, like the music in movies or PSAs, those montages or flashbacks where kids are doing drugs in some skeevy/groovy underground club.
Now, doesn't that sound like romping good times?
The bandmates are, likewise, romping good times. They roll in on a breeze of warmth and affability, three-fifths of the band: singer/songwriter/guitarist Travis Sargent, drummer Joe Stagliano and bassist and "musical glue of the band" Justin Zawada. (Not accounted for: Farfisa-wrangler Terry Fairfield and drummer Scarlet Welling-Yiannakoulias.)
Sargent's been writing songs and playing music for nearly a decade, but has never really struck out as a solo player—other than on demos—preferring the company of colleagues.
"It's no fun if you don't have your gang with you," he ticks off the reasons while his bandmates look on, amused and curious. "It would just be dull to do it on your own. I'd get lonesome, I think, without these guys. And I'm not a good enough guitar player—I'm no Billy Bragg. And I think the world has enough boring singer-songwriters, too. I don't need to be another one, playing in a coffee shop somewhere."
Zawada jumps in to tease him and singer-songwriters of the world: "Making mope music."
They all laugh.
One suspects this is how lots of people think bands interact every day, at least until they blow up and get Lear jet-rich and tabloid-stalker-famous and turn to booze and coke and sleeping around to ease their mo' money-related problems, and wind up screaming and throwing cognac at each other in some bajillion-dollar-a-day studio in, like, Panama or whatever, over whether or not to put in more high hat.
It's not. Plenty of bands out there don't hang out with each other in between shows and records. There are some who don't even like each other much.
The Betrayers are horrified and confused when this is put to them, and for a moment no one says anything at all.
"That's sad," Stagliano offers, shaking his toque-topped head.
"That's messed up," Zawada adds. "This is less like a job, more like … "
" … Hanging out with your friends," Stagliano finishes his sentence. "When it stops being fun, there's just no point. I think, anyway. If you don't want to be there, you're not going to perform."
"All of us work hard or are in school and have a million things going on, and you devote so much of your free time to this one thing [music]," Sargent says. "And if you're not enjoying the people you're doing it with, there's just no point. It's just a job. I've never been in a band where it's been 100-percent good times, like with this one. Ninety percent of the time we're together, we're busting someone's balls and the other 10 percent we're playing music."
But before the band existed, there were songs.
"I'd done some dopey apartment/bedroom recordings, and Terry heard them, and sent me a message saying, 'if you ever want to do this as a band, you should let me know'," Sargent says.
Sargent and Zawada were already close friends wanting to be in a band together—an ambition that predated Zawada even picking up a bass, although he was learning the drums at the time.
"So it was me and Justin and Terry jamming in Terry's basement for a few months," Sargent notes.
Another mutual friend had a girlfriend who was a solid drummer and whose style the trio liked, so even though Welling-Yiannakoulias was trekking in the Southern Hemisphere, sporadic and glitchy emails as their only communication, they recruited her.
"We wanted to play with our friends, so we were, like: we should probably get her," Zawada says. "We knew she would like what we were doing for sure. She was travelling, so we sent her songs, but she couldn't get them, or make them play, but she was in anyways."
The band started in earnest pretty quickly after Welling-Yiannakoulias returned home, in late spring of 2012, playing plenty of shows and releasing an EP, Treat Me Mean, later that year.
Around eight months ago, they lured another drummer, Stagliano, into the Betrayers. Two weeks later they were making Let The Good Times Die.
"So he had to learn the songs pretty quickly," Sargent quips. "Joe brings a real swing to the band, I think. He's got a total … "
"Garbageman flavour," Zawada suggests, riffing on the oft-bio quoted tidbit that Stagliano makes a living as a bona fide garbageman, an improbably grown-up career.
"Yeah, the garbageman swing," Sargent agrees. "Joe just has a really distinct way of playing, I guess, and you can definitely hear it in the record."
You can also hear it in the songs of the Lad Mags, the Betrayers' "sister" group, in many ways. Stagliano also drums with them, and both bands have toured together and hope to record a split seven-inch soon. They are currently working on booking a jaunt to Europe, co-touring and representing for Edmonton's ball-grabbing, subterranean rock scene.
"When I first started with the band, I just wanted to keep it simple and not complicate things too much," Stagliano explains. "You know, keep it minimal, try to make that drum sound as big as possible."
"You both locked in really quickly," Sargent observes, turning toward Stagliano. "I think you and Scarlet had the same sort of way of playing, like 'less is more.'"
"I think it was the best fit, too," Zawada concurs. "We tried to play with some guitar players."
Sargent nods. "Yeah, we practiced with some guitar players, but it would never really work out. Tara from the Switches played with us for a while, but she was trying to start her own thing, and good for her. Joe was just a natural fit. I think if you're adding people to your band, it's more about being able to hang out than it is being able to play."
"If you can't sit around and talk to them, you can't be in a van with them for a month," Zawada concludes.
Or a studio. Recording over a weekend with Patrick Michalak at Riverdale Recorders proved to be a pleasant way to craft an album, especially when peppered with Tony's Pizza.
"He's just a good dude. We were looking for someone good to do it—in a cheap and cheerful way—and we kind of knew him and Terry thought we should ask him," Sargent shrugs. "He took us down to Riverdale to show us the room, and the vibe was right. It was the right neighbourhood to do it in, and the right guy, and it was a really relaxed time. We did it almost all live off the floor, so there wasn't a lot of fucking around. He worked really hard on it—harder than any of us did. But he knew what we wanted. He's a smart guy and he knows a lot about music, so it seemed like an obvious choice to go with him."
Everything the band had went into Let The Good Times Die. Literally.
"We recorded everything we had for this record, pretty much," Zawada admits.
"I think we used every song, yeah," Sargent acknowledges. Our idea was to probably trim a couple of songs we weren't happy with, but we wound up being happy with all of them, so we used all 13 of them."
Sargent laughs when asked if there is an over-arching theme for the record. "I dunno; I guess desperation," he laughs harder, ruefully, and then emits a groan. "A lot of the songs were written when I was living in London and I just didn't want to be there anymore. I just wanted to come back to Edmonton: my home is here. My friends are here. A lot of the songs are about that—the struggle of living in this big city where you don't really know anyone and you feel totally isolated."
Not wanting to appear sadsack-ish, he quickly adds, "Other songs are about my girlfriend, and my boss, who is one of my best friends. I write a song about whatever; every song that's on there isn't necessarily about something that happened to me."
And he doesn't just mean the album's cover of "White Horse," which is about precisely nothing that happened to him.
Sargent groans. "You caught that. I'm worried that Laid Back are going to sue us because we forgot to give them credit. I hope Seymour Stein doesn't come after us and sue us for doing their tune." Fretting aside, he continues, "We did another cover; it's going to be part of the digital download – we recorded 'I Wanna Be Your Dog,' by the Stooges."
(Hopefully, credited.)
"You can't get blood from a stone, Sargent laughs. "What are you going to do—sue us for the $5000 debt this band has? Go ahead."
Songwriting muse-jizz also came from other sources.
"You just get inspired by people you meet or books you read," Sargent ventures. "I was reading this book, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. A lot of the songs are about that. It's about this kid who lives in this Northern town in England and works in a factory, and he's just kind of living for the weekend, I guess, just working hard for that relief."
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is a groundbreaking modern classic by Alan Sillitoe that critics regard as a moment of departure for literature and culture: the arrival of a certain kind of modern, disaffected young man in the UK in the late '50s and early '60s, the same as there was the western world over, each burning with locally conditioned rage, along with the more general international malaise. (Fun Fact: Morrissey was influenced by the same book.)
"It just sort of crept in," Sargent shrugs. "I was reading it when I was writing the songs and I loved it, and I think it was almost a subconscious thing. I didn't write the songs to be … "
"A concept album?" Zawada interjects helpfully.
"No," Sargent says. "You can't help but be inspired if you're reading something great while you're writing.
From the sounds of it, the Betrayers' release show will also show the album's title to be one big fat lie.
"We're hoping lots of people who moved away are back for Christmas," Sargent says.
"Who maybe haven't had the chance to see us yet," Stagliano adds.
"And we want to throw a nice Christmas party for the Edmonton rock 'n' roll community," Sargent continues.
"Yeah, right, when you get sick of family shit and need a drink!" Zawada posits.
"I want it to have a real party vibe and not just have it be any old show that's forgettable," Sargent says. "There will be some surprises, some guests. All of our friends play music and some are joining us, so that will make it more special."
Dancing will not be mandatory, but the Betrayers hope it will break out nonetheless.
"It's hard to move people's feet in Edmonton," Zawada laments. "It's a no-dancing city. Just bobbleheads."
Oh, times have changed. For a few years there, you couldn't prevent Edmontonians from dancing, given that there was a good beat, alcohol, and some space on the floor. What gives?
"I think cellphones in general," Stagliano conjectures. "Everyone's too busy checking their shit to get into it."
"Or making videos," Zawada reckons.
"It seems like it's harder to keep people's attention nowadays," Sargent concedes. "Everyone's fucking around on their Instagram or whatever when they should be with the show. We try not to fuck around too much on stage. I don't like it when I go see a band, and for every minute of music there's three minutes of them tuning guitars or screwing around.
Zawada can't resist. "That's not you," he says to Sargent, grinning wickedly.
Sargent gets the joke immediately, and laughs.
"Yeah, I'll play an out of tune guitar for an entire set, and I almost always do." He turns serious again. "Money's not easy to come by, especially in this time we're living in, so if someone's going to pay 10 bucks to get into your show, you'd better entertain them. You'd better do a good job. So the whole thing is just—try hard. Like, that whole slacker band etiquette, I don't get it at all."


text:
"If you're at all interested in celebrity -- and the damaging effects it can have on a person --
I urge you to seek out the documentary My Big Break, Tony Zierra's cautionary tale about
the Hollywood dream --sheds light on the Britneys, Lindsays and Charlies of the world."
--Kenneth Walsh/Kenneth in the (212)
"A true insiders look into fame/Hollywood. I don't think I've ever seen anyone get so close to what happens to people when they get into the star making machinery. It was very raw and very real. Every person with stars in their eyes should see My Big Break."
--Joan Prowse, Producer/Director, Cinefocus Canada


text:
Tech Off Post
Single Post Permalink
View Thread: How not to do Silverlight
Rossj wrote:
evildictaitor wrote:
Edit: It seems to work better in IE7 (but is still jumpy and ugly) - it's truly appalling in Firefox.
More worrying, why is it any different in FF than in IE? I thought Silverlight was supposed to be a plugin. If Silverlight can't deliver the same behaviour in two different browsers we're doomed to live in HTML 3 hell for eternity.
That menu isn't Silverlight.


text:
East places third at McCallum
By ADVOCATE STAFF REPORT
Jan. 18, 2011 at 11:01 p.m.
Updated Jan. 17, 2011 at 7:18 p.m.
AUSTIN - Jose Reyna finished first in the 171-pound division to lead the Victoria East boys to a third-place finish in their pool at the McCallum Invitational wrestling tournament on Saturday.
The Titans defeated Austin McCallum, Austin Lanier and lost to A&M Consolidated before defeating Austin Aikens for third place.
East's Christy McMath finished first in the girls 148-pound division, and Felicia Llanes placed third in the girls 102-pound division.


text:
Avon party(2 Posts)
melclaire Tue 05-Oct-10 22:27:27
TobyPoby Sun 29-May-11 17:10:35
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text:
Fun in Alanya.
I found a WiFi connection @ our appartement. Twitter works, Google Talk with my brother in Canada and all the other stuff works good. So, in the next few days i'll try some other apps. We're having a good time here, very hot, although we had some rain yesterday.
For dinner we had real good local food. And when we strolled in Downtown Alanya, i discoverd the first McDonalds here. So we are, as i mentioned, having a good time.
See you.


text: Looking for something different and saw this idea from Micupoftea. Great idea and tutorial by 'thenorsugirl' on you tube. Card is for a high school graduate, and I will be inserting a gift card inside of the card with our sentiment and a quote from the Wizard of Oz to the Scarecrow about brains.