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imkittymyers at hotmail dot com
Friday, February 10, 2006
I love the NY Post, the only paper I buy in hard copy 7 days a week. I bought it for the first time in April of '92 when Rush referenced a column by Debra Orin, and I've been buying it ever since at Faulisi's Newsstand.
However, before I even touch the paper, I log onto it first thing each morning. Imagine my surprise when I logged on today and it was yellow! It's an ad promo for whatever-I-forget, but there's a neat game you can play called Stalk Car Race. (I plowed the entire field, but I finished!)
8 Speaking of cars, Chris has posted a NASCAR crash video.
Cindy Adams is the Post's gossip columnist, but she seems to get the goods on political shananigans as well, and she's almost always right. Here's today's goody:
February 10, 2006 -- KIDDIES, mother wants you to pay attention. Verso, radical publisher of political satire, is poised to publish "George & Martha." Written by Karen Finley, it is positioned as a "satire about a love affair between George W. Bush and Martha Stewart." OK?
The scenario: George and Martha meet in a seedy hotel room the eve of the Republican National Convention. Their togetherness goes back way before George's election, way before Martha's jail time. Drugs, sex, humiliation, whatever, everything's thrown into what's billed as "a nasty, hysterical, weirdly plausible bitch-slap of a book."
Out April 13, this thing will set you back $15.
Yesterday, the Post published their very first Page Six Magazine, and it's fabulous and online, too. Here are two articles:
Paging Mr. Satan!
It's a time-honored tradition for celebrities to sign hotel registers under fake names. However, it would seem that most stars choose their aliases with such random abandon that it's as much a game for them as it is a genuine diversion for the paparazzi trying to pinpoint their hideouts. For instance, Elton John is all over the Yellow Brick Road with "Sir Galahad," "Bobo Latrine" and "Brian Bigbun." Brad Pitt? "Carl Con Carne" and "Bryce Pilaf." And our favorite prankster, Johnny Depp, checks in as "Mr. Satan" and "Mr. Donkey Penis." Here's a collection of faux-moniker-ing celebs. See if you can pick the accurate alias for each one in our multiple-choice quiz.
The Post scored a gem when they hired Sean Delonas as their cartoonist. Here's today's cartoon about those other cartoons in the news.
He does not aim to please. [Sean] Delonas' cartoons - incisive, perverse, gleefully vicious - are never boring. And no one is safe from his arrows. Repeat offenders he has skewered include Michael Jackson, the Clintons, Al Sharpton, the French, Donald Trump and Ted Kennedy.
Recalls Delonas: "This enraged woman once said to me, 'You are the biggest sleazebag,' and I just started laughing, and the more I laughed, the madder she got. I can't believe anybody gets upset at what I do."
It's doubtful, though, that anyone would find his Italian-Renaissance-style mural - which encompasses a wall of Midtown's St. Agnes Church - sleazy.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Happy Birthday, Nurse G!
8 First Her Royal C returned money to Wal*Mart, and then she returned money to Ted Kennedy's felon brother-in-law.
8 Go on -- y'know y'wanna :~)
8 Right back at ya "Peanut Boy"
8 Nannie Bloomberg finds trouble in Albany, with a capitol "T" and that rhymes with "C" and that stands for CARDS!
8 Bill Maher thinks Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was a gay movie.
8 Is Tom Cruise a male chauvinist pig?
8 Speaking of no-class, this is Barry Manilow in a very UNclassy move. It only makes him look older.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
It's occasions like this that separate the political lice from the leaders.
"George W. Bush is a classy gentleman. He doesn't care what these people say about him at Coretta Scott King's funeral because he knows that they're the ones that look very small and petty. It's not affecting people's perception of him." -- Rush
RUSH: I'm looking at something I haven't seen in I don't know how long. Bill and Hillary are at the pulpit side by side, and she is looking so lovingly and respectfully at him that I don't believe it. The last time I saw them side by side was in that picture when they were on the beach dancing to no music two weeks before the Monica Lewinsky story broke.
BILL CLINTON: (Cheering of audience) President Bush 41 complained that he was at a disadvantage because he was an Episcopalian. (Laughing.) Then he came up here and zings old Laura like he did. I thought, "That ain't bad for one of the frozen chosen." (Laughter.)
RUSH: All right, this is sort of funny. I had a whole observation. Bill and Hillary -- you'll see this on TV tonight if you watch the news -- are standing at a pulpit together, and Bill and going on and on and on and on and on, and Hillary starts out smiling, nodding approval, admiration, whatever, and as Clinton went on and on and on and eventually started talking about himself, the look on her face changed. The smile vanished and the nodding stopped, and was just sort of a "Are you through?" kind of look, and at that point said, "Who advised her to go and stand up there like a sock puppet all of that time while he's making a speech?" and I know why it is. It's because they're presenting the idea, the notion, the picture that we have here of a loving couple, happily living ever after, so forth and so on.
Meanwhile, that disgrace from Georgia is still bitter.
Carter warmed up by conjuring the outlandish conspiracy theories that still linger from Hurricane Katrina ..
Then he segued on to the Bush administration.
In what could only be taken as a direct attack on Bush's electronic surveillance of suspected terrorists — a program Carter has repeatedly denounced as "illegal" — the ex-prez said of Mrs. King and her slain husband, Martin Luther King, "they became the targets of secret government wiretapping and other surveillance."
8 Bulldog Pundit wants to know: Why Did Washington Post Delete Jimmy Carter Funeral Potshot From Later Editions?
8 Ever wonder how people vote for the Academy Awards? In Samuel Jackson's household it's a Family Affair.
8 I'm ashamed to say that I didn't remember Ronald Reagan's birthday yesterday, but Chris did.
8 Tom Cruise can't dance. So tell me something I don't already know.
8 Combat soldiers were in Cody, WY, last week to learn the art of donkey packing.
8 According to RJ: Our Commander-In-Chief believes we are spreading democracy — and all of its quaint accoutrements like freedom of speech — throughout the Middle East.
Cartoon by Sean Delonas, NY Post.
In case you haven't heard this story yet, Twitney was photographed driving with her baby on her lap, not in his carseat.
Dlisted posted the proof yesterday: great big photos with one showing her license plate.
Word got out quickly and the cops were called in to question her. She had some lame explanation, too.
"There aren't enough words to describe how stupid she is. She placed herself and her child in grave danger," said AAA spokesman Robert Sinclair.
He said if Spears had braked her SUV suddenly, her baby would become a projectile, crashing through the windshield.
"And if the airbag goes off, it's going to launch the child into her face or her chest. The child is going to be killed without a doubt," Sinclair added.
Spears yesterday blamed it all on a "horrifying, frightful encounter" with the paparazzi.
But Francois Navarre of the X17 photo agency, whose snappers got the shots, insisted Spears and her baby were never in danger as they left a Starbucks and proceeded two miles along the Pacific Coast Highway between Cross Creek and Los Flores.
Here's the reason why passengers should be properly restrained.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Another great photo from The Misfits.
Who knew that Eli Wallach could be so romantic?
In the very heartland of the nation — in Pennsylvania and Ohio — the Republican Party is getting set to nominate black candidates for governor in the coming elections. In a nation that has not a single African-American governor — not one — from either party, this is its own little revolution.
And as former Rep. J.C. Watts of Oklahoma found out, African-Americans who reject the entitlement ethic and stand for self-reliance and individual upward mobility are very attractive to white voters.
Black candidates are highly threatening to white political leaders. Sources close to Rev. Al Sharpton, for example, attribute Hillary Clinton's comparison of the House of Representatives to a "plantation" to her fear of a Rice candidacy. "She boycotted the event for two years in a row and now, when Condi might run, she shows up and uses militant rhetoric," one of Sharpton's key people told me. "She needs to get Al to vouch for her in South Carolina if she goes up against Condi," he added.
Cindy Adams comments on Anthony Pellicano, the PI who worked for Hollywood's elite. (Link will be time out by tomorrow)
February 7, 2006 -- HOLLYWOOD drums are beating about the re-indict ment of former private eye Anthony Pellicano, who was known to have worked for such clients as Sylvester Stallone, Tom Cruise, Elizabeth Taylor. I have reported successive stages of this saga because I've been on the story since Day One because I have had substantive conversations with the man who called himself a "sin eater" for the glossiest names in our country. Almost as we speak, jailed Anthony is being charged yet again for additional acts of lawbreaking that, allegedly, were done with the complicity of some of California's biggest lawyers for some of moviedom's biggest stars.
The government is squeezing Anthony into giving up certain names. He repeatedly says he won't be a rat. Coming out of Hollywood is: The mess will take down a major Los Angeles attorney who was in the forefront of all sorts of miseries that befell his blue-chip powerful clients.
This could shut down an entire law firm, cause other legal eagles to run for cover, and be the beginning of boundless headlines and endless lawsuits.
However, the bigger story here is Pellicano's connection to Her Royal C.
The Pellicano briefing
Pellicano … was a member of what has been dubbed President Clinton's "Shadow Team." What he did for the White House during the Clinton years remains shrouded in mystery. But he is a private investigator known for ruthless dirty tricks and rough tactics on behalf of celebrity clients.
Pellicano, now 61, made a name for himself by working for Hollywood's elite before and after being commissioned by Hillary Clinton during her husband's administration to spy on their perceived "enemies."
But what no one is talking about is what Pellicano did during the Clinton years. Pellicano was one of several private investigators used by the White House to conduct "shadow" operations. Others included Terry Lenzner, founder and chairman of the powerful Washington detective firm Investigative Group International, and San Francisco private eye Jack Palladino and his wife Sandra Sutherland.
It was Hillary Clinton who hired the "Shadow Team" – some believe to do work that employees of the federal government could not or would not do.
Monday, February 06, 2006
The ropes used to lasso the mustangs are attached to rubber tires to help stop their furious gallop.
Here's another photo from The Misfits: Clark Gable mustanging.
A few days ago our hot water heater quit, which meant a new hot water heater. Then last night the knob on the hot water pipe to the kitchen sink popped off and sprayed gallons on piping hot water all over the place. By the time we finally got the damned thing shut off, the house was transformed into a sauna and we were wading through hot water. The wet vac sucked up all the standing water, but the carpeting was still wet.
I awoke at 3:00 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. Not even Paul Muni in The Life of Emile Zola did the trick. Actually it's not a bad movie; under better circumstances I might have enjoyed it. Instead, I walked into the kitchen and immediately regretted not wearing shoes as the carpet was still wet. Then I discovered a cupboard we missed when we mopped up last night when I pulled out the bag of Friskies dry cat food and its soggy bottom opened up all over the wet carpeting. And do you think those 3 cats would start helping me clean up their food? Not a one!
The insulation behind the sink must have gotten wet because the storm windows are still dripping wet, even with a wind chill factor today of 15*. Is toxic mold our destiny?
Blogging today has been a lost cause. Road Runner was down most of the day, which was only fitting as blogger was buggered most of yesterday. So, as I waited for the plumbers I paid some ungodly bills. yee-haw.
Yeeee-uuuup, that Nevada desert gets better lookin' by minute.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
It's not the typical mid-winter frigid outside; it's just a raw bone-chilling cold. And dreary. It doesn't seem to be really winter and it's definitely not spring, yet summer will come all too soon. Summer is rarely pleasant in this river valley. It's usually overcast at best -- rarely sunny -- and always too humid for me. Like living in a bowl which has been covered over with a piece of grimy cheesecloth. This is the only time of year when summer appeals to me. No wonder the hot, dry Nevada desert sounds good 'bout now.
I've been thinking of Nevada ever since I came across some pictures taken during the filming of the movie The Misfits, which was the last film for both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe.
On the last day of filming, Clark Gable said, "Christ, I'm glad this picture's finished. She [Monroe] damn near gave me a heart attack." The next day, Gable suffered a massive heart attack; he died 11 days later on November 16, 1960. Monroe died of a drug overdose on August 5, 1962.
The Misfits was originally a short story which Arthur Miller wrote, in 1956, while he was residing in Nevada to divorce his first wife. He married Marilyn after the divorce that same year.
Eve Arnold, one of the film's photographers, said of Marilyn, "The camera adored her, and she was the only person I ever met who photographed 10 pounds lighter." And, "She was not supposed to be nude."
8 Pat has posted a great desert picture at his Hitching Post
Her Royal C has been busy collecting donations from her Hollywood pals, all in her never-ending devotion to us New Yorkers. Lucky us.
This article names names -- if you're interested:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is a smash hit in La-La Land, where she gobbled up big bucks late last year from Tinseltown's elite — swelling her campaign bank account to $17.1 million.
Hollywood royalty Paul Newman and his wife Joanne Woodward each forked over $2,000 to her campaign, which can convert the cash for a presidential bid if she opts for a 2008 White House run.
But Hillary won't take money from everyone. Clinton returned $5,000 to Wal-Mart Stores Inc., a company with long ties to the Clintons dating back to the couple's days in Arkansas.
Clinton campaign spokeswoman Ann Lewis said the money was returned "because of serious differences with current company practices."
However, if you read nothing else today, read this absolutely hilarious jab at the limousine liberals:
Pale Thin Man and the Sundance Kid
Al Gore was at Sundance the other week with the likes of Robert Redford, Paris Hilton and various film people who claim they are interested in "issues."
John Kerry was at Davos with the likes of Kofi Annan, Angelina Jolie and sundry slobbering journalists.
The skiing was excellent in both places, we're told; the networking was au point; and the opportunities for meeting hoi polloi, other than as conveyors of drinks and canapes, just about zero.
8 Pat has posted several photos with his Big Protest Against President Bush in Washington, which links to a WaPo story.
8 Which reminds me of this photo showing the proud anti-American/pro-terrorists Lefties:
The Wickedness of 9-11 Protesters
This photo was taken by my friend Ronald Rotunda while he was participating in the Freedom Walk at the Pentagon on Sept. 11 [2005].


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Good morning sunshines :)
Welcome to another (almost) wordless weekend with a focus on self-belief. This topic is something that I have struggled with for many years, but the good news is that I am finally starting to believe in me. It really can be a case of mind over matter. Enjoy :)

subset: commoncrawl


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Just a quick link drop for today.
First, if you are so inclined, Sharon Jumper at DKos has a post up about Iranian infiltration in Afghanistan. The most important link in her post in my opinion is one to the Centre for Research on Globalization which discusses quite a bit about the consequences of an invasion. I would read that article even if you read no other link here today.
And second, as I posted earlier, everytning seems to be riding on the Russia-Iran meeting tomorrow. There is a lot of speculation about what if anything will come out of the meeting.
I will update this post through out the day as more informatiom comes out.
Oh, and check out this article about Bush wanting to build a nuclear coalition to stop the spread of nuclear weapons to rogue nations. Too late buddy, we already have them here.
Update- Well, it seems we will have to watch another invasion unfold on CNN. The Russia -Iran talks have stalled, and though there is talk of possible continued meetings, things don't look good. Iran is trying to do more damage control, claiming the Iranian president's comment about wiping Israel off the map was taken out of context. And India, which had its own nuclear ambitions held over its head concerning Iran, has given in to pressure so it can get technology from France and the US. Funny, just a few years ago France was our mortal enemy after the invasion of Iraq, but now they are doing our bidding.
I am not supportive of the current Iranian government, but an invasion of Iran will not happen like it did in Iraq. Unlike the Iraqi military, the Iranians have a strong sense of nationalism. They will fight to the death. This is going to be a bloody year.


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Philadelphia's Community Garden History
by Libby J. Goldstein
In 1897, 56th & Haverford was divided into 1/5th acre plots by the Philadelphia Vacant Lot Cultivation Association to afford gardening space in Philadelphia because "great distress prevailed in our city on account of lack of employment".
The Vacant Lot Cultivation Association provided land and technical assistance through at least 1919, encouraging children to garden and adults to begin for-profit market gardens on lots throughout Philadelphia.
From 1976 until 1989, Penn State Urban Gardening Program sponsored a half-acre community garden at 56th & Haverford. The area was gardened, developed, de-developed, gardened and, finally, redeveloped in one century.
During both World Wars, the government advocated vegetable gardening so that more farm products could be sent to the military. I remember 200 to 300 square foot plots in Fairmount Park not far from the old Woodside Park. Not so generous as the early "farms", but big enough for a family of four.
In 1953, Louise Bush-Brown organized settlement house workers, and garden clubs into the Neighborhood Gardens Association to sponsor horticultural beautification programs in low income neighborhoods and at public housing projects. Neighbors on the 700 block of Mercy Street, became "The first Garden Block in America" when they planted window boxes built at St Martha's Settlement.
Vacant lot gardens were added in 1960 through 4-H, Cooperative Extension's youth program led by William A. White. Some of today's active community gardeners like Alta Felton and Mabel Wilson began gardening in public with NGA. It had seen 850 blocks planted by its 25th anniversary in 1978 shortly before becoming part of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society's Philadelphia Green Program.
The most recent rash of "farming out" on vacant lots began in the Green 70's. 4-H gardens were growing vegetables as well as flowers. The Recreation Department was helping neighborhoods change vacant lots into flower and vegetable gardens, tot lots and basketball courts. The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society began developing community vegetable gardens, and Penn State Urban Gardening Program provided technical assistance. By the late 80's, over 1000 vacant lots had become vegetable and ornamental gardens.
Farming out in the 90's is more than a great way to keep vacant lots clean, more than a source of food and flowers. It is a strategy for neighborhood development and organization.
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Go back to Urban Agriculture in Philadelphia


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Welovebearwood are 100% behind the Bears for Bearwood Campaign and we love Keith Bracey's idea of a big wooden bear to stand guard at the entrance of Lightwoods Park.
Keith told us where he got his inspiration from...
"For 20 years we holidayed in the East Devon area and my kids grew up saying 'Hello Bears' to the original 3 carved wooden bears (presumably Mummy Bear, Daddy Bear and Baby Bear) who lived at the roadside in Newton Poppleford whenever we drove through the village to Sidmouth where we would spend our day on the beach.
In the evening we would all shout; 'Goodbye Bears' as we drove back to our campsite. As I said originally there were 3 bears. Over the years the number of bears has grown to the family of bruins as you can see in the photo above." Aaah...they are so cute!
The Bear would need to be cost-effective though so Keith has had a brilliant idea...
"As the cost of a statue of a 'Bronze Bear' (or bears) is likely to prove prohibitive, the idea of a group of carved wooden bears, possibly using fallen tree wood from Lightwoods Park or Warley Woods becomes even more attractive as it is kinder to the environment, recycling 'dead' wood into a piece of public art."
As Keith explained "The Bearwood Bears would then 'do what it says on the tin': they are 'Bears from the Wood'
Bear...wood, we love it!
P.S. It's amazing what can be carved out of a piece of wood!
P.S. It's amazing what can be carved out of a piece of wood!


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A Long Way Down
This is the first book I read by Nick Hornby, and it was a complete pleasure. If you're sick of life and on the roof of a tall building, there are two ways down. The short way down is over the edge. The long way down is by the stairs or elevator and back into the living world.
Martin, former morning talk-show host is there through a series of bad decisions including sleeping with a minor and has lost his family and job. When he goes to the roof of Topper's House on New Year's Eve to kill himself, he finds that this particular building is a popular spot for jumpers and New Year's Eve is a popular time for suicide. Pretty soon, he is joined by three other would-be suicides.
Maureen is a middle-aged Catholic woman saddled with a son who is in a persistent vegetative state. Although she is devout and proper and considers suicide a sin, she is worn out by the burden of her son and the guilt over considering him a burden. Jess is a depressive in her late-teens, obsessed over an ex-boyfriend, and her thoughts of suicide come to her almost on a whim. Finally, JJ is a former rock musician of minor note who's now a pizza delivery guy. His band has [ha] disbanded, and he has simultaneously been dumped by his girlfriend.
Winding up on the roof at the same time, the distraction ruins the moment completely. In spite of coming from completely different backgrounds and situations, a tenuous bond is formed between them. They may not like each other, but they are now linked, and the bulk of the book deals with their misadventures as they try to decide whether their lives can be rebuilt or if suicide is still inevitable.
The story is less about happy or sad endings or any sort of ending. In real life we do not talk about happiness without tears, joy without grief. And so is this book, about four people trying to bring themselves back from the brink. It is not what you'd expect, but it's completely real.
3 Responses to "A Long Way Down"
Nice review, I haven't read Nick Hornby. I have to read high fidelity and also see the movie. Stephen Frears who directed "The Queen" also directed High Fidelity and my interest in the book and the movie are piqued after an interview I heard with him on NPR.
Sorry about going offtopic. I have read about this book being recommended on some book lists, I can see why. 🙂
Lovely review…


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I believe following your dreams and trying to make your passion into your career is one of the hardest things. The reality is when you work for yourself, you are the motivator, the manager, the marketing department, the sales person, etc, until you can hire a team. This is the main reason I love meeting entrepreneurs and business owners because their work ethic and passion are truly an inspiration. When I started this blog, I knew I wanted to feature people that inspire me and are working to make their passion a success. I want this blog to illustrate that sustaining a life from your passion is hard work, but it is definitely possible.
I met Sharon Mills a little over a year ago at a networking event. Sharon has a beautifully calm energy about her and is very passionate about her business. Sharon Mills is the owner of Nature's Pure Bliss a natural personal beauty care brand that began because of her son's allergies and asthma. Nature's Pure Bliss is handmade indulgence. . . Free of parabens, alcohol, petroleum and other harmful chemicals.
I interviewed Sharon about her business and what it is that inspires her to keep going. See our conversation below.
What motivated you to start Nature's Pure Bliss? We are family owned and operated business , who made the conscience decision to be holistic in our lifestyle in 2006. What started out as a personal quest for our family, due to one of our boys having allergies and asthma. Blossomed into a desire that we choose to share with our valued clients, officially in 2012. I self taught myself on how to blend essential oils, create cold process soaps, butters and so much more.
What's been your most important lesson in business? Absolutely no shortcuts! Shortcuts cost money and most importantly your brand.
What are you most proud of? The ability to share our products with clients who are like minded and want to live a greener life. The gratification we receive when a client says "Thank You, for creating such a lovely product" It tells me I am still on the right path and to continue on!
Who/What inspires you and what is your favourite quote? My inspiration comes from my family and life lessons. We are always constantly learning, we can never know everything. My favourite quote: "Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so love the people who treat you right, forgive the ones, who don't and believe that everything happens for a reason."
What helps you keep going on days you want to quit? The love and passion of the ingredients "Mother Nature" has to offer. Most importantly my family and my clients. Their love.
What advice do you have for someone who would like to start a similar venture? The advice i would offer for anyone going into business is… do / start a venture you are passionate about! The passion is what will keep you going.
Whats "the" one product we need to check out? Our best seller is our moisturizer. Specifically our "Alligator Butter" formulated for those with dry skin.
How do you balance life and work?I am grateful and thankful for my family. If it wasn't for them, I would constantly be working. My love for the business has my mind constantly thinking of what next? My family are the ones to draw the breaks / and unplug me from work. They let me know that the business cannot grow if I am not rejuvenated. :o)
Thank you Sharon for taking time out of your busy schedule to share about Nature's Pure Bliss and being a mompreneur. We wish you and your family continued success.
You can check out Nature's Pure bliss at the following links
Sharon's motto is "Love The Skin You're In! Who says natural has to be boring!" and I definitely agree.


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Ethanol production makes sense, when you consider the facts
by David Morris
Originally published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, November 28, 2004
A recent column by Craig Westover claimed it takes more energy to make ethanol than is contained in ethanol ("Let's have both sides of ethanol debate," Nov. 17). The only evidence he offered was a comment from someone who had not yet completed a study on the subject.
Unfortunately, that's quite common. As someone who has followed the ethanol industry's development over the past 25 years, I'm constantly amazed at how often a negative perspective is voiced and how rare it is for the person voicing it to have any hard information on the subject.
So, in the interests of accuracy and for the record, let me offer some facts about ethanol.
Ethanol is 200-proof liquor. It would be drinkable except that, just before ethanol leaves the refinery it must be polluted with a small amount of poisonous gasoline to prevent its being diverted to the higher priced beverage market.
Ethanol, like all liquors, is made from fermented sugars. The sugars can come from a wide variety of plants. In Brazil, they come from sugar cane; in the United States, from corn; in Europe, from wheat. In the near future, the sugars will come from cellulosic materials like bagasse, corn stalks, wood waste, wheat straw and prairie grasses.
Corn ethanol is made from cornstarch. The corn's valuable protein content remains undiminished. Indeed, the byproduct of ethanol production is a high protein, high quality animal feed. There is little or no food versus fuel tradeoff in making ethanol from corn.
In investigating the energetics of ethanol, we should keep in mind that the vast majority of energy used to grow corn (and other crops) is a free gift from nature — sunlight, water, carbon dioxide.
Over the past 25 years, the energetics of ethanol has been the subject of some 20 scientific studies. All have arrived at the same conclusion: Every year the ethanol industry and the American farmer have become more energy efficient. In 1980, the first ethanol refineries were inefficient. It did take more energy to make ethanol than was contained in ethanol (and its high protein byproduct). But as the industry grew, it also, unsurprisingly, became more efficient. An ethanol plant built today consumes up to 80 percent less energy per unit of ethanol produced than one built in 1980. America's farmers have also improved their resource efficiency. Since 1980, for example, corn yields per acre have increased by about 50 percent while fertilizer use per acre has remained steady.
Virtually all recent studies conclude that ethanol from corn is a net energy winner. My own organization's estimate, based on case studies, is that the ratio of energy out to energy in for ethanol from farm to refinery is about 1.5 to 1. Only one recent study continues to maintain there is a net energy loss, and that researcher has reduced by 65 percent his loss estimate from his previous study.
The bottom line is this: Corn farmers and ethanol refineries are becoming ever-more energy efficient. In the near future, if ethanol refineries begin to use cellulosic materials, like corn stalks or wood waste to fuel their operations, they could sever their connection to the fossil fuel industry. Likewise, if farmers continue their shift to no-till or low-till cultivation practices, their use of diesel fuel will drop substantially.
Where does this leave us?
Ethanol is a renewable fuel that can be made from plant matter available in most countries and all states. Biorefineries are much smaller than petroleum refineries, enabling local and farmer ownership. We can envision thousands of biorefineries dotting the nation's countryside, each buying its feedstock locally and selling its products locally. That would not only substantially reduce or even eliminate our dependence on imported oil; it would impressively stimulate the economies of beleaguered rural communities.
What's not to like?
David Morris is vice-president of the Minneapolis and Washington, D.C., based Institute for Local Self-Reliance (www.ilsr.org).


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Does this sound familiar? You've got a script to memorize. Your method is to do it line by line. When you've got the first sentence memorized, you move on to the next and commit it to memory. Then you recite sentences one and two together. When you feel like you know it, you move onto sentence three, and so on.
But you may be doing something that's setting you back — you're not reciting your lines out loud. You're mumbling them, or saying them in your head, even when you're alone.
Experienced speakers and actors memorize and rehearse their lines out loud. In fact, they read their scripts out loud, over and over again, before they begin the memorization process. While reading, they listen for opportunities to emphasize certain words or phrases, when short or long pauses would create the best effect, what gestures to use for special dramatic effect, and where they'll move on stage.
This method is called "motor learning," (a.k.a. "muscle memory.") When you repeat movements and variations of voice over a period of time, they become etched into your brain and when you're on stage the movements flow naturally.
Some people are reluctant to rehearse their scripts out loud because they're self-conscious. They're afraid of appearing odd to the other members of the household. Rehearsing out loud also attracts house pets. I used to be reluctant to say my lines while I was driving, too, because I didn't want other drivers to think I was nuts.
When speaking experts reminded me of the importance of saying my lines out loud, I threw self-consciousness to the wind and let it all hang out. The family gets used to it and stops teasing you, the pets are barricaded by a closed door, and other drivers don't even notice you. And if they did, so what?
Oh, the freedom! Being able to let go gives you the opportunity to be your true self on stage. What's more, the memorization process becomes so much easier because the more you practice, the more the material becomes ingrained.


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Over the last few months, High Ability Pupils at have been very busy at John Willmott. On 17th January, 25 year 9 pupils took part in a UniLife Conference event in Birmingham, organised by Aim Higher. There were a range of workshops to inspire and prepare them for university life including study skills, growth mindset, types of courses available, how to manage your money, societies to join; as well as learning about recent graduates' experiences and the opportunities available after university. The group represented John Willmott brilliantly, engaging in the sessions and asking some fantastic questions, showing high aspirations for the future. Well done!
On 7th February, 34 year 10 and 11 pupils took part in a Campus Experience Day at the University of Birmingham. They went on a campus tour to see the huge range of facilities available, including the brand news sports centre with a 50m swimming pool. Aim Higher ambassadors who are current university students shared their own experiences and advice for the future and gave a real insight into university life. The day ended with a Chemical Engineering lecture where pupils learnt about the production and processing of everyday foods before they make it to our supermarket shelves. This certainly gave us food for thought! I look forward to seeing pupils applying for university in a few years' time.
Also in February, four of our year 11s took part in a Revision Weekender residential in Shrewsbury. This was a fantastic opportunity with only limited places for each school so we were fortunate to have been invited. Pupils took part in a range of activities to develop their revision skills in preparation for their final exams. We wish Faris Chowdhury, Maldini Kamdem, Alisha Patel, Abbie Wagstaff and the rest of year 11 all the very best with their GCSEs!
This term, a group of year 7 and 8 pupils have taken part in the Alan Turing Cryptography Competition, for the third year running. The competition is all about breaking codes and solving ciphers to unravel the mystery. Pupils have done really well as none of the puzzles have been straight forward but their team work and resilience has been outstanding, skills which will stand them in good stead for the future. Well done to all involved!
Finally, last week, I received news of five winning entries in the Young Writers Creative Writing competition, Stranger Sagas, where pupils were asked to write a story from a given story starter in no more than 100 words! This is a fantastic achievement and their work is due to be published in May. Huge congratulations to Grace Ngereza, Chloe Taylor, Dena Shiltagh, Rebecca Walker and Paris Whyte.
Miss Willett


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If you are a business owner or marketing manager, the customers you might like to cater to are probably all active on one social network site or another. You should make sure your company is also on one or more of these social media sites. Read on for some very valuable advice on how your business can best put to work social media marketing methods today, and increase your customer base.
Whatever you are posting, whether it's a tweet, a Facebook update or a blog post, make sure that it's interesting. When you draw in readers with enticing titles, you are going to have better luck directing readers in the direction that you want.
Twitter is a social networking site, so make sure that you are social and communicate with your followers regularly. If people mention you thank them, and if questions are sent to you answer them as well. Doing all this creates positive relations with your followers. Set yourself up as a genuine individual — not simply a business.
Make sure that the top of all your blog postings have a share button for Facebook. This will allow your blog's visitors to share this with people on their own friend's list. When this happens, your blogs visibility expands in terms of the number of individuals who are aware of it. Extra traffic means extra sales.
Inform your customers that you are utilizing social media. When these people join your page, their friends will be notified. This form of free advertising should not be overlooked. This is basically a referral which can really help your business.
Commit yourself to building a strong relationship with your customer base, if that is the type of relationship you want. Simple marketing through social networks is what you should focus on if you are only interested in driving sales. If you decide you want to have open dialogue with your customer, start simply by saying "Hello" and let the conversation begin. This gives your client the reins to take over the conversation.
Social Media
Imitate what successful people have done with social media and do the best you can to act as if you know what you're doing so that you can succeed as a social media marketer. For inspiration, you should analyze your competitors' social media strategy until you are able to establish your own distinctive formula. Check out their profiles and promotions on their social media network profile pages.
Give your online followers special deals through social media. By granting them exclusive access to incredible deals, you also encourage them to share these specials with members of their own networks. Talk about free publicity!
Guest Blogger
Writing as a guest blogger on a popular site in your industry or hosting an expert on your blog are both powerful strategies. You will get more visitors this way. When you write on another blog, ensure that you have agreed to link to one another's sites. Also, let the guest blogger do the same thing. The followers of the blog will most likely check out your site as well in the process.
Mention how much progress you're making on your social media marketing in your postings. Tweet or blog about the different milestones that you accomplish to show progression. Thank all of those that deserve your thanks, and show people you care about those that have helped you. This sort of article must quickly be shared.
You should always respond to any comments or questions posted on your sites. Try to check your page at least twice-daily so that responses are left for too long. You can also adjust your settings so that you receive an email notification when content is posted. But be careful here. Whatever you write will be public and will appear to everyone. There's no taking it back!
Social Media
It should now be obvious, social media is an essential marketing tool for any business. This allows you to reinforce the relationship between your business and your customers, both current and potential, and grants instant access to millions of possibilities. Put the tips from this article to work for you, and see what social media marketing can do for your business.


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When I was a kid I wanted to be a singer, a marine biologist, a counselor, a dog walker, and probably a million other different things. Now, my goal is to be a sociologist. This is what I have spent the last four years of my life focusing on, but now I fear that I won't know it when I get there I'm sure (and not-so-secretly hope) that I'm not the only person facing this existential crisis right now!
However, last Friday I think I saw a glimmer of hope. On April 28th, a group of sociology students and professors headed to Dubuque Iowa to present research at the Iowa Sociological Association. I was able to spend the day hearing a variety of presentations on an array of topics in the area of sociology: including homosexuality in churches, the glass ceiling for women working in academics, and the effects of labeling theory concerning drugs, sex work, and more. I also was able to present my senior paper through a program evaluation of a midwest prisoner reentry facility. These topics sparked brilliant conversation between all the sociologists (so everyone) in the room.
Here, I really felt like a sociologist. I was surrounded by people who aligned with what I was talking about and shared my same passion and enthusiasm. I could say that I want to work in a halfway house or in prisoner reentry and I didn't feel the pressure to explain or justify my decision. Being approached by individuals asking questions after my presentation reaffirmed the importance of the research I have spent months working on.
I don't have a diploma (yet) and I haven't officially started working in the field but in this moment, I really feel like I'm doing what I've been working towards for what has felt like an eternity. Maybe I've been a sociologist for longer than I thought. Maybe I'm not quite there yet. Maybe I never will. If someone has the answers I'm all ears! Until then, I'll just keep surrounding myself with the people and places that challenge me to keep stepping towards whatever a "sociologist" is, in hopes that one day I'll get there!


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Chris Thompson: Redskins got 'mixed messages' on Kirk Cousins situation
Kirk Cousins has always maintained publicly that he wanted to remain with the Washington Redskins for life, but there were more than a few times when that was tough to believe. Some of his teammates may have felt that, too.
In an appearance on The Team 980's "Cooley & Kevin" show this week, Redskins running back Chris Thompson shared some of his thoughts on the trade that brought Alex Smith to Washington. He said it surprised him but admitted that players really didn't know if Cousins wanted to remain with the team or not.
"I think everybody got some mixed messages, I will say that," Thompson said, as transcribed by Scott Allen of the Washington Post. "I know for me, talking to Kirk, being with Kirk, all we talked about was, you know, 'C.T., with you staying healthy, we can do this with you, we can do that with you,' and we were able to do a lot of the things that Kirk wanted to do with me. We wanted to continue this, so for me, I expected him to be here. …
"… I think everybody got a different feel about it, but I know Kirk enjoyed being with me and I enjoyed being with him, so I wanted him to be here and I think part of him wanted to be here, but at the end of the day, you gotta do whatever you think is best for you and your family."
Thompson indicated that Cousins may have priced his way out of Washington, though he believes the 29-year-old is worth the money.
"I'm excited about Alex coming in and being here if everything stays the way that it's supposed to be through March," he said. "He's an athletic guy. I hear he's a really great guy, a good leader, too, so I'm just excited for the opportunity, and I know Kirk is going to go somewhere and get every single dollar he wants. I think he deserves it. He's put up some great numbers year in and year out, so that's what this league is all about, the numbers."
For someone who supposedly wanted to finish his career with the Redskins, Cousins has not seemed all that bummed out about moving on. He probably feels like he was under-appreciated in Washington, especially since he had to play under the franchise tag for two consecutive seasons. The personal side is likely what Thompson and others saw and heard from Cousins, but the business side is a completely different animal.


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Why join?
We are a small self-supporting incorporated association established to provide support and up to date information to our members, and to raise funds for Australian research into inherited retinal diseases. We have a small base on the 4th Floor of Ross House, 247-251 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, where we keep our office. Members are encouraged to drop by for a chat or a cup of tea when the office is open. However we receive no government funding and so are dependent on membership fees and fundraising for our running costs and the funds that we give to Australian research each year.
Retina Australia (Vic) Inc membership is for anyone who wants to show that they care about inherited blindness, and who wants to help by being part of a community group that supports the vision impaired and current research into the causes and possible treatments for inherited retinal diseases.
Membership means we'll keep you updated with our news (in the format of your choice) and you can attend events such as our AGM to meet up with others who want to help people with inherited blindness.
Membership categories and fees
The membership year runs from 1 July to 30 June, and the membership categories and fees are as follows:
- Individual - $40
- Pensioner/student over 16 years - $30
- Family (2 adults + any children under 16) - $55
- Organisations - $65
To become a member by phone, call our office on (03) 9650 5088 with your credit card details.
To become a member by email, download, print and complete the membership form and email it to us at email@example.com.
To become a member by mail, download, print and complete the form and mail it to Retina Australia (Vic) Inc. at 4th Floor, Ross House, 247-251 Flinders Lane, Melbourne 3000.
Download the membership application form here.


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Apr 211999
After waiting a rather long time to update, I finally have some news to post up.
- If you have been wondering WHY your Microsoft Sidewinder Precision Pro feels so "sturdy," it is because there is two large ball bearings in the base of the joystick with room for 2 more. So if your stick is a little heavy, take the few screws out of the base and remove the added weight. As a side note, on the inside of the base cover, there is a few names molded into the base. Designers? Testers? Who knows.
- I should have my site resolved to "blkviper.com" by the end of the week. Make sure you update your bookmarks!?! 🙂
- I will have my Kitty pictures posted on Friday night…
- I saw one of the best movies in a long time last night. 2 words: "The Matrix" If you are looking for a wild ride for a few hours, give it a try. I am rather hard to please 🙂 and this movie blew me away…
For now, this is all I can come up with. Take care and thanks for visiting!


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My own personal favorite YNET columnist has two out this week..
Sever Plocker looks at Chomsky, an issue I've been railing about here, as well as maintaining the even economic keel, also an issue I've looked at here in my own 2006 election coverage / bloggage – regarding the finance ministry and the need for responsible social spending to help the less fortunate, but also keep Israel chugging like the hightech power engine it is.
Check it out.
UPDATE: More must see TV.. er Punditry from Israpundit on Israel's under appreciated value
This is one I'll have to file away for future use, thank you Mr. Belman.


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A typical case of lies from the "Falestinian" fantasy associated with the "Nachbah" told to a friend of mine.
"Today I had the most intriguing and unsettling experience – had to take a taxi – very pleasant driver who I engaged in conversation as I usually do as I've met some fascinating people and heard some amazing stories.
He told me he was a REFUGEE from JERUSALEM?? – Aha. Interesting beginning.
He went on to explain that his family were "Arabs of the Mandated Area" (Falestinians) who had had a farm in a village about 6 kilometres from Nazareth. They, had been there for generations, but the Zionists had gone in and exterminated everyone in the village in 1948."
Wait didn't he say that he was a refugee from Jerusalem or an unnamed village near Nazareth?
Some places in the Mandated Areas were entirely destroyed and left uninhabitable; others were left with a few hundred residents and were repopulated by Jewish immigrants, then renamed. I have presented the villages mentioned from "Falestinian" sources.
Please note that in all the cases the towns and or villages were built on top of sites that were once Jewish and the names are similar to those of the previous vanquished Israelite communities.
Additionally as to his claim that "the Zionists had gone in and exterminated everyone in the village in 1948." Then pray tell how did he come to be if as he claims "everyone was exterminated!!???" Additionally there are no stories of any alleged "massacres" or atrocities in the British mandatory or post War of Independence UN accounts of these villages?
Below is a list of the Towns and villages according to the Mandatory Palestine Government Nazareth Subdistrict and their story.
al-Subeih- The small Bedouin village is not even indicated on any British Mandatory Government Map, ( see image from map) and there are no references to it any sources of the Mandatory Authorities.
Indur (Arabic: إندور) was a Palestinian village, located 10.5 kilometres (6.5 mi) southeast of Nazareth. Its name preserves that of ancient Endor, a Canaanite city state thought to have been located 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) to the northeast. The village was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and its inhabitants became refugees, some of whom were internally displaced. In Israel today, there are a few thousand internally displaced Palestinians who hail from Indur, and continue to demand their right of return. Sheikh Tawfiq Ibrahim, one of the leaders of the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine and an associate of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, was from Indur.The village was occupied by Israel's Golani Brigade on May 24, 1948.
The Golani Brigade went on "cleansing and defending" the area until early June
Ma'alul was a Palestinian village, made up primarily of Palestinian Christians, that was depopulated and destroyed by Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Located six kilometers west of the city of Nazareth, many of its inhabitants became internally displaced refugees, after taking refuge in Nazareth and the neighbouring town of Yafa an-Naseriyye. Despite having never left the territory that came to form part of Israel, the majority of the villagers of Maalul, and other Palestinian villages like Andor and Al-Mujidal, were declared "absentees", allowing for the confiscation of their land under the Absentees Property Law.
Ma'alul with the Biblical town of Nahalal in the of the land of the Tribe of Zebulun, and also a Levite city (Joshua 21:35). Nahalal did not yield to the conquering Israelites initially, due to its strong fortifications, but they did pay taxes to them.
Archaeological findings have identified remains from the Israelite period. During the Roman period was called "Mahalul". It flourished from the commercially strategic location during the Roman/Byzantine times (Mishna and Talmud). It is mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud (Megilla page 2, 2 1:1), and listed among the walled cities from the period of Joshua.
Al-Mujaydil (Arabic: المْجيدل (also: al-Mujeidil) was a former Palestinian village located 6 km southwest of Nazareth. Al-Mujaydil was one of a few towns that achieved local council status by the Mandatory Palestine government. In 1945, the village had a population of 1,900 and total land area of 18,836 dunams – mostly Arab-owned. The population was almost entirely Christian and the town contained a Roman Catholic church and monastery.
|The same area today
Sepphoris (Ancient Greek: Σέπφωρις), also known as Tzippori (Hebrew: צִפּוֹרִי), Diocesaraea (Ancient Greek: Διοκαισάρεια), and Saffuriya (Arabic: صفورية, also transliterated Safurriya and Suffurriye) is a village and an archaeological site located in the central Galilee region of Israel, 6 kilometers (3.7 mi) north-northwest of Nazareth.
Following the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–135, Sepphoris was one of the centers in Galilee where rabbinical families from Judea relocated. Remains of a 6th-century synagogue have been uncovered in the lower section of the site. In the 7th century, the town was conquered by the Arab caliphates like much of the rest of Palestine. Successive Arab and Islamic imperial authorities ruled the area until the end of the first World War I, with a brief interruption during the Crusades.
The Village population made fearful from stories of atrocities and massacres on Arab League radio broadcast during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and their the incessant calls to make way for the victorious armies fled in mass.
The Claim of Ethnic Cleansing
Neither Ben-Gurion nor the Zionist movement 'planned' the displacement of the 700,000-odd Arabs who moved or were removed from their homes in 1948. On the contrary there was no such plan or blanket policy.
This is reflected in the Israeli Declaration of Independence were it states clearly;
This is reflected in the Israeli Declaration of Independence were it states clearly;
"We appeal - in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months - to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the up building of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions."
Transfer was never adopted by the Zionist movement as part of its platform; on the contrary, the movement always accepted that the Jewish state that arose would contain a sizable Arab minority.
In 1947-48 it is well documented as to how the "Arabs of the Mandated Area" gleefully joined the invading Arab League armies and launched a war whose aim – which they have never denied – was to destroy the nascent state of Israel (and quite probably its inhabitants as well).
In the circumstances, had the Jews not driven them out, Israel would not have arisen and its (Jewish) population would have been slaughtered – or, at the least, the Jewish state would have been established with a considerable Fifth Column in its midst and rendered mortally unstable.
(Conversely, had the Arabs accepted the 1947 UN Partition Resolution, refrained from violence, and gone on with their lives as loyal Israeli citizens, nothing would have happened to them.)
Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood leader and cleric Muhammad Hussein Ya'qub said in a televised sermon in 2009,But – what can you do? – the Arab League armies were utterly defeated and beaten. And in the course of defeating them, the Israelis drove out the Irregular Palestinian forces, who were not 'totally innocent ... peasants' (a ludicrous phrase). Their villages and towns served as the bases from which their militiamen and armies attacked Jewish communities and convoys. And when the Jews were on the upper hand and defeat was possible the men ran and left their women and children behind as retold in the pro-Palestinian Zocrot propaganda YouTube interviews. The 'innocent' Palestinians were the aggressors – and dispossession was the price they paid for their aggression.
"If the Jews left
Palestineto us, would we start loving them? Of course not! The Jews are infidels not because I say so but because Allah does... They aren't our enemies because they occupy Palestine; they would be our enemies even if they had not occupied anything."
In the circumstances, had the Jews not driven them out, Israel would not have arisen and its (Jewish) population would have been slaughtered – or, at the least, the Jewish state would have been established with a considerable Fifth Column in its midst and rendered mortally unstable.
(Conversely, had the Arabs accepted the 1947 UN Partition Resolution, refrained from violence, and gone on with their lives as loyal Israeli citizens, nothing would have happened to them.)


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Recently, I bought the Accel World blu-rays, and I just finished marathoning them last week. I had already watched the whole series subtitled as it aired, and loved every minute of it. This time I watched the dub, because I wanted a slightly different experience. Not only did I really enjoy the dub, but I loved the show even more the second time around. So much so that I just had to write this up.
Accel World is a series of Light Novels by Reki Kawahara, who is also the author of Sword Art Online. Both take place in the same fictional future-Earth timeline, with Accel World taking place several years after the events of Sword Art Online. Each of the two series has been given the TV anime treatment, and Sword Art Online has gone on to be a massive hit with a second season currently airing. Accel World however, has not, and at this point I wonder if it will ever return for another season.
And that's a damn shame, because Accel World is awesome in its own right. It does not follow the story of the nearly-flawless Kirito. It instead stars someone much more ordinary - someone who personifies the show's message to its audience. Someone whose real strength is not immediately apparent, as it lies in what is hidden on the inside.
Accel World follows the story of a 13-year-old boy named Haru. Everyone reading this likely knows - or knew - a real-life Haru in school. Haru is the short, fat kid that everyone in school likes to pick on. He is the victim of every bully in your school. He is the cowardly kid who apologizes constantly for everything, including his very existence. Haru is the kid that everyone thinks is a loser. He is the kid who believes himself a loser - but he isn't. Haru is more than that.
Haru is the underdog. He is stronger than he looks, and he's stronger than he believes. Haru may easily crumple in a heap of despair, but he always finds his way back to his feet. He knows he has to do something, he just has to figure out what. Haru understands that above all, giving up is never the answer, and this is the key to him beginning to believe in himself, which allows him to begin conquering his fears and realizing his full potential.
Haru is a character I find myself empathizing with every time the shit hits the fan. He is someone I can care about as I watch, because he is vulnerable. I find myself cheering him on every time he pushes himself as hard as he possibly can, whether it ultimately ends in success or failure. Haru is the kind of person I would gladly stand up for in real life - the kind of person I would gladly call a friend.
Because Haru is you, and he is me. Haru is the underdog in all of us. Cheers, little buddy - you're stronger than you think! We're all stronger than we think.


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DELHI, NY (06/22/2016)(readMedia)-- SUNY Delhi has announced that it will host an initial site review for accreditation of its Master of Science in nursing education program by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE) September 21-23, 2016.
CCNE is a nationally recognized accrediting agency for baccalaureate and graduate degree programs in nursing education.
CCNE policy mandates that the college provide an opportunity for colleagues, constituents, and the community to submit written input to the visiting evaluation team. The public is invited to participate in this process, along with students, alumni, faculty and employees.
Written comments should be submitted directly to:
Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education
Attn: Third Party Comments
1 Dupont Circle, NW, Suite 530
Washington, DC 20036
When providing written documentation, please include your name, address, telephone number, and email address. All input is shared with the team, but not with the hosting program. All written comments should arrive at CCNE by August 30, 2016.
For more information about SUNY Delhi nursing, visit http://www.delhi.edu/academics/academic_divisions/liberal_arts/nursing.


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Virgin Halloween experience with 1/2 the clique.
A pity the rest of the girls couldn't join us but we had a lot of fun (and scary) moments!
1920h \\ Entered USS and waited for the opening! I thought it'll be more fun if we had went in earlier and stood in front to watch the entire 'protest' ;)
1930h \\ Opening Scaremony with the Minister of Evil flying into the air.
Couldn't really see anything live except from the TV screen. It was so so crowded and I was perspiring like mad, i kid you not!
Finally the gate opened and we were off to the attractions! :D
I think the highlight of the trip was the TURKEY LEG and CHURROS!!!!
hahaha #greedypigisme
I'll always miss the turkey leg from USS :(
My favorite (and most scariest imo) is MATI CAMP!
All the cannibalism and what's not was just gruesome and scary!
And speaking of scary, can't rly leave out Mummy ride.
I've no idea why the more i ride it, the more i'm scared, damn!
I'll never miss the ride though i'm forever whining how scared I am. ;)
0030h \\ Ended the night and headed home to KO!
Should consider booking a room next year /yay may it be a yearly affair


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As part of a new series of reveals about the various enemy designs, we now have a slight glimpse into the ridiculous world of Bayonetta 2.
In a new Platinum Games blog post, Game Director Yusuke Hashimoto has shared information on Bayonetta 2's Angel enemy designs. The post contains great details on how the the inspiration for each foe came about and what purpose it would meet.
This is still only part one of the post, with more information on other enemies promised in another post for next week.
The first enemy Hashimoto talked about is called the Headless Angel, which was designed "to have a powerful, solemn, sacred look to him, but also kinda be an idiot." The foe carries a large sword with a face on it. Hashimoto revealed that the sword is his actual body and that the face is from his actual head.
The Magic Angel was designed to act as a healer and supporter for allies. This one is not only missing his head, but also its feet from the waist down. With four hands, it brandishes a pointy staff in battle.
Then there's the Centaur Angel, which is part human, part horse, is also headless and has a face on the torso instead.
The Whip Angel was designed specially to portray an asymmetrical look to make it easy to understand how it attacks. The Iron Ball Angel on the other hand was designed to be a "powerhouse". The Fish Angel features a ridiculous design where an enlarged fish is basically attached to a mirrored body.
Finally, we have the Dragon Angel with wings poised on either side like a Cobra's and an inverted head smacked in the middle. The Dragon Angel is also one of the game's bosses.
Source: Platinum Games


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Sciatic nerve roots
Sciatic nerve roots are the point where the sciatic nerve branches off from the spinal cord. The sciatic nerve — which is the longest in the body — is responsible for carrying sensations from your pelvic area, buttocks and lower limbs to your brain, and allows movement in your legs and feet by sending motor impulses from your brain to your lower limbs.
Formed from nerve bundles that pair up and branch off the spine, your nerve roots exit the spinal column through foramina — small openings in the vertebrae — and form a network of nerves throughout the body.
Nerve roots are a critical component in the peripheral nervous system — forming the junction between the spinal cord and the rest of the body. Therefore, each nerve root plays a vital role in all of our sensory and motor functions.
Sciatic nerve root compression
Certain spine conditions, such as a bulging or herniated disc, can put pressure on nearby nerve roots. Compression of one or more of the sciatic nerve roots will lead to a set of symptoms known as sciatica. These include any of the following:
- Burning pain that starts on one side of the body; begins in the lower back, then shoots down through the buttock, leg and foot
- Worsening pain with prolonged sitting or standing
- Bursts of pain occurring after sudden or strained movements
- Foot weakness accompanied by intensifying foot pain that may prevent movement
Sciatica treatments
If you develop sciatica, talk to your physician about designing a treatment plan specifically for the lumbar spine nerve roots. He or she will probably first prescribe a series of nonsurgical, conservative treatments. Some conservative treatments for sciatica include anti-inflammatory drugs, short-term narcotic pain management, lumbar steroid injections and physical therapy.
If these conservative remedies don't relieve your pain and other sciatica symptoms, you may require surgery. Before agreeing to a highly invasive traditional open back surgery, we encourage you to explore your minimally invasive options, such as minimally invasive spine surgery from Laser Spine Institute.
The surgeons at Laser Spine Institute may be able to treat your sciatica with our minimally invasive decompression or stabilization procedures, which are performed on an outpatient basis. Our minimally invasive spine surgery is often the clinically appropriate first choice and provides many advantages versus open neck or back surgery, such as smaller incisions, faster recoveries^ and less risk of complication.
Contact Laser Spine Institute for your no-cost MRI review* and take an important step toward treating your pain — you may be a candidate for our minimally invasive spine surgery.


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Teaching SE: code as design
"Coding is, in fact, fundamentally a design activity", according to Dave Cooper, who has spent recent years introducing practical programming skills into Curtin University's first- and second-year software engineering units. "If you take the coding out of software design, you're really just left with an empty shell."
Depixelising Pixel Art
Until today, I was always under the impression that Maxim Stepin's hq4x was the state of the art in upscaling algorithms for sprites and other pixel art. Backed by Microsoft Research, Kopf and Lischinski's algorithm published in SIGGRAPH 2011 yields even better results, scaling past 4:1 and beyond.
"Curtin" by Kye Russell
My friend and fellow Curtin computing student doesn't pull any punches when it comes to the multiple, systematic and serious failures and poor decisions made by the management of the university only legally known as the Curtin University of Technology. What is essentially the forced termination of one of our best lecturers was simply the last straw, and until I can find the motivation to write more elaborately about what I've seen in my year here, Kye has expressed my thoughts pretty faithfully.
Don't Talk to the Police
Every few months, I watch law professor James Duane's captivating Schneier-approved lecture on the perils of responding to police officers when being questioned. While the legal context may not completely adapt to jurisdictions outside the United States, the general principle remains solid: even if you say the complete truth, nothing but the truth, don't reveal any suspicious sentiments, and have your responses recorded, talking to the police can only do harm — never help you.
Bitcrypt broken
Contemporary ransomware Bitcrypt held victims' personal files hostage by encrypting them and charging a fee to reverse this. Bitcrypt's cryptographic design also appeared sound at first glance, using PBKDF2 and HMAC-SHA1 to generate random keys for each file, encrypting them with AES-192, then using RSA to encrypt those keys. Except when the author mixes up decimal and binary, "1024 bits" turns out to actually be 426 bits, and failure ensues. It's always the simple things.
Git: how to use stash
A quick introduction to a very useful feature of Git that I wasn't aware of. The stash is essentially a flexible stack that allows you to stow away changes to your working directory while you work on another issue with a clean repository. The flexibility lies in that you may retrieve and apply a stashed change that isn't necessarily at the top of the stack.
Fast request routing using regular expressions
Rarely is reimplementing your performance-critical code in C the best initial approach to optimisation. Most of the time, the fruit lies in the time complexities of the algorithms used. Request routing is one of these situations, where PHP developer Nikita Popov cleverly leverages the regex engine by bundling together chunks of route patterns, greatly reducing the number of iterations to dispatch to a handler.
Cryptic Crossword: Amateur Crypto and Reverse Engineering
Brian Raiter leads by example in demonstrating that reverse engineering an obscure file format with undocumented encryption can be distilled down to a rigorous application of the scientific method, automation taken to an extreme for gathering large sets of sample data, and creating clever ways to visualise patterns in the data. I'm most impressed by Raiter's ability to come back to the project years later and document it with the astounding level of detail that he has. It's truly a thrilling ride to read.
Girls and Software
The world of software development, and that of open source software in particular, is a particularly treasured environment — nobody cares about your background or what you look like, only your skills. Susan Sons investigates the real causes behind the rarity of women in software: it's all in the formative years; retroactively shoehorning women into the field will only harm everyone involved.
No guarantee in NBN rollout contracts for FTTH connections in Tasmania
Exploiting an admittedly embarrassing lack of specificity in the NBN rollout contracts for Tasmania, executive chairman Switkowski continues to push for the massive dead-end gyp that would be buying or renting Telstra's long perished copper network. "We can have an intellectual argument about the benefits of fibre versus copper, but I think it is quite academic. I don't think it's a real world issue."
Why Games Should Enter The Public Domain
The increasing phenomenon of copyright owners repeatedly and indefinitely delaying the transfer of their works to the public domain concerns me greatly. John Walker eloquently argues in favour of stricter copyright limitations for video games, and his rationale is adaptable to copyright and even analogously to the need for patent reform to balance the needs of creators and societies alike.
Modern Microprocessors - A 90 Minute Guide!
Computer hardware at a low, detailed level is something of a blind spot for me, as my current university course focuses on theoretical computer science plus computing from the kernel upwards. Over nearly fifteen years, Jason Patterson has created and updated an overview of issues pertaining to modern processors, including parallelism, pipelining, caches and vector processing, certainly filling this vacancy.
Reversing the WRT120N's Firmware Obfuscation
Craig at
/dev/ttyS0 cracks open a Linksys WRT120N to find out
just what has been done to obfuscate the firmware. Using SPI to dump the raw
flash data, and cleverly combining binwalk and IDA, he uncovers just what has
been done to the images and even creates a tool to reverse the obfuscation.
A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages
James Iry gives a most apocryphal walk through memory lane in the relatively short but colourful history of programming languages. Each step of the way feels simultaneously wrong but also so very correct. I won't bother trying to quote any of it, because the entire piece is equally worthy of quotation.
Clarke and Dawe - Turning Back The News Where It Is Safe To Do So
Bryan interviews Tony Abbott this week, about the comments he has made surrounding the Australian Broadcorping Castration. Only in the second viewing did I notice the dig at the Medicare co-payment proposal. Dawe: "Yeah, but if I follow your logic, I pay to to go to the doctor, [...]" / Clarke: "[Of] course you do."
There's Only Four Billion Floats — So Test Them All!
"A few months ago I saw a blog post touting fancy new SSE3 functions for implementing vector floor, ceil, and round functions. There was the inevitable proud proclaiming of impressive performance and correctness. However the ceil function gave the wrong answer for many numbers it was supposed to handle, including odd-ball numbers like 'one'." — Bruce Dawson
Using a DMA attack over FireWire, Carsten Maartmann-Moe provides a reliable means of breaking into running computers, even with full-disk encryption. Windows XP SP2, Mac OS X 10.6 and Ubuntu 11.04 and onward are all vulnerable, and one can even use a IEEE 1394 controller over PCMCIA, ExpressCard or Thunderbolt. Remember: without physical security, you have no security.
How Long Have I Got Left?
"I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed both nothing and everything. Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn't know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn't know when. But now I knew it acutely."
SSL Labs: Stricter security requirements for 2014
Qualys has updated its rating guide and testing application for websites with SSL/TLS, to enforce stricter requirements in light of new attacks on older protocol versions and cipher suites. Like any practical deployment of cryptography, it continues to appear that getting TLS right is non-trivial at best.
UTF-8 Everywhere: Manifesto
A comprehensive rundown of Unicode encodings, why UTF-16 is the worst of all worlds, and why Windows and Java got it wrong by being too early in the game — before Unicode 2.0, where UCS-2 became UTF-16 and no longer an encoding with fixed-size code units. The manifesto also effectively attacks the notion that UTF-16 is more efficient for CJK text, by virtue of compression beating both.
Another World Code Review
When I first played Another World, I was amazed at the visual effects and quality of the graphics that Éric Chahi managed to fit on a floppy disk which ran on an Atari ST. Now I'm even further astounded by the fact that the game has been ported to twelve platforms over twenty years without a single change to the game's code, because of a very clever embedded VM. Fabien Sanglard investigates.
How QuarkXPress became a mere afterthought in publishing
If you charge extortionate prices while sitting on your thumb, someone will rise and dethrone you swiftly and mercilessly. Adobe's InDesign brought a number of blatantly obvious features, as well as some that I was completely unaware of, causing the downfall of QuarkXPress around the turn of the millenium.
ASUS P9X79-E WS Review: Xeon meets PLX for 7x
Step aside, gaudy ROG rice burners. Okay, perhaps I'm being too harsh, but this board provides virtually everything I want from a 1P system. Most impressive is the use of two PLX PEX 8747 lane switches, providing a configuration of x16/x8/x8/x8/x16/x8/x8 PCIe 3.0 lanes where all slots are occupied.
Super Mario World "glitched" in 01:39.74 by Masterjun
How do you complete Super Mario World in under two minutes without exploiting an emulator bug? Clearly, the answer is to execute arbitrary code that was programmed via the controller ports, says Masterjun. If you've got an extra minute to spare, why not play Pong and Snake while you're at it?
BSD For Linux Users
The difference between Linux distributions and the BSDs reach far deeper than a choice of license and core userland tools. Matthew Fuller thoroughly investigates BSD's centralised development model, its Ports system (which has inspired Gentoo's Portage among others), its rolling branch and release strategy, and much more.
Tech Demo for Pillow Castle's First Person Puzzler
Everyone knows that the perceived size of an object is a function of its actual size as well as its location relative to you and other objects. What if you could move objects while maintaining their perceived size, projecting them as far away as possible without collisions? You could intuitively change the size of objects, even yourself! The Museum of Simulation Technology honestly gave me the same feeling as watching Narbacular Drop for the first time, except on a whole new level. Please take my money.
Samsung SSD 840 EVO mSATA Review
While most mSATA SSDs were either OEM only, far slower than their 2.5" counterparts, too expensive per gigabyte and/or lacking in capacity, Samsung's new mSATA variant of their 840 EVO drives solve all four, available to retailers at up to 1 TB for under $1/GB, pushing at least 540/410 MB/s. My body is so ready right now.
OpenPGP Best Practices
While basic usage of PGP isn't terribly difficult, having a secure workflow
and configuration is definitely far from trivial. Fortunately, Riseup Labs has
compiled a comprehensive set of hints and a sample
Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names
While it's nearly impossible to make a practical system that avoids every single one of these assumptions, Patrick McKenzie frequently reminds us all that names aren't always remotely similar to the names that one encounters in their own culture, ethnicity, nationality, language or otherwise.
A dozen USB chargers in the lab
Hardware hacker Ken Shirriff shows that quality in USB chargers is just as important as buying a quality power supply for your computer in this detailed writeup. Circuit isolation, noisy output power, voltage sag and much more can mean the difference between a good charge run and a glitchy touchscreen, or worse.
IOCCC 2013: winning entries released
Today, after a painstaking seven weeks, we now get to see the creativity in
the entries to this year's International Obfuscated C Code Contest. There are
some familiar names, including
endou* and
hou, to name a few.
Inverse Symbolic Calculator Plus
This tool by a team of researchers at the University of Newcastle accepts truncated decimal numbers, and given enough precision, attempts to return a source representation including only elementary functions and popular constants (e, π, etc.) For myself at least, Clarke's Third Law definitely applies here.
Bit Twiddling Hacks
More elegant branchless || bitwise optimisations than you can peek && poke at. Includes interesting morsels of beauty for bit reversal, clearing, counting, swapping, testing and interleaving.
CVs and file extensions
Eevee: "In glancing over these résumés, I've observed a pattern: I'm far quicker to judge the file extension than the contents. [...] pdf clearly generated from LaTeX: Instant boner. Are you sure you're in comp sci and not math? Maybe you want a LISP shop. [...] anything that 0-days my machine: You can have my job."
Deep C (and C++)
Olve Maudal and Jon Jagger will almost certainly take your belief in your understanding of C and C++ down a notch, or ten, in this deep insight into how the standards, implementations and platforms interact in subtle ways.
JavaScript Madness: Keyboard Events
My relationship with the web as an application development platform is, to put it without profanity, love/hate. Jan Wolter's intricate documentation of the countless behaviours of keyboard events across browsers and platforms exemplifies this.
Unicode Support Shootout: Good, Bad, & Ugly
For OSCON 2011, Tom Christiansen of Perl fame breaks down what Unicode support really entails in popular languages, including normalisation, collation, regular expressions, casefolding, graphemes and encodings. Unsurprisingly, Perl wins by far. While the original slide deck is now gone, I have archived it for your pleasure.
Distributing passwords
With the use of two-dimensional curves, Nick Berry intuitively describes Shamir's Secret Sharing, a simple method of sharing passwords with any number of owners, requiring an arbitrary number of them to unlock. Shamir's algorithm also supports weighted passwords as well as eliminating compromised passwords.
How To Choose CD/DVD Archival Media
Patrick McFarland writes a most detailed analysis of materials and error correction methods used in CDs and DVDs, and how these contribute to longevity. In short: always buy Taiyo Yuden where possible, and always use DVD+R over DVD-R.


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The Palms is not messing around.
Already riding a wave of good buzz as it undergoes a $620 million makeover, the iconic Las Vegas resort served notice Monday that its comeback is legit, announcing Blink-182 as resident headliners in its newly remodeled Pearl Concert Theater.
The 16-show residency, first reported by the New York Post, is dubbed Kings of the Weekend and kicks off May 26 with Blink's current lineup of Mark Hoppus, Travis Barker and Matt Skiba. The Life is Beautiful alums will play two shows Memorial Day weekend, six in June, two in October and the final six in November.
In an announcement video, the pop-punk trio are shown taking sledgehammers and axes to sections of the hotel, leaving their personal stamp on the renovations.
"This whole place is gonna need some upgrades," Hoppus says. "We need to make sure that every department is up to Blink-182 code."
Blink doesn't fit the definition of "nostalgia act"—their most recent album, California, dropped in 2016—but Palms is likely betting on fan favorites such as "Dammit" and "All the Small Things" to draw audiences to the residency.
The resort is also teasing the possibility of additional resident acts, calling Blink "one of the resort's first major entertainment collaborations" as part of its ongoing renovations.
While the announcement is not a direct challenge to rivals, it positions Pearl Concert Theater as a player in Las Vegas' residency wars, which includes Hard Rock's The Joint, Planet Hollywood's Zappos Theater (formerly The AXIS) and Park Theater at Monte Carlo (soon to be Park MGM).
At the same time, the residency adds another layer to Palms' comeback story, which began with its 2016 sale to Station Casinos for $312.5 million. The company has for months been pouring money into every area of the resort, upgrading the casino floor, debuting a new culinary lineup and most recently replacing its famed outdoor marquee with all-digital signage.
A revamped cocktail program is also set to debut at Palms' APEX Social Club and Camden Cocktail lounge, in the venues formerly known as Ghostbar and The Lounge, respectively.


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This past week, the 14th Annual Major League Wheelchair Softball Tournament took place at the the home of MLB NY Mets , Citi Field in Flushing NY. 4 Wheelchair Softball Teams sponsored by Major League Baseball franchises competed. The RIC Cubs, New England Rolling Red Sox, New York Mets and New York Yankees fought for the coveted "Kelly Cup", named after Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association and United Spinal Association's' former Executive Director, Jerry Kelly.
After playing 9 games over two days, the RIC Cubs beat the New England Rolling Red Sox to win the 14th Annual Major League Wheelchair Softball Tournament for the 2nd consecutive year. NY Mets great John Franco also came by to offer his support.
On behalf of the players, coaches and Wheelchair Sports Federation, we'd like to thank Danielle Parillo, the NY Mets, MLB, and NY City Parks & Recreation for their continued support. Without their help, we could not have a premiere Wheelchair Softball Tournament in the New York City area and one of the better events for Adaptive Sports in the United States.
2014 Final Results:
1st Place - RIC Cubs
2nd Place – New England Rolling Red Sox
3rd Place - New York Mets
4th Place - New York Yankees
2014 All-Tournament Team Awards
Pitcher - George Norton - New England Rolling Red Sox
Catcher - George Taborsky - NY Mets
1st Base - Dave Deas - NY Mets
2nd Base - Hector Bruno - RIC Cubs
3rd Base - Jason Soricelli - NY Mets
Shortstop - Jorge Alfaro - RIC Cubs
Left Field - Joe LeMar - New England Rolling Red Sox
Centerfield - Steve Davis - New England Rolling Red Sox
Short Field - Tony Fitzgerald - NY Yankees
Right Field - Felix Castillo - NY Mets
Best Quad - Mike Guilbault - New England Rolling Red Sox
Sportsmanship - Steve Summer - New England Rolling Red Sox
Tie- Best Rookie - Dashay Torry - RIC Cubs & Pat Anderson - NY Mets
Most Valuable Player - Alex Para - RIC Cubs
Al Youakim Volunteer & Spirit Award – Susan Stiefvatr
Thank you to all our sponsors and volunteers.
We look forward to seeing everyone next year at the 15th Annual.
Photos by Stephen Tang -


text:
With the recent uprisings in Egypt, Aung Din, a former student leader during Burma's 1988 uprising and head of US Campaign for Burma, compares the protests in Egypt and Burma's revolutions.
English Version:
Burmese Version:
On January 29th, democracy advocates rallied in front of the Burmese embassy in New York City, dismissing Burma's new parliament in 20 years. People stated that the new parliament is " the military dressed in civilian clothing." Critics of the military junta criticized the new government, stating that it is a sham since 80% of the seats in parliament are tied to the military and its allies.


text:
The newest issue of Learning Communities Research and Practice (LCRP), has just been published. LCRP is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal that provides a forum for higher education faculty, staff, researchers, administrators, and students to share current research, effective practices, critical reflections, and resources related to student learning communities in 2-year/4-year colleges and universities. LCRP is published twice a year by the Washington Center for Improving Undergraduate Education at The Evergreen State College.
The next issue of the journal will appear in May 2018. We are currently accepting articles for review for our next issue. For contributions to be considered for the spring issue, submit by January 15, 2018. For more information about the types of submissions we seek, please review the Instructions to Authors.
LCRP is currently seeking applications for members of the editorial review board. Editorial review board members serve a three-year term (December 2017 – December 2020) and can anticipate being asked to review two or three manuscripts each year. Members of the editorial review board must have a minimum of five years of experience working with student learning communities and/or living-learning communities in higher education. We welcome applications from individuals with expertise in administration, student affairs, classroom practice, faculty/professional development, or assessment, particularly as those areas relate to starting and strengthening student learning community programs.
Members of the editorial review board members agree to return their reviews within approximately six weeks of receiving an article, using the journal's criteria for strong manuscripts. If you are interested in applying, please submit a current resume and a short letter of interest. In your letter, please indicate your reasons for wanting to serve and your specific interests in relation to learning communities. Please indicate whether you have a preference for reviewing a particular type of article (research, practice from the field, perspective). If you have expertise in quantitative research design and analysis, please indicate that as well.
For full consideration as an editorial review board member, please send your materials to firstname.lastname@example.com by December 31, 2017.


text:
As I sit here writing this post at nearly one o'clock in the morning asking myself why I'm writing this post at nearly one o'clock in the morning , I feel my stomach make folds in the blanket wrapped around me as I inhale and exhale; it swells slightly with each breath.
In and out. In and out.
Each motion of it's soft cotton blend against the cool synthetic breeze my Lasko table top fan has so kindly provided, however, comes with a burden- a burden of knowing that the driving force behind each seemingly harmonious swell is pure fat.
Why do I feel the need to mourn this?
I want to be swallowed by my over-sized sweater and rot my brain with mediocre reality television. I want to shove my finger down my throat and purge away all my sins. I want to do a thousand crunches and a thousand more leg-lifts. But perhaps, more than anything I want to scream "Fuck You!" to the world. Why? Partly because my parents are gone; there is no one here to lecture me on why curse words are tacky and gateways to teen pregnancy and various STD's, partly because I'm completely convinced that it will make me cool and one day bring me to stardom, and partly because I am 15 percent angry and 100 percent crazy.
Why does that word- those three inglorious letters- seem to dictate my life? Why do I seem to be mostly composed of self-criticism and hardly any self-love?
I remember when my brother and I were first adopted, my parents were quick to implement rules that would help get us "on track"; to help, I guess in a way, get us on one uniform schedule. Oh, didn't I tell you? We were "poor, troubled kids." We "needed SOME sort of stability in our hectic lives."
Psh. Whatever.
So anyways, my parents created a list that hung in the very center of the front of our fridge so that it was impossible to avoid. The harsh white of the refrigerator door against the smooth yellow notepad paper; the power each thickly bolded letter that each line possessed was inevitable.
-Take out the bathroom trash
-Take out the other bathroom trash
-Take out the kitchen trash
-Don't watch trash
-Don't listen to trash
-Don't look like trash
-Don't smell like trash
-Ask before eating
Ask before eating.
While it was a fairly reasonable rule implemented to, I'm sure, keep me and my siblings from becoming finger licking, plate scraping, binge eating, ignorant youths, I am now 99.9% sure that that was what ultimately led me to become a finger licking, plate scraping, binge eating, ignorant youth. Plain and simple.
I can't say I remember the exact time or date the rule was finally exonerated. In fact, I'm not entirely sure there even was a specific time or date-it was almost like one day the rule was there and the next, it wasn't, vanishing into thin air like one might do during a magic show act or after a one night stand. The rule change wasn't intentional either. I mean, let's face it, this is life. Whether or not we like to admit it, things change. People change. My home was changing. People were growing up, growing pubes, moving out, moving on, getting zits and getting laid. Needless to say, asking permission to eat before every Extra Chewy Chips Ahoy cookie or every bowl of Trix cereal was not exactly a top priority.
For the first time in my life, I got a taste of sweet freedom. Literally. Every bite I took was like a hit of acid on a cold winter night; complete euphoria. I could eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and however I wanted without fear of the consequences. So I did.
And, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I am the way I am because I hardly ever turned my homework in on time or because my birth mom never called on Sunday's like she had promised. Maybe I am the way I am because I watched PG-13 movies at the age of 12 or because sometimes, when I got lonely, I'd plug in my old nightlight even though my parents told me I was far too old for it. Maybe I am the way I am because I too often found myself stuck in a world of wanting to grow up and staying young forever. A sort of Neverland.
I think it's, oftentimes, easy to blame someone or something for one's troubles and hardships but, as I begin my journey of recovery from my eating disorder, I can't help but wonder, why?
Who am I?


text:
Last week, we introduced avocados to Rowen's menu... it might have replaced carrots as her new favourite! We also travelled to Stratford for a daytrip and had a mini Momma & Baby weekend.
Stratford, Ontario is my most favourite town. Nothing has really changed there since I started going with my Mom in the summertime as a little kid. We used to go and stay at a little Bed & Breakfast called The Deacon House, see a show at the Festival... usually the musical depending on which Shakespeare play was running and wander about town. Wandering about town usually took, oh, an hour or so. Stratford, Ontario is named after Stratford Upon Avon, the town where William Shakespeare was born. So naturally, there is an Avon River in Stratford Ontario...
Which is one of the places The Heavyweights played as part of the Stratford Summer Music Festival. They played on the river!
Rowen and I tagged along on the first day. Rowen met some ducks, we watched the Heavyweights' Noon show and then headed to Fellini's for lunch.
I LOVE FELLINI'S! It is possibly one of my favourite restaurants and they haven't changed in the over 15 years that I've been going there. The Chicken Parmigiana is my most favourite menu item. And they have delicious "real" iced teas! I almost couldn't get my chicken parm on this visit because it was technically still lunch menu time...but they made it for me anyway! Thanks Fellini's!
Last Summer when Annie and I roadtripped to Stratford, I managed to finish this bad boy on my own. Annie patiently sat there while I chomped my way through this massive breaded chunk of chicken and mountain of yummy pasta. Must have been one of those crazy hungry periods in between my constant pregnancy nausea... this year, I was only able to finish half!
Remember those pianos all over the city? They have them all over Stratford too!
Lowell stayed over in Stratford the rest of the weekend. So it was just us girls for the weekend.
We had lunch with Ange at Easy... another one of my most favourite places. I think I've been going to the Parkdale location for maybe 7 or 8 years... the food never disappoints. Oh, and the Banana Latte smoothie is ridiculously yummy and probably one of my favourite things ever.
West Coast Toast, mmmm. Essentially salmon eggs benny topped with caviar and dill. And no wimpy sides here or having to choose between potatoes or a salad.... sooooo goood!
Rowen tried out a restaurant high chair for the first time! She was amused by it but I did wind up holding her to avoid a restaurant meltdown as she was having one of her rare fussy, clingy days and it was close to naptime. And hey, we survived public transit and a civilized restaurant lunch! Score! Thanks Baby!
Playing with Eileen.
"He said WHAT?!"
We went to the CNE on Monday!
Read more about Rowen's first CNE HERE!
And I know I've shared this photo already... but it's just such a crowd pleaser. Lowell and I both changed our phone screens to this photo. Our Baby is just too daaarrrrn cute!
I felt a bit like I was cheating on Baxter the first time I bumped him as phone screen saver. The Bax has been screensaver forever! I felt bad choosing a Baby Pic over his, but I think he understands. Or rather, he doesn't really understand well, anything. So it's all good!


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Tour package to Darjeeling
Darjeeling is a trekker's enjoyment offering medium to high Grades of trekking inclines. Darjeeling is Eastern India's main area that witnesses significant remote tourism. Tourism and Tea are the head donors to Darjeeling's Economy around a horde others. The agro-climatic states of Darjeeling are profoundly favorable for tea estates which brandish a notably diverse taste than the Assam Tea. Darjeeling tea is a slender bodied, light-colored dark tea with a slight musky smell. Darjeeling Tea is more Oolong than dark in fact talking as it includes a conventional Chinese transforming strategy for wilting the tea leaves under the solid sun and oxidation of the same before twisting and bending them.Book Tour package to Darjeeling in very attractive price. Not at all like different teas, the Oolong teas might be blended a few times (with the same tea leaves) and the taste enhances with every mix. Greater part of the specialists in the tea arrangements are ladies, which represents the stable financial state of ladies in Darjeeling. Different harvests growed in Darjeeling are Paddy, Maize, Millets, Cardamom, Potato and Ginger. By what method can Darjeeling be said without saying scores of Bollywood and Bengali films that were shot here? Darjeeling is a standout amongst the most looked for in the wake of taping objectives of India. Darjeeling has an intriguing multi-faceted history traversing hundreds of years and Dynasties of Bengal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Nepal, and the British East India Company. The Kingdom of Sikkim governed over the mountainous locale of Darjeeling until the early nineteenth Century and Siliguri's fields were controlled by the Kingdom of Nepal whose region extended up to the Teesta River. Famous attraction point in darjeeling-
Botanical Garden
Nightingale Park/Srubbery Park
Darjeeling-Rangit Valley Passenger Cable Car
Senchal Lake
Observatory Hill & Mahakal Temple
Dhirdham Temple
Happy Valley Tea Garden
Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park
Himalayan Mountaineering Institute